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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2560-0.txt b/2560-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bfe17a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/2560-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7028 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Partners, by Bret Harte + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Three Partners + +Author: Bret Harte + +Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2560] +Last Updated: March 5, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE PARTNERS *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +THE THREE PARTNERS + +By Bret Harte + + + + +PROLOGUE. + + +The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it had +kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, showing +through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the interstices of +broken boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly out again like +sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept down the whole +mountain side, and began its usual struggle with the shadows upclimbing +from the valley, only to lose itself in the end and be absorbed in the +all-conquering darkness. Yet for some time the pines on the long slope +of Heavy Tree Hill murmured and protested with swaying arms; but as the +shadows stole upwards, and cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel +were swallowed up, a complete silence followed. Only the sky remained +visible--a vast concave mirror of dull steel, in which the stars did not +seem to be set, but only reflected. + +A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remained open to +the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an invisible figure, +afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire it was stirring. At first +only this figure brooding over the hearth was shown, but as the flames +leaped up, two other figures could be seen sitting motionless before it. +When the door was shut, they acknowledged that interruption by slightly +changing their position; the one who had risen to shut the door sank +back into an invisible seat, but the attitude of each man was one of +profound reflection or reserve, and apparently upon some common subject +which made them respect each other's silence. However, this was at last +broken by a laugh. It was a boyish laugh, and came from the youngest of +the party. The two others turned their profiles and glanced inquiringly +towards him, but did not speak. + +“I was thinking,” he began in apologetic explanation, “how mighty queer +it was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages, without +the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to sit here, night +after night, and flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd do if we ever +DID make one; and now, Great Scott! that we HAVE made it, and are just +wallowing in gold, here we are sitting as glum and silent as if we'd +had a washout! Why, Lord! I remember one night--not so long ago, +either--that you two quarreled over the swell hotel you were going to +stop at in 'Frisco, and whether you wouldn't strike straight out for +London and Rome and Paris, or go away to Japan and China and round by +India and the Red Sea.” + +“No, we didn't QUARREL over it,” said one of the figures gently; “there +was only a little discussion.” + +“Yes, but you did, though,” returned the young fellow mischievously, +“and you told Stacy, there, that we'd better learn something of the +world before we tried to buy it or even hire it, and that it was just +as well to get the hayseed out of our hair and the slumgullion off our +boots before we mixed in polite society.” + +“Well, I don't see what's the matter with that sentiment now,” returned +the second speaker good-humoredly; “only,” he added gravely, “we didn't +quarrel--God forbid!” + +There was something in the speaker's tone which seemed to touch a common +chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with sudden and +almost pathetic earnestness. “I tell you what, boys, we ought to swear +here to-night to always stand by each other--in luck and out of it! We +ought to hold ourselves always at each other's call. We ought to have +a kind of password or signal, you know, by which we could summon each +other at any time from any quarter of the globe!” + +“Come off the roof, Barker,” murmured Stacy, without lifting his eyes +from the fire. But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly at the younger +man. + +“Yes, but look here, Stacy,” continued Barker, “comrades like us, in +the old days, used to do that in times of trouble and adventures. Why +shouldn't we do it in our luck?” + +“There's a good deal in that, Barker boy,” said Demorest, “though, as +a general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and the ordinary, +every-day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole pack together for +business about as quick as a password. But you cling to that sentiment, +and put it away with your gold-dust in your belt.” + +“What I like about Barker is his commodiousness,” said Stacy. “Here he +is, the only man among us that has his future fixed and his preemption +lines laid out and registered. He's already got a girl that he's going +to marry and settle down with on the strength of his luck. And I'd like +to know what Kitty Carter, when she's Mrs. Barker, would say to her +husband being signaled for from Asia or Africa. I don't seem to see her +tumbling to any password. And when he and she go into a new partnership, +I reckon she'll let the old one slide.” + +“That's just where you're wrong!” said Barker, with quickly rising +color. “She's the sweetest girl in the world, and she'd be sure to +understand our feelings. Why, she thinks everything of you two; she was +just eager for you to get this claim, which has put us where we are, +when I held back, and if it hadn't been for her, by Jove! we wouldn't +have had it.” + +“That was only because she cared for YOU,” returned Stacy, with a +half-yawn; “and now that you've got YOUR share she isn't going to take +a breathless interest in US. And, by the way, I'd rather YOU'D remind us +that we owe our luck to her than that SHE should ever remind YOU of it.” + +“What do you mean?” said Barker quickly. But Demorest here rose lazily, +and, throwing a gigantic shadow on the wall, stood between the two with +his back to the fire. “He means,” he said slowly, “that you're talking +rot, and so is he. However, as yours comes from the heart and his from +the head, I prefer yours. But you're both making me tired. Let's have a +fresh deal.” + +Nobody ever dreamed of contradicting Demorest. Nevertheless, Barker +persisted eagerly: “But isn't it better for us to look at this +cheerfully and happily all round? There's nothing criminal in our having +made a strike! It seems to me, boys, that of all ways of making money +it's the squarest and most level; nobody is the poorer for it; our luck +brings no misfortune to others. The gold was put there ages ago for +anybody to find; we found it. It hasn't been tarnished by man's touch +before. I don't know how it strikes you, boys, but it seems to me +that of all gifts that are going it is the straightest. For whether we +deserve it or not, it comes to us first-hand--from God!” + +The two men glanced quickly at the speaker, whose face flushed and then +smiled embarrassedly as if ashamed of the enthusiasm into which he had +been betrayed. But Demorest did not smile, and Stacy's eyes shone in the +firelight as he said languidly, “I never heard that prospecting was a +religious occupation before. But I shouldn't wonder if you're right, +Barker boy. So let's liquor up.” + +Nevertheless he did not move, nor did the others. The fire leaped +higher, bringing out the rude rafters and sternly economic details of +the rough cabin, and making the occupants in their seats before the fire +look gigantic by contrast. + +“Who shut the door?” said Demorest after a pause. + +“I did,” said Barker. “I reckoned it was getting cold.” + +“Better open it again, now that the fire's blazing. It will light the +way if any of the men from below want to drop in this evening.” + +Stacy stared at his companion. “I thought that it was understood that +we were giving them that dinner at Boomville tomorrow night, so that we +might have the last evening here by ourselves in peace and quietness?” + +“Yes, but if any one DID want to come it would seem churlish to shut him +out,” said Demorest. + +“I reckon you're feeling very much as I am,” said Stacy, “that this good +fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself, I know,” he +continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed, covered pile +in the corner of the cabin, “that I feel rather oppressed by--by its +specific gravity, I calculate--and sort of crampy and twitchy in the +legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and do something, and yet it holds +me here. All the same, I doubt if anybody will come up--except from +curiosity. Our luck has made them rather sore down the hill, for all +they're coming to the dinner to-morrow.” + +“That's only human nature,” said Demorest. + +“But,” said Barker eagerly, “what does it mean? Why, only this +afternoon, when I was passing the 'Old Kentuck' tunnel, where those +Marshalls have been grubbing along for four years without making a +single strike, I felt ashamed to look at them, and as they barely nodded +to me I slinked by as if I had done them an injury. I don't understand +it.” + +“It somehow does not seem to square with this 'gift of God' idea of +yours, does it?” said Stacy. “But we'll open the door and give them a +show.” + +As he did so it seemed as if the night were their only guest, and had +been waiting on the threshold to now enter bodily and pervade all things +with its presence. With that cool, fragrant inflow of air they breathed +freely. The red edge had gone from Black Spur, but it was even more +clearly defined against the sky in its towering blackness. The +sky itself had grown lighter, although the stars still seemed mere +reflections of the solitary pin-points of light scattered along the +concave valley below. Mingling with the cooler, restful air of the +summit, yet penetratingly distinct from it, arose the stimulating breath +of the pines below, still hot and panting from the day-long sun. The +silence was intense. The far-off barking of a dog on the invisible +river-bar nearly a mile beneath them came to them like a sound in a +dream. They had risen, and, standing in the doorway, by common consent +turned their faces to the east. It was the frequent attitude of the +home-remembering miner, and it gave him the crowning glory of the view. +For, beyond the pine-hearsed summits, rarely seen except against the +evening sky, lay a thin, white cloud like a dropped portion of the Milky +Way. Faint with an indescribable pallor, remote yet distinct enough to +assert itself above and beyond all surrounding objects, it was always +there. It was the snow-line of the Sierras. + +They turned away and silently reseated themselves, the same thought +in the minds of each. Here was something they could not take away, +something to be left forever and irretrievably behind,--left with the +healthy life they had been leading, the cheerful endeavor, the undying +hopefulness which it had fostered and blessed. Was what they WERE taking +away worth it? And oddly enough, frank and outspoken as they had always +been to each other, that common thought remained unuttered. Even Barker +was silent; perhaps he was also thinking of Kitty. + +Suddenly two figures appeared in the very doorway of the cabin. The +effect was startling upon the partners, who had only just reseated +themselves, and for a moment they had forgotten that the narrow band +of light which shot forth from the open door rendered the darkness on +either side of it more impenetrable, and that out of this darkness, +although themselves guided by the light, the figures had just emerged. +Yet one was familiar enough. It was the Hill drunkard, Dick Hall, or, +as he was called, “Whiskey Dick,” or, indicated still more succinctly by +the Hill humorists, “Alky Hall.” + +Everybody had seen that sodden, puffy, but good-humored face; everybody +had felt the fiery exhalations of that enormous red beard, which always +seemed to be kept in a state of moist, unkempt luxuriance by liquor; +everybody knew the absurd dignity of manner and attempted precision of +statement with which he was wont to disguise his frequent excesses. +Very few, however, knew, or cared to know, the pathetic weariness and +chilling horror that sometimes looked out of those bloodshot eyes. + +He was evidently equally unprepared for the three silent seated figures +before the door, and for a moment looked at them blankly with the doubts +of a frequently deceived perception. Was he sure that they were quite +real? He had not dared to look at his companion for verification, but +smiled vaguely. + +“Good-evening,” said Demorest pleasantly. + +Whiskey Dick's face brightened. “Good-evenin', good-evenin' yourselves, +boys--and see how you like it! Lemme interdrush my ole frien' William +J. Steptoe, of Red Gulch. Stepsho--Steptoe--is shtay--ish stay--” + He stopped, hiccupped, waved his hand gravely, and with an air of +reproachful dignity concluded, “sojourning for the present on the Bar. +We wish to offer our congrashulashen and felish--felish--” He paused +again, and, leaning against the door-post, added severely, “--itations.” + +His companion, however, laughed coarsely, and, pushing past Dick, +entered the cabin. He was a short, powerful man, with a closely cropped +crust of beard and hair that seemed to adhere to his round head like +moss or lichen. He cast a glance--furtive rather than curious around +the cabin, and said, with a familiarity that had not even good humor +to excuse it, “So you're the gay galoots who've made the big strike? +Thought I'd meander up the Hill with this old bloat Alky, and drop in +to see the show. And here you are, feeling your oats, eh? and not caring +any particular G-d d--n if school keeps or not.” + +“Show Mr. Steptoe--the whiskey,” said Demorest to Stacy. Then quietly +addressing Dick, but ignoring Steptoe as completely as Steptoe had +ignored his unfortunate companion, he said, “You quite startled us at +first. We did not see you come up the trail.” + +“No. We came up the back trail to please Steptoe, who wanted to see +round the cabin,” said Dick, glancing nervously yet with a forced +indifference towards the whiskey which Stacy was offering to the +stranger. + +“What yer gettin' off there?” said Steptoe, facing Dick almost brutally. +“YOU know your tangled legs wouldn't take you straight up the trail, +and you had to make a circumbendibus. Gosh! if you hadn't scented this +licker at the top you'd have never found it.” + +“No matter! I'm glad you DID find it, Dick,” said Demorest, “and I hope +you'll find the liquor good enough to pay you for the trouble.” + +Barker stared at Demorest. This extraordinary tolerance of the drunkard +was something new in his partner. But at a glance from Demorest he led +Dick to the demijohn and tin cup which stood on a table in the corner. +And in another moment Dick had forgotten his companion's rudeness. + +Demorest remained by the door, looking out into the darkness. + +“Well,” said Steptoe, putting down his emptied cup, “trot out your +strike. I reckon our eyes are strong enough to bear it now.” Stacy drew +the blanket from the vague pile that stood in the corner, and discovered +a deep tin prospecting-pan. It was heaped with several large fragments +of quartz. At first the marble whiteness of the quartz and the +glittering crystals of mica in its veins were the most noticeable, but +as they drew closer they could see the dull yellow of gold filling the +decomposed and honeycombed portion of the rock as if still liquid and +molten. The eyes of the party sparkled like the mica--even those of +Barker and Stacy, who were already familiar with the treasure. + +“Which is the richest chunk?” asked Steptoe in a thickening voice. + +Stacy pointed it out. + +“Why, it's smaller than the others.” + +“Heft it in your hand,” said Barker, with boyish enthusiasm. + +The short, thick fingers of Steptoe grasped it with a certain aquiline +suggestion; his whole arm strained over it until his face grew purple, +but he could not lift it. + +“Thar useter be a little game in the 'Frisco Mint,” said Dick, restored +to fluency by his liquor, “when thar war ladies visiting it, and that +was to offer to give 'em any of those little boxes of gold coin, that +contained five thousand dollars, ef they would kindly lift it from the +counter and take it away! It wasn't no bigger than one of these chunks; +but Jiminy! you oughter have seed them gals grip and heave on it, and +then hev to give it up! You see they didn't know anything about the +paci--(hic) the speshif--” He stopped with great dignity, and added with +painful precision, “the specific gravity of gold.” + +“Dry up!” said Steptoe roughly. Then turning to Stacy he said abruptly, +“But where's the rest of it? You've got more than that.” + +“We sent it to Boomville this morning. You see we've sold out our claim +to a company who take it up to-morrow, and put up a mill and stamps. +In fact, it's under their charge now. They've got a gang of men on the +claim already.” + +“And what mout ye hev got for it, if it's a fair question?” said +Steptoe, with a forced smile. + +Stacy smiled also. “I don't know that it's a business question,” he +said. + +“Five hundred thousand dollars,” said Demorest abruptly from the +doorway, “and a treble interest.” + +The eyes of the two men met. There was no mistaking the dull fire of +envy in Steptoe's glance, but Demorest received it with a certain cold +curiosity, and turned away as the sound of arriving voices came from +without. + +“Five hundred thousand's a big figger,” said Steptoe, with a coarse +laugh, “and I don't wonder it makes you feel so d----d sassy. But it WAS +a fair question.” + +Unfortunately it here occurred to the whiskey-stimulated brain of Dick +that the friend he had introduced was being treated with scant courtesy, +and he forgot his own treatment by Steptoe. Leaning against the wall he +waved a dignified rebuke. “I'm sashified my ole frien' is akshuated by +only businesh principles.” He paused, recollected himself, and added +with great precision: “When I say he himself has a valuable claim in +Red Gulch, and to my shertain knowledge has received offers--I have said +enough.” + +The laugh that broke from Stacy and Barker, to whom the infelicitous +reputation of Red Gulch was notorious, did not allay Steptoe's +irritation. He darted a vindictive glance at the unfortunate Dick, but +joined in the laugh. “And what was ye goin' to do with that?” he said, +pointing to the treasure. + +“Oh, we're taking that with us. There's a chunk for each of us as a +memento. We cast lots for the choice, and Demorest won,--that one which +you couldn't lift with one hand, you know,” said Stacy. + +“Oh, couldn't I? I reckon you ain't goin' to give me the same chance +that they did at the Mint, eh?” + +Although the remark was accompanied with his usual coarse, familiar +laugh, there was a look in his eye so inconsequent in its significance +that Stacy would have made some reply, but at this moment Demorest +re-entered the cabin, ushering in a half dozen miners from the Bar +below. They were, although youngish men, some of the older locators in +the vicinity, yet, through years of seclusion and uneventful labors, +they had acquired a certain childish simplicity of thought and manner +that was alternately amusing and pathetic. They had never intruded upon +the reserve of the three partners of Heavy Tree Hill before; nothing but +an infantine curiosity, a shy recognition of the partners' courtesy in +inviting them with the whole population of Heavy Tree to the dinner the +next day, and the never-to-be-resisted temptation of an evening of “free +liquor” and forgetfulness of the past had brought them there now. +Among them, and yet not of them, was a young man who, although speaking +English without accent, was distinctly of a different nationality and +race. This, with a certain neatness of dress and artificial suavity +of address, had gained him the nickname of “the Count” and “Frenchy,” + although he was really of Flemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch +Company's agent on the Bar, by virtue of his knowledge of languages. + +Barker uttered an exclamation of pleasure when he saw him. Himself the +incarnation of naturalness, he had always secretly admired this young +foreigner, with his lacquered smoothness, although a vague consciousness +that neither Stacy nor Demorest shared his feelings had restricted their +acquaintance. Nevertheless, he was proud now to see the bow with which +Paul Van Loo entered the cabin as if it were a drawing-room, and perhaps +did not reflect upon that want of real feeling in an act which made the +others uncomfortable. + +The slight awkwardness their entrance produced, however, was quickly +forgotten when the blanket was again lifted from the pan of treasure. +Singularly enough, too, the same feverish light came into the eyes of +each as they all gathered around this yellow shrine. Even the polite +Paul rudely elbowed his way between the others, though his artificial +“Pardon” seemed to Barker to condone this act of brutal instinct. But it +was more instructive to observe the manner in which the older locators +received this confirmation of the fickle Fortune that had overlooked +their weary labors and years of waiting to lavish her favors on the new +and inexperienced amateurs. Yet as they turned their dazzled eyes upon +the three partners there was no envy or malice in their depths, no +reproach on their lips, no insincerity in their wondering satisfaction. +Rather there was a touching, almost childlike resumption of hope as they +gazed at this conclusive evidence of Nature's bounty. The gold had been +there--THEY had only missed it! And if there, more could be found! Was +it not a proof of the richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this +reflected on their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with +the thoughtful countenances of the real owners, would have thought them +the lucky ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, +it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. +Whiskey Dick alone remained stolid and impassive in a desperate attempt +to pull himself once more together. Eventually he succeeded, even to the +ambitious achievement of mounting a chair and lifting his tin cup with a +dangerously unsteady hand, which did not, however, affect his precision +of utterance, and said:-- + +“Order, gentlemen! We'll drink success to--to”-- + +“The next strike!” said Barker, leaping impetuously on another chair +and beaming upon the old locators--“and may it come to those who have so +long deserved it!” + +His sincere and generous enthusiasm seemed to break the spell of silence +that had fallen upon them. Other toasts quickly followed. In the general +good feeling Barker attached himself to Van Loo with his usual boyish +effusion, and in a burst of confidence imparted the secret of his +engagement to Kitty Carter. Van Loo listened with polite attention, +formal congratulations, but inscrutable eyes, that occasionally wandered +to Stacy and again to the treasure. A slight chill of disappointment +came over Barker's quick sensitiveness. Perhaps his enthusiasm had bored +this superior man of the world. Perhaps his confidences were in bad +taste! With a new sense of his inexperience he turned sadly away. Van +Loo took that opportunity to approach Stacy. + +“What's all this I hear of Barker being engaged to Miss Carter?” he +said, with a faintly superior smile. “Is it really true?” + +“Yes. Why shouldn't it be?” returned Stacy bluntly. + +Van Loo was instantly deprecating and smiling. “Why not, of course? But +isn't it sudden?” + +“They have known each other ever since he's been on Heavy Tree Hill,” + responded Stacy. + +“Ah, yes! True,” said Van Loo. “But now”-- + +“Well--he's got money enough to marry, and he's going to marry.” + +“Rather young, isn't he?” said Van Loo, still deprecatingly. “And +she's got nothing. Used to wait on the table at her father's hotel in +Boomville, didn't she?” + +“Yes. What of that? We all know it.” + +“Of course. It's an excellent thing for her--and her father. He'll have +a rich son-in-law. About two hundred thousand is his share, isn't it? I +suppose old Carter is delighted?” + +Stacy had thought this before, but did not care to have it corroborated +by this superfine young foreigner. “And I don't reckon that Barker is +offended if he is,” he said curtly as he turned away. Nevertheless, he +felt irritated that one of the three superior partners of Heavy Tree +Hill should be thought a dupe. + +Suddenly the conversation dropped, the laughter ceased. Every one turned +round, and, by a common instinct, looked towards the door. From +the obscurity of the hill slope below came a wonderful tenor voice, +modulated by distance and spiritualized by the darkness:-- + + “When at some future day + I shall be far away, + Thou wilt be weeping, + Thy lone watch keeping.” + +The men looked at one another. “That's Jack Hamlin,” they said. “What's +he doing here?” + +“The wolves are gathering around fresh meat,” said Steptoe, with his +coarse laugh and a glance at the treasure. “Didn't ye know he came over +from Red Dog yesterday?” + +“Well, give Jack a fair show and his own game,” said one of the old +locators, “and he'd clean out that pile afore sunrise.” + +“And lose it next day,” added another. + +“But never turn a hair or change a muscle in either case,” said a third. +“Lord! I've heard him sing away just like that when he's been leaving +the board with five thousand dollars in his pocket, or going away +stripped of his last red cent.” + +Van Loo, who had been listening with a peculiar smile, here said in his +most deprecating manner, “Yes, but did you never consider the influence +that such a man has on the hard-working tunnelmen, who are ready to +gamble their whole week's earnings to him? Perhaps not. But I know the +difficulties of getting the Ditch rates from these men when he has been +in camp.” + +He glanced around him with some importance, but only a laugh followed +his speech. “Come, Frenchy,” said an old locator, “you only say that +because your little brother wanted to play with Jack like a grown +man, and when Jack ordered him off the board and he became sassy, Jack +scooted him outer the saloon.” + +Van Loo's face reddened with an anger that had the apparent effect of +removing every trace of his former polished repose, and leaving only a +hard outline beneath. At which Demorest interfered:-- + +“I can't say that I see much difference in gambling by putting money +into a hole in the ground and expecting to take more from it than by +putting it on a card for the same purpose.” + +Here the ravishing tenor voice, which had been approaching, ceased, and +was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodious whistling to +finish the bar of the singer's song. And the next moment Jack Hamlin +appeared in the doorway. + +Whatever was his present financial condition, in perfect self-possession +and charming sang-froid he fully bore out his previous description. He +was as clean and refreshing looking as a madrono-tree in the dust-blown +forest. An odor of scented soap and freshly ironed linen was wafted from +him; there was scarcely a crease in his white waistcoat, nor a speck +upon his varnished shoes. He might have been an auditor of the previous +conversation, so quickly and completely did he seem to take in the +whole situation at a glance. Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his +black-ribboned Panama hat, and a certain dancing devilry in his brown +eyes--which might also have been an answer to adverse criticism. + +“When I, his truth to prove, would trifle with my love,” he warbled +in general continuance from the doorway. Then dropping cheerfully into +speech, he added, “Well, boys, I am here to welcome the little stranger, +and to trust that the family are doing as well as can be expected. Ah! +there it is! Bless it!” he went on, walking leisurely to the treasure. +“Triplets, too!--and plump at that. Have you had 'em weighed?” + +Frankness was an essential quality of Heavy Tree Hill. “We were just +saying, Jack,” said an old locator, “that, giving you a fair show +and your own game, you could manage to get away with that pile before +daybreak.” + +“And I'm just thinking,” said Jack cheerfully, “that there were some of +you here that could do that without any such useless preliminary.” His +brown eyes rested for a moment on Steptoe, but turning quite abruptly +to Van Loo, he held out his hand. Startled and embarrassed before the +others, the young man at last advanced his, when Jack coolly put his +own, as if forgetfully, in his pocket. “I thought you might like to know +what that little brother of yours is doing,” he said to Van Loo, yet +looking at Steptoe. “I found him wandering about the Hill here quite +drunk.” + +“I have repeatedly warned him”--began Van Loo, reddening. + +“Against bad company--I know,” suggested Jack gayly; “yet in spite of +all that, I think he owes some of his liquor to Steptoe yonder.” + +“I never supposed the fool would get drunk over a glass of whiskey +offered in fun,” said Steptoe harshly, yet evidently quite as much +disconcerted as angry. + +“The trouble with Steptoe,” said Hamlin, thoughtfully spanning his slim +waist with both hands as he looked down at his polished shoes, “is that +he has such a soft-hearted liking for all weaknesses. Always wanting +to protect chaps that can't look after themselves, whether it's Whiskey +Dick there when he has a pull on, or some nigger when he's made a little +strike, or that straying lamb of Van Loo's when he's puppy drunk. But +you're wrong about me, boys. You can't draw me in any game to-night. +This is one of my nights off, which I devote exclusively to +contemplation and song. But,” he added, suddenly turning to his three +hosts with a bewildering and fascinating change of expression, “I +couldn't resist coming up here to see you and your pile, even if I never +saw the one or the other before, and am not likely to see either again. +I believe in luck! And it comes a mighty sight oftener than a fellow +thinks it does. But it doesn't come to stay. So I'd advise you to keep +your eyes skinned, and hang on to it while it's with you, like grim +death. So long!” + +Resisting all attempts of his hosts--who had apparently fallen as +suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner--to detain him +longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presently rising again in +melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at all remarkable that the +others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable magnetism, were impelled +to follow him, naturally joining their voices with his, leaving Steptoe +and Van Loo so markedly behind them alone that they were compelled at +last in sheer embarrassment to close up the rear of the procession. In +another moment the cabin and the three partners again relapsed into the +peace and quiet of the night. With the dying away of the last voices on +the hillside the old solitude reasserted itself. + +But since the irruption of the strangers they had lost their former +sluggish contemplation, and now busied themselves in preparation for +their early departure from the cabin the next morning. They had arranged +to spend the following day and night at Boomville and Carter's Hotel, +where they were to give their farewell dinner to Heavy Tree Hill. +They talked but little together: since the rebuff his enthusiastic +confidences had received from Van Loo, Barker had been grave and +thoughtful, and Stacy, with the irritating recollection of Van Loo's +criticisms in his mind, had refrained from his usual rallying of Barker. +Oddly enough, they spoke chiefly of Jack Hamlin,--till then personally +a stranger to them, on account of his infelix reputation,--and even the +critical Demorest expressed a wish they had known him before. “But you +never know the real value of anything until you're quitting it or it's +quitting you,” he added sententiously. + +Barker and Stacy both stared at their companion. It was unlike Demorest +to regret anything--particularly a mere social diversion. + +“They say,” remarked Stacy, “that if you had known Jack Hamlin earlier +and professionally, a great deal of real value would have quitted you +before he did.” + +“Don't repeat that rot flung out by men who have played Jack's game and +lost,” returned Demorest derisively. “I'd rather trust him than”--He +stopped, glanced at the meditative Barker, and then concluded abruptly, +“the whole caboodle of his critics.” + +They were silent for a few moments, and then seemed to have fallen into +their former dreamy mood as they relapsed into their old seats again. +At last Stacy drew a long breath. “I wish we had sent those nuggets off +with the others this morning.” + +“Why?” said Demorest suddenly. + +“Why? Well, d--n it all! they kind of oppress me, don't you see. I seem +to feel 'em here, on my chest--all the three,” returned Stacy only half +jocularly. “It's their d----d specific gravity, I suppose. I don't like +the idea of sleeping in the same room with 'em. They're altogether too +much for us three men to be left alone with.” + +“You don't mean that you think that anybody would attempt”--said +Demorest. + +Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. “No; I don't think +THAT--I rather wish I did. It's the blessed chunks of solid gold that +seem to have got US fast, don't you know, and are going to stick to us +for good or ill. A sort of Frankenstein monster that we've picked out of +a hole from below.” + +“I know just what Stacy means,” said Barker breathlessly, rounding +his gray eyes. “I've felt it, too. Couldn't we make a sort of cache of +it--bury it just outside the cabin for to-night? It would be sort of +putting it back into its old place, you know, for the time being. IT +might like it.” + +The other two laughed. “Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy,” said +Stacy, “handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon! Besides, what's to +keep any prospector from coming along and making a strike of it? You +know that's mining law--if you haven't preempted the spot as a claim.” + +But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to make any +reply, and Demorest arose. “And I feel that you'd both better be turning +in, as we've got to get up early.” He went to the corner of the cabin, +and threw the blanket back over the pan and its treasure. “There +that'll keep the chunks from getting up to ride astride of you like a +nightmare.” He shut the door and gave a momentary glance at its cheap +hinges and the absence of bolt or bar. Stacy caught his eye. “We'll miss +this security in San Francisco--perhaps even in Boomville,” he sighed. + +It was scarcely ten o'clock, but Stacy and Barker had begun to undress +themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk, Barker +continuing an amusing story, with one stocking off and his trousers +hanging on his arm, until at last both men were snugly curled up in +their respective bunks. Presently Stacy's voice came from under the +blankets:-- + +“Hallo! aren't you going to turn in too?” + +“Not yet,” said Demorest from his chair before the fire. “You see it's +the last night in the old shanty, and I reckon I'll see the rest of it +out.” + +“That's so,” said the impulsive Barker, struggling violently with his +blankets. “I tell you what, boys: we just ought to make a watch-night of +it--a regular vigil, you know--until twelve at least. Hold on! I'll get +up, too!” But here Demorest arose, caught his youthful partner's bare +foot which went searching painfully for the ground in one hand, tucked +it back under the blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, patted +the bulk with an authoritative, paternal air. + +“You'll just say your prayers and go to sleep, sonny. You'll want to be +fresh as a daisy to appear before Miss Kitty to-morrow early, and you +can keep your vigils for to-morrow night, after dinner, in the back +drawing-room. I said 'Good-night,' and I mean it!” + +Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a nestling shiver and a +sudden silence. Demorest walked back to his chair. A prolonged snore +came from Stacy's bunk; then everything was quiet. Demorest stirred up +the fire, cast a huge root upon it, and, leaning back in his chair, sat +with half-closed eyes and dreamed. + +It was an old dream that for the past three years had come to him +daily, sometimes even overtaking him under the shade of a buckeye in his +noontide rest on his claim,--a dream that had never yet failed to wait +for him at night by the fireside when his partners were at rest; a dream +of the past, but so real that it always made the present seem the dream +through which he was moving towards some sure awakening. + +It was not strange that it should come to him to-night, as it had often +come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurity as the vision of +a fair young girl seated in one of the empty chairs before him. Always +the same pretty, childlike face, fraught with a half-frightened, +half-wondering trouble; always the same slender, graceful figure, +but always glimmering in diamonds and satin, or spiritual in lace and +pearls, against his own rude and sordid surroundings; always silent with +parted lips, until the night wind smote some chord of recollection, +and then mingled a remembered voice with his own. For at those times +he seemed to speak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance +inaudible to all but her. + +“Well?” he said sadly. + +“Well?” the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with his own. + +“You know it all now,” he went on. “You know that it has come at +last,--all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have made +us happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come at last, and +all too late!” + +“Too late!” echoed the voice with his. + +“You remember,” he went on, “the last day we were together. You remember +your friends and family would have you give me up--a penniless man. You +remember when they reproached you with my poverty, and told you that it +was only your wealth that I was seeking, that I then determined to +go away and never to return to claim you until that reproach could be +removed. You remember, dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay +with you, even fly with you, but not to leave you alone with them. You +wore the same dress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering +childlike fear and trouble in them; your jewels glittered on you as +you trembled, and I refused. In my pride, or rather in my weakness and +cowardice, I refused. I came away and broke my heart among these rocks +and ledges, yet grew strong; and you, my love, YOU, sheltered and +guarded by those you loved, YOU”--He stopped and buried his face in his +hands. The night wind breathed down the chimney, and from the stirred +ashes on the hearth came the soft whisper, “I died.” + +“And then,” he went on, “I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heart awoke +for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a girl +that even in her humble station was far beyond his hopes, and I pitied +myself in him. Home, fortune, friends, I no longer cared for--all were +forgotten. And now they are returning to me--only that I may see the +hollowness and vanity of them, and taste the bitterness for which I +have sacrificed you. And here, on this last night of my exile, I +am confronted with only the jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and +selfishness that is to come. Too late! Too late!” + +The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to +clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in +the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: “Too late, beloved, for ME, +but not for you. I died, but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in +your happiness I too may live again”? + +He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. The wind +that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a sound like +the passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill in the air and a +smell like that of opened earth. A nervous shiver passed over him. Then +he sat upright. There was no mistake; it was no superstitious fancy, +but a faint, damp current of air was actually flowing across his feet +towards the fireplace. He was about to rise when he stopped suddenly and +became motionless. + +He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected him +even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was a gentle brushing of +some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the +sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland +sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching +of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, +deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that +monotonous sound. He could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or +without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket +that covered the treasure was actually moving! + +He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing. For +this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches had +disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred treasure. The +movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing sound recommenced. He +drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot-leg, and in three noiseless +strides was beside the pile. There he saw what he fully expected to +see,--a narrow, horizontal gap between the log walls of the cabin and +the adobe floor, slowly widening and deepening by the burrowing of +unseen hands from without. The cold outer air which he had felt before +was now plainly flowing into the heated cabin through the opening. The +swishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of a +hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the bottom +log and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knife of +Demorest descended like a flash of lightning. There was no outcry. +Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of admiration for +the stoicism of the unseen trespasser. But the maimed hand was quickly +withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushed to the door and dashed into +the outer darkness. + +For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change. But the +next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure running before him, and +threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell, but even in that +contact Demorest felt the tangled beard and alcoholic fumes of Whiskey +Dick, and felt also that the hands which were thrown up against his +breast, the palms turned outward with the instinctive movement of a +timid, defenseless man, were unstained with soil or blood. With an oath +he threw the drunkard from him and dashed to the rear of the cabin. +But too late! There, indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened +burrow as it had been excavated apparently by that mutilated hand--but +nothing else! + +He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, although still +retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered his feet +in a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of injury. What did +Demorest mean by attacking “innoshent” gentlemen on the trail outside +his cabin? Yes! OUTSIDE his cabin, he would swear it! + +“What were you doing here at midnight?” demanded Demorest. + +What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasn't any +molly-coddle to go to bed at ten o'clock! What was he doing? Well--he'd +been with men who didn't shut their doors and turn the boys out just +in the shank of the evening. He wasn't any Barker to be wet-nursed by +Demorest. + +“Some one else was here!” said Demorest sternly, with his eyes fixed on +Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil the outer world from +the drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly with such a look of direct horror +that Demorest was fain to turn away his own. But the veil mercifully +returned, and with it Dick's worked-up sense of injury. Nobody was +there--not “a shole.” Did Demorest think if there had been any of +his friends there they would have stood by like “dogsh” and seen him +insulted? + +Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurched heavily +forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitement over, a +sickening repugnance to the whole incident took the place of Demorest's +resentment and indignation. There had been a cowardly attempt to rob +them of their miserable treasure. He had met it and frustrated it in +almost as brutal a fashion: the gold was already tarnished with blood. +To his surprise, yet relief, he found his partners unconscious of the +outrage, still sleeping with the physical immobility of over-excited +and tired men. Should he awaken them? No! He should have to awaken +also their suspicions and desire for revenge. There was no danger of +a further attack; there was no fear that the culprit would disclose +himself, and to-morrow they would be far away. Let oblivion rest upon +that night's stain on the honor of Heavy Tree Hill. + +He rolled a small barrel before the opening, smoothed the dislodged +earth, replaced the pan with its treasure, and trusted that in the +bustle of the early morning departure his partners might not notice any +change. Stopping before the bunk of Stacy he glanced at the sleeping +man. He was lying on his back, but breathing heavily, and his hands were +moving towards his chest as if, indeed, his strange fancy of the golden +incubus were being realized. Demorest would have wakened him, but +presently, with a sigh of relief, the sleeper turned over on his side. +It was pleasanter to look at Barker, whose damp curls were matted over +his smooth, boyish forehead, and whose lips were parted in a smile under +the silken wings of his brown mustache. He, too, seemed to be trying to +speak, and remembering some previous revelations which had amused them, +Demorest leaned over him fraternally with an answering smile, waiting +for the beloved one's name to pass the young man's lips. But he only +murmured, “Three--hundred--thousand dollars!” The elder man turned away +with a grave face. The influence of the treasure was paramount. + +When he had placed one of the chairs against the unprotected door at +an angle which would prevent any easy or noiseless intrusion, Demorest +threw himself on his bunk without undressing, and turned his face +towards the single window of the cabin that looked towards the east. He +did not apprehend another covert attempt against the gold. He did not +fear a robbery with force and arms, although he was satisfied that there +was more than one concerned in it, but this he attributed only to the +encumbering weight of their expected booty. He simply waited for the +dawn. It was some time before his eyes were greeted with the vague +opaline brightness of the firmament which meant the vanishing of the +pallid snow-line before the coming day. A bird twittered on the roof. +The air was chill; he drew his blanket around him. Then he closed his +eyes, he fancied only for a moment, but when he opened them the door +was standing open in the strong daylight. He sprang to his feet, but +the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who had passed out, and was +returning fully dressed, bringing water from the spring to fill the +kettle. But Stacy's face was so grave that, recalling his disturbed +sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if he had been haunted by the +treasure. But to his surprise Stacy put down the kettle, and, with a +hurried glance at the still sleeping Barker, said in a low voice:-- + +“I want you to do something for me without asking why. Later I will tell +you.” + +Demorest looked at him fixedly. “What is it?” he said. + +“The pack-mules will be here in a few moments. Don't wait to close up or +put away anything here, but clap that gold in the saddle-bags, and take +Barker with you and 'lite' out for Boomville AT ONCE. I will overtake +you later.” + +“Is there no time to discuss this?” asked Demorest. + +“No,” said Stacy bluntly. “Call me a crank, say I'm in a blue funk”--his +compressed lips and sharp black eyes did not lend themselves much to +that hypothesis--“only get out of this with that stuff, and take Barker +with you! I'm not responsible for myself while it's here.” + +Demorest knew Stacy to be combative, but practical. If he had not been +assured of his partner's last night slumbers he might have thought he +knew of the attempt. Or if he had discovered the turned-up ground in +the rear of the cabin his curiosity would have demanded an explanation. +Demorest paused only for a moment, and said, “Very well, I will go.” + +“Good! I'll rouse out Barker, but not a word to him--except that he must +go.” + +The rousing out of Barker consisted of Stacy's lifting that young +gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright in the open +doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan process, and after a +moment's balancing with closed lids like an unwrapped mummy, he sat +down in the doorway and began to dress. He at first demurred to their +departure except all together--it was so unfraternal; but eventually +he allowed himself to be persuaded out of it and into his clothes. For +Barker had also had HIS visions in the night, one of which was that they +should build a beautiful villa on the site of the old cabin and solemnly +agree to come every year and pass a week in it together. “I thought at +first,” he said, sliding along the floor in search of different articles +of his dress, or stopping gravely to catch them as they were thrown to +him by his partners, “that we'd have it at Boomville, as being handier +to get there; but I've concluded we'd better have it here, a little +higher up the hill, where it could be seen over the whole Black Spur +Range. When we weren't here we could use it as a Hut of Refuge for +broken-down or washed-out miners or weary travelers, like those hospices +in the Alps, you know, and have somebody to keep it for us. You see I've +thought even of THAT, and Van Loo is the very man to take charge of it +for us. You see he's got such good manners and speaks two languages. +Lord! if a German or Frenchman came along, poor and distressed, Van Loo +would just chip in his own language. See? You've got to think of all +these details, you see, boys. And we might call it 'The Rest of the +Three Partners,' or 'Three Partners' Rest.'” + +“And you might begin by giving us one,” said Stacy. “Dry up and drink +your coffee.” + +“I'll draw out the plans. I've got it all in my head,” continued the +enthusiastic Barker, unheeding the interruption. “I'll just run out and +take a look at the site, it's only right back of the cabin.” But here +Stacy caught him by his dangling belt as he was flying out of the door +with one boot on, and thrust him down in a chair with a tin cup of +coffee in his hand. + +“Keep the plans in your head, Barker boy,” said Demorest, “for here +are the pack mules and packer.” This was quite enough to divert the +impressionable young man, who speedily finished his dressing, as a mule +bearing a large pack-saddle and two enormous saddle-bags or pouches +drove up before the door, led by a muleteer on a small horse. The +transfer of the treasure to the saddle-bags was quickly made by their +united efforts, as the first rays of the sun were beginning to paint +the hillside. Shading his keen eyes with his hand, Stacy stood in the +doorway and handed Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. “Hadn't +YOU better keep one?” he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his +first challenge of curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle +into Stacy's glance as he returned, “Not much! And you'd better take +my revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now,” he said, +looking at the saddlebags, “but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with +carnal weapons. When the other mule comes and is packed I'll overtake +you on the horse.” + +A little more satisfied, although still wondering and perplexed, +Demorest shouldered one rifle, and with Barker, who was carrying the +other, followed the muleteer and his equipage down the trail. For a +while he was a little ashamed of his part in this unusual spectacle of +two armed men convoying a laden mule in broad daylight, but, luckily, +it was too early for the Bar miners to be going to work, and as the +tunnelmen were now at breakfast the trail was free of wayfarers. At the +point where it crossed the main road Demorest, however, saw Steptoe +and Whiskey Dick emerge from the thicket, apparently in earnest +conversation. Demorest felt his repugnance and half-restrained +suspicions suddenly return. Yet he did not wish to betray them before +Barker, nor was he willing, in case of an emergency, to allow the young +man to be entirely unprepared. Calling him to follow, he ran quickly +ahead of the laden mule, and was relieved to find that, looking +back, his companion had brought his rifle to a “ready,” through some +instinctive feeling of defense. As Steptoe and Whiskey Dick, a moment +later discovering them, were evidently surprised, there seemed, however, +to be no reason for fearing an outbreak. Suddenly, at a whisper from +Steptoe, he and Whiskey Dick both threw up their hands, and stood +still on the trail a few yards from them in a burlesque of the usual +recognized attitude of helplessness, while a hoarse laugh broke from +Steptoe. + +“D----d if we didn't think you were road-agents! But we see you're only +guarding your treasure. Rather fancy style for Heavy Tree Hill, ain't +it? Things must be gettin' rough up thar to hev to take out your guns +like that!” + +Demorest had looked keenly at the four hands thus exhibited, and was +more concerned that they bore no trace of wounds or mutilation than at +the insult of the speech, particularly as he had a distinct impression +that the action was intended to show him the futility of his suspicions. + +“I am glad to see that if you haven't any arms in your hands you're not +incapable of handling them,” said Demorest coolly, as he passed by them +and again fell into the rear of the muleteer. + +But Barker had thought the incident very funny, and laughed effusively +at Whiskey Dick. “I didn't know that Steptoe was up to that kind of +fun,” he said, “and I suppose we DID look rather rough with these guns +as we ran on ahead of the mule. But then you know that when you called +to me I really thought you were in for a shindy. All the same, Whiskey +Dick did that 'hands up' to perfection: how he managed it I don't know, +but his knees seemed to knock together as if he was in a real funk.” + +Demorest had thought so too, but he made no reply. How far that +miserable drunkard was a forced or willing accomplice of the events +of last night was part of a question that had become more and more +repugnant to him as he was leaving the scene of it forever. It had +come upon him, desecrating the dream he had dreamt that last night and +turning its hopeful climax to bitterness. Small wonder that Barker, +walking by his side, had his quick sympathies aroused, and as he saw +that shadow, which they were all familiar with, but had never sought to +penetrate, fall upon his companion's handsome face, even his youthful +spirits yielded to it. They were both relieved when the clatter of +hoofs behind them, as they reached the valley, announced the approach of +Stacy. “I started with the second mule and the last load soon after you +left,” he explained, “and have just passed them. I thought it better +to join you and let the other load follow. Nobody will interfere with +THAT.” + +“Then you are satisfied?” said Demorest, regarding him steadfastly. + +“You bet! Look!” + +He turned in his saddle and pointed to the crest of the hill they had +just descended. Above the pines circling the lower slope above the bare +ledges of rock and outcrop, a column of thick black smoke was rising +straight as a spire in the windless air. + +“That's the old shanty passing away,” said Stacy complacently. “I reckon +there won't be much left of it before we get to Boomville.” + +Demorest and Barker stared. “You fired it?” said Barker, trembling with +excitement. + +“Yes,” said Stacy. “I couldn't bear to leave the old rookery for coyotes +and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before I left.” + +“But”--said Barker. + +“But,” repeated Stacy composedly. “Hallo! what's the matter with that +new plan of 'The Rest' that you're going to build, eh? You don't want +them BOTH.” + +“And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin to strangers?” + said Barker, with kindling eyes. “Stacy, I didn't think you had that +poetry in you!” + +“There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don't know, and I don't +exactly sabe myself.” + +“Only,” continued the young fellow eagerly, “we ought to have ALL been +there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,--a kind of +sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of libation on the ground!” + +“I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I think,” returned Stacy, +“just to help things along. But if you want to see her flaming, Barker, +you just run back to that last corner on the road beyond the big red +wood. That's the spot for a view.” + +As Barker--always devoted to a spectacle--swiftly disappeared the two +men faced each other. “Well, what does it all mean?” said Demorest +gravely. + +“It means, old man,” said Stacy suddenly, “that if we hadn't had nigger +luck, the same blind luck that sent us that strike, you and I and that +Barker over there would have been swirling in that smoke up to the +sky about two hours ago!” He stopped and added in a lower, but earnest +voice, “Look here, Phil! When I went out to fetch water this morning I +smelt something queer. I went round to the back of the cabin and found +a hole dug under the floor, and piled against the corner wall a lot of +brush-wood and a can of kerosene. Some of the kerosene had been already +poured on the brush. Everything was ready to light, and only my coming +out an hour earlier had frightened the devils away. The idea was to set +the place on fire, suffocate us in the smoke of the kerosene poured into +the hole, and then to rush in and grab the treasure. It was a systematic +plan!” + +“No!” said Demorest quietly. + +“No?” repeated Stacy. “I told you I saw the whole thing and took away +the kerosene, which I hid, and after you had gone used it to fire the +cabin with, to see if the ones I suspected would gather to watch their +work.” + +“It was no part of their FIRST plan”' said Demorest, “which was only +robbery. Listen!” He hurriedly recounted his experience of the preceding +night to the astonished Stacy. “No, the fire was an afterthought and +revenge,” he added sternly. + +“But you say you cut the robber in the hand; there would be no +difficulty in identifying him by that.” + +“I wounded only a HAND,” said Demorest. “But there was a HEAD in that +attempt that I never saw.” He then revealed his own half-suspicions, but +how they were apparently refuted by the bravado of Steptoe and Whiskey +Dick. + +“Then that was the reason THEY didn't gather at the fire,” said Stacy +quickly. + +“Ah!” said Demorest, “then YOU too suspected them?” + +Stacy hesitated, and then said abruptly, “Yes.” + +Demorest was silent for a moment. + +“Why didn't you tell me this this morning?” he said gently. + +Stacy pointed to the distant Barker. “I didn't want you to tell him. I +thought it better for one partner to keep a secret from two than for the +two to keep it from one. Why didn't you tell me of your experience last +night?” + +“I am afraid it was for the same reason,” said Demorest, with a faint +smile. “And it sometimes seems to me, Jim, that we ought to imitate +Barker's frankness. In our dread of tainting him with our own knowledge +of evil we are sending him out into the world very poorly equipped, for +all his three hundred thousand dollars.” + +“I reckon you're right,” said Stacy briefly, extending his hand. “Shake +on that!” + +The two men grasped each other's hands. + +“And he's no fool, either,” continued Demorest. “When we met Steptoe on +the road, without a word from me, he closed up alongside, with his hand +on the lock of his rifle. And I hadn't the heart to praise him or laugh +it off.” + +Nevertheless they were both silent as the object of their criticism +bounded down the trail towards them. He had seen the funeral pyre. It +was awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but there was something grand +in it! Who could have thought Stacy could be so poetic? But he wanted to +tell them something else that was mighty pretty. + +“What was it?” said Demorest. + +“Well,” said Barker, “don't laugh! But you know that Jack Hamlin? Well, +boys, he's been hovering around us on his mustang, keeping us and that +pack-mule in sight ever since we left. Sometimes he's on a side trail +off to the right, sometimes off to the left, but always at the same +distance. I didn't like to tell you, boys, for I thought you'd laugh +at me; but I think, you know, he's taken a sort of shine to us since he +dropped in last night. And I fancy, you see, he's sort of hanging round +to see that we get along all right. I'd have pointed him out before +only I reckoned you and Stacy would say he was making up to us for our +money.” + +“And we'd have been wrong, Barker boy,” said Stacy, with a heartiness +that surprised Demorest, “for I reckon your instinct's the right one.” + +“There he is now,” said the gratified Barker, “just abreast of us on the +cut-off. He started just after we did, and he's got a horse that could +have brought him into Boomville hours ago. It's just his kindness.” + +He pointed to a distant fringe of buckeye from which Jack Hamlin had +just emerged. Although evidently holding in a powerful mustang, nothing +could be more unconscious and utterly indifferent than his attitude. He +did not seem to know of the proximity of any other traveler, and to care +less. His handsome head was slightly thrown back, as if he was caroling +after his usual fashion, but the distance was too great to make his +melody audible to them, or to allow Barker's shout of invitation to +reach him. Suddenly he lowered his tightened rein, the mustang sprang +forward, and with a flash of silver spurs and bridle fripperies he had +disappeared. But as the trail he was pursuing crossed theirs a mile +beyond, it seemed quite possible that they should again meet him. + +They were now fairly into the Boomville valley, and were entering a +narrow arroyo bordered with dusky willows which effectually excluded the +view on either side. It was the bed of a mountain torrent that in winter +descended the hillside over the trail by which they had just come, but +was now sunk into the thirsty plain between banks that varied from +two to five feet in height. The muleteer had advanced into the narrow +channel when he suddenly cast a hurried glance behind him, uttered a +“Madre de Dios!” and backed his mule and his precious freight against +the bank. The sound of hoofs on the trail in their rear had caught his +quicker ear, and as the three partners turned they beheld three horsemen +thundering down the hill towards them. They were apparently Mexican +vaqueros of the usual common swarthy type, their faces made still darker +by the black silk handkerchief tied round their heads under their stiff +sombreros. Either they were unable or unwilling to restrain their horses +in their headlong speed, and a collision in that narrow passage was +imminent, but suddenly, before reaching its entrance, they diverged +with a volley of oaths, and dashing along the left bank of the arroyo, +disappeared in the intervening willows. Divided between relief at their +escape and indignation at what seemed to be a drunken, feast-day freak +of these roystering vaqueros, the little party re-formed, when a cry +from Barker arrested them. He had just perceived a horseman motionless +in the arroyo who, although unnoticed by them, had evidently been seen +by the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped into it from the bank, and had +halted as if to witness this singular incident. As the clatter of +the vaqueros' hoofs died away he lightly leaped the bank again and +disappeared. But in that single glimpse of him they recognized Jack +Hamlin. When they reached the spot where he had halted, they could see +that he must have approached it from the trail where they had previously +seen him, but which they now found crossed it at right angles. Barker +was right. He had really kept them at easy distance the whole length of +the journey. + +But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at last from +the arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great +stage-road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach were just +panting along the last half mile of the steep upgrade as they +approached. They halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed +and creaked by them. In their ordinary working dress, sunburnt with +exposure, covered with dust, and carrying their rifles still in their +hands, they, perhaps, presented a sufficiently characteristic appearance +to draw a few faces--some of them pretty and intelligent--to the windows +of the coach as it passed. The sensitive Barker was quickest to feel +that resentment with which the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed +criticism of the Eastern tourist or “greenhorn,” and reddened under the +bold scrutiny of a pair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. +That annoyance was communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the +bearded Demorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that great +world in which they were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed of +their appearance, and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt a secret +satisfaction when Barker said, “They'd open their eyes wider if they +knew what was in that pack-saddle,” and yet they corrected him for what +they were pleased to call his “snobbishness.” They hurried a little +faster as the road became more frequented, as if eager to shorten their +distance to clean clothes and civilization. + +Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with the +stagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past. He +felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look back upon +the dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it had returned so +often, and wondered if he had left it there forever, and it were now +slowly exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke of their burning cabin. + +His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him at some +distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the thick +dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlin's gauntlet on his +shoulder. The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grime and sweat, +but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh as ever. With a delightful +affectation of embarrassment and timidity he began flicking the side +buttons of his velvet vaquero trousers with the thong of his riata. +“I reckoned to sling a word along with you before you went,” he said, +looking down, “but I'm so shy that I couldn't do it in company. So I +thought I'd get it off on you while you were alone.” + +“We've seen you once or twice before, this morning,” said Demorest +pleasantly, “and we were sorry you didn't join us.” + +“I reckon I might have,” said Jack gayly, “if my horse had only made up +his mind whether he was a bird or a squirrel, and hadn't been so various +and promiscuous about whether he wanted to climb a tree or fly. He's +not a bad horse for a Mexican plug, only when he thinks there is +any devilment around he wants to wade in and take a hand. However, I +reckoned to see the last of you and your pile into Boomville. And I DID. +When I meet three fellows like you that are clean white all through I +sort of cotton to 'em, even if I'M a little of a brunette myself. And +I've got something to give you.” + +He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small parcel neatly folded in +white paper as fresh and spotless as himself. Holding it in his fingers, +he went on: “I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hill early this morning +before sun-up. In the darkness I struck your cabin, and I reckon--I +struck somebody else! At first I thought it was one of you chaps down on +your knees praying at the rear of the cabin, but the way the fellow lit +out when he smelt me coming made me think it wasn't entirely fasting and +prayer. However, I went to the rear of the cabin, and then I reckoned +some kind friend had been bringing you kindlings and firewood for your +early breakfast. But that didn't satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had +knelt, and then I saw--well, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw JUST WHAT YOU +HAVE SEEN! But even then I wasn't quite satisfied, for that man had been +grubbing round as if searching for something. So I searched too--and I +found IT. I've got it here. I'm going to give it to you, for it may some +day come in handy, and you won't find anything like it among the folks +where you're going. It's something unique, as those fine-art-collecting +sharps in 'Frisco say--something quite matchless, unless you try to +match it one day yourself! Don't open the paper until I run on and say +'So long' to your partners. Good-by.” + +He grasped Demorest's hand and then dropped the little packet into his +palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the packet in +his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest watched the gambler +give Stacy's hand a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap on +the back to the delighted Barker, and then vanish in a flash of red +sash and silver buttons. At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his +partners, opened the packet, and stood suddenly still. It contained the +dried and bloodless second finger of a human hand cut off at the first +joint! + +For an instant he held it at arm's length, as if about to cast it away. +Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in his pocket, +and silently walked after his companions. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of +Stacy's Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the +regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks +and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking-house had +long since received the epithet of “palatial” from an enthusiastic +local press fresh from the “opening” luncheon in its richly decorated +directors' rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor +from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart +failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant +receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to +deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there +was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded +fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who +entered the bank that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the +important negro messenger. + +The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across +heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James +Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid before him. He was +not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy, +stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently +writing a memorandum. The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a +curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy +did not look at it until he had finished his memorandum. + +“There,” he said, with business decision, “you can tell your people that +if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger +margin. Ditches are not what they were three years ago when miners were +willing to waste their money over your rates. They don't gamble THAT WAY +any more, and your company ought to know it, and not gamble themselves +over that prospect.” He handed the paper to the stranger, who bowed over +it with studied politeness, and backed towards the door. Stacy took up +the waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, “Show him in,” and +in the same breath turned to his guest: “I say, Van Loo, it's George +Barker! You know him.” + +“Yes,” said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted at the door. +“He was--I think--er--in your employ at Heavy Tree Hill.” + +“Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him since at +Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stock--through you--at +110, which were worth about 80! SOMEBODY must have made money enough by +it to remember him.” + +“I was only speaking of him socially,” said Van Loo, with a deprecating +smile. “You know he married a young woman--the hotel-keeper's daughter, +who used to wait at the table--and after my mother and sister came out +to keep house for me at Boomville it was quite impossible for me to see +much of him, for he seldom went out without his wife, you know.” + +“Yes,” said Stacy dryly, “I think you didn't like his marriage. But I'm +glad your disinclination to see him isn't on account of that deal in +stocks.” + +“Oh no,” said Van Loo. “Good-by.” + +But, unfortunately, in the next passage he came upon Barker, who with a +cry of unfeigned pleasure, none the less sincere that he was feeling a +little alien in these impressive surroundings, recognized him. Nothing +could exceed Van Loo's protest of delight at the meeting; nothing +his equal desolation at the fact that he was hastening to another +engagement. “But your old partner,” he added, with a smile, “is waiting +for you; he has just received your card, and I should be only keeping +you from him. So glad to see you; you're looking so well. Good-by! +Good-by!” + +Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his old +impetuousness into his former partner's room. Stacy, already deeply +absorbed in other business, was sitting with his back towards him, and +Barker's arms were actually encircling his neck before the astonished +and half-angry man looked up. But when his eyes met the laughing gray +ones of Barker above him he gently disengaged himself with a quick +return of the caress, rose, shut the door of an inner office, and +returning pushed Barker into an armchair in quite the old suppressive +fashion of former days. Yes; it was the same Stacy that Barker looked +at, albeit his brown beard was now closely cropped around his determined +mouth and jaw in a kind of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs +already attuned to the rigor of clothes of fashionable cut and still +more rigorous sombreness of color. + +“Barker boy,” he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keen eyes which +the younger partner remembered, “I don't encourage stag dancing among my +young men during bank hours, and you'll please to remember that we are +not on Heavy Tree Hill”-- + +“Where,” broke in Barker enthusiastically, “we were only overlooked by +the Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; where the nearest voice +that came to you was quarter of a mile away as the crow flies and nearly +a mile by the trail.” + +“And was generally an oath!” said Stacy. “But you're in San Francisco +NOW. Where are you stopping?” He took up a pencil and held it over a +memorandum pad awaitingly. + +“At the Brook House. It's”-- + +“Hold on! 'Brook House,'” Stacy repeated as he jotted it down. “And for +how long?” + +“Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty”-- + +Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and then +wrote down, “'Day or two.' Wife with you?” + +“Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah!” he went on, with a laugh, knocking +aside the remonstrating pencil, “you must listen! He's just the +sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do you know what we're going to +christen him? Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker. Good names, aren't +they? And then it perpetuates the dear old friendship.” + +Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote “Wife and child S. D. B.,” and +leaned back in his chair. “Now, Barker,” he said briefly, “I'm coming +to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. THEN we'll talk Heavy Tree Hill, +wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I'm all for business. Have you any +with me?” + +Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment out +of Stacy's memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look of eager +confidence and said, “Certainly; that's just what it is--business. Lord! +Stacy, I'm ALL business now. I'm in everything. And I bank with you, +though perhaps you don't know it; it's in your Branch at Marysville. I +didn't want to say anything about it to you before. But Lord! you +don't suppose that I'd bank anywhere else while you are in the +business--checks, dividends, and all that; but in this matter I felt you +knew, old chap. I didn't want to talk to a banker nor to a bank, but to +Jim Stacy, my old partner.” + +“Barker,” said Stacy curtly, “how much money are you short of?” + +At this direct question Barker's always quick color rose, but, with an +equally quick smile, he said, “I don't know yet that I'm short at all.” + +“But I do!” + +“Look here, Jim: why, I'm just overloaded with shares and stocks,” said +Barker, smiling. + +“Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice. Barker, three +years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars put to your account at +San Francisco.” + +“Yes,” said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh. “I remember I wanted +to draw it out in one check to see how it would look.” + +“And you've drawn out all in three years, and it looks d----d bad.” + +“How did you know it?” asked Barker, his face beaming only with +admiration of his companion's omniscience. + +“How did I know it?” retorted Stacy. “I know YOU, and I know the kind of +people who have unloaded to you.” + +“Come, Stacy,” said Barker, “I've only invested in shares and stocks +like everybody else, and then only on the best advice I could get: +like Van Loo's, for instance,--that man who was here just now, the +new manager of the Empire Ditch Company; and Carter's, my own Kitty's +father. And when I was offered fifty thousand Wide West Extensions, +and was hesitating over it, he told me YOU were in it too--and that was +enough for me to buy it.” + +“Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures.” + +“No,” said Barker, with an eager smile, “but you SOLD at his figures, +for I knew that when I found that YOU, my old partner, was in it; don't +you see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, and did at 110. Of +course, you wouldn't have sold it at that figure if it wasn't worth it +then, and neither I nor you are to blame if it dropped the next week to +60, don't you see?” + +Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into his former +partner's bright gray ones, but there was no trace of irony in Barker's. +On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came over them. “No,” he said +reflectively, “I don't think I've ever been foolish or followed out my +OWN ideas, except once, and that was extravagant, I admit. That was +my idea of building a kind of refuge, you know, on the site of our old +cabin, where poor miners and played-out prospectors waiting for a strike +could stay without paying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand +dollars in that, and might have lost more, only Carter--Kitty's +father--persuaded me--he's an awful clever old fellow--into turning it +into a kind of branch hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to +take poor chaps who couldn't pay, at half prices, or quarter prices, +PRIVATELY, don't you see, so as to spare their pride,--awfully pretty, +wasn't it?--and make the hotel profit by it.” + +“Well?” said Stacy as Barker paused. + +“They didn't come,” said Barker. + +“But,” he added eagerly, “it shows that things were better than I had +imagined. Only the others did not come, either.” + +“And you lost your twenty thousand dollars,” said Stacy curtly. + +“FIFTY thousand,” said Barker, “for of course it had to be a larger +hotel than the other. And I think that Carter wouldn't have gone into it +except to save me from losing money.” + +“And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead of twenty. For I don't +suppose HE advanced anything.” + +“He gave his time and experience,” said Barker simply. + +“I don't think it worth thirty thousand dollars,” said Stacy dryly. “But +all this doesn't tell me what your business is with me to-day.” + +“No,” said Barker, brightening up, “but it is business, you know. +Something in the old style--as between partner and partner--and that's +why I came to YOU, and not to the 'banker.' And it all comes out of +something that Demorest once told us; so you see it's all us three +again! Well, you know, of course, that the Excelsior Ditch Company have +abandoned the Bar and Heavy Tree Hill. It didn't pay.” + +“Yes; nor does the company pay any dividends now. You ought to know, +with fifty thousand of their stock on your hands.” + +Barker laughed. “But listen. I found that I could buy up their whole +plant and all the ditching along the Black Spur Range for ten thousand +dollars.” + +“And Great Scott! you don't think of taking up their business?” said +Stacy, aghast. + +Barker laughed more heartily. “No. Not their business. But I remember +that once Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that it cost nearly +as much to make a water ditch as a railroad, in the way of surveying and +engineering and levels, you know. And here's the plant for a railroad. +Don't you see?” + +“But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy Tree Hill--what's the good of +that?” + +“Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the new Divide Railroad they're +trying to get a bill for in the legislature.” + +“An infamous piece of wildcat jobbing that will never pass,” said Stacy +decisively. + +“They said BECAUSE it was that, it would pass,” said Barker simply. +“They say that Watson's Bank is in it, and is bound to get it through. +And as that is a rival bank of yours, don't you see, I thought that if +WE could get something real good or valuable out of it,--something that +would do the Black Spur good,--it would be all right.” + +“And was your business to consult me about it?” said Stacy bluntly. + +“No,” said Barker, “it's too late to consult you now, though I wish I +had. I've given my word to take it, and I can't back out. But I haven't +the ten thousand dollars, and I came to you.” + +Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair, and put both hands in +his pockets. “Not a cent, Barker, not a cent.” + +“I'm not asking it of the BANK,” said Barker, with a smile, “for I could +have gone to the bank for it. But as this was something between us, I am +asking you, Stacy, as my old partner.” + +“And I am answering you, Barker, as your old partner, but also as the +partner of a hundred other men, who have even a greater right to ask me. +And my answer is, not a cent!” + +Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished face and slightly parted +lips. Stacy rose, thrust his hands deeper in his pockets, and standing +before him went on:-- + +“Now look here! It's time you should understand me and yourself. Three +years ago, when our partnership was dissolved by accident, or mutual +consent, we will say, we started afresh, each on our own hook. Through +foolishness and bad advice you have in those three years hopelessly +involved yourself as you never would have done had we been partners, and +yet in your difficulty you ask me and my new partners to help you out of +a difficulty in which they have no concern.” + +“Your NEW partners?” stammered Barker. + +“Yes, my new partners; for every man who has a share, or a deposit, or +an interest, or a dollar in this bank is my PARTNER--even you, with your +securities at the Branch, are one; and you may say that in THIS I am +protecting you against yourself.” + +“But you have money--you have private means.” + +“None to speculate with as you wish me to--on account of my position; +none to give away foolishly as you expect me to--on account of precedent +and example. I am a soulless machine taking care of capital intrusted to +me and my brains, but decidedly NOT to my heart nor my sentiment. So my +answer is, not a cent!” + +Barker's face had changed; his color had come back, but with an older +expression. Presently, however, his beaming smile returned, with the +additional suggestion of an affectionate toleration which puzzled Stacy. + +“I believe you're right, old chap,” he said, extending his hand to the +banker, “and I wish I had talked to you before. But it's too late now, +and I've given my word.” + +“Your WORD!” said Stacy. “Have you no written agreement?” + +“No. My word was accepted.” He blushed slightly as if conscious of a +great weakness. + +“But that isn't legal nor business. And you couldn't even hold the Ditch +Company to it if THEY chose to back out.” + +“But I don't think they will,” said Barker simply. “And you see my word +wasn't given entirely to THEM. I bought the thing through my wife's +cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he makes something by it, from the +company, on commission. And I can't go back on HIM. What did you say?” + +Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. “Nothing,” he said +briefly, “except that I'm coming, as I said before, to dine with you +to-night; but no more BUSINESS. I've enough of that with others, and +there are some waiting for me in the outer office now.” + +Barker rose at once, but with the same affectionate smile and tender +gravity of countenance, and laid his hand caressingly on Stacy's +shoulder. “It's like you to give up so much of your time to me and my +foolishness and be so frank with me. And I know it's mighty rough on +you to have to be a mere machine instead of Jim Stacy. Don't you bother +about me. I'll sell some of my Wide West Extension and pull the thing +through myself. It's all right, but I'm sorry for you, old chap.” He +glanced around the room at the walls and rich paneling, and added, “I +suppose that's what you have to pay for all this sort of thing?” + +Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor was announced for the second +time, and Barker, with another hand-shake and a reassuring smile to his +old partner, passed into the hall, as if the onus of any infelicity in +the interview was upon himself alone. But Stacy did not seem to be in a +particularly accessible mood to the new caller, who in his turn appeared +to be slightly irritated by having been kept waiting over some irksome +business. “You don't seem to follow me,” he said to Stacy after reciting +his business perplexity. “Can't you suggest something?” + +“Well, why don't you get hold of one of your board of directors?” + said Stacy abstractedly. “There's Captain Drummond; you and he are old +friends. You were comrades in the Mexican War, weren't you?” + +“That be d----d!” said his visitor bitterly. “All his interests are +the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, that a man +would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose that he'd let up on a +sure thing that he's got just because he and I fought side by side at +Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us? You're the last man I ever +expected to hear that kind of flapdoodle from. If it's because your bank +has got some other interest and you can't advise me, why don't you say +so?” Nevertheless, in spite of Stacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few +minutes later, half convinced that Stacy's lukewarmness was due to some +adverse influence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and +at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone. + +But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. After a few moments of +purely mechanical memoranda-making, he rose abruptly and opened a small +drawer in a cabinet, from which he took a letter still in its envelope. +It bore a foreign postmark. Glancing over it hastily, his eyes at +last became fixed on a concluding paragraph. “I hope,” wrote his +correspondent, “that even in the rush of your big business you will +sometimes look after Barker. Not that I think the dear old chap will +ever go wrong--indeed, I often wish I was as certain of myself as of +him and his insight; but I am afraid we were more inclined to be merely +amused and tolerant of his wonderful trust and simplicity than to really +understand it for his own good and ours. I know you did not like his +marriage, and were inclined to believe he was the victim of a rather +unscrupulous father and a foolish, unequal girl; but are you satisfied +that he would have been the happier without it, or lived his perfect +life under other and what you may think wiser conditions? If he WROTE +the poetry that he LIVES everybody would think him wonderful; for being +what he is we never give him sufficient credit.” Stacy smiled grimly, +and penciled on his memorandum, “He wants it to the amount of ten +thousand dollars.” “Anyhow,” continued the writer, “look after him, Jim, +for his sake, your sake, and the sake of--PHIL DEMOREST.” + +Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and tossing it grimly aside +went on with his calculations. Presently he stopped, restored the letter +to his cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. “Send Mr. North here,” + he said to the negro messenger. In a few moments his chief book-keeper +appeared in the doorway. + +“Turn to the Branch ledger and bring me a statement of Mr. George +Barker's account.” + +“He was here a moment ago,” said North, essaying a confidential look +towards his chief. + +“I know it,” said Stacy coolly, without looking up. + +“He's been running a good deal on wildcat lately,” suggested North. + +“I asked for his account, and not your opinion of it,” said Stacy +shortly. + +The subordinate withdrew somewhat abashed but still curious, and +returned presently with a ledger which he laid before his chief. Stacy +ran his eyes over the list of Barker's securities; it seemed to him that +all the wildest schemes of the past year stared him in the face. His +finger, however, stopped on the Wide West Extension. “Mr. Barker will be +wanting to sell some of this stock. What is it quoted at now?” + +“Sixty.” + +“But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should not offer in the open market +at present. Give him seventy for it--private sale; that will be ten +thousand dollars paid to his credit. Advise the Branch of this at once, +and to keep the transaction quiet.” + +“Yes, sir,” responded the clerk as he moved towards the door. But he +hesitated, and with another essay at confidence said insinuatingly, “I +always thought, sir, that Wide West would recover.” + +Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what had evidently passed in his +subordinate's mind, looked at him and said dryly, “Then I would advise +you also to keep that opinion to yourself.” But, clever as he was, he +had not anticipated the result. Mr. North, though a trusted employee, +was human. On arriving in the outer office he beckoned to one of the +lounging brokers, and in a low voice said, “I'll take two shares of Wide +West, if you can get it cheap.” + +The broker's face became alert and eager. “Yes, but I say, is anything +up?” + +“I'm not here to give the business of the bank away,” retorted North +severely; “take the order or leave it.” + +The man hurried away. Having thus vindicated his humanity by also +passing the snub he had received from Stacy to an inferior, he turned +away to carry out his master's instructions, yet secure in the belief +that he had profited by his superior discernment of the real reason +of that master's singular conduct. But when he returned to the private +room, in hopes of further revelations, Mr. Stacy was closeted with +another financial magnate, and had apparently divested his mind of the +whole affair. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +When George Barker returned to the outer ward of the financial +stronghold he had penetrated, with its curving sweep of counters, brass +railings, and wirework screens defended by the spruce clerks behind +them, he was again impressed with the position of the man he had just +quitted, and for a moment hesitated, with an inclination to go back. +It was with no idea of making a further appeal to his old comrade, +but--what would have been odd in any other nature but his--he was +affected by a sense that HE might have been unfair and selfish in his +manner to the man panoplied by these defenses, and who was in a measure +forced to be a part of them. He would like to have returned and condoled +with him. The clerks, who were heartlessly familiar with the anxious +bearing of the men who sought interviews with their chief, both before +and after, smiled with the whispered conviction that the fresh and +ingenuous young stranger had been “chucked” like others until they +met his kindly, tolerant, and even superior eyes, and were puzzled. +Meanwhile Barker, who had that sublime, natural quality of abstraction +over small impertinences which is more exasperating than studied +indifference, after his brief hesitation passed out unconcernedly +through the swinging mahogany doors into the blowy street. Here the wind +and rain revived him; the bank and its curt refusal were forgotten; he +walked onward with only a smiling memory of his partner as in the old +days. He remembered how Stacy had burned down their old cabin rather +than have it fall into sordid or unworthy hands--this Stacy who was now +condemned to sink his impulses and become a mere machine. He had never +known Stacy's real motive for that act,--both Demorest and Stacy +had kept their knowledge of the attempted robbery from their younger +partner,--it always seemed to him to be a precious revelation of Stacy's +inner nature. Facing the wind and rain, he recalled how Stacy, though +never so enthusiastic about his marriage as Demorest, had taken up Van +Loo sharply for some foolish sneer about his own youthfulness. He was +affectionately tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to his wife's relations, +for Stacy did not know them as he did. Indeed, Barker, whose own father +and mother had died in his infancy, had accepted his wife's relations +with a loving trust and confidence that was supreme, from the fact that +he had never known any other. + +At last he reached his hotel. It was a new one, the latest creation of a +feverish progress in hotel-building which had covered five years and as +many squares with large showy erections, utterly beyond the needs of the +community, yet each superior in size and adornment to its predecessor. +It struck him as being the one evidence of an abiding faith in the +future of the metropolis that he had seen in nothing else. As he entered +its frescoed hall that afternoon he was suddenly reminded, by its +challenging opulency, of the bank he had just quitted, without knowing +that the bank had really furnished its capital and its original design. +The gilded bar-rooms, flashing with mirrors and cut glass; the saloons, +with their desert expanse of Turkey carpet and oasis of clustered divans +and gilded tables; the great dining-room, with porphyry columns, and +walls and ceilings shining with allegory--all these things which had +attracted his youthful wonder without distracting his correct simplicity +of taste he now began to comprehend. It was the bank's money “at work.” + In the clatter of dishes in the dining-room he even seemed to hear again +the chinking of coin. + +It was a short cut to his apartments to pass through a smaller public +sitting-room popularly known as “Flirtation Camp,” where eight or ten +couples generally found refuge on chairs and settees by the windows, +half concealed by heavy curtains. But the occupants were by no means +youthful spinsters or bachelors; they were generally married women, +guests of the hotel, receiving other people's husbands whose wives were +“in the States,” or responsible middle-aged leaders of the town. In +the elaborate toilettes of the women, as compared with the less formal +business suits of the men, there was an odd mingling of the social +attitude with perhaps more mysterious confidences. The idle gossip about +them had never affected Barker; rather he had that innate respect for +the secrets of others which is as inseparable from simplicity as it is +from high breeding, and he scarcely glanced at the different couples in +his progress through the room. He did not even notice a rather striking +and handsome woman, who, surrounded by two or three admirers, yet looked +up at Barker as he passed with self-conscious lids as if seeking a +return of her glance. But he moved on abstractedly, and only stopped +when he suddenly saw the familiar skirt of his wife at a further window, +and halted before it. + +“Oh, it's YOU,” said Mrs. Barker, with a half-nervous, half-impatient +laugh. “Why, I thought you'd certainly stay half the afternoon with your +old partner, considering that you haven't met for three years.” + +There was no doubt she HAD thought so; there was equally no doubt that +the conversation she was carrying on with her companion--a good-looking, +portly business man--was effectually interrupted. But Barker did not +notice it. “Captain Heath, my husband,” she went on, carelessly rising +and smoothing her skirts. The captain, who had risen too, bowed vaguely +at the introduction, but Barker extended his hand frankly. “I found +Stacy busy,” he said in answer to his wife, “but he is coming to dine +with us to-night.” + +“If you mean Jim Stacy, the banker,” said Captain Heath, brightening +into greater ease, “he's the busiest man in California. I've seen +men standing in a queue outside his door as in the old days at the +post-office. And he only gives you five minutes and no extension. So +you and he were partners once?” he said, looking curiously at the still +youthful Barker. + +But it was Mrs. Barker who answered, “Oh yes! and always such good +friends. I was awfully jealous of him.” Nevertheless, she did not +respond to the affectionate protest in Barker's eyes nor to the laugh of +Captain Heath, but glanced indifferently around the room as if to +leave further conversation to the two men. It was possible that she was +beginning to feel that Captain Heath was as de trop now as her husband +had been a moment before. Standing there, however, between them both, +idly tracing a pattern on the carpet with the toe of her slipper, she +looked prettier than she had ever looked as Kitty Carter. Her slight +figure was more fully developed. That artificial severity covering +a natural virgin coyness with which she used to wait at table in her +father's hotel at Boomville had gone, and was replaced by a satisfied +consciousness of her power to please. Her glance was freer, but not +as frank as in those days. Her dress was undoubtedly richer and more +stylish; yet Barker's loyal heart often reverted fondly to the chintz +gown, coquettishly frilled apron, and spotless cuffs and collar in which +she had handed him his coffee with a faint color that left his own face +crimson. + +Captain Heath's tact being equal to her indifference, he had excused +himself, although he was becoming interested in this youthful husband. +But Mrs. Barker, after having asserted her husband's distinction as +the equal friend of the millionaire, was by no means willing that the +captain should be further interested in Barker for himself alone, and +did not urge him to stay. As he departed she turned to her husband, and, +indicating the group he had passed the moment before, said:-- + +“That horrid woman has been staring at us all the time. I don't see what +you see in her to admire.” + +Poor Barker's admiration had been limited to a few words of civility in +the enforced contact of that huge caravansary and in his quiet, youthful +recognition of her striking personality. But he was just then too +preoccupied with his interview with Stacy to reply, and perhaps he did +not quite understand his wife. It was odd how many things he did not +quite understand now about Kitty, but that he knew must be HIS fault. +But Mrs. Barker apparently did not require, after the fashion of her +sex, a reply. For the next moment, as they moved towards their rooms, +she said impatiently, “Well, you don't tell what Stacy said. Did you get +the money?” + +I grieve to say that this soul of truth and frankness lied--only to his +wife. Perhaps he considered it only lying to HIMSELF, a thing of which +he was at times miserably conscious. “It wasn't necessary, dear,” he +said; “he advised me to sell my securities in the bank; and if you only +knew how dreadfully busy he is.” + +Mrs. Barker curled her pretty lip. “It doesn't take very long to lend +ten thousand dollars!” she said. “But that's what I always tell you. +You have about made me sick by singing the praises of those wonderful +partners of yours, and here you ask a favor of one of them and he tells +you to sell your securities! And you know, and he knows, they're worth +next to nothing.” + +“You don't understand, dear”--began Barker. + +“I understand that you've given your word to poor Harry,” said +Mrs. Barker in pretty indignation, “who's responsible for the Ditch +purchase.” + +“And I shall keep it. I always do,” said Barker very quietly, but with +that same singular expression of face that had puzzled Stacy. But +Mrs. Barker, who, perhaps, knew her husband better, said in an altered +voice:-- + +“But HOW can you, dear?” + +“If I'm short a thousand or two I'll ask your father.” + +Mrs. Barker was silent. “Father's so very much harried now, George. Why +don't you simply throw the whole thing up?” + +“But I've given my word to your cousin Henry.” + +“Yes, but only your WORD. There was no written agreement. And you +couldn't even hold him to it.” + +Barker opened his frank eyes in astonishment. Her own cousin, too! And +they were Stacy's very words! + +“Besides,” added Mrs. Barker audaciously, “he could get rid of it +elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best. So don't +be silly.” + +By this time they had reached their rooms. Barker, apparently dismissing +the subject from his mind with characteristic buoyancy, turned into the +bedroom and walked smilingly towards a small crib which stood in the +corner. “Why, he's gone!” he said in some dismay. + +“Well,” said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, “you didn't expect me to +take him into the public parlor, where I was seeing visitors, did you? +I sent him out with the nurse into the lower hall to play with the other +children.” + +A shade momentarily passed over Barker's face. He always looked forward +to meeting the child when he came back. He had a belief, based on no +grounds whatever, that the little creature understood him. And he had a +father's doubt of the wholesomeness of other people's children who +were born into the world indiscriminately and not under the exceptional +conditions of his own. “I'll go and fetch him,” he said. + +“You haven't told me anything about your interview; what you did and +what your good friend Stacy said,” said Mrs. Barker, dropping languidly +into a chair. “And really if you are simply running away again after +that child, I might just as well have asked Captain Heath to stay +longer.” + +“Oh, as to Stacy,” said Barker, dropping beside her and taking her hand; +“well, dear, he was awfully busy, you know, and shut up in the innermost +office like the agate in one of the Japanese nests of boxes. But,” he +continued, brightening up, “just the same dear old Jim Stacy of Heavy +Tree Hill, when I first knew you. Lord! dear, how it all came back to +me! That day I proposed to you in the belief that I was unexpectedly +rich and even bought a claim for the boys on the strength of it, and how +I came back to them to find that they had made a big strike on the very +claim. Lord! I remember how I was so afraid to tell them about you--and +how they guessed it--that dear old Stacy one of the first.” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Barker, “and I hope your friend Stacy remembered that +but for ME, when you found out that you were not rich, you'd have given +up the claim, but that I really deceived my own father to make you keep +it. I've often worried over that, George,” she said pensively, turning +a diamond bracelet around her pretty wrist, “although I never said +anything about it.” + +“But, Kitty darling,” said Barker, grasping his wife's hand, “I gave my +note for it; you know you said that was bargain enough, and I had better +wait until the note was due, and until I found I couldn't pay, before I +gave up the claim. It was very clever of you, and the boys all said so, +too. But you never deceived your father, dear,” he said, looking at her +gravely, “for I should have told him everything.” + +“Of course, if you look at it in that way,” said his wife languidly, +“it's nothing; only I think it ought to be remembered when people go +about saying papa ruined you with his hotel schemes.” + +“Who dares say that?” said Barker indignantly. + +“Well, if they don't SAY it they look it,” said Mrs. Barker, with a +toss of her pretty head, “and I believe that's at the bottom of Stacy's +refusal.” + +“But he never said a word, Kitty,” said Barker, flushing. + +“There, don't excite yourself, George,” said Mrs. Barker resignedly, +“but go for the baby. I know you're dying to go, and I suppose it's time +Norah brought it upstairs.” + +At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations, but just +then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstanding made him anxious +to shorten this domestic colloquy. He rose, pressed his wife's hand, and +went out. But yet he was not entirely satisfied with himself for leaving +her. “I suppose it isn't right my going off as soon as I come in,” he +murmured reproachfully to himself, “but I think she wants the baby back +as much as I; only, womanlike, she didn't care to let me know it.” + +He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favorite promenade for +the nurses who were gathered at the farther end, where a large window +looked upon Montgomery Street. But Norah, the Irish nurse, was not among +them; he passed through several corridors in his search, but in vain. +At last, worried and a little anxious, he turned to regain his rooms +through the long saloon where he had found his wife previously. It +was deserted now; the last caller had left--even frivolity had its +prescribed limits. He was consequently startled by a gentle murmur +from one of the heavily curtained window recesses. It was a woman's +voice--low, sweet, caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic +tenderness. And it was followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow. + +Barker turned instantly in that direction. A step brought him to the +curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself. + +Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by her treasure, +was the “horrid woman” whom his wife had indicated only a little while +ago, holding a baby--Kitty's sacred baby--in her wanton lap! The child +was feebly grasping the end of the slender jeweled necklace which the +woman held temptingly dangling from a thin white jeweled finger above +it. But its eyes were beaming with an intense delight, as if trying to +respond to the deep, concentrated love in the handsome face that was +bent above it. + +At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up. There was a faint rise +in her color, but no loss of sell-possession. + +“Please don't scold the nurse,” she said, “nor say anything to Mrs. +Barker. It is all my fault. I thought that both the nurse and child +looked dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed the little +fellow for a while to try and amuse him. At least I haven't made +him cry, have I, dear?” The last epithet, it is needless to say, +was addressed to the little creature in her lap, but in its tender +modulation it touched the father's quick sympathies as if he had shared +it with the child. “You see,” she said softly, disengaging the baby +fingers from her necklace, “that OUR sex is not the only one tempted by +jewelry and glitter.” + +Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago was gone; +it was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked up at him. +Nevertheless he was touched. “Have you--ever--had a child, Mrs. +Horncastle?” he asked gently and hesitatingly. He had a vague +recollection that she passed for a widow, and in his simple eyes all +women were virgins or married saints. + +“No,” she said abruptly. Then she added with a laugh, “Or perhaps +I should not admire them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling +bachelors have for other people's wives. But I know you're dying to +take that boy from me. Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to carry him +yourself just because I'm here; you know you would delight to do it if I +weren't.” + +Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably +nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. +Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh. +Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious +infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of +objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other +he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into +contact. Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered. + +“It's all right, Norah,” said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she +disengaged herself from the linking child. “Mr. Barker has claimed +the baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to Mrs. +Barker.” Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her sex on her sex, +thought it extremely probable, and halted with exasperating discretion. +“There,” continued Mrs. Horncastle, playfully evading the child's +further advances, “go with papa, that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to +carry him back, Norah.” + +“But,” said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering +in hopes of recalling the woman's previous expression, “you DO love +children, and you think him a bright little chap for his age?” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, “so round +and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye for jewelry. Really you +ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker--it would please both, +you know.” She moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah and Barker +scarcely sufficing to restrain the struggling child from leaping after +her as she turned at the door and blew him a kiss. + +When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had dismissed +Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah's aid in laying +out her smartest gown for dinner. “But why take all this trouble, dear?” + said her simple-minded husband; “we are going to dine in a private room +so that we can talk over old times all by ourselves, and any dress would +suit him. And, Lord, dear!” he added, with a quick brightening at the +fancy, “if you could only just rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown +you used to wear at Boomville--it would be too killing, and just like +old times. I put it away myself in one of our trunks--I couldn't bear +to leave it behind; I know just where it is. I'll”--But Mrs. Barker's +restraining scorn withheld him. + +“George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw away and +utterly WASTE Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private room with closed +doors--and I dare say you'd like to sit in your dressing-gown and +slippers--you are entirely mistaken. I know what is due, not to your old +partner, but to the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I know what is +due FROM HIM TO US! No! We dine in the great dining-room, publicly, and, +if possible, at the very next table to those stuck-up Peterburys and +their Eastern friends, including that horrid woman, which, I'm sure, +ought to satisfy you. Then you can talk as much as you like, and as +loud as you like, about old times,--and the louder and the more the +better,--but I don't think HE'LL like it.” + +“But the baby!” expostulated Barker. “Stacy's just wild to see him--and +we can't bring him down to the table--though we MIGHT,” he added, +momentarily brightening. + +“After dinner,” said Mrs. Barker severely, “we will walk through the big +drawing-rooms, and THEN Mr. Stacy may come upstairs and see him in his +crib; but not before. And now, George, I do wish that to-night, FOR +ONCE, you would not wear a turn-down collar, and that you would go to +the barber's and have him cut your hair and smooth out the curls. And, +for Heaven's sake! let him put some wax or gum or SOMETHING on your +mustache and twist it up on your cheek like Captain Heath's, for it +positively droops over your mouth like a girl's ringlet. It's quite +enough for me to hear people talk of your inexperience, but really I +don't want you to look as if I had run away with a pretty schoolboy. +And, considering the size of that child, it's positively disgraceful. +And, one thing more, George. When I'm talking to anybody, please don't +sit opposite to me, beaming with delight, and your mouth open. And don't +roar if by chance I say something funny. And--whatever you do--don't +make eyes at me in company whenever I happen to allude to you, as I did +before Captain Heath. It is positively too ridiculous.” + +Nothing could exceed the laughing good humor with which her husband +received these cautions, nor the evident sincerity with which he +promised amendment. Equally sincere was he, though a little more +thoughtful, in his severe self-examination of his deficiencies, when, +later, he seated himself at the window with one hand softly encompassing +his child's chubby fist in the crib beside him, and, in the instinctive +fashion of all loneliness, looked out of the window. The southern +trades were whipping the waves of the distant bay and harbor into yeasty +crests. Sheets of rain swept the sidewalks with the regularity of a +fusillade, against which a few pedestrians struggled with flapping +waterproofs and slanting umbrellas. He could look along the deserted +length of Montgomery Street to the heights of Telegraph Hill and its +long-disused semaphore. It seemed lonelier to him than the mile-long +sweep of Heavy Tree Hill, writhing against the mountain wind and +its aeolian song. He had never felt so lonely THERE. In his rigid +self-examination he thought Kitty right in protesting against the +effect of his youthfulness and optimism. Yet he was also right in being +himself. There is an egoism in the highest simplicity; and Barker, while +willing to believe in others' methods, never abandoned his own aims. +He was right in loving Kitty as he did; he knew that she was better and +more lovable than she could believe herself to be; but he was willing to +believe it pained and discomposed her if he showed it before company. +He would not have her change even this peculiarity--it was part of +herself--no more than he would have changed himself. And behind what he +had conceived was her clear, practical common sense, all this time had +been her belief that she had deceived her father! Poor dear, dear Kitty! +And she had suffered because stupid people had conceived that her father +had led him away in selfish speculations. As if he--Barker--would +not have first discovered it, and as if anybody--even dear Kitty +herself--was responsible for HIS convictions and actions but himself. +Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the +child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his +caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than before. It was with a slight +sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its hands to the mere +hireling, Norah, who had never given it the love that he had seen even +in the frivolous Mrs. Horncastle's eyes. Later, when his wife came in, +looking very pretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same +conflicting emotions. He knew that they had already passed that phase +of their married life when she no longer dressed to please him, and +that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of another woman she held +superior to his tastes; yet he did not blame her. But he was a little +surprised to see that her dress was copied from one of Mrs. Horncastle's +most striking ones, and that it did not suit her. That which adorned +the maturer woman did not agree with the demure and slightly austere +prettiness of the young wife. + +But Barker forgot all this when Stacy--reserved and somewhat +severe-looking in evening dress--arrived with business punctuality. He +fancied that his old partner received the announcement that they would +dine in the public room with something of surprise, and he saw him +glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he had suspected it was +her choice, and understood her motives. Indeed, the young husband had +found himself somewhat nervous in regard to Stacy's estimate of Kitty; +he was conscious that she was not looking and acting like the old Kitty +that Stacy had known; it did not enter his honest heart that Stacy had, +perhaps, not appreciated her then, and that her present quality might +accord more with his worldly tastes and experience. It was, therefore, +with a kind of timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her +mood, and with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he +seemed to sympathize not only with her, but with her half-rallying, +half-serious attitude towards his (Barker's) inexperience and +simplicity. He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, even in +this way. Stacy would understand, as he did, her pretty willfulness at +last; she would understand what a true friend Stacy was to him. It was +with unfeigned satisfaction that he followed them in to dinner as she +leaned upon his guest's arm, chatting confidentially. He was only uneasy +because her manner had a slight ostentation. + +The entrance of the little party produced a quick sensation throughout +the dining-room. Whispers passed from table to table; all heads were +turned towards the great financier as towards a magnet; a few guests +even shamelessly faced round in their chairs as he passed. Mrs. Barker +was pink, pretty, and voluble with excitement; Stacy had a slight mask +of reserve; Barker was the only one natural and unconscious. + +As the dinner progressed Barker found that there was little chance for +him to invoke his old partner's memories of the past. He found, however, +that Stacy had received a letter from Demorest, and that he was coming +home from Europe. His letters were still sad; they both agreed upon +that. And then for the first time that day Stacy looked intently at +Barker with the look that he had often worn on Heavy Tree Hill. + +“Then you think it is the same old trouble that worries him?” said +Barker in an awed and sympathetic voice. + +“I believe it is,” said Stacy, with an equal feeling. Mrs. Barker +pricked up her pretty ears; her husband's ready sympathy was familiar +enough; but that this cold, practical Stacy should be moved at anything +piqued her curiosity. + +“And you believe that he has never got over it?” continued Barker. + +“He had one chance, but he threw it away,” said Stacy energetically. +“If, instead of going off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he had +joined me in business, he'd have been another man.” + +“But not Demorest,” said Barker quickly. + +“What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?” said Mrs. Barker +petulantly. “Is he ill?” + +Both men were silent by their old common instinct. But it was Stacy +who said “No” in a way that put any further questioning at an end, and +Barker was grateful and for the moment disloyal to his Kitty. + +It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention of +the next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle had +glanced from time to time at Stacy. But she was not prepared for the +evident equal effect that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon Stacy. His +cold face warmed, his critical eye softened; he asked her name. Mrs. +Barker was voluble, prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed. + +“I know it all,” said Stacy, with didactic emphasis. “Her husband was as +bad as they make them. When her life had become intolerable WITH HIM, he +tried to make it shameful WITHOUT HIM by abandoning her. She could get a +divorce a dozen times over, but she won't.” + +“I suppose that's what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen,” said +Mrs. Barker ironically. + +“I have never seen her before,” continued Stacy, with business +precision, “although I and two other men are guardians of her property, +and have saved it from the clutches of her husband. They told me she was +handsome--and so she is.” + +Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at his +wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously another way, and the +young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification, fell upon +Mrs. Horncastle's. She looked away with a bright color. Whereupon +the sanguine Barker--perfectly convinced that she returned Stacy's +admiration--was seized with one of his old boyish dreams of the future, +and saw Stacy happily united to her, and was only recalled to the dinner +before him by its end. Then Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with +Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited the baby in her apartments, and took an +easy leave. But he grasped Barker's hand before parting in quite his old +fashion, and said, “Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll +talk of Phil Demorest,” and left Barker as happy as if the appointment +were to confer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, +who had overheard, was more dubious. + +“You don't suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and his +stupid secret, do you?” she said scornfully. + +“Perhaps not only about that,” said Barker, glad that she had not +demanded the secret. + +“Well,” returned Mrs. Barker as she turned away, “he might just as well +lunch here and talk about HER--and see her, too.” + +Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squares distant. +His appearance created the same interest that it had produced at the +hotel, but with less reserve among his fellow members. + +“Have you heard the news?” said a dozen voices. Stacy had not; he had +been dining out. + +“That infernal swindle of a Divide Railroad has passed the legislature.” + +Stacy instantly remembered Barker's absurd belief in it and his reasons. +He smiled and said carelessly, “Are you quite sure it's a swindle?” + +There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had been most +outspoken against it. + +“But,” said a voice hesitatingly, “you know it goes nowhere and to no +purpose.” + +“But that does not prevent it, now that it's a fact, from going anywhere +and to some purpose,” said Stacy, turning away. He passed into the +reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and quickly descended +by another staircase into the hall, hurriedly put on his overcoat, and +slipping out was a moment later re-entering the hotel. Here he hastily +summoned Barker, who came down, flushed and excited. Laying his hand on +Barker's arm in his old dominant way, he said:-- + +“Don't delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for that Ditch +property.” + +Barker smiled. “But I have. Got it this afternoon.” + +“Then you know?” ejaculated Stacy in surprise. + +“I only know,” said Barker, coloring, “that you said I could back out of +it if it wasn't signed, and that's what Kitty said, too. And I thought +it looked awfully mean for me to hold a man to that kind of a bargain. +And so--you won't be mad, old fellow, will you?--I thought I'd put +it beyond any question of my own good faith by having it in black +and white.” He stopped, laughing and blushing, but still earnest and +sincere. “You don't think me a fool, do you?” he said pathetically. + +Stacy smiled grimly. “I think, Barker boy, that if you go to the Branch +you'll have no difficulty in paying for the Ditch property. Good-night.” + +In a few moments he was back at the club again before any one knew he +had even left the building. As he again re-entered the smoking-room he +found the members still in eager discussion about the new railroad. One +was saying, “If they could get an extension, and carry the road through +Heavy Tree Hill to Boomville they'd be all right.” + +“I quite agree with you,” said Stacy. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The swaying, creaking, Boomville coach had at last reached the level +ridge, and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh of relief and the +slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung in clouds around +it. The whole coach, inside and out, was covered with this impalpable +powder; it had poured into the windows that gaped widely in the +insufferable heat; it lay thick upon the novel read by the passenger who +had for the third or fourth time during the ascent made a gutter of +the half-opened book and blown the dust away in a single puff, like the +smoke from a pistol. It lay in folds and creases over the yellow silk +duster of the handsome woman on the back seat, and when she endeavored +to shake it off enveloped her in a reddish nimbus. It grimed the +handkerchiefs of others, and left sanguinary streaks on their mopped +foreheads. But as the coach had slowly climbed the summit the sun +was also sinking behind the Black Spur Range, and with its ultimate +disappearance a delicious coolness spread itself like a wave across the +ridge. The passengers drew a long breath, the reader closed his book, +the lady lifted the edge of her veil and delicately wiped her +forehead, over which a few damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even a +distinguished-looking man who had sat as impenetrable and remote as a +statue in one of the front seats moved and turned his abstracted face to +the window. His deeply tanned cheek and clearly cut features harmonized +with the red dust that lay in the curves of his brown linen dust-cloak, +and completed his resemblance to a bronze figure. Yet it was Demorest, +changed only in coloring. Now, as five years ago, his abstraction had a +certain quality which the most familiar stranger shrank from disturbing. +But in the general relaxation of relief the novel-reader addressed him. + +“Well, we ain't far from Boomville now, and it's all down-grade the rest +of the way. I reckon you'll be as glad to get a 'wash up' and a 'shake' +as the rest of us.” + +“I am afraid I won't have so early an opportunity,” said Demorest, with +a faint, grave smile, “for I get off at the cross-road to Heavy Tree +Hill.” + +“Heavy Tree Hill!” repeated the other in surprise. “You ain't goin' to +Heavy Tree Hill? Why, you might have gone there direct by railroad, +and have been there four hours ago. You know there's a branch from the +Divide Railroad goes there straight to the hotel at Hymettus.” + +“Where?” said Demorest, with a puzzled smile. + +“Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've given to the watering-place on +the slope. But I reckon you're a stranger here?” + +“For five years,” said Demorest. “I fancy I've heard of the railroad, +although I prefer to go to Heavy Tree this way. But I never heard of a +watering-place there before.” + +“Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks that are tired of the +fogs of 'Frisco and the heat of Sacramento all go there. It's four +thousand feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing, and a band plays +every night. And it all sprang out of the Divide Railroad and a crank +named George Barker, who bought up some old Ditch property and ran a +branch line along its levels, and made a junction with the Divide. You +can come all the way from 'Frisco or Sacramento by rail. It's a mighty +big thing!” + +“Yet,” said Demorest, with some animation, “you call the man who +originated this success a crank. I should say he was a genius.” + +The other passenger shook his head. “All sheer nigger luck. He bought +the Ditch plant afore there was a ghost of a chance for the Divide +Railroad, just out o' pure d----d foolishness. He expected so little +from it that he hadn't even got the agreement done in writin', and +hadn't paid for it, when the Divide Railroad passed the legislature, as +it never oughter done! For, you see, the blamedest cur'ous thing about +the whole affair was that this 'straw' road of a Divide, all pure +wildcat, was only gotten up to frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into +buying it up. And the road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a +rail of it laid was pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant +had been bought up, for they thought there was a big thing behind it. +Even the hotel was, at first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house that +this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners!” + +“Nevertheless,” continued Demorest, smiling, “you admit that it is a +great success?” + +“Yes,” said the other, a little irritated by some complacency in +Demorest's smile, “but the success isn't HIS'N. Fools has ideas, and +wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's bank behind +it, and is even a kind of country branch of the Brook House in 'Frisco. +Barker's out of it, I reckon. Anyhow, HE couldn't run a hotel, for all +that his wife--she that's one of the big 'Frisco swells now--used to +help serve in her father's. No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' +the first taste and leavin' the rest to others.” + +“I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck,” returned Demorest, +with persistent gravity; “and I suppose he's satisfied with it.” But so +heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, especially +as he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat appeared to be +interested in the conversation, and even sympathetic with Demorest. The +man was in the main a good-natured fellow and loyal to his friends; but +this did not preclude any virulent criticism of others, and for a moment +he hated this bronze-faced stranger, and even saw blemishes in the +handsome woman's beauty. “That may be YOUR idea of an Eastern man,” + he said bluntly, “but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't run on those +lines. No, sir.” Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of his ill +humor, and as the coach at last pulled up at the cross-road for Demorest +to descend he smiled affably at his departing companion. + +“You allowed just now that you'd bin five years away. Whar mout ye have +bin?” + +“In Europe,” said Demorest pleasantly. + +“I reckoned ez much,” returned his interrogator, smiling significantly +at the other passengers. “But in what place?” + +“Oh, many,” said Demorest, smiling also. + +“But what place war ye last livin' at?” + +“Well,” said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for a moment +with his hand on the door of the coach, “oddly enough, now you remind me +of it--at Hymettus!” + +He closed the door, and the coach rolled on. The passenger reddened, +glanced indignantly after the departing figure of Demorest and +suspiciously at the others. The lady was looking from the window with a +faint smile on her face. + +“He might hev given me a civil answer,” muttered the passenger, and +resumed his novel. + +When the coach drew up before Carter's Hotel the lady got down, and the +curiosity of her susceptible companions was gratified to the extent of +learning from the register that her name was Horncastle. + +She was shown to a private sitting-room, which chanced to be the one +which had belonged to Mrs. Barker in the days of her maidenhood, and +was the sacred, impenetrable bower to which she retired when her daily +duties of waiting upon her father's guests were over. But the breath of +custom had passed through it since then, and but little remained of its +former maiden glories, except a few schoolgirl crayon drawings on +the wall and an unrecognizable portrait of herself in oil, done by a +wandering artist and still preserved as a receipt for his unpaid +bill. Of these facts Mrs. Horncastle knew nothing; she was evidently +preoccupied, and after she had removed her outer duster and entered the +room, she glanced at the clock on the mantel-shelf and threw herself +with an air of resigned abstraction in an armchair in the corner. Her +traveling-dress, although unostentatious, was tasteful and well-fitting; +a slight pallor from her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, from some +absorbing thought, made her beauty still more striking. She gave even an +air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the room, which it is +to be feared it never possessed in Miss Kitty's occupancy. Again she +glanced at the clock. There was a tap at the door. + +“Come in.” + +The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of torn paper with +a name written on it in lieu of a card. + +Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name, and handed the paper back. + +“There must be some mistake,” she said, “it do not know Mr. Steptoe.” + +“No, but you know ME all the same,” said a voice from the doorway as a +man entered, coolly took the Chinese servant by the elbows and thrust +him into the passage, closing the door upon him. “Steptoe and Horncastle +are the same man, only I prefer to call myself Steptoe HERE. And I see +YOU'RE down on the register as 'Horncastle.' Well, it's plucky of you, +and it's not a bad name to keep; you might be thankful that I have +always left it to you. And if I call myself Steptoe here it's a good +blind against any of your swell friends knowing you met your HUSBAND +here.” + +In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she had given him when he +entered there was no doubt that she recognized him as the man she had +come to see. He had changed little in the five years that had elapsed +since he entered the three partners' cabin at Heavy Tree Hill. His short +hair and beard still clung to his head like curled moss or the crisp +flocculence of Astrakhan. He was dressed more pretentiously, but still +gave the same idea of vulgar strength. She listened to him without +emotion, but said, with even a deepening of scorn in her manner:-- + +“What new shame is this?” + +“Nothing NEW,” he replied. “Only five years ago I was livin' over on the +Bar at Heavy Tree Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks here might +recognize me. I was here when your particular friend, Jim Stacy, +who only knew me as Steptoe, and doesn't know me as Horncastle, your +HUSBAND,--for all he's bound up my property for you,--made his big +strike with his two partners. I was in his cabin that very night, and +drank his whiskey. Oh, I'm all right there! I left everything all right +behind me--only it's just as well he doesn't know I'm Horncastle. And +as the boy happened to be there with me”--He stopped, and looked at her +significantly. + +The expression of her face changed. Eagerness, anxiety, and even fear +came into it in turn, but always mingling with some scorn that dominated +her. “The boy!” she said in a voice that had changed too; “well, what +about him? You promised to tell me all,--all!” + +“Where's the money?” he said. “Husband and wife are ONE, I know,” + he went on with a coarse laugh, “but I don't trust MYSELF in these +matters.” + +She took from a traveling-reticule that lay beside her a roll of notes +and a chamois leather bag of coin, and laid them on the table before +him. He examined both carefully. + +“All right,” he said. “I see you've got the checks made out 'to bearer.' +Your head's level, Conny. Pity you and me can't agree.” + +“I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrived,” she said, with +contemptuous directness. “I told them I was going over to Hymettus and +might want money.” + +He dropped into a chair before her with his broad heavy hands upon his +knees, and looked at her with an equal, though baser, contempt: for his +was mingled with a certain pride of mastery and possession. + +“And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut a splurge as you always +do. The beautiful Mrs. Horncastle! The helpless victim of a wretched, +dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So dreadfully sad, you know, +and so interesting! Could get a divorce from the brute if she wanted, +but won't, on account of her religious scruples. And so while the brute +is gambling, swindling, disgracing himself, and dodging a shot here +and a lynch committee there, two or three hundred miles away, you're +splurging round in first-class hotels and watering-places, doing the +injured and abused, and run after by a lot of men who are ready to take +my place, and, maybe, some of my reputation along with it.” + +“Stop!” she said suddenly, in a voice that made the glass chandelier +ring. He had risen too, with a quick, uneasy glance towards the door. +But her outbreak passed as suddenly, and sinking back into her chair, +she said, with her previous scornful resignation, “Never mind. Go on. +You KNOW you're lying!” + +He sat down again and looked at her critically. “Yes, as far as you're +concerned I WAS lying! I know your style. But as you know, too, that +I'd kill you and the first man I suspected, and there ain't a judge or +a jury in all Californy that wouldn't let me go free for it, and even +consider, too, that it had wiped off the whole slate agin me--it's to my +credit!” + +“I know what you men call chivalry,” she said coldly, “but I did not +come here to buy a knowledge of that. So now about the child?” she ended +abruptly, leaning forward again with the same look of eager solicitude +in her eyes. + +“Well, about the child--our child--though, perhaps, I prefer to say MY +child,” he began, with a certain brutal frankness. “I'll tell you. But +first, I don't want you to talk about BUYING your information of me. +If I haven't told you anything before, it's because I didn't think you +oughter know. If I didn't trust the child to YOU, it's because I didn't +think you could go shashaying about with a child that was three years +old when I”--he stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of his +hand--“made an honest woman of you--I think that's what they call it.” + +“But,” she said eagerly, ignoring the insult, “I could have hidden it +where no one but myself would have known it. I could have sent it to +school and visited it as a relation.” + +“Yes,” he said curtly, “like all women, and then blurted it out some day +and made it worse.” + +“But,” she said desperately, “even THEN, suppose I had been willing to +take the shame of it! I have taken more!” + +“But I didn't intend that you should,” he said roughly. + +“You are very careful of my reputation,” she returned scornfully. + +“Not by a d----d sight,” he burst out; “but I care for HIS! I'm not +goin' to let any man call him a bastard!” + +Callous as she had become even under this last cruel blow, she could not +but see something in his coarse eyes she had never seen before; could +not but hear something in his brutal voice she had never heard before! +Was it possible that somewhere in the depths of his sordid nature he had +his own contemptible sense of honor? A hysterical feeling came over her +hitherto passive disgust and scorn, but it disappeared with his next +sentence in a haze of anxiety. “No!” he said hoarsely, “he had enough +wrong done him already.” + +“What do you mean?” she said imploringly. “Or are you again lying? You +said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;' that was your +excuse for keeping him from me. Or was that a lie, too?” + +His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for his companion, +but rather from some change in his own feelings. “Oh, that,” he said, +with a rough laugh, “that was only a kind o' trouble any sassy kid like +him was likely to get into. You ain't got no call to hear that, for,” he +added, with a momentary return to his previous manner, “the wrong that +was done him is MY lookout! You want to know what I did with him, how +he's been looked arter, and where he is? You want the worth of your +money. That's square enough. But first I want you to know, though you +mayn't believe it, that every red cent you've given me to-night goes to +HIM. And don't you forget it.” + +For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had lied to her many times +before,--maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but never evasively; yet +there was again that something in his manner which told her he was now +telling the truth. + +“Well,” he began, settling himself back in his chair, “I told you I +brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to trust +him to no school; he knew enough for me; but when I left those parts +where nobody knew you, and got a little nearer 'Frisco, where people +might have known us both, I thought it better not to travel round with a +kid o' that size as his FATHER. So I got a young fellow here to pass him +off as HIS little brother, and look after him and board him; and I paid +him a big price for it, too, you bet! You wouldn't think it was a man +who's now swelling around here, the top o' the pile, that ever took +money from a brute like me, and for such schoolmaster work, too; but he +did, and his name was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company.” + +“Van Loo!” said the woman, with a movement of disgust; “THAT man!” + +“What's the matter with Van Loo?” he said, with a coarse laugh, enjoying +his wife's discomfiture. “He speaks French and Spanish, and you oughter +hear the kid roll off the lingo he's got from him. He's got style, and +knows how to dress, and you ought to see the kid bow and scrape, and how +he carries himself. Now, Van Loo wasn't exactly my style, and I reckon I +don't hanker after him much, but he served my purpose.” + +“And this man knows”--she said, with a shudder. + +“He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't know Horncastle nor YOU. +Don't you be skeert. He's the last man in the world who would hanker to +see me or the kid again, or would dare to say that he ever had! Lord! +I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon him and +his high-toned mother and sister some arternoon.” He threw himself back +and laughed a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from +being genial that it even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of +pain in others rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed +at her in the same way. + +“And where is he now?” she said, with a compressed lip. + +“At school. Where, I don't tell you. You know why. But he's looked after +by me, and d----d well looked after, too.” + +She hesitated, composed her face with an effort, parted her lips, and +looked out of the window into the gathering darkness. Then after a +moment she said slowly, yet with a certain precision:-- + +“And his mother? Do you ever talk to him of HER? Does--does he ever +speak of ME?” + +“What do you think?” he said comfortably, changing his position in the +chair, and trying to read her face in the shadow. “Come, now. You don't +know, eh? Well--no! NO! You understand. No! He's MY friend--MINE! He's +stood by me through thick and thin. Run at my heels when everybody else +fled me. Dodged vigilance committees with me, laid out in the brush with +me with his hand in mine when the sheriff's deputies were huntin' me; +shut his jaw close when, if he squealed, he'd have been called another +victim of the brute Horncastle, and been as petted and canoodled as +you.” + +It would have been difficult for any one but the woman who knew the man +before her to have separated his brutish delight in paining her from +another feeling she had never dreamt him capable of,--an intense +and fierce pride in his affection for his child. And it was the more +hopeless to her that it was not the mere sentiment of reciprocation, +but the material instinct of paternity in its most animal form. And it +seemed horrible to her that the only outcome of what had been her own +wild, youthful passion for this brute was this love for the flesh of her +flesh, for she was more and more conscious as he spoke that her +yearning for the boy was the yearning of an equally dumb and unreasoning +maternity. They had met again as animals--in fear, contempt, and anger +of each other; but the animal had triumphed in both. + +When she spoke again it was as the woman of the world,--the woman who +had laughed two years ago at the irrepressible Barker. “It's a new +thing,” she said, languidly turning her rings on her fingers, “to see +you in the role of a doting father. And may I ask how long you have had +this amiable weakness, and how long it is to last?” + +To her surprise and the keen retaliating delight of her sex, a conscious +flush covered his face to the crisp edges of his black and matted beard. +For a moment she hoped that he had lied. But, to her greater surprise, +he stammered in equal frankness: “It's growed upon me for the last five +years--ever since I was alone with him.” He stopped, cleared his throat, +and then, standing up before her, said in his former voice, but with a +more settled and intense deliberation: “You wanter know how long it +will last, do ye? Well, you know your special friend, Jim Stacy--the big +millionaire--the great Jim of the Stock Exchange--the man that pinches +the money market of Californy between his finger and thumb and makes it +squeal in New York--the man who shakes the stock market when he sneezes? +Well, it will go on until that man is a beggar; until he has to borrow +a dime for his breakfast, and slump out of his lunch with a cent's +worth of rat poison or a bullet in his head! It'll go on until his old +partner--that softy George Barker--comes to the bottom of his d----d +fool luck and is a penny-a-liner for the papers and a hanger-round at +free lunches, and his scatter-brained wife runs away with another man! +It'll go on until the high-toned Demorest, the last of those three +little tin gods of Heavy Tree Hill, will have to climb down, and will +know what I feel and what he's made me feel, and will wish himself in +hell before he ever made the big strike on Heavy Tree! That's me! You +hear me! I'm shoutin'! It'll last till then! It may be next week, next +month, next year. But it'll come. And when it does come you'll see me +and Eddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief seats in the synagogue! +And you'll have a free pass to the show!” + +Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful vision, or the shadows +of the room had deepened, but he did not see the quick flush that +had risen to his wife's face with this allusion to Barker, nor the +after-settling of her handsome features into a dogged determination +equal to his own. His blind fury against the three partners did not +touch her curiosity; she was only struck with the evident depth of his +emotion. He had never been a braggart; his hostility had always been +lazy and cynical. Remembering this, she had a faint stirring of respect +for the undoubted courage and consciousness of strength shown in +this wild but single-handed crusade against wealth and power; rather, +perhaps, it seemed to her to condone her own weakness in her youthful +and inexplicable passion for him. No wonder she had submitted. + +“Then you have nothing more to tell me?” she said after a pause, rising +and going towards the mantel. + +“You needn't light up for me,” he returned, rising also. “I am going. +Unless,” he added, with his coarse laugh, “you think it wouldn't look +well for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in the dark with--a +stranger!” He paused as she contemptuously put down the candlestick and +threw the unlit match into the grate. “No, I've nothing more to tell. +He's a fancy-looking pup. You'd take him for twenty-one, though he's +only sixteen--clean-limbed and perfect--but for one thing”--He stopped. +He met her quick look of interrogation, however, with a lowering silence +that, nevertheless, changed again as he surveyed her erect figure by +the faint light of the window with a sardonic smile. “He favors you, I +think, and in all but one thing, too.” + +“And that?” she queried coldly, as he seemed to hesitate. + +“He ain't ashamed of ME,” he returned, with a laugh. + +The door closed behind him; she heard his heavy step descend the +creaking stairs; he was gone. She went to the window and threw it +open, as if to get rid of the atmosphere charged with his presence,--a +presence still so potent that she now knew that for the last five +minutes she had been, to her horror, struggling against its magnetism. +She even recoiled now at the thought of her child, as if, in these new +confidences over it, it had revived the old intimacy in this link +of their common flesh. She looked down from her window on the square +shoulders, thick throat, and crisp matted hair of her husband as he +vanished in the darkness, and drew a breath of freedom,--a freedom not +so much from him as from her own weakness that he was bearing away with +him into the exonerating night. + +She shut the window and sank down in her chair again, but in the +encompassing and compassionate obscurity of the room. And this was the +man she had loved and for whom she had wrecked her young life! Or WAS +it love? and, if NOT, how was she better than he? Worse; for he was +more loyal to that passion that had brought them together and its +responsibilities than she was. She had suffered the perils and pangs of +maternity, and yet had only the mere animal yearning for her offspring, +while he had taken over the toil and duty, and even the devotion, of +parentage himself. But then she remembered also how he had fascinated +her--a simple schoolgirl--by his sheer domineering strength, and how the +objections of her parents to this coarse and common man had forced her +into a clandestine intimacy that ended in her complete subjection to +him. She remembered the birth of an infant whose concealment from her +parents and friends was compassed by his low cunning; she remembered the +late atonement of marriage preferred by the man she had already begun +to loathe and fear, and who she now believed was eager only for her +inheritance. She remembered her abject compliance through the greater +fear of the world, the stormy scenes that followed their ill-omened +union, her final abandonment of her husband, and the efforts of her +friends and family who had rescued the last of her property from him. +She was glad she remembered it; she dwelt upon it, upon his cruelty, his +coarseness and vulgarity, until she saw, as she honestly believed, the +hidden springs of his affection for their child. It was HIS child in +nature, however it might have favored her in looks; it was HIS own +brutal SELF he was worshiping in his brutal progeny. How else could it +have ignored HER--its own mother? She never doubted the truth of what +he had told her--she had seen it in his own triumphant eyes. And yet she +would have made a kind mother; she remembered with a smile and a slight +rising of color the affection of Barker's baby for her; she remembered +with a deepening of that color the thrill of satisfaction she had felt +in her husband's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, more than all, +she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of Barker himself a delicious +condonation of the strange feeling that had sprung up in her heart for +Barker's simple, straightforward nature. How could HE understand, +how could THEY understand (by the plural she meant Mrs. Barker and +Horncastle), a character so innately noble. In her strange attraction +towards him she had felt a charming sense of what she believed was a +superior and even matronly protection; in the utter isolation of her +life now--and with her husband's foolish abuse of him ringing in her +ears--it seemed a sacred duty. She had lost a son. Providence had sent +her an ideal friend to replace him. And this was quite consistent, too, +with a faint smile that began to play about her mouth as she recalled +some instances of Barker's delightful and irresistible youthfulness. + +There was a clatter of hoofs and the sound of many voices from the +street. Mrs. Horncastle knew it was the down coach changing horses; it +would be off again in a few moments, and, no doubt, bearing her husband +away with it. A new feeling of relief came over her as she at last heard +the warning “All aboard!” and the great vehicle clattered and rolled +into the darkness, trailing its burning lights across her walls and +ceiling. But now she heard steps on the staircase, a pause before her +room, a whisper of voices, the opening of the door, the rustle of a +skirt, and a little feminine cry of protest as a man apparently tried to +follow the figure into the room. “No, no! I tell you NO!” remonstrated +the woman's voice in a hurried whisper. “It won't do. Everybody knows +me here. You must not come in now. You must wait to be announced by the +servant. Hush! Go!” + +There was a slight struggle, the sound of a kiss, and the woman +succeeded in finally shutting the door. Then she walked slowly, but with +a certain familiarity towards the mantel, struck a match and lit the +candle. The light shone upon the bright eyes and slightly flushed face +of Mrs. Barker. But the motionless woman in the chair had recognized her +voice and the voice of her companion at once. And then their eyes met. + +Mrs. Barker drew back, but did not utter a cry. Mrs. Horncastle, with +eyes even brighter than her companion's, smiled. The red deepened in +Mrs. Barker's cheek. + +“This is my room!” she said indignantly, with a sweeping gesture around +the walls. + +“I should judge so,” said Mrs. Horncastle, following the gesture; “but,” + she added quietly, “they put ME into it. It appears, however, they did +not expect you.” + +Mrs. Barker saw her mistake. “No, no,” she said apologetically, “of +course not.” Then she added, with nervous volubility, sitting down and +tugging at her gloves, “You see, I just ran down from Marysville to take +a look at my father's old house on my way to Hymettus. I hope I haven't +disturbed you. Perhaps,” she said, with sudden eagerness, “you were +asleep when I came in!” + +“No,” said Mrs. Horncastle, “I was not sleeping nor dreaming. I heard +you come in.” + +“Some of these men are such idiots,” said Mrs. Barker, with a +half-hysterical laugh. “They seem to think if a woman accepts the least +courtesy from them they've a right to be familiar. But I fancy that +fellow was a little astonished when I shut the door in his face.” + +“I fancy he WAS,” returned Mrs. Horncastle dryly. “But I shouldn't call +Mr. Van Loo an idiot. He has the reputation of being a cautious business +man.” + +Mrs. Barker bit her lip. Her companion had been recognized. She rose +with a slight flirt of her skirt. “I suppose I must go and get a room; +there was nobody in the office when I came. Everything is badly managed +here since my father took away the best servants to Hymettus.” She +moved with affected carelessness towards the door, when Mrs. Horncastle, +without rising from her seat, said:-- + +“Why not stay here?” + +Mrs. Barker brightened for a moment. “Oh,” she said, with polite +deprecation, “I couldn't think of turning you out.” + +“I don't intend you shall,” said Mrs. Horncastle. “We will stay here +together until you go with me to Hymettus, or until Mr. Van Loo leaves +the hotel. He will hardly attempt to come in here again if I remain.” + +Mrs. Barker, with a half-laugh, sat down irresolutely. Mrs. Horncastle +gazed at her curiously; she was evidently a novice in this sort of +thing. But, strange to say,--and I leave the ethics of this for the sex +to settle,--the fact did not soften Mrs. Horncastle's heart, nor in the +least qualify her attitude towards the younger woman. After an +awkward pause Mrs. Barker rose again. “Well, it's very good of you, +and--and---I'll just run out and wash my hands and get the dust off me, +and come back.” + +“No, Mrs. Barker,” said Mrs. Horncastle, rising and approaching her, +“you will first wash your hands of this Mr. Van Loo, and get some of the +dust of the rendezvous off you before you do anything else. You CAN do +it by simply telling him, SHOULD YOU MEET HIM IN THE HALL, that I was +sitting here when he came in, and heard EVERYTHING! Depend upon it, he +won't trouble you again.” + +But Mrs. Barker, though inexperienced in love, was a good fighter. +The best of the sex are. She dropped into the rocking-chair, and began +rocking backwards and forwards while still tugging at her gloves, and +said, in a gradually warming voice, “I certainly shall not magnify Mr. +Van Loo's silliness to that importance. And I have yet to learn what you +mean by talking about a rendezvous! And I want to know,” she continued, +suddenly stopping her rocking and tilting the rockers impertinently +behind her, as, with her elbows squared on the chair arms, she tilted +her own face defiantly up into Mrs. Horncastle's, “how a woman in your +position--who doesn't live with her husband--dares to talk to ME!” + +There was a lull before the storm. Mrs. Horncastle approached nearer, +and, laying her hand on the back of the chair, leaned over her, and, +with a white face and a metallic ring in her voice, said: “It is just +because I am a woman IN MY POSITION that I do! It is because I don't +live with my husband that I can tell you what it will be when you no +longer live with yours--which will be the inevitable result of what you +are now doing. It is because I WAS in this position that the very man +who is pursuing you, because he thinks you are discontented with YOUR +husband, once thought he could pursue me because I had left MINE. You +are here with him alone, without the knowledge of your husband; call it +folly, caprice, vanity, or what you like, it can have but one end--to +put you in my place at last, to be considered the fair game afterwards +for any man who may succeed him. You can test him and the truth of what +I say by telling him now that I heard all.” + +“Suppose he doesn't care what you have heard,” said Mrs. Barker sharply. +“Suppose he says nobody would believe you, if 'telling' is your game. +Suppose he is a friend of my husband and he thinks him a much better +guardian of my reputation than a woman like you. Suppose he should be +the first one to tell my husband of the foul slander invented by you!” + +For an instant Mrs. Horncastle was taken aback by the audacity of the +woman before her. She knew the simple confidence and boyish trust of +Barker in his wife in spite of their sometimes strained relations, and +she knew how difficult it would be to shake it. And she had no idea of +betraying Mrs. Barker's secret to him, though she had made this scene +in his interest. She had wished to save Mrs. Barker from a compromising +situation, even if there was a certain vindictiveness in her exposing +her to herself. Yet she knew it was quite possible now, if Mrs. Barker +had immediate access to her husband, that she would convince him of her +perfect innocence. Nevertheless, she had still great confidence in Van +Loo's fear of scandal and his utter unmanliness. She knew he was not +in love with Mrs. Barker, and this puzzled her when she considered the +evident risk he was running now. Her face, however, betrayed nothing. +She drew back from Mrs. Barker, and, with an indifferent and graceful +gesture towards the door, said, as she leaned against the mantel, “Go, +then, and see this much-abused gentleman, and then go together with him +and make peace with your husband--even on those terms. If I have saved +you from the consequences of your folly I shall be willing to bear even +HIS blame.” + +“Whatever I do,” said Mrs. Barker, rising hotly, “I shall not stay here +any longer to be insulted.” She flounced out of the room and swept down +the staircase into the office. Here she found an overworked clerk, and +with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes wanted to know why in her own +father's hotel she had found her own sitting-room engaged, and had been +obliged to wait half an hour before she could be shown into a decent +apartment to remove her hat and cloak in; and how it was that even +the gentleman who had kindly escorted her had evidently been unable +to procure her any assistance. She said this in a somewhat high voice, +which might have reached the ears of that gentleman had he been in the +vicinity. But he was not, and she was forced to meet the somewhat dazed +apologies of the clerk alone, and to accompany the chambermaid to a room +only a few paces distant from the one she had quitted. Here she hastily +removed her outer duster and hat, washed her hands, and consulted her +excited face in the mirror, with the door ajar and an ear sensitively +attuned to any step in the corridor. But all this was effected so +rapidly that she was at last obliged to sit down in a chair near the +half-opened door, and wait. She waited five minutes--ten--but still no +footstep. Then she went out into the corridor and listened, and then, +smoothing her face, she slipped downstairs, past the door of that +hateful room, and reappeared before the clerk with a smiling but +somewhat pale and languid face. She had found the room very comfortable, +but it was doubtful whether she would stay over night or go on to +Hymettus. Had anybody been inquiring for her? She expected to meet +friends. No! And her escort--the gentleman who came with her--was +possibly in the billiard-room or the bar? + +“Oh no! He was gone,” said the clerk. + +“Gone!” echoed Mrs. Barker. “Impossible! He was--he was here only a +moment ago.” + +The clerk rang a bell sharply. The stableman appeared. + +“That tall, smooth-faced man, in a high hat, who came with the lady,” + said the clerk severely and concisely,--“didn't you tell me he was +gone?” + +“Yes, sir,” said the stableman. + +“Are you sure?” interrupted Mrs. Barker, with a dazzling smile that, +however, masked a sudden tightening round her heart. + +“Quite sure, miss,” said the stableman, “for he was in the yard when +Steptoe came, after missing the coach. He wanted a buggy to take him +over to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over to the other stables, +and he didn't come back, so I reckon he's gone. I remember it, because +Steptoe came by a minute after he'd gone, in another buggy, and as he +was going to the Divide, too, I wondered why the gentleman hadn't gone +with him.” + +“And he left no message for me? He said nothing?” asked Mrs. Barker, +quite breathless, but still smiling. + +“He said nothin' to me but 'Isn't that Steptoe over there?' when Steptoe +came in. And I remember he said it kinder suddent--as if he was reminded +o' suthin' he'd forgot; and then he asked for a buggy. Ye see, +miss,” added the man, with a certain rough consideration for her +disappointment, “that's mebbe why he clean forgot to leave a message.” + +Mrs. Barker turned away, and ascended the stairs. Selfishness is quick +to recognize selfishness, and she saw in a flash the reason of Van Loo's +abandonment of her. Some fear of discovery had alarmed him; perhaps +Steptoe knew her husband; perhaps he had heard of Mrs. Horncastle's +possession of the sitting-room; perhaps--for she had not seen him since +their playful struggle at the door--he had recognized the woman who was +there, and the selfish coward had run away. Yes; Mrs. Horncastle was +right: she had been only a miserable dupe. + +Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room she had just quitted, +and threw herself in a chair by the window. She bit her lip as she +remembered how for the last three months she had been slowly yielding +to Van Loo's cautious but insinuating solicitation, from a flirtation in +the San Francisco hotel to a clandestine meeting in the street; from a +ride in the suburbs to a supper in a fast restaurant after the theatre. +Other women did it who were fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed +out to her. Other fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had +their private broker in a “Charley” or a “Jack.” Why should not Mrs. +Barker have business with a “Paul” Van Loo, particularly as this fast +craze permitted secret meetings?--for business of this kind could not be +conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at private +offices without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker's vanity, Mrs. +Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's snobbishness, were +flattered by the attentions of this polished gentleman with a foreign +name, which even had the flavor of nobility, who never picked up her fan +and handed it to her without bowing, and always rose when she entered +the room. Mrs. Barker's scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this +gentleman, who spoke French fluently, and delicately explained to her +the libretto of a risky opera bouffe. And now she had finally yielded +to a meeting out of San Francisco--and an ostensible visit--still as a +speculator--to one or two mining districts--with HER BROKER. This +was the boldest of her steps--an original idea of the fashionable Van +Loo--which, no doubt, in time would become a craze, too. But it was a +long step--and there was a streak of rustic decorum in Mrs. Barker's +nature--the instinct that made Kitty Carter keep a perfectly secluded +and distinct sitting-room in the days when she served her father's +guests--that now had impelled her to make it a proviso that the first +step of her journey should be from her old home in her father's hotel. +It was this instinct of the proprieties that had revived in her suddenly +at the door of the old sitting-room. + +Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her. It was hard for her +vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary and final. What if +that hateful woman had lured him away by some trick or artfully designed +message? She was capable of such meanness to insure the fulfillment of +her prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought, what if she had some hold on +his affections--she had said that he had pursued her; or, more infamous +still, there were some secret understanding between them, and that +she--Mrs. Barker--was the dupe of them both! What was she doing in the +hotel at such a moment? What was her story of going to Hymettus but a +lie as transparent as her own? The tortures of jealousy, which is as +often the incentive as it is the result of passion, began to rack her. +She had probably yet known no real passion for this man; but with the +thought of his abandoning her, and the conception of his faithlessness, +came the wish to hold and keep him that was dangerously near it. What +if he were even then in that room, the room where she had said she would +not stay to be insulted, and they, thus secured against her intrusion, +were laughing at her now? She half rose at the thought, but a sound of +a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard arrested her. She ran to the window +which gave upon it, and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly. The +clatter of hoofs ceased; the stableman was talking to some one; +suddenly she heard the stableman say, “Mrs. Barker is here.” Her heart +leaped,--Van Loo had returned. + +But here the voice of the other man which she had not yet heard arose +for the first time clear and distinct. “Are you quite sure? I didn't +know she left San Francisco.” + +The room reeled around her. The voice was George Barker's, her husband! +“Very well,” he continued. “You needn't put up my horse for the night. I +may take her back a little later in the buggy.” + +In another moment she had swept down the passage, and burst into the +other room. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting by the table with a book in her +hand. She started as the half-maddened woman closed the door, locked it +behind her, and cast herself on her knees at her feet. + +“My husband is here,” she gasped. “What shall I do? In heaven's name +help me!” + +“Is Van Loo still here?” said Mrs. Horncastle quickly. + +“No; gone. He went when I came.” + +Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked intently into her frightened +face. “Then what have you to fear from your husband?” she said abruptly. + +“You don't understand. He didn't know I was here. He thought me in San +Francisco.” + +“Does he know it now?” + +“Yes. I heard the stableman tell him. Couldn't you say I came here with +you; that we were here together; that it was just a little freak of +ours? Oh, do!” + +Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment. “Yes,” she said, “we'll see him here +together.” + +“Oh no! no!” said Mrs. Barker suddenly, clinging to her dress and +looking fearfully towards the door. “I couldn't, COULDN'T see him now. +Say I'm sick, tired out, gone to my room.” + +“But you'll have to see him later,” said Mrs. Horncastle wonderingly. + +“Yes, but he may go first. I heard him tell them not to put up his +horse.” + +“Good!” said Mrs. Horncastle suddenly. “Go to your room and lock the +door, and I'll come to you later. Stop! Would Mr. Barker be likely to +disturb you if I told him you would like to be alone?” + +“No, he never does. I often tell him that.” + +Mrs. Horncastle smiled faintly. “Come, quick, then,” she said, “for he +may come HERE first.” + +Opening the door she passed into the half-dark and empty hall. “Now +run!” She heard the quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt die away in the +distance, the opening and shutting of a door--silence--and then turned +back into her own room. + +She was none too soon. Presently she heard Barker's voice saying, “Thank +you, I can find the way,” his still buoyant step on the staircase, and +then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. The light streaming +through the open door of the sitting room into the half-lit hall had +partially dazzled him, and, already bewildered, he was still more +dazzled at the unexpected apparition of the smiling face and bright eyes +of Mrs. Horncastle standing in the doorway. + +“You have fairly caught us,” she said, with charming composure; “but I +had half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a little longer. Come +in.” Barker followed her in mechanically, and she closed the door. “Now, +sit down,” she said gayly, “and tell me how you knew we were here, and +what you mean by surprising us at this hour.” + +Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, for whom +he entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fear of her +worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhat blankly +around the room, at the familiar walls, at the chair from which Mrs. +Horncastle had just risen, and finally at his wife's glove, which Mrs. +Horncastle had a moment before ostentatiously thrown on the table. +Seeing which she pounced upon it with assumed archness, and pretended to +conceal it. + +“I had no idea my wife was here,” he said at last, “and I was quite +surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to me about it.” + As his face was brightening, she for the first time noticed that his +frank gray eyes had an abstracted look, and there was a faint line of +contraction on his youthful forehead. “Still less,” he added, “did I +look for the pleasure of meeting you. For I only came here to inquire +about my old partner, Demorest, who arrived from Europe a few days ago, +and who should have reached Hymettus early this afternoon. But now I +hear he came all the way by coach instead of by rail, and got off at the +cross-road, and we must have passed each other on the different trails. +So my journey would have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have +the pleasure of going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovely drive +by moonlight.” + +Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs. Horncastle to +launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty--but, I grieve to say, +entirely imaginative--account of her escapade with Mrs. Barker. How, +left alone at the San Francisco hotel while their gentlemen friends +were enjoying themselves at Hymettus, they resolved upon a little trip, +partly for the purpose of looking into some small investments of their +own, and partly for the fun of the thing. What funny experiences they +had! How, in particular, one horrid inquisitive, vulgar wretch had been +boring a European fellow passenger who was going to Hymettus, finally +asking him where he had come from last, and when he answered “Hymettus,” + thought the man was insulting him-- + +“But,” interrupted the laughing Barker, “that passenger may have been +Demorest, who has just come from Greece, and surely Kitty would have +recognized him.” + +Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, and not only retrieved it, +but turned it to account. Ah, yes! but by that time poor Kitty, unused +to long journeys and the heat, was utterly fagged out, was asleep, and +perfectly unrecognizable in veils and dusters on the back seat of the +coach. And this brought her to the point--which was, that she was sorry +to say, on arriving, the poor child was nearly wild with a headache from +fatigue and had gone to bed, and she had promised not to disturb her. + +The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that had overspread +Barker's face during this lively recital might have pricked the +conscience of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason I fear it did not. +But it emboldened her to go on. “I said I promised her that I would see +she wasn't disturbed; but, of course, now that YOU, her HUSBAND, have +come, if”-- + +“Not for worlds,” interrupted Barker earnestly. “I know poor Kitty's +headaches, and I never disturb her, poor child, except when I'm +thoughtless.” And here one of the most thoughtful men in the world in +his sensitive consideration of others beamed at her with such frank +and wonderful eyes that the arch hypocrite before him with difficulty +suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh, and felt the conscious blood +flush her to the root of her hair. “You know,” he went on, with a sigh, +half of relief and half of reminiscence, “that I often think I'm a great +bother to a clear-headed, sensible girl like Kitty. She knows people so +much better than I do. She's wonderfully equipped for the world, and, +you see, I'm only 'lucky,' as everybody says, and I dare say part of +my luck was to have got her. I'm very glad she's a friend of yours, you +know, for somehow I fancied always that you were not interested in her, +or that you didn't understand each other until now. It's odd that nice +women don't always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you; +I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it out. I +thought at first she might have got anxious about our little Sta, who +is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it was only a lark. I +shouldn't wonder,” he added, with a laugh, “although she always declares +she isn't one of those 'doting, idiotic mothers,' that she found it a +little dull without the boy, for all she thought it was better for ME to +take him somewhere for a change of air.” + +The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she +had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its first direct +appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish +desire to save the relations between husband and wife if she could. But +she had not calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their +effect upon herself. She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a +moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now +might be possible that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent +her husband and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole +truth? How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo +had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an +intrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe of this +woman as the husband before her? A new and double consciousness came +over her that for a moment prevented her from meeting his honest eyes. +She felt the shame of being an accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at +the idea of a climax that might separate him from his wife forever. + +Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief threw +himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls broke +into his youthful laugh. “Lord! how I remember this room in the old +days. It was Kitty's own private sitting-room, you know, and I used to +think it looked just as fresh and pretty as she. I used to think her +crayon drawing wonderful, and still more wonderful that she should have +that unnecessary talent when it was quite enough for her to be just +'Kitty.' You know, don't you, how you feel at those times when you're +quite happy in being inferior”--He stopped a moment with a sudden +recollection that Mrs. Horncastle's marriage had been notoriously +unhappy. “I mean,” he went on with a shy little laugh and an innocent +attempt at gallantry which the very directness of his simple nature made +atrociously obvious,--“I mean what you've made lots of young fellows +feel. There used to be a picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in +full uniform, and signed by himself 'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I +was of it, for Kitty never took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even +was allowed in here, though she helped her father all over the +hotel. She was awfully strict in those days,” he interpolated, with +a thoughtful look and a half-sigh; “but then she wasn't married. I +proposed to her in this very room! Lord! I remember how frightened I +was.” He stopped for an instant, and then said with a certain timidity, +“Do you mind my telling you something about it?” + +Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous domestic +details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not suppress a +somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barker noticed it, but +to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and in a half-entreating +way said, “I hope I don't bore you, but it's something confidential. Do +you know that she first REFUSED me?” + +Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss of her head. +“I believe they all do when they are sure of a man.” + +“No!” said Barker eagerly, “you don't understand. I proposed to her +because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I had +discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulous value. She +believed it, too, but because she thought I was now a rich man and she +only a poor girl--a mere servant to her father's guests--she refused me. +Refused me because she thought I might regret it in the future, because +she would not have it said that she had taken advantage of my proposal +only when I was rich enough to make it.” + +“Well?” said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straight before her; +“and then?” + +“In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks were worthless, +that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest to return to her +and tell her, even though I had no hope. And then she pitied me, and +cried, and accepted me. I tell it to you as her friend.” He drew a +little nearer and quite fraternally laid his hand upon her own. “I know +you won't betray me, though you may think it wrong for me to have told +it; but I wanted you to know how good she was and true.” + +For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited, although she +saw, with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency between +the Kitty of those days and the Kitty now shamefully hiding from her +husband in the same hotel. No doubt Kitty had some good reason for her +chivalrous act. But she could see the unmistakable effect of that act +upon the more logically reasoning husband, and that it might lead him to +be more merciful to the later wrong. And there was a keener irony that +his first movement of unconscious kindliness towards her was the outcome +of his affection for his undeserving wife. + +“You said just now she was more practical than you,” she said dryly. +“Apart from this evidence of it, what other reasons have you for +thinking so? Do you refer to her independence or her dealings in the +stock market?” she added, with a laugh. + +“No,” said Barker seriously, “for I do not think her quite practical +there; indeed, I'm afraid she is about as bad as I am. But I'm glad you +have spoken, for I can now talk confidentially with you, and as you +and she are both in the same ventures, perhaps she will feel less +compunction in hearing from you--as your own opinion--what I have +to tell you than if I spoke to her myself. I am afraid she trusts +implicitly to Van Loo's judgment as her broker. I believe he is strictly +honorable, but the general opinion of his business insight is not high. +They--perhaps I ought to say HE--have been at least so unlucky that +they might have learned prudence. The loss of twenty thousand dollars in +three months”-- + +“Twenty thousand!” echoed Mrs. Horncastle. + +“Yes. Why, you knew that; it was in the mine you and she visited; or, +perhaps,” he added hastily, as he flushed at his indiscretion, “she +didn't tell you that.” + +But Mrs. Horncastle as hastily said, “Yes--yes--of course, only I had +forgotten the amount;” and he continued:-- + +“That loss would have frightened any man; but you women are more daring. +Only Van Loo ought to have withdrawn. Don't you think so? Of course I +couldn't say anything to him without seeming to condemn my own wife; I +couldn't say anything to HER because it's her own money.” + +“I didn't know that Mrs. Barker had any money of her own,” said Mrs. +Horncastle. + +“Well, I gave it to her,” said Barker, with sublime simplicity, “and +that would make it all the worse for me to speak about it.” + +Mrs. Horncastle was silent. A new theory flashed upon her which seemed +to reconcile all the previous inconsistencies of the situation. Van +Loo, under the guise of a lover, was really possessing himself of Mrs. +Barker's money. This accounted for the risks he was running in this +escapade, which were so incongruous to the rascal's nature. He was +calculating that the scandal of an intrigue would relieve him of +the perils of criminal defalcation. It was compatible with Kitty's +innocence, though it did not relieve her vanity of the part it played in +this despicable comedy of passion. All that Mrs. Horncastle thought of +now was the effect of its eventful revelation upon the man before +her. Of course, he would overlook his wife's trustfulness and business +ignorance--it would seem so like his own unselfish faith! That was the +fault of all unselfish goodness; it even took the color of adjacent +evil, without altering the nature of either. Mrs. Horncastle set her +teeth tightly together, but her beautiful mouth smiled upon Barker, +though her eyes were bent upon the tablecloth before her. + +“I shall do all I can to impress your views upon her,” she said at last, +“though I fear they will have little weight if given as my own. And you +overrate my general influence with her.” + +Her handsome head drooped in such a thoughtful humility that Barker +instinctively drew nearer to her. Besides, she had not lifted her dark +lashes for some moments, and he had the still youthful habit of looking +frankly into the eyes of those he addressed. + +“No,” he said eagerly; “how could I? She could not help but love you +and do as you would wish. I can't tell you how glad and relieved I am +to find that you and she have become such friends. You know I always +thought you beautiful, I always thought you so clever--I was even a +little frightened of you; but I never until now knew you were so GOOD. +No, stop! Yes, I DID know it. Do you remember once in San Francisco, +when I found you with Sta in your lap in the drawing-room? I knew it +then. You tried to make me think it was a whim--the fancy of a bored +and worried woman. But I knew better. And I knew what you were thinking +then. Shall I tell you?” + +As her eyes were still cast down, although her mouth was still smiling, +in his endeavors to look into them his face was quite near hers. He +fancied that it bore the look she had worn once before. + +“You were thinking,” he said in a voice which had grown suddenly quite +hesitating and tremulous,--he did not know why,--“that the poor little +baby was quite friendless and alone. You were pitying it--you know you +were--because there was no one to give it the loving care that was its +due, and because it was intrusted to that hired nurse in that great +hotel. You were thinking how you would love it if it were yours, and how +cruel it was that Love was sent without an object to waste itself upon. +You were: I saw it in your face.” + +She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full into his with a look that +held and possessed him. For a moment his whole soul seemed to tremble +on the verge of their lustrous depths, and he drew back dizzy and +frightened. What he saw there he never clearly knew; but, whatever it +was, it seemed to suddenly change his relations to her, to the room, to +his wife, to the world without. It was a glimpse of a world of which +he knew nothing. He had looked frankly and admiringly into the eyes of +other pretty women; he had even gazed into her own before, but never +with this feeling. A sudden sense that what he had seen there he had +himself evoked, that it was an answer to some question he had scarcely +yet formulated, and that they were both now linked by an understanding +and consciousness that was irretrievable, came over him. He rose +awkwardly and went to the window. She rose also, but more leisurely and +easily, moved one of the books on the table, smoothed out her skirts, +and changed her seat to a little sofa. It is the woman who always comes +out of these crucial moments unruffled. + +“I suppose you will be glad to see your friend Mr. Demorest when you +go back,” she said pleasantly; “for of course he will be at Hymettus +awaiting you.” + +He turned eagerly, as he always did at the name. But even then he felt +that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He felt, too, +that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what to say. As he +hesitated she went on half playfully: “It seems hard that you had to +come all the way here on such a bootless errand. You haven't even seen +your wife yet.” + +The mention of his wife recalled him to himself, oddly enough, when +Demorest's name had failed. But very differently. Out of his whirling +consciousness came the instinctive feeling that he could not see her +now. He turned, crossed the room, sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. +Horncastle, and without, however, looking at her, said, with his eyes on +the floor, “No; and I've been thinking that it's hardly worth while to +disturb her so early to-morrow as I should have to go. So I think it's +a good deal better to let her have a good night's rest, remain here +quietly with you to-morrow until the stage leaves, and that both of you +come over together. My horse is still saddled, and I will be back at +Hymettus before Demorest has gone to bed.” + +He was obliged to look up at her as he rose. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting +erect, beautiful and dazzling as even he had never seen her before. +For his resolution had suddenly lifted a great weight from her +shoulders,--the dangerous meeting of husband and wife the next morning, +and its results, whatever they might be, had been quietly averted. She +felt, too, a half-frightened joy even in the constrained manner in which +he had imparted his determination. That frankness which even she had +sometimes found so crushing was gone. + +“I really think you are quite right,” she said, rising also, “and, +besides, you see, it will give me a chance to talk to her as you +wished.” + +“To talk to her as I wished?” echoed Barker abstractedly. + +“Yes, about Van Loo, you know,” said Mrs. Horncastle, smiling. + +“Oh, certainly--about Van Loo, of course,” he returned hurriedly. + +“And then,” said Mrs. Horncastle brightly, “I'll tell her. Stay!” she +interrupted herself hurriedly. “Why need I say anything about your +having been here AT ALL? It might only annoy her, as you yourself +suggest.” She stopped breathlessly with parted lips. + +“Why, indeed?” said Barker vaguely. Yet all this was so unlike his usual +truthfulness that he slightly hesitated. + +“Besides,” continued Mrs. Horncastle, noticing it, “you know you can +always tell her later, if necessary.” And she added with a charming +mischievousness, “As she didn't tell you she was coming, I really don't +see why you are bound to tell her that you were here.” + +The sophistry pleased Barker, even though it put him into a certain +retaliating attitude towards his wife which he was not aware of feeling. +But, as Mrs. Horncastle put it, it was only a playful attitude. + +“Certainly,” he said. “Don't say anything about it.” + +He moved to the door with his soft, broad-brimmed hat swinging between +his fingers. She noticed for the first time that he looked taller in his +long black serape and riding-boots, and, oddly enough, much more like +the hero of an amorous tryst than Van Loo. “I know,” she said brightly, +“you are eager to get back to your old friend, and it would be selfish +for me to try to keep you longer. You have had a stupid evening, but you +have made it pleasant to me by telling me what you thought of me. And +before you go I want you to believe that I shall try to keep that good +opinion.” She spoke frankly in contrast to the slight worldly constraint +of Barker's manner; it seemed as if they had changed characters. And +then she extended her hand. + +With a low bow, and without looking up, he took it. Again their +pulses seemed to leap together with one accord and the same mysterious +understanding. He could not tell if he had unconsciously pressed her +hand or if she had returned the pressure. But when their hands unclasped +it seemed as if it were the division of one flesh and spirit. + +She remained standing by the open door until his footsteps passed down +the staircase. Then she suddenly closed and locked the door with an +instinct that Mrs. Barker might at once return now that he was gone, and +she wished to be a moment alone to recover herself. But she presently +opened it again and listened. There was a noise in the courtyard, but it +sounded like the rattle of wheels more than the clatter of a horseman. +Then she was overcome--a sudden sense of pity for the unfortunate +woman still hiding from her husband--and felt a momentary chivalrous +exaltation of spirit. Certainly she had done “good” to that wretched +“Kitty;” perhaps she had earned the epithet that Barker had applied to +her. Perhaps that was the meaning of all this happiness to her, and the +result was to be only the happiness and reconciliation of the wife and +husband. This was to be her reward. I grieve to say that the tears had +come into her beautiful eyes at this satisfactory conclusion, but she +dashed them away and ran out into the hall. It was quite dark, but there +was a faint glimmer on the opposite wall as if the door of Mrs. Barker's +bedroom were ajar to an eager listener. She flew towards the glimmer, +and pushed the door open: the room was empty. Empty of Mrs. Barker, +empty of her dressing-box, her reticule and shawl. She was gone. + +Still, Mrs. Horncastle lingered; the woman might have got frightened and +retreated to some further room at the opening of the door and the coming +out of her husband. She walked along the passage, calling her name +softly. She even penetrated the dreary, half-lit public parlor, +expecting to find her crouching there. Then a sudden wild idea took +possession of her: the miserable wife had repented of her act and of +her concealment, and had crept downstairs to await her husband in the +office. She had told him some new lie, had begged him to take her with +him, and Barker, of course, had assented. Yes, she now knew why she +had heard the rattling wheels instead of the clattering hoofs she had +listened for. They had gone together, as he first proposed, in the +buggy. + +She ran swiftly down the stairs and entered the office. The overworked +clerk was busy and querulously curt. These women were always asking such +idiotic questions. Yes, Mr. Barker had just gone. + +“With Mrs. Barker in the buggy?” asked Mrs. Horncastle. + +“No, as he came--on horseback. Mrs. Barker left HALF AN HOUR AGO.” + +“Alone?” + +This was apparently too much for the long-suffering clerk. He lifted +his eyes to the ceiling, and then, with painful precision, and accenting +every word with his pencil on the desk before him, said deliberately, +“Mrs. George Barker--left--here--with her--escort--the--man +she--was--always--asking--for--in--the--buggy--at exactly--9.35.” And he +plunged into his work again. + +Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, re-entered the +sitting-room, and slamming the door behind her, halted in the centre of +the room, panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. And she was alone in +this empty room--this deserted hotel. From this very room her husband +had left her with a brutality on his lips. From this room the fool +and liar she had tried to warn had gone to her ruin with a swindling +hypocrite. And from this room the only man in the world she ever cared +for had gone forth bewildered, wronged, and abused, and she knew now she +could have kept and comforted him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +When Philip Demorest left the stagecoach at the cross-roads he turned +into the only wayside house, the blacksmith's shop, and, declaring his +intention of walking over to Hymettus, asked permission to leave his +hand-bag and wraps until they could be sent after him. The blacksmith +was surprised that this “likely mannered,” distinguished-looking “city +man” should WALK eight miles when he could ride, and tried to dissuade +him, offering his own buggy. But he was still more surprised when +Demorest, laying aside his duster, took off his coat, and, slinging it +on his arm, prepared to set forth with the good-humored assurance that +he would do the distance in a couple of hours and get in in time for +supper. “I wouldn't be too sure of that,” said the blacksmith grimly, +“or even of getting a room. They're a stuck-up lot over there, and they +ain't goin' to hump themselves over a chap who comes traipsin' along +the road like any tramp, with nary baggage.” But Demorest laughingly +accepted the risk, and taking his stout stick in one hand, pressed a +gold coin into the blacksmith's palm, which was, however, declined +with such reddening promptness that Demorest as promptly reddened and +apologized. The habits of European travel had been still strong on him, +and he felt a slight patriotic thrill as he said, with a grave smile, +“Thank you, then; and thank you still more for reminding me that I am +among my own 'people,'” and stepped lightly out into the road. + +The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer currents from the heated +pines began to alternate with the wind from the summit. He found himself +sometimes walking through a stratum of hot air which seemed to exhale +from the wood itself, while his head and breast were swept by the +mountain breeze. He felt the old intoxication of the balmy-scented +air again, and the five years of care and hopelessness laid upon his +shoulders since he had last breathed its fragrance slipped from them +like a burden. There had been but little change here; perhaps the road +was wider and the dust lay thicker, but the great pines still mounted +in serried ranks on the slopes as before, with no gaps in their unending +files. Here was the spot where the stagecoach had passed them that +eventful morning when they were coming out of their camp-life into the +world of civilization; a little further back, the spot where Jack Hamlin +had forced upon him that grim memento of the attempted robbery of +their cabin, which he had kept ever since. He half smiled again at the +superstitious interest that had made him keep it, with the intention of +some day returning to bury it, with all recollections of the deed, under +the site of the old cabin. As he went on in the vivifying influence of +the air and scene, new life seemed to course through his veins; his step +seemed to grow as elastic as in the old days of their bitter but hopeful +struggle for fortune, when he had gayly returned from his weekly tramp +to Boomville laden with the scant provision procured by their scant +earnings and dying credit. Those were the days when HER living image +still inspired his heart with faith and hope; when everything was yet +possible to youth and love, and before the irony of fate had given +him fortune with one hand only to withdraw HER with the other. It +was strange and cruel that coming back from his quest of rest and +forgetfulness he should find only these youthful and sanguine dreams +revive with his reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedly as if to +escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one or two carryalls and +char-a-bancs filled with gayly dressed pleasure parties--evidently +visitors to Hymettus--which passed him on the road. Here were the first +signs of change. He recalled the train of pack-mules of the old days, +the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the squaw with the papoose +strapped to her shoulder, or the wandering and foot-sore prospector, who +were the only wayfarers he used to meet. He contrasted their halts and +friendly greetings with the insolent curiosity or undisguised contempt +of the carriage folk, and smiled as he thought of the warning of the +blacksmith. But this did not long divert him; he found himself again +returning to his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a young girl in +one of the carriages had quite startled him with its resemblance to an +old memory of his lost love as he saw her,--her frail, pale elegance +encompassed in laces as she leaned back in her drive through Fifth +Avenue, with eyes that lit up and became transfigured only as he +passed. He tried to think of his useless quest in search of her last +resting-place abroad; how he had been baffled by the opposition of her +surviving relations, already incensed by the thought that her decline +had been the effect of her hopeless passion. He tried to recall the few +frigid lines that reconveyed to him the last letter he had sent her, +with the announcement of her death and the hope that “his persecutions” + would now cease. A wild idea had sometimes come to him out of the very +insufficiency of his knowledge of this climax, but he had always put +it aside as a precursor of that madness which might end his ceaseless +thought. And now it was returning to him, here, thousands of miles away +from where she was peacefully sleeping, and even filling him with the +vigor of youthful hope. + +The brief mountain twilight was giving way now to the radiance of the +rising moon. He endeavored to fix his thoughts upon his partners who +were to meet him at Hymettus after these long years of separation. + +Hymettus! He recalled now the odd coincidence that he had mischievously +used as a gag to his questioning fellow traveler; but now he had really +come from a villa near Athens to find his old house thus classically +rechristened after it, and thought of it with a gravity he had not felt +before. He wondered who had named it. There was no suggestion of the +soft, sensuous elegance of the land he had left in those great heroics +of nature before him. Those enormous trees were no woods for fauns or +dryads; they had their own godlike majesty of bulk and height, and as he +at last climbed the summit and saw the dark-helmeted head of Black Spur +before him, and beyond it the pallid, spiritual cloud of the Sierras, he +did not think of Olympus. Yet for a moment he was startled, as he turned +to the right, by the Doric-columned facade of a temple painted by the +moonbeams and framed in an opening of the dark woods before him. It +was not until he had reached it that he saw that it was the new wooden +post-office of Heavy Tree Hill. + +And now the buildings of the new settlement began to faintly appear. But +the obscurity of the shadow and the equally disturbing unreality of the +moonlight confused him in his attempts to recognize the old landmarks. +A broad and well-kept winding road had taken the place of the old +steep, but direct trail to his cabin. He had walked for some moments in +uncertainty, when a sudden sweep of the road brought the full crest +of the hill above and before him, crowned with a tiara of lights, +overtopping a long base of flashing windows. That was all that was left +of Heavy Tree Hill. The old foreground of buckeye and odorous ceanothus +was gone. Even the great grove of pines behind it had vanished. + +There was already a stir of life in the road, and he could see figures +moving slowly along a kind of sterile, formal terrace spread with a few +dreary marble vases and plaster statues which had replaced the natural +slope and the great quartz buttresses of outcrop that supported it. +Presently he entered a gate, and soon found himself in the carriage +drive leading to the hotel veranda. A number of fair promenaders were +facing the keen mountain night wind in wraps and furs. Demorest had +replaced his coat, but his boots were red with dust, and as he ascended +the steps he could see that he was eyed with some superciliousness by +the guests and with considerable suspicion by the servants. One of the +latter was approaching him with an insolent smile when a figure darted +from the vestibule, and, brushing the waiter aside, seized Demorest's +two hands in his and held him at arm's length. + +“Demorest, old man!” + +“Stacy, old chap!” + +“But where's your team? I've had all the spare hostlers and hall-boys +listening for you at the gate. And where's Barker? When he found you'd +given the dead-cut to the railroad--HIS railroad, you know--he loped +over to Boomville after you.” + +Demorest briefly explained that he had walked by the old road and +probably missed him. But by this time the waiters, crushed by the +spectacle of this travel-worn stranger's affectionate reception by +the great financial magnate, were wildly applying their brushes and +handkerchiefs to his trousers and boots until Stacy again swept them +away. + +“Get off, all of you! Now, Phil, you come with me. The house is full, +but I've made the manager give you a lady's drawing-room suite. When you +telegraphed you'd meet us HERE there was no chance to get anything else. +It's really Mrs. Van Loo's family suite; but they were sent for to go to +Marysville yesterday, and so we'll run you in for the night.” + +“But”--protested Demorest. + +“Nonsense!” said Stacy, dragging him away. “We'll pay for it; and I +reckon the old lady won't object to taking her share of the damage +either, or she isn't Van Loo's mother. Come.” + +Demorest felt himself hurried forward by the energetic Stacy, preceded +by the obsequious manager, through a corridor to a handsomely furnished +suite, into whose bathroom Stacy incontinently thrust him. + +“There! Wash up; and by the time you're ready Barker ought to be back, +and we'll have supper. It's waiting for us in the other room.” + +“But how about Barker, the dear boy?” persisted Demorest, holding open +the door. “Tell me, is he well and happy?” + +“About as well as we all are,” said Stacy quickly, yet with a certain +dry significance. “Never mind now; wait until you see him.” + +The door closed. When Demorest had finished washing, and wiped away the +last red stain of the mountain road, he found Stacy seated by the window +of the larger sitting-room. In the centre a table was spread for supper. +A bright fire of hickory logs burnt on a marble hearth between two +large windows that gave upon the distant outline of Black Spur. As Stacy +turned towards him, by the light of the shaded lamp and flickering fire, +Demorest had a good look at the face of his old friend and partner. It +was as keen and energetic as ever, with perhaps an even more hawk-like +activity visible in the eye and nostril; but it was more thoughtful and +reticent in the lines of the mouth under the closely clipped beard and +mustache, and when he looked up, at first there were two deep lines or +furrows across his low broad forehead. Demorest fancied, too, that +there was a little of the old fighting look in his eye, but it softened +quickly as his friend approached, and he burst out with his curt but +honest single-syllabled laugh. “Ha! You look a little less like a roving +Apache than you did when you came. I really thought the waiters were +going to chuck you. And you ARE tanned! Darned if you don't look like +the profile stamped on a Continental penny! But here's luck and a +welcome back, old man!” + +Demorest passed his arm around the neck of his seated partner, and +grasping his upraised hand said, looking down with a smile, “And now +about Barker.” + +“Oh, Parker, d--n him! He's the same unshakable, unchangeable, +ungrow-upable Barker! With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing into +risks and waltzing out of 'em. With fads enough to put him in the insane +asylum if people did not prefer to keep him out of it to help +'em. Always believing in everybody, until they actually believe in +themselves, and shake him! And he's got a wife that's making a fool of +herself, and I shouldn't wonder in time--of him!” + +Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's mouth. “Come, Jim! You know +you never really liked that marriage, simply because you thought that +old man Carter made a good thing of it. And you never seem to have taken +into consideration the happiness Barker got out of it, for he DID love +the girl. And he still is happy, is he not?” he added quickly, as Stacy +uttered a grunt. + +“As happy as a man can be who has his child here with a nurse while his +wife is gallivanting in San Francisco, and throwing her money--and +Lord knows what else--away at the bidding of a smooth-tongued, shady +operator.” + +“Does HE complain of it?” asked Demorest. + +“Not he; the fool trusts her!” said Stacy curtly. + +Demorest laughed. “That is happiness! Come, Jim! don't let us begrudge +him that. But I've heard that his affairs have again prospered.” + +“He built this railroad and this hotel. The bank owns both now. He +didn't care to keep money in them after they were a success; said he +wasn't an engineer nor a hotel-keeper, and drew it out to find something +new. But here he comes,” he added, as a horseman dashed into the drive +before the hotel. “Question him yourself. You know you and he always get +along best without me.” + +In another moment Barker had burst into the room, and in his first +tempestuous greeting of Demorest the latter saw little change in his +younger partner as he held him at arm's length to look at him. “Why, +Barker boy, you haven't got a bit older since the day when--you +remember--you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds, and then came +back and burst upon us like this to tell us you were a beggar.” + +“Yes,” laughed Barker, “and all the while you fellows were holding four +aces up your sleeve in the shape of the big strike.” + +“And you, Georgy, old boy,” returned Demorest, swinging Barker's two +hands backwards and forwards, “were holding a royal flush up yours in +the shape of your engagement to Kitty.” + +The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the frank laugh +was still on his mouth. He turned his face for a moment towards the +window, and a swift and almost involuntary glance passed between the +others. But he almost as quickly turned his glistening eyes back to +Demorest again, and said eagerly, “Yes, dear Kitty! You shall see her +and the baby to-morrow.” + +Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past, and for +some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisily together, all at +the same time, with even the spirits of the Past. They recalled every +detail of their old life; eagerly and impetuously recounted the old +struggles, hopes, and disappointments, gave the strange importance of +schoolboys to unimportant events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth +of their own; roared over old jokes with a delight they had never since +given to new; reawakened idiotic nicknames and bywords with intense +enjoyment; grew grave, anxious, and agonized over forgotten names, +trifling dates, useless distances, ineffective records, and feeble +chronicles of their domestic economy. It was the thoughtful and +melancholy Demorest who remembered the exact color and price paid for +a certain shirt bought from a Greaser peddler amidst the envy of his +companions; it was the financial magnate, Stacy, who could inform them +what were the exact days they had saleratus bread and when flapjacks; +it was the thoughtless and mercurial Barker who recalled with unheard-of +accuracy, amidst the applause of the others, the full name of the +Indian squaw who assisted at their washing. Even then they were almost +feverishly loath to leave the subject, as if the Past, at least, was +secure to them still, and they were even doubtful of their own free and +full accord in the Present. Then they slipped rather reluctantly +into their later experiences, but with scarcely the same freedom or +spontaneity; and it was noticeable that these records were elicited from +Barker by Stacy or from Stacy by Barker for the information of Demorest, +often with chaffing and only under good-humored protest. “Tell Demorest +how you broke the 'Copper Ring,'” from the admiring Barker, or, “Tell +Demorest how your d----d foolishness in buying up the right and plant of +the Ditch Company got you control of the railroad,” from the mischievous +Stacy, were challenges in point. Presently they left the table, and, to +the astonishment of the waiters who removed the cloth, common brier-wood +pipes, thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemoration of the Past, +were lit, and they ranged themselves in armchairs before the fire quite +unconsciously in their old attitudes. The two windows on either side of +the hearth gave them the same view that the open door of the old cabin +had made familiar to them, the league-long valley below the shadowy bulk +of the Black Spur rising in the distance, and, still more remote, the +pallid snow-line that soared even beyond its crest. + +As in the old time, they were for many moments silent; and then, as in +the old time, it was the irrepressible Barker who broke the silence. +“But Stacy does not tell you anything about his friend, the beautiful +Mrs. Horncastle. You know he's the guardian of one of the finest women +in California--a woman as noble and generous as she is handsome. And +think of it! He's protecting her from her brute of a husband, and +looking after her property. Isn't it good and chivalrous of him?” + +The irrepressible laughter of the two men brought only wonder and +reproachful indignation into the widely opened eyes of Barker. HE was +perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of Stacy's admiration for +Mrs. Horncastle in his ride from Boomville, and, strange to say, yet +characteristic of his nature, it was equally the natural outcome of his +interview with her and the singular effect she had upon him. That he +(Barker) thoroughly sympathized with her only convinced him that Stacy +must feel the same for her, and that, no doubt, she must respond to him +equally. And how noble it was in his old partner, with his advantages of +position in the world and his protecting relations to her, not to avail +himself of this influence upon her generous nature. If he himself--a +married man and the husband of Kitty--was so conscious of her charm, how +much greater it must be to the free and INEXPERIENCED Stacy. + +The italics were in Barker's thought; for in those matters he felt +that Stacy and even Demorest, occupied in other things, had not his +knowledge. There was no idea or consciousness of heroically sacrificing +himself or Mrs. Horncastle in this. I am afraid there was not even an +idea of a superior morality in himself in giving up the possibility +of loving her. Ever since Stacy had first seen her he had fancied that +Stacy liked her,--indeed, Kitty fancied it, too,--and it seemed almost +providential now that he should know how to assist his old partner to +happiness. For it was inconceivable that Stacy should not be able +to rescue this woman from her shameful bonds, or that she should not +consent to it through his (Barker's) arguments and entreaties. To a +“champion of dames” this seemed only right and proper. In his unfailing +optimism he translated Stacy's laugh as embarrassment and Demorest's as +only ignorance of the real question. But Demorest had noticed, if he had +not, that Stacy's laugh was a little nervously prolonged for a man of +his temperament, and that he had cast a very keen glance at Barker. A +messenger arriving with a telegram brought from Boomville called Stacy +momentarily away, and Barker was not slow to take advantage of his +absence. + +“I wish, Phil,” he said, hitching his chair closer to Demorest, +“that you would think seriously of this matter, and try to persuade +Stacy--who, I believe, is more interested in Mrs. Horncastle than he +cares to show--to put a little of that determination in love that he has +shown in business. She's an awfully fine woman, and in every way suited +to him, and he is letting an absurd sense of pride and honor keep him +from influencing her to get rid of her impossible husband. There's no +reason,” continued Barker in a burst of enthusiastic simplicity, “that +BECAUSE she has found some one she likes better, and who would treat +her better, that she should continue to stick to that beast whom all +California would gladly see her divorced from. I never could understand +that kind of argument, could you?” + +Demorest looked at his companion's glowing cheek and kindling eye with +a smile. “A good deal depends upon the side from which you argue. But, +frankly, Barker boy, though I think I know you in all your phases, I am +not prepared yet to accept you as a match-maker! However, I'll think it +over, and find out something more of this from your goddess, who seems +to have bewitched you both. But what does Mistress Kitty say to your +admiration?” + +Barker's face clouded, but instantly brightened. “Oh, they're the best +of friends; they're quite like us, you know, even to larks they have +together.” He stopped and colored at his slip. But Demorest, who had +noticed his change of expression, was more concerned at the look of half +incredulity and half suspicion with which Stacy, who had re-entered +the room in time to hear Barker's speech, was regarding his unconscious +younger partner. + +“I didn't know that Mrs. Horncastle and Mrs. Barker were such friends,” + he said dryly as he sat down again. But his face presently became so +abstracted that Demorest said gayly:-- + +“Well, Jim, I'm glad I'm not a Napoleon of Finance! I couldn't stand +it to have my privacy or my relaxation broken in upon at any moment, as +yours was just now. What confounded somersault in stocks has put that +face on you?” + +Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh. “I'm afraid you'd be none +the wiser if I told you. That was a pony express messenger from New +York. You remember how Barker, that night of the strike, when we were +sitting together here, or very near here, proposed that we ought to have +a password or a symbol to call us together in case of emergency, for +each other's help? Well, let us say I have two partners, one in Europe +and one in New York. That was my password.” + +“And, I hope, no more serious than ours,” added Demorest. + +Stacy laughed his short laugh. Nevertheless, the conversation dragged +again. The feverish gayety of the early part of the evening was gone, +and they seemed to be suffering from the reaction. They fell into their +old attitudes, looking from the firelight to the distant bulk of Black +Spur without a word. The occasional sound of the voices of promenaders +on the veranda at last ceased; there was the noise of the shutting of +heavy doors below, and Barker rose. + +“You'll excuse me, boys; but I must go and say good-night to little +Sta, and see that he's all right. I haven't seen him since I got back. +But”--to Demorest--“you'll see him to-morrow, when Kitty comes. It is as +much as my life is worth to show him before she certifies him as being +presentable.” He paused, and then added: “Don't wait up, you fellows, +for me; sometimes the little chap won't let me go. It's as if he +thought, now Kitty's away, I was all he had. But I'll be up early in the +morning and see you. I dare say you and Stacy have a heap to say to each +other on business, and you won't miss me. So I'll say good-night.” He +laughed lightly, pressed the hands of his partners in his usual hearty +fashion, and went out of the room, leaving the gloom a little deeper +than before. It was so unusual for Barker to be the first to leave +anybody or anything in trouble that they both noticed it. “But for +that,” said Demorest, turning to Stacy as the door closed, “I should say +the dear fellow was absolutely unchanged. But he seemed a little anxious +to-night.” + +“I shouldn't wonder. He's got two women on his mind,--as if one was not +enough.” + +“I don't understand. You say his wife is foolish, and this other”-- + +“Never mind that now,” interrupted Stacy, getting up and putting down +his pipe. “Let's talk a little business. That other stuff will keep.” + +“By all means,” said Demorest, with a smile, settling down into his +chair a little wearily, however. “I forgot business. And I forgot, my +dear Jim, to congratulate you. I've heard all about you, even in New +York. You're the man who, according to everybody, now holds the +finances of the Pacific Slope in his hands. And,” he added, leaning +affectionately towards his old partner, “I don't know any one better +equipped in honesty, straightforwardness, and courage for such a +responsibility than you.” + +“I only wish,” said Stacy, looking thoughtfully at Demorest, “that I +didn't hold nearly a million of your money included in the finances of +the Pacific Slope.” + +“Why,” said the smiling Demorest, “as long as I am satisfied?” + +“Because I am not. If you're satisfied, I'm a wretched idiot and not +fit for my position. Now, look here, Phil. When you wrote me to sell +out your shares in the Wheat Trust I was a little staggered. I knew your +gait, my boy, and I knew, too, that, while you didn't know enough to +trust your own opinions or feeling, you knew too much to trust any one's +opinion that wasn't first-class. So I reckoned you had the straight tip; +but I didn't see it. Now, I ought not to have been staggered if I was +fit for your confidence, or, if I was staggered, I ought to have had +enough confidence in myself not to mind you. See?” + +“I admit your logic, old man,” said Demorest, with an amused face, “but +I don't see your premises. WHEN did I tell you to sell out?” + +“Two days ago. You wrote just after you arrived.” + +“I have never written to you since I arrived. I only telegraphed to you +to know where we should meet, and received your message to come here.” + +“You never wrote me from San Francisco?” + +“Never.” + +Stacy looked concernedly at his friend. Was he in his right mind? He had +heard of cases where melancholy brooding on a fixed idea had affected +the memory. He took from his pocket a letter-case, and selecting a +letter handed it to Demorest without speaking. + +Demorest glanced at it, turned it over, read its contents, and in +a grave voice said, “There is something wrong here. It is like my +handwriting, but I never wrote the letter, nor has it been in my hand +before.” + +Stacy sprang to his side. “Then it's a forgery!” + +“Wait a moment.” Demorest, who, although very grave, was the more +collected of the two, went to a writing-desk, selected a sheet of paper, +and took up a pen. “Now,” he said, “dictate that letter to me.” + +Stacy began, Demorest's pen rapidly following him:-- + +“DEAR JIM,--On receipt of this get rid of my Wheat Trust shares at +whatever figure you can. From the way things pointed in New York”-- + +“Stop!” interrupted Demorest. + +“Well?” said Stacy impatiently. + +“Now, my dear Jim,” said Demorest plaintively, “when did you ever know +me to write such a sentence as 'the way things pointed'?” + +“Let me finish reading,” said Stacy. This literary sensitiveness at such +a moment seemed little short of puerility to the man of business. + +“From the way things pointed in New York,” continued Stacy, “and from +private advices received, this seems to be the only prudent course +before the feathers begin to fly. Longing to see you again and the dear +old stamping-ground at Heavy Tree. Love to Barker. Has the dear old boy +been at any fresh crank lately? + +“Yours, PHIL DEMOREST.” + +The dictation and copy finished together. Demorest laid the freshly +written sheet beside the letter Stacy had produced. They were very much +alike and yet quite distinct from each other. Only the signature seemed +identical. + +“That's the invariable mistake with the forger,” said Demorest; “he +always forgets that signatures ought to be identical with the text +rather than with each other.” + +But Stacy did not seem to hear this or require further proof. His face +was quite gray and his lips compressed until lost in his closely set +beard as he gazed fixedly out of the window. For the first time, really +concerned and touched, Demorest laid his hand gently on his shoulder. + +“Tell me, Jim, how much does this mean to you apart from me? Don't think +of me.” + +“I don't know yet,” said Stacy slowly. “That's the trouble. And I won't +know until I know who's at the bottom of it. Does anybody know of your +affairs with me?” + +“No one.” + +“No confidential friend, eh?” + +“None.” + +“No one who has access to your secrets? No--no--woman? Excuse me, Phil,” + he said, as a peculiar look passed over Demorest's face, “but this is +business.” + +“No,” he returned, with that gentleness that used to frighten them +in the old days, “it's ignorance. You fellows always say 'Cherchez la +femme' when you can't say anything else. Come now,” he went on more +brightly, “look at the letter. Here's a man, commercially educated, +for he has used the usual business formulas, 'on receipt of this,' and +'advices received,' which I won't merely say I don't use, but which +few but commercial men use. Next, here's a man who uses slang, not only +ineptly, but artificially, to give the letter the easy, familiar turn +it hasn't from beginning to end. I need only say, my dear Stacy, that +I don't write slang to you, but that nobody who understands slang ever +writes it in that way. And then the knowledge of my opinion of Barker is +such as might be gained from the reading of my letters by a person who +couldn't comprehend my feelings. Now, let me play inquisitor for a few +moments. Has anybody access to my letters to YOU?” + +“No one. I keep them locked up in a cabinet. I only make memorandums of +your instructions, which I give to my clerks, but never your letters.” + +“But your clerks sometimes see you make memorandums from them?” + +“Yes, but none of them have the ability to do this sort of thing, nor +the opportunity of profiting by it.” + +“Has any woman--now this is not retaliation, my dear Jim, for I fancy I +detect a woman's cleverness and a woman's stupidity in this forgery--any +access to your secrets or my letters? A woman's villainy is always +effective for the moment, but always defective when probed.” + +The look of scorn which passed over Stacy's face was quite as distinct +as Demorest's previous protest, as he said contemptuously, “I'm not such +a fool as to mix up petticoats with my business, whatever I do.” + +“Well, one thing more. I have told you that in my opinion the forger has +a commercial education or style, that he doesn't know me nor Barker, and +don't understand slang. Now, I have to add what must have occurred +to you, Jim, that the forger is either a coward, or his object is not +altogether mercenary: for the same ability displayed in this letter +would on the signature alone--had it been on a check or draft--have +drawn from your bank twenty times the amount concerned. Now, what is the +actual loss by this forgery?” + +“Very little; for you've got a good price for your stocks, considering +the depreciation in realizing suddenly on so large an amount. I told my +broker to sell slowly and in small quantities to avoid a panic. But the +real loss is the control of the stock.” + +“But the amount I had was not enough to affect that,” said Demorest. + +“No, but I was carrying a large amount myself, and together we +controlled the market, and now I have unloaded, too.” + +“You sold out! and with your doubts?” said Demorest. + +“That's just it,” said Stacy, looking steadily at his companion's face, +“because I HAD doubts, and it won't do for me to have them. I ought +either to have disobeyed your letter and kept your stock and my own, or +have done just what I did. I might have hedged on my own stock, but +I don't believe in hedging. There is no middle course to a man in my +business if he wants to keep at the top. No great success, no great +power, was ever created by it.” + +Demorest smiled. “Yet you accept the alternative also, which is ruin?” + +“Precisely,” said Stacy. “When you returned the other day you were bound +to find me what I was or a beggar. But nothing between. However,” he +added, “this has nothing to do with the forgery, or,” he smiled grimly, +“everything to do with it. Hush! Barker is coming.” + +There was a quick step along the corridor approaching the room. The +next moment the door flew open to the bounding step and laughing face +of Barker. Whatever of thoughtfulness or despondency he had carried from +the room with him was completely gone. With his amazing buoyancy and +power of reaction he was there again in his usual frank, cheerful +simplicity. + +“I thought I'd come in and say goodnight,” he began, with a laugh. +“I got Sta asleep after some high jinks we had together, and then I +reckoned it wasn't the square thing to leave just you two together, the +first night you came. And I remembered I had some business to talk over, +too, so I thought I'd chip in again and take a hand. It's only the shank +of the evening yet,” he continued gayly, “and we ought to sit up at +least long enough to see the old snow-line vanish, as we did in old +times. But I say,” he added suddenly, as he glanced from the one to the +other, “you've been having it pretty strong already. Why, you both look +as you did that night the backwater of the South Fork came into our +cabin. What's up?” + +“Nothing,” said Demorest hastily, as he caught a glance of Stacy's +impatient face. “Only all business is serious, Barker boy, though you +don't seem to feel it so.” + +“I reckon you're right there,” said Barker, with a chuckle. “People +always laugh, of course, when I talk business, so it might make it a +little livelier for you and more of a change if I chipped in now. Only I +don't know which you'll do. Hand me a pipe. Well,” he continued, filling +the pipe Demorest shoved towards him, “you see, I was in Sacramento +yesterday, and I went into Van Loo's branch office, as I heard he was +there, and I wanted to find out something about Kitty's investments, +which I don't think he's managing exactly right. He wasn't there, +however, but as I was waiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in +the Wheat Trust, and that there was a lot of it put upon the market. +They seemed to think that something had happened, and it was going down +still further. Now I knew it was your pet scheme, and that Phil had a +lot of shares in it, too, so I just slipped out and went to a broker's +and told him to buy all he could of it. And, by Jove! I was a little +taken aback when I found what I was in for, for everybody seemed to have +unloaded, and I found I hadn't money enough to pay margins, but I knew +that Demorest was here, and I reckoned on his seeing me through.” He +stopped and colored, but added hopefully, “I reckon I'm safe, anyway, +for just as the thing was over those same clerks of Van Loo's came +bounding into the office to buy up everything. And offered to take it +off my hands and pay the margins.” + +“And you?” said both men eagerly, and in a breath. + +Barker stared at them, and reddened and paled by turns. “I held on,” he +stammered. “You see, boys”-- + +Both men had caught him by the arms. “How much have you got?” they said, +shaking him as if to precipitate the answer. + +“It's a heap!” said Barker. “It's a ghastly lot now I think of it. I'm +afraid I'm in for fifty thousand, if a cent.” + +To his infinite astonishment and delight he was alternately hugged and +tossed backwards and forwards between the two men quite in the fashion +of the old days. Breathless but laughing, he at length gasped out, “What +does it all mean?” + +“Tell him everything, Jim,--EVERYTHING,” said Demorest quickly. + +Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, and then laid the letter +and its copy before him. But Barker only read the forgery. + +“How could YOU, Stacy--one of the three partners of Heavy Tree--be +deceived! Don't you see it's Phil's handwriting--but it isn't PHIL!” + +“But have you any idea WHO it is?” said Stacy. + +“Not me,” said Barker, with widely opened eyes. “You see it must be +somebody whom we are familiar with. I can't imagine such a scoundrel.” + +“How did YOU know that Demorest had stock?” asked Stacy. + +“He told me in one of his letters and advised me to go into it. But just +then Kitty wanted money, I think, and I didn't go in.” + +“I remember it,” struck in Demorest. “But surely it was no secret. My +name would be on the transfer books for any one to see.” + +“Not so,” said Stacy quickly. “You were one of the original +shareholders; there was no transfer, and the books as well as the shares +of the company were in my hands.” + +“And your clerks?” added Demorest. + +Stacy was silent. After a pause he asked, “Did anybody ever see that +letter, Barker?” + +“No one but myself and Kitty.” + +“And would she be likely to talk of it?” continued Stacy. + +“Of course not. Why should she? Whom could she talk to?” Yet he stopped +suddenly, and then with his characteristic reaction added, with a laugh, +“Why no, certainly not.” + +“Of course, everybody knew that you had bought the shares at +Sacramento?” + +“Yes. Why, you know I told you the Van Loo clerks came to me and wanted +to take it off my hands.” + +“Yes, I remember; the Van Loo clerks; they knew it, of course,” said +Stacy with a grim smile. “Well, boys,” he said, with sudden alacrity, +“I'm going to turn in, for by sun-up to-morrow I must be on my way to +catch the first train at the Divide for 'Frisco. We'll hunt this thing +down together, for I reckon we're all concerned in it,” he added, +looking at the others, “and once more we're partners as in the old +times. Let us even say that I've given Barker's signal or password,” he +added, with a laugh, “and we'll stick together. Barker boy,” he went on, +grasping his younger partner's hand, “your instinct has saved us this +time; d----d if I don't sometimes think it better than any other man's +sabe; only,” he dropped his voice slightly, “I wish you had it in other +things than FINANCE. Phil, I've a word to say to you alone before I go. +I may want you to follow me.” + +“But what can I do?” said Barker eagerly. “You're not going to leave me +out.” + +“You've done quite enough for us, old man,” said Stacy, laying his hand +on Barker's shoulder. “And it may be for US to do something for YOU. +Trot off to bed now, like a good boy. I'll keep you posted when the time +comes.” + +Shoving the protesting and leave-taking Barker with paternal familiarity +from the room, he closed the door and faced Demorest. + +“He's the best fellow in the world,” said Stacy quietly, “and has saved +the situation; but we mustn't trust too much to him for the present--not +even seem to.” + +“Nonsense, man!” said Demorest impatiently. “You're letting your +prejudices go too far. Do you mean to say that you suspect his wife.” + +“D--n his wife!” said Stacy almost savagely. “Leave her out of this. +It's Van Loo that I suspect. It was Van Loo who I knew was behind it, +who expected to profit by it, and now we have lost him.” + +“But how?” said Demorest, astonished. + +“How?” repeated Stacy impatiently. “You know what Barker said? Van Loo, +either through stupidity, fright, or the wish to get the lowest prices, +was too late to buy up the market. If he had, we might have openly +declared the forgery, and if it was known that he or his friends had +profited by it, even if we could not have proven his actual complicity, +we could at least have made it too hot for him in California. But,” said +Stacy, looking intently at his friend, “do you know how the case stands +now?” + +“Well,” said Demorest, a little uneasily under his friend's keen eyes, +“we've lost that chance, but we've kept control of the stock.” + +“You think so? Well, let me tell you how the case stands and the price +we pay for it,” said Stacy deliberately, as he folded his arms and gazed +at Demorest. “You and I, well known as old friends and former partners, +for no apparent reason--for we cannot prove the forgery now--have thrown +upon the market all our stock, with the usual effect of depreciating it. +Another old friend and former partner has bought it in and sent up the +price. A common trick, a vulgar trick, but not a trick worthy of James +Stacy or Stacy's Bank!” + +“But why not simply declare the forgery without making any specific +charge against Van Loo?” + +“Do you imagine, Phil, that any man would believe it, and the story of a +providentially appointed friend like Barker who saved us from loss? +Why, all California, from Cape Mendocino to Los Angeles, would roar +with laughter over it! No! We must swallow it and the reputation of +'jockeying' with the Wheat Trust, too. That Trust's as good as done for, +for the present! Now you know why I didn't want poor Barker to know it, +nor have much to do with our search for the forger.” + +“It would break the dear fellow's heart if he knew it,” said Demorest. + +“Well, it's to save him from having his heart broken further that I +intend to find out this forger,” said Stacy grimly. “Good-night, Phil! +I'll telegraph to you when I want you, and then COME!” + +With another grip of the hand he left Demorest to his thoughts. In the +first excitement of meeting his old partners, and in the later discovery +of the forgery, Demorest had been diverted from his old sorrow, and for +the time had forgotten it in sympathetic interest with the present. +But, to his horror, when alone again, he found that interest growing as +remote and vapid as the stories they had laughed over at the table, and +even the excitement of the forged letter and its consequences began to +be as unreal, as impotent, as shadowy, as the memory of the attempted +robbery in the old cabin on that very spot. He was ashamed of that +selfishness which still made him cling to this past, so much his own, +that he knew it debarred him from the human sympathy of his comrades. +And even Barker, in whose courtship and marriage he had tried to +resuscitate his youthful emotions and condone his selfish errors--even +the suggestion of his unhappiness only touched him vaguely. He would no +longer be a slave to the Past, or the memory that had deluded him a few +hours ago. He walked to the window; alas, there was the same prospect +that had looked upon his dreams, had lent itself to his old visions. +There was the eternal outline of the hills; there rose the steadfast +pines; there was no change in THEM. It was this surrounding constancy +of nature that had affected him. He turned away and entered the bedroom. +Here he suddenly remembered that the mother of this vague enemy, Van +Loo,--for his feeling towards him was still vague, as few men really +hate the personality they don't know,--had only momentarily vacated +it, and to his distaste of his own intrusion was now added the profound +irony of his sleeping in the same bed lately occupied by the mother of +the man who was suspected of having forged his name. He smiled faintly +and looked around the apartment. It was handsomely furnished, and +although it still had much of the characterlessness of the hotel room, +it was distinctly flavored by its last occupant, and still brightened +by that mysterious instinct of the sex which is inevitable. Where a man +would have simply left his forgotten slippers or collars there was +a glass of still unfaded flowers; the cold marble top of the +dressing-table was littered with a few linen and silk toilet covers; and +on the mantel-shelf was a sheaf of photographs. He walked towards them +mechanically, glanced at them abstractedly, and then stopped suddenly +with a beating heart. Before him was the picture of his past, the +photograph of the one woman who had filled his life! + +He cast a hurried glance around the room as if he half expected to see +the original start up before him, and then eagerly seized it and hurried +with it to the light. Yes! yes! It was SHE,--she as she had lived in his +actual memory; she as she had lived in his dream. He saw her sweet eyes, +but the frightened, innocent trouble had passed from them; there was +the sensitive elegance of her graceful figure in evening dress; but the +figure was fuller and maturer. Could he be mistaken by some wonderful +resemblance acting upon his too willing brain? He turned the photograph +over. No; there on the other side, written in her own childlike hand, +endeared and familiar to his recollection, was her own name, and the +date! It was surely she! + +How did it come there? Did the Van Loos know her? It was taken in +Venice; there was the address of the photographers. The Van Loos were +foreigners, he remembered; they had traveled; perhaps had met her there +in 1858: that was the date in her handwriting; that was the date on the +photographer's address--1858. Suddenly he laid the photograph down, took +with trembling fingers a letter-case from his pocket, opened it, and +laid his last letter to her, indorsed with the cruel announcement of her +death, before him on the table. He passed his hand across his forehead +and opened the letter. It was dated 1856! The photograph must have been +taken two years AFTER her alleged death! + +He examined it again eagerly, fixedly, tremblingly. A wild impulse to +summon Barker or Stacy on the spot was restrained with difficulty and +only when he remembered that they could not help him. Then he began to +oscillate between a joy and a new fear, which now, for the first time, +began to dawn upon him. If the news of her death had been a fiendish +trick of her relations, why had SHE never sought him? It was not ill +health, restraint, nor fear; there was nothing but happiness and +the strength of youth and beauty in that face and figure. HE had not +disappeared from the world; he was known of men; more, his memorable +good fortune must have reached her ears. Had he wasted all these +miserable years to find himself abandoned, forgotten, perhaps even +a dupe? For the first time the sting of jealousy entered his soul. +Perhaps, unconsciously to himself, his strange and varying feelings that +afternoon had been the gathering climax of his mental condition; at all +events, in the sudden revulsion there was a shaking off of his apathetic +thought; there was activity, even if it was the activity of pain. Here +was a mystery to be solved, a secret to be discovered, a past wrong to +be exposed, an enemy or, perhaps, even a faithless love to be punished. +Perhaps he had even saved his reason at the expense of his love. He +quickly replaced the photograph on the mantel-shelf, returned the letter +carefully to his pocket-book,--no longer a souvenir of the past, but a +proof of treachery,--and began to mechanically undress himself. He was +quite calm now, and went to bed with a strange sense of relief, and +slept as he had not slept since he was a boy. + +The whole hotel had sunk to rest by this time, and then began the usual +slow, nightly invasion and investment of it by nature. For all its broad +verandas and glaring terraces, its long ranges of windows and glittering +crest of cupola and tower, it gradually succumbed to the more potent +influences around it, and became their sport and playground. The +mountain breezes from the distant summit swept down upon its flimsy +structure, shook the great glass windows as with a strong hand, and sent +the balm of bay and spruce through every chink and cranny. In the great +hall and corridors the carpets billowed with the intruding blast along +the floors; there was the murmur of the pines in the passages, and the +damp odor of leaves in the dining-room. There was the cry of night birds +in the creaking cupola, and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom +windows. Lissome shapes crept along the terraces between the stolid +wooden statues, or, bolder, scampered the whole length of the great +veranda. In the lulling of the wind the breath of the woods was +everywhere; even the aroma of swelling sap--as if the ghastly stumps +on the deforested slope behind the hotel were bleeding afresh in the +dewless night--stung the eyes and nostrils of the sleepers. + +It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that Barker was awakened +suddenly by the voice of the boy from the crib beside him, crying, +“Mamma! mamma!” Taking the child in his arms, he comforted him, saying +she would come that morning, and showed him the faint dawn already +veiling with color the ghostly pallor of the Sierras. As they looked at +it a great star shot forth from its brethren and fell. It did not fall +perpendicularly, but seemed for some seconds to slip along the slopes +of Black Spur, gleaming through the trees like a chariot of fire. It +pleased the child to say that it was the light of mamma's buggy that +was fetching her home, and it pleased the father to encourage the boy's +fancy. And talking thus in confidential whispers they fell asleep once +more, the father--himself a child in so many things--holding the smaller +and frailer hand in his. + +They did not know that on the other side of the Divide the wife and +mother, scared, doubting, and desperate, by the side of her scared, +doubting, and desperate accomplice, was flying down the slope on her +night-long road to ruin. Still less did they know that, with the early +singing birds, a careless horseman, emerging from the trail as the +dust-stained buggy dashed past him, glanced at it with a puzzled air, +uttered a quiet whistle of surprise, and then, wheeling his horse, gayly +cantered after it. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack Hamlin had sat up all +night in the magnolia saloon of the Divide, and as it was rather early +to go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, shaken off the sedentary +attitude and prepared himself for sleep by a fierce preliminary +gallop in the woods. Besides, he had been a large winner, and on those +occasions he generally isolated himself from his companions to avoid +foolish altercations with inexperienced players. Even in fighting +Jack was fastidious, and did not like to have his stomach for a real +difficulty distended and vitiated by small preliminary indulgences. + +He was just emerging from the wood into the highroad when a buggy dashed +past him, containing a man and a woman. The woman wore a thick veil; the +man was almost undistinguishable from dust. The glimpse was momentary, +but dislike has a keen eye, and in that glimpse Mr. Hamlin recognized +Van Loo. The situation was equally clear. The bent heads and averted +faces, the dust collected in the heedlessness of haste, the early +hour,--indicating a night-long flight,--all made it plain to him that +Van Loo was running away with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral +scruples, but he had the ethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van +Loo was not. Whether the woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress, +he was satisfied that Van Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin +also had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman was or was not +fair game, he knew that for HIS purposes Van Loo was. With the greatest +cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse and cantered after them. + +They were evidently making for the Divide and a fresh horse, or to +take the coach due an hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's present object +to circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in his way to return. +Incidentally, however, the superior speed of his horse gave him the +opportunity of frequently lunging towards them at a furious pace, which +had the effect of frantically increasing their own speed, when he would +pull up with a silent laugh before he was fairly discovered, and allow +the sound of his rapid horse's hoofs to die out. In this way he amused +himself until the straggling town of the Divide came in sight, when, +putting his spurs to his horse again, he managed, under pretense of +the animal becoming ungovernable, to twice “cross the bows” of the +fugitives, compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these +passages Van Loo apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his +whip, the lash caught slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr. +Hamlin instantly acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and speeded +on to the hotel, arriving at the steps and throwing himself from the +saddle exactly as the buggy drove up. With characteristic audacity, he +actually assisted the frightened and eager woman to alight and run into +the hotel. But in this action her veil was accidentally lifted. Mr. +Hamlin instantly recognized the pretty woman who had been pointed out +to him in San Francisco as Mrs. Barker, the wife of one of the partners +whose fortunes had interested him five years ago. It struck him that +this was an additional reason for his interference on Barker's account, +although personally he could not conceive why a man should ever try +to prevent a woman from running away from him. But then Mr. Hamlin's +personal experiences had been quite the other way. + +It was enough, however, to cause him to lay his hand lightly on Van +Loo's arm as the latter, leaping down, was about to follow Mrs. Barker +into the hotel. “You'll have time enough now,” said Hamlin. + +“Time for what?” said Van Loo savagely. + +“Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip,” said Jack +sweetly. “We don't want to quarrel before a woman.” + +“I've no time for fooling!” said Van Loo, endeavoring to pass. + +But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's wrist, although he still +smiled cheerfully. “Ah! Then you DID mean it, and you propose to give me +satisfaction?” + +Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack's reputation as a duelist. But +he was desperate. “You see my position,” he said hurriedly. “I'm in a +hurry; I have a lady with me. No man of honor”-- + +“You do me wrong,” interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,--“you do, +indeed. You are in a hurry--well, I have plenty of time. If you cannot +attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany you and the lady +to the next station. Of course,” he added, with a smile, “at a proper +distance, and without interfering with the lady, whom I am pleased +to recognize as the wife of an old friend. It would be more sociable, +perhaps, if we had some general conversation on the road; it would +prevent her being alarmed. I might even be of some use to YOU. If we are +overtaken by her husband on the road, for instance, I should certainly +claim the right to have the first shot at you. Boy!” he called to the +hostler, “just sponge out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be ready when the +buggy goes?” And, loosening his grip of Van Loo's wrist, he turned away +as the other quickly entered the hotel. + +But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He had already +some experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility on the drive, and +had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an impediment to +his flight from the country. And another idea had come to him. He +had already effected his purpose of compromising her with him in that +flight, but it was still known only to few. If he left her behind for +the foolish, doting husband, would not that devoted man take her back +to avoid a scandal, and even forbear to pursue HIM for his financial +irregularities? What were twenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker's money +to the scandal of Mrs. Barker's elopement? Again, the failure to realize +the forgery had left him safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with +the bank and Demorest to hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only +obstacle to his flight; but even he would scarcely pursue HIM if Mrs. +Barker were left behind. And it would be easier to elude him if he did. + +In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered the +bar-room, but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; a glass +of spirits would revive him. As he drank it he saw that the room was +full of rough men, apparently miners or packers--some of them Mexican, +with here and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two men more ostentatiously +clad, though apparently on equal terms with the others, were standing in +the corner with their backs towards him. From the general silence as he +entered he imagined that he had been the subject of conversation, and +that his altercation with Hamlin had been overheard. Suddenly one of the +two men turned and approached him. To his consternation he recognized +Steptoe,--Steptoe, whom he had not seen for five years until last night, +when he had avoided him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. His +first instinct was to retreat, but it was too late. And the spirits had +warmed him into temporary recklessness. + +“You ain't goin' to be backed down by a short-card gambler, are yer?” + said Steptoe, with coarse familiarity. + +“I have a lady with me, and am pressed for time,” said Van Loo quickly. +“He knows it, otherwise he would not have dared”-- + +“Well, look here,” said Steptoe roughly. “I ain't particularly sweet on +you, as you know; but I and these gentlemen,” he added, glancing around +the room, “ain't particularly sweet on Mr. Jack Hamlin neither, and we +kalkilate to stand by you if you say so. Now, I reckon you want to +get away with the woman, and the quicker the better, as you're afraid +there'll be somebody after you afore long. That's the way it pans out, +don't it? Well, when you're ready to go, and you just tip us the wink, +we'll get in a circle round Jack and cover him, and if he starts after +you we'll send him on a little longer journey!--eh, boys?” + +The men muttered their approval, and one or two drew their revolvers +from their belts. Van Loo's heart, which had leaped at first at this +proposal of help, sank at this failure of his little plan of abandoning +Mrs. Barker. He hesitated, and then stammered, “Thank you! Haste is +everything with us now; but I shouldn't mind leaving the lady among +CHIVALROUS GENTLEMEN like yourselves for a few hours only, until I +could communicate with my friends and return to properly chastise this +scoundrel.” + +Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight whistle, and gazed at Van Loo. +He instantly understood him. But the plea did not suit Steptoe, who, +for purposes of his own, wished to put Mrs. Barker beyond her husband's +possible reach. He smiled grimly. “I think you'd better take the woman +with you,” he said. “I don't think,” he added in a lower voice, “that +the boys would like your leaving her. They're very high-toned, they +are!” he concluded ironically. + +“Then,” said Van Loo, with another desperate idea, “could you not let us +have saddle-horses instead of the buggy? We could travel faster, and in +the event of pursuit and anything happening to ME,” he added loftily, +“SHE at least could escape her pursuer's vengeance.” + +This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as the guilty couple fled +TOGETHER, and in the presence of witnesses. But he was not deceived by +Van Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice. “Quite right,” he said +sarcastically, “it shall be done, and I've no doubt ONE of you will +escape. I'll send the horses round to the back door and keep the buggy +in front. That will keep Jack there, TOO,--with the boys handy.” + +But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo's methods +and of his OWN standing with Steptoe's gang of roughs as Mr. Steptoe +himself. More than that, he also had a hold on a smaller but more +devoted and loyal following than Steptoe's. The employees and hostlers +of the hotel worshiped him. A single word of inquiry revealed to him +the fact that the buggy was NOT going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and +Mrs. Barker WERE--on two horses, a temporary side-saddle having been +constructed out of a mule's pack-tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, with his +usual audacity, walked into the bar-room, and going to the bar leaned +carelessly against it. Then turning to the lowering faces around him, he +said, with a flash of his white teeth, “Well, boys, I'm calculating to +leave the Divide in a few minutes to follow some friends in the buggy, +and it seems to me only the square thing to stand the liquor for the +crowd, without prejudice to any feeling or roughness there may be +against me. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm generally there when +the band plays, and I'm pretty sure to turn up for THAT sort of thing. +So you'll just consider that I've had a good game on the Divide, and +I'm reckoning it's only fair to leave a little of it behind me here, +to 'sweeten the pot' until I call again. I only ask you, gentlemen, to +drink success to my friends in the buggy as early and as often as you +can.” He flung two gold pieces on the counter and paused, smiling. + +He was right in his conjecture. Even the men who would have willingly +“held him up” a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, saw no reason +for declining a free drink “without prejudice.” And it was a part of +the irony of the situation that Steptoe and Van Loo were also obliged +to participate to keep in with their partisans. It was, however, an +opportune diversion to Van Loo, who managed to get nearer the door +leading to the back entrance of the hotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who +was watching him, as the men closed up to the bar. + +The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another and yet +another. Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, were both +wondering if Hamlin's intention were to intoxicate and incapacitate the +crowd at the crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled grimly over his superior +knowledge of their alcoholic capacity. But suddenly there was the +greater diversion of a shout from the road, the on-coming of a cloud of +red dust, and the halt of another vehicle before the door. This time it +was no jaded single horse and dust-stained buggy, but a double team +of four spirited trotters, whose coats were scarcely turned with foam, +before a light station wagon containing a single man. But that man +was instantly recognized by every one of the outside loungers and +stable-boys as well as the staring crowd within the saloon. It was James +Stacy, the millionaire and banker. No one but himself knew that he had +covered half the distance of a night-long ride from Boomville in two +hours. But before they could voice their astonishment Stacy had thrown +a letter to the obsequious landlord, and then gathering up the reins had +sped away to the railroad station half a mile distant. + +“Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a hurry,” said one of the eager +gazers in the doorway. “Somebody goin' to get smashed, sure.” + +“More like as if he was just humpin' himself to keep from getting +smashed,” said Steptoe. “The bank hasn't got over the effect of their +smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything they had in their hands +tumbled yesterday in Sacramento. Men like me and you ain't goin' to +trust their money to be 'jockeyed' with in that style. Nobody but a man +with a swelled head like Stacy would have even dared to try it on. And +now, by G-d! he's got to pay for it.” + +The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker showed that he had quite +forgotten Van Loo and Hamlin in his superior hatred of the millionaire, +and both men noticed it. Van Loo edged still nearer to the door, as +Steptoe continued, “Ever since he made that big strike on Heavy Tree +five years ago, the country hasn't been big enough to hold him. But mark +my words, gentlemen, the time ain't far off when he'll find a two-foot +ditch again and a pick and grub wages room enough and to spare for him +and his kind of cattle.” + +“You're not drinking,” said Jack Hamlin cheerfully. + +Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then started. “Where's Van Loo?” he +demanded of Jack sharply. + +Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Gone to hurry up his girl, I +reckon. I calculate he ain't got much time to fool away here.” + +Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at the same moment they +were all startled--even Jack himself--at the apparition of Mrs. Barker +passing hurriedly along the veranda before the windows in the direction +of the still waiting buggy. “D--n it!” said Steptoe in a fierce whisper +to the man next him. “Tell her not THERE--at the back door!” But before +the messenger reached the door there was a sudden rattle of wheels, and +with one accord all except Hamlin rushed to the veranda, only to see +Mrs. Barker driving rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into the +room, but Jack also had disappeared. + +For in the confusion created at the sight of Mrs. Barker, he had slipped +to the back door and found, as he suspected, only one horse, and that +with a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right. Van Loo, when he +disappeared from the saloon, had instantly fled, taking the other horse +and abandoning the woman to her fate. Jack as instantly leaped upon the +remaining saddle and dashed after him. Presently he caught a glimpse of +the fugitive in the distance, heard the half-angry, half-ironical shouts +of the crowd at the back door, and as he reached the hilltop saw, with a +mingling of satisfaction and perplexity, Mrs. Barker on the other road, +still driving frantically in the direction of the railroad station. At +which Mr. Hamlin halted, threw away his encumbering saddle, and, +good rider that he was, remounted the horse, barebacked but for his +blanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose girths, again dashed +forwards,--with such good results that, as Van Loo galloped up to the +stagecoach office, at the next station, and was about to enter the +waiting coach for Marysville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlin was laid on +his shoulder. + +“I told you,” said Jack blandly, “that I had plenty of time. I would +have been here BEFORE and even overtaken you, only you had the better +horse and the only saddle.” + +Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate and reckless. Beckoning Jack +out of earshot of the other passengers, he said with tightened lips, +“Why do you follow me? What is your purpose in coming here?” + +“I thought,” said Hamlin dryly, “that I was to have the pleasure of +getting satisfaction from you for the insult you gave me.” + +“Well, and if I apologize for it, what then?” he said quickly. + +Hamlin looked at him quietly. “Well, I think I also said something about +the lady being the wife of a friend of mine.” + +“And I have left her BEHIND. Her husband can take her back without +disgrace, for no one knows of her flight but you and me. Do you think +your shooting me will save her? It will spread the scandal far and wide. +For I warn you, that as I have apologized for what you choose to call my +personal insult, unless you murder me in cold blood without witness, I +shall let them know the REASON of your quarrel. And I can tell you more: +if you only succeed in STOPPING me here, and make me lose my chance of +getting away, the scandal to your friend will be greater still.” + +Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. There was a certain amount +of conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind of creature +before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition of his character. +He amused and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin was also a man of the +world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might be good. He put his hands +in his pockets, and said gravely, “What IS your little game?” + +Van Loo had been seized with another inspiration of desperation. Steptoe +had been partly responsible for this situation. Van Loo knew that Jack +and Steptoe were not friends. He had certain secrets of Steptoe's that +might be of importance to Jack. Why should he not try to make friends +with this powerful free-lance and half-outlaw? + +“It's a game,” he said significantly, “that might be of interest to your +friends to hear.” + +Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, turned on his heel, and said, +“Come with me.” + +“But I must go by that coach now,” said Van Loo desperately, “or--I've +told you what would happen.” + +“Come with me,” said Jack coolly. “If I'm satisfied with what you tell +me, I'll put you down at the next station an hour before that coach gets +there.” + +“You swear it?” said Van Loo hesitatingly. + +“I've SAID it,” returned Jack. “Come!” and Van Loo followed Mr. Hamlin +into the station hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and the strange lady and +gentleman visitor was scarcely noticed by the other guests of the Divide +House, and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, who were a +distinct party and strangers to the town, there was no excitement. +Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded them together, and, +perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his belief that their identity had +not been suspected. Nor were Steptoe's followers very much concerned in +an episode in which they had taken part only at the suggestion of their +leader, and which had terminated so tamely. That they would have liked +a “row,” in which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to +disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference +was asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van +Loo was equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and outspoken +criticism of his methods. + +This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guest for +whom Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting. He was a short, stout +man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little more carefully than when +he was first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, the drunkard of Heavy Tree +Hill. His dress, too, exhibited a marked improvement in quality and +style, although still characterized in the waist and chest by the +unbuttoned freedom of portly and slovenly middle age. Civilization had +restricted his potations or limited them to certain festivals known as +“sprees,” and his face was less puffy and sodden. But with the accession +of sobriety he had lost his good humor, and had the irritability and +intolerance of virtuous restraint. + +“Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me,” he said +querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of the party +through the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. “I want to keep my +head level till our business is over, and I reckon it wouldn't hurt you +and your gang to do the same. They're less likely to blab; and there are +few doors that whiskey won't unlock,” he added, as Steptoe turned the +key in the door after the party had entered. + +The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors or political +caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and whittled armchairs +and a single long deal table, on which were ink and pens. The men sat +down around it with a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of +formality, their bent brows and isolated looks showing little community +of sentiment and scarcely an attempt to veil that individual selfishness +that was prominent. Still less was there any essay of companionship or +sympathy in the manner of Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table +with his knuckles. + +“Gentlemen,” he said, with a certain deliberation of utterance, as if +he enjoyed his own coarse directness, “I reckon you all have a sort of +general idea what you were picked up for, or you wouldn't be here. +But you may or may not know that for the present you are honest, +hard-working miners,--the backbone of the State of Californy,--and that +you have formed yourselves into a company called the 'Blue Jay,' +and you've settled yourselves on the Bar below Heavy Tree Hill, on a +deserted claim of the Marshall Brothers, not half a mile from where +the big strike was made five years ago. That's what you ARE, gentlemen; +that's what you'll continue TO BE until the job's finished; and,” he +added, with a sudden dominance that they all felt, “the man who forgets +it will have to reckon with me. Now,” he continued, resuming his +former ironical manner, “now, what are the cold facts of the case? The +Marshalls worked this claim ever since '49, and never got anything out +of it; then they dropped off or died out, leaving only one brother, Tom +Marshall, to work what was left of it. Well, a few days ago HE found +indications of a big lead in the rock, and instead of rushin' out and +yellin' like an honest man, and callin' in the boys to drink, he sneaks +off to 'Frisco, and goes to the bank to get 'em to take a hand in it. +Well, you know, when Jim Stacy takes a hand in anything, IT'S BOTH +HANDS, and the bank wouldn't see it until he promised to guarantee +possession of the whole abandoned claim,--'dips, spurs, and +angles,'--and let them work the whole thing, which the d----d fool DID, +and the bank agreed to send an expert down there to-morrow to report. +But while he was away some one on our side, who was an expert also, got +wind of it, and made an examination all by himself, and found it was a +vein sure enough and a big thing, and some one else on our side found +out, too, all that Marshall had promised the bank and what the bank +had promised him. Now, gentlemen, when the bank sends down that expert +to-morrow I expect that he will find YOU IN POSSESSION of every part of +the deserted claim except the spot where Tom is still working.” + +“And what good is that to us?” asked one of the men contemptuously. + +“Good?” repeated Steptoe harshly. “Well, if you're not as d----d a fool +as Marshall, you'll see that if he has struck a lead or vein it's bound +to run across OUR CLAIMS, and what's to keep us from sinking for it as +long as Marshall hasn't worked the other claims for years nor pre-empted +them for this lead?” + +“What'll keep him from preempting now?” + +“Our possession.” + +“But if he can prove that the brothers left their claims to him to keep, +he'll just send the sheriff and his posse down upon us,” persisted the +first speaker. + +“It will take him three months to do that by law, and the sheriff and +his posse can't do it before as long as we're in peaceable possession of +it. And by the time that expert and Marshall return they'll find us in +peaceful possession, unless we're such blasted fools as to stay talking +about it here!” + +“But what's to prevent Marshall from getting a gang of his own to drive +us off?” + +“Now your talkin' and not yelpin',” said Steptoe, with slow insolence. +“D----d if I didn't begin to think you kalkilated I was goin' to employ +you as lawyers! Nothing is to prevent him from gettin' up HIS gang, +and we hope he'll do it, for you see it puts us both on the same level +before the law, for we're both BREAKIN' IT. And we kalkilate that we're +as good as any roughs they can pick up at Heavy Tree.” + +“I reckon!” “Ye can count us in!” said half a dozen voices eagerly. + +“But what's the job goin' to pay us?” persisted a Sydney man. “An' arter +we've beat off this other gang, are we going to scrub along on grub +wages until we're yanked out by process-sarvers three months later? If +that's the ticket I'm not in it. I aren't no b--y quartz miner.” + +“We ain't going to do no more MINING there than the bank,” said Steptoe +fiercely. “And the bank ain't going to wait no three months for the end +of the lawsuit. They'll float the stock of that mine for a couple of +millions, and get out of it with a million before a month. And they'll +have to buy us off to do that. What they'll pay will depend upon the +lead; but we don't move off those claims for less than five thousand +dollars, which will be two hundred and fifty dollars to each man. But,” + said Steptoe in a lower but perfectly distinct voice, “if there should +be a row,--and they BEGIN it,--and in the scuffle Tom Marshall, their +only witness, should happen to get in the way of a revolver or have his +head caved in, there might be some difficulty in their holdin' ANY OF +THE MINE against honest, hardworking miners in possession. You hear me?” + +There was a breathless silence for the moment, and a slight movement +of the men in their chairs, but never in fear or protest. Every one had +heard the speaker distinctly, and every man distinctly understood him. +Some of them were criminals, one or two had already the stain of blood +on their hands; but even the most timid, who at other times might have +shrunk from suggested assassination, saw in the speaker's words only the +fair removal of a natural enemy. + +“All right, boys. I'm ready to wade in at once. Why ain't we on the road +now? We might have been but for foolin' our time away on that man Van +Loo.” + +“Van Loo!” repeated Hall eagerly,--“Van Loo! Was he here?” + +“Yes,” said Steptoe shortly, administering a kick under the table to +Hall, as he had no wish to revive the previous irritability of his +comrades. “He's gone, but,” turning to the others, “you'd have had to +wait for Mr. Hall's arrival, anyhow. And now you've got your order you +can start. Go in two parties by different roads, and meet on the other +side of the hotel at Hymettus. I'll be there before you. Pick up some +shovels and drills as you go; remember you're honest miners, but don't +forget your shootin'-irons for all that. Now scatter.” + +It was well that they did, vacating the room more cheerfully and +sympathetically than they had entered it, or Hall's manifest disturbance +over Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When the last man had +disappeared Hall turned quickly to Steptoe. “Well, what did he say? +Where has he gone?” + +“Don't know,” said Steptoe, with uneasy curtness. “He was running away +with a woman--well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know,” he added, with +rising anger, “the wife of one of those cursed partners. Jack Hamlin was +here, and was jockeying to stop him, and interfered. But what the devil +has that job to do with our job?” He was losing his temper; everything +seemed to turn upon this infernal Van Loo! + +“He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker,” gasped Hall,--“it was with +her MONEY! and the fear of being connected with the Wheat Trust swindle +which he organized, and with our money which I lent him for the same +purpose. And he knows all about that job, for I wanted to get him to go +into it with us. Your name and mine ain't any too sweet-smelling for +the bank, and we ought to have a middleman who knows business to arrange +with them. The bank daren't object to him, for they've employed him in +even shadier transactions than this when THEY didn't wish to appear. I +knew he was in difficulties along with Mrs. Barker's speculations, but +I never thought him up to this. And,” he added, with sudden desperation, +“YOU trusted him, too.” + +In an instant Steptoe caught the frightened man by the shoulders and was +bearing him down on the table. “Are you a traitor, a liar, or a besotted +fool?” he said hoarsely. “Speak. WHEN and WHERE did I trust him?” + +“You said in your note--I was--to--help him,” gasped Hall. + +“My note,” repeated Steptoe, releasing Hall with astonished eyes. + +“Yes,” said Hall, tremblingly searching in his vest pocket. “I brought +it with me. It isn't much of a note, but there's your signature plain +enough.” + +He handed Steptoe a torn piece of paper folded in a three-cornered +shape. Steptoe opened it. He instantly recognized the paper on which +he had written his name and sent up to his wife at the Boomville Hotel. +But, added to it, in apparently the same hand, in smaller characters, +were the words, “Help Van Loo all you can.” + +The blood rushed into his face. But he quickly collected himself, and +said hurriedly, “All right, I had forgotten it. Let the d----d sneak go. +We've got what's a thousand times better in this claim at Marshall's, +and it's well that he isn't in it to scoop the lion's share. Only we +must not waste time getting there now. You go there first, and at once, +and set those rascals to work. I'll follow you before Marshall comes up. +Get; I'll settle up here.” + +His face darkened once more as Hall hurried away, leaving him alone. He +drew out the piece of paper from his pocket and stared at it again. Yes; +it was the one he had sent to his wife. How did Van Loo get hold of +it? Was he at the hotel that night? Had he picked it up in the hall or +passage when the servant dropped it? When Hall handed him the paper and +he first recognized it a fiendish thought, followed by a spasm of more +fiendish rage, had sent the blood to his face. But his crude common +sense quickly dismissed that suggestion of his wife's complicity with +Van Loo. But had she seen him passing through the hotel that night, and +had sought to draw from him some knowledge of his early intercourse with +the child, and confessed everything, and even produced the paper with +his signature as a proof of identity? Women had been known to do such +desperate things. Perhaps she disbelieved her son's aversion to her, and +was trying to sound Van Loo. As for the forged words by Van Loo, and the +use he had put them to, he cared little. He believed the man was capable +of forgery; indeed, he suddenly remembered that in the old days his +son had spoken innocently, but admiringly, of Van Loo's wonderful +chirographical powers and his faculty of imitating the writings of +others, and how he had even offered to teach him. A new and exasperating +thought came into his feverish consciousness. What if Van Loo, in +teaching the boy, had even made use of him as an innocent accomplice to +cover up his own tricks! The suggestion was no question of moral ethics +to Steptoe, nor of his son's possible contamination, although since the +night of the big strike he had held different views; it was simply a +fierce, selfish jealousy that ANOTHER might have profited by the lad's +helplessness and inexperience. He had been tormented by this jealousy +before in his son's liking for Van Loo. He had at first encouraged his +admiration and imitative regard for this smooth swindler's graces and +accomplishments, which, though he scorned them himself, he was, after +the common parental infatuation, willing that the boy should profit by. +Incapable, through his own consciousness, of distinguishing between Van +Loo's superficial polish and the true breeding of a gentleman, he +had only looked upon it as an equipment for his son which might be +serviceable to himself. He had told his wife the truth when he informed +her of Van Loo's fears of being reminded of their former intimacy; but +he had not told her how its discontinuance after they had left Heavy +Tree Hill had affected her son, and how he still cherished his old +admiration for that specious rascal. Nor had he told her how this had +stung him, through his own selfish greed of the boy's affection. Yet now +that it was possible that she had met Van Loo that evening, she might +have become aware of Van Loo's power over her child. How she would +exult, for all her pretended hatred of Van Loo! How, perhaps, they had +plotted together! How Van Loo might have become aware of the place where +his son was kept, and have been bribed by the mother to tell her! He +stopped in a whirl of giddy fancies. His strong common sense in all +other things had been hitherto proof against such idle dreams or +suggestions; but the very strength of his parental love and jealousy had +awakened in him at last the terrors of imagination. + +His first impulse had been to seek his wife, regardless of discovery or +consequences, at Hymettus, where she had said she was going. It was on +his way to the rendezvous at Marshall's claim. But this he as instantly +set aside, it was his SON he must find; SHE might not confess, or might +deceive him--the boy would not; and if his fears were correct, she could +be arraigned afterwards. It was possible for him to reach the little +Mission church and school, secluded in a remote valley by the old +Franciscan fathers, where he had placed the boy for the last few years +unknown to his wife. It would be a long ride, but he could still reach +Heavy Tree Hill afterwards before Marshall and the expert arrived. And +he had a feeling he had never felt before on the eve of a desperate +adventure,--that he must see the boy first. He remembered how the child +had often accompanied him in his flight, and how he had gained strength, +and, it seemed to him, a kind of luck, from the touch of that small hand +in his. Surely it was necessary now that at least his mind should be at +rest regarding HIM on the eve of an affair of this moment. Perhaps he +might never see him again. At any other time, and under the influence of +any other emotion, he would have scorned such a sentimentalism--he who +had never troubled himself either with preparation for the future or +consideration for the past. But at that moment he felt both. He drew +a long breath. He could catch the next train to the Three Boulders and +ride thence to San Felipe. He hurriedly left the room, settled with the +landlord, and galloped to the station. By the irony of circumstances the +only horse available for that purpose was Mr. Hamlin's own. + +By two o'clock he was at the Three Boulders, where he got a fast horse +and galloped into San Felipe by four. As he descended the last slope +through the fastnesses of pines towards the little valley overlooked +in its remoteness and purely pastoral simplicity by the gold-seeking +immigrants,--its seclusion as one of the furthest northern Californian +missions still preserved through its insignificance and the efforts of +the remaining Brotherhood, who used it as an infirmary and a school for +the few remaining Spanish families,--he remembered how he once blundered +upon it with the boy while hotly pursued by a hue and cry from one of +the larger towns, and how he found sanctuary there. He remembered how, +when the pursuit was over, he had placed the boy there under the padre's +charge. He had lied to his wife regarding the whereabouts of her son, +but he had spoken truly regarding his free expenditure for the boy's +maintenance, and the good fathers had accepted, equally for the child's +sake as for the Church's sake, the generous “restitution” which this +coarse, powerful, ruffianly looking father was apparently seeking to +make. He was quite aware of it at the time, and had equally accepted it +with grim cynicism; but it now came back to him with a new and smarting +significance. Might THEY, too, not succeed in weaning the boy's +affection from him, or if the mother had interfered, would they not side +with her in claiming an equal right? He had sometimes laughed to himself +over the security of this hiding-place, so unknown and so unlikely to be +discovered by her, yet within easy reach of her friends and his enemies; +he now ground his teeth over the mistake which his doting desire to keep +his son accessible to him had caused him to make. He put spurs to his +horse, dashed down the little, narrow, ill-paved street, through +the deserted plaza, and pulled up in a cloud of dust before the only +remaining tower, with its cracked belfry, of the half-ruined Mission +church. A new dormitory and school-building had been extended from its +walls, but in a subdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual +glaring white-pine glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to +himself bitterly. Some of his money had gone in it. + +He seized the horsehair rope dangling from a bell by the wall and rang +it sharply. A soft-footed priest appeared,--Father Dominico. “Eddy +Horncastle? Ah! yes. Eddy, dear child, is gone.” + +“Gone!” shouted Steptoe in a voice that startled the padre. “Where? +When? With whom?” + +“Pardon, senor, but for a time--only a pasear to the next village. It is +his saint's day--he has half-holiday. He is a good boy. It is a little +pleasure for him and for us.” + +“Oh!” said Steptoe, softened into a rough apology. “I forgot. All right. +Has he had any visitors lately--lady, for instance?” + +Father Dominico cast a look half of fright, half of reproval upon his +guest. + +“A lady HERE!” + +In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. “Of course; you see +I forgot that, too. I was thinking of one of his woman folks, you +know--relatives--aunts. Was there any other visitor?” + +“Only one. Ah! we know the senor's rules regarding his son.” + +“One?” repeated Steptoe. “Who was it?” + +“Oh, quite an hidalgo--an old friend of the child's--most polite, +most accomplished, fluent in Spanish, perfect in deportment. The Senor +Horncastle surely could find nothing to object to. Father Pedro was +charmed with him. A man of affairs, and yet a good Catholic, too. It +was a Senor Van Loo--Don Paul the boy called him, and they talked of the +boy's studies in the old days as if--indeed, but for the stranger being +a caballero and man of the world--as if he had been his teacher.” + +It was a proof of the intensity of the father's feelings that they had +passed beyond the power of his usual coarse, brutal expression, and he +only stared at the priest with a dull red face in which the blood seemed +to have stagnated. Presently he said thickly, “When did he come?” + +“A few days ago.” + +“Which way did Eddy go?” + +“To Brown's Mills, scarcely a league away. He will be here--even now--on +the instant. But the senor will come into the refectory and take some +of the old Mission wine from the Catalan grape, planted one hundred and +fifty years ago, until the dear child returns. He will be so happy.” + +“No! I'm in a hurry. I will go on and meet him.” He took off his hat, +mopped his crisp, wet hair with his handkerchief, and in a thick, slow, +impeded voice, more suggestive than the outburst he restrained, said, +“And as long as my son remains here that man, Van Loo, must not pass +this gate, speak to him, or even see him. You hear me? See to it, you +and all the others. See to it, I say, or”--He stopped abruptly, clapped +his hat on the swollen veins of his forehead, turned quickly, passed out +without another word through the archway into the road, and before the +good priest could cross himself or recover from his astonishment the +thud of his horse's hoofs came from the dusty road. + +It was ten minutes before his face resumed its usual color. But in that +ten minutes, as if some of the struggle of his rider had passed into +him, his horse was sweating with exhaustion and fear. For in that ten +minutes, in this new imagination with which he was cursed, he had killed +both Van Loo and his son, and burned the refectory over the heads of the +treacherous priests. Then, quite himself again, a voice came to him from +the rocky trail above the road with the hail of “Father!” He started +quickly as a lad of fifteen or sixteen came bounding down the hillside, +and ran towards him. + +“You passed me and I called to you, but you did not seem to hear,” + said the boy breathlessly. “Then I ran after you. Have you been to the +Mission?” + +Steptoe looked at him quite as breathlessly, but from a deeper emotion. +He was, even at first sight, a handsome lad, glowing with youth and the +excitement of his run, and, as the father looked at him, he could +see the likeness to his mother in his clear-cut features, and even a +resemblance to himself in his square, compact chest and shoulders and +crisp, black curls. A thrill of purely animal paternity passed over him, +the fierce joy of his flesh over his own flesh! His own son, by God! +They could not take THAT from him; they might plot, swindle, fawn, +cheat, lie, and steal away his affections, but there he was, plain to +all eyes, his own son, his very son! + +“Come here,” he said in a singular, half-weary and half-protesting +voice, which the boy instantly recognized as his father's accents of +affection. + +The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of the road and pointed with +mingled mischief and fastidiousness to the depths of impalpable red +dust that lay between him and the horseman. Steptoe saw that he was very +smartly attired in holiday guise, with white duck trousers and patent +leather shoes, and, after the Spanish fashion, wore black kid gloves. He +certainly was a bit of a dandy, as he had said. The father's whole face +changed as he wheeled and came before the lad, who lifted up his arms +expectantly. They had often ridden together on the same horse. + +“No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy,” he said in the same voice. “But +I'll get down and we'll go and sit somewhere under a tree and have some +talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurrying me, and I can't waste +time.” + +“Not one of your old jobs, father? I thought you had quite given that +up?” + +The boy spoke more carelessly than reproachfully, or even wonderingly; +yet, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, Steptoe answered +evasively, “It's a big thing, sonny; maybe we'll make our eternal +fortune, and then we'll light out from this hole and have a gay time +elsewhere. Come along.” + +He took the boy's gloved right hand in his own powerful grasp, and +together they clambered up the steep hillside to a rocky ledge on which +a fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself in twain, and then +left its withered crown to hang half down the slope, while the other +half rested on the ledge. On this they sat, looking down upon the road +and the tethered horse. A gentle breeze moved the treetops above their +heads, and the westering sun played hide-and-seek with the shifting +shadows. The boy's face was quick and alert with all that moved round +him, but without thought the father's face was heavy, except for the +eyes that were fixed upon his son. + +“Van Loo came to the Mission,” he said suddenly. + +The boy's eyes glittered quickly, like a steel that pierced the father's +heart. “Oh,” he said simply, “then it was the padre told you?” + +“How did he know you were here?” asked Steptoe. + +“I don't know,” said the boy quietly. “I think he said something, but +I've forgotten it. But it was mighty good of him to come, for I thought, +you know, that he did not care to see me after Heavy Tree, and that he'd +gone back on us.” + +“What did he tell you?” continued Steptoe. “Did he talk of me or of your +mother?” + +“No,” said the boy, but without any show of interest or sympathy; “we +talked mostly about old times.” + +“Tell ME about those old times, Eddy. You never told me anything about +them.” + +The boy, momentarily arrested more by something in the tone of his +father's voice--a weakness he had never noticed before--than by any +suggestion of his words, said with a laugh, “Oh, only about what we +used to do when I was very little and used to call myself his 'little +brother,'--don't you remember, long before the big strike on Heavy Tree? +They were gay times we had then.” + +“And how he used to teach you to imitate other people's handwriting?” + said Steptoe. + +“What made you think of that, pop?” said the boy, with a slight wonder +in his eyes. “Why, that's the very thing we DID talk about.” + +“But you didn't do it again; you ain't done it since,” said Steptoe +quickly. + +“Lord! no,” said the boy contemptuously. “There ain't no chance now, and +there wouldn't be any fun in it. It isn't like the old times when him +and me were all alone, and we used to write letters as coming from other +people to all the boys round Heavy Tree and the Bar, and sometimes as +far as Boomville, to get them to do things, and they'd think the letters +were real, and they'd do 'em. And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, +and nobody ever knew who did it.” + +Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief, half in +frightened admiration. Sitting astride the log, his elbows on his knees +and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, the boy's handsome +face became illuminated with an impish devilry which the father had +never seen before. With dancing eyes he went on. “It was one of those +very games we played so long ago that he wanted to see me about and +wanted me to keep mum about, for some of the folks that he played it on +were around here now. It was a game we got off on one of the big strike +partners long before the strike. I'll tell YOU, dad, for you know +what happened afterwards, and you'll be glad. Well, that +partner--Demorest--was a kind of silly, you remember--a sort of Miss +Nancyish fellow--always gloomy and lovesick after his girl in the +States. Well, we'd written lots of letters to girls from their chaps +before, and got lots of fun out of it; but we had even a better show +for a game here, for it happened that Van Loo knew all about the +girl--things that even the man's own partners didn't, for Van Loo's +mother was a sort of a friend of the girl's family, and traveled about +with her, and knew that the girl was spoony over this Demorest, and that +they corresponded. So, knowing that Van Loo was employed at Heavy Tree, +she wrote to him to find out all about Demorest and how to stop their +foolish nonsense, for the girl's parents didn't want her to marry a +broken-down miner like him. So we thought we'd do it our own way, and +write a letter to her as if it was from him, don't you see? I wanted to +make him call her awful names, and say that he hated her, that he was a +murderer and a horse-thief, and that he had killed a policeman, and that +he was thinking of becoming a Digger Injin, and having a Digger squaw +for a wife, which he liked better than her. Lord! dad, you ought to have +seen what stuff I made up.” The boy burst into a shrill, half-feminine +laugh, and Steptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly in his own +coarse, brutal fashion. + +For some moments they sat there looking in each other's faces, shaking +with sympathetic emotion, the father forgetting the purpose of his +coming there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and even the rendezvous +to which his horse in the road below was waiting to bring him; the son +forgetting their retreat from Heavy Tree Hill and his shameful vagabond +wanderings with that father in the years that followed. The sinking sun +stared blankly in their faces; the protecting pines above them moved by +a stronger gust shook a few cones upon them; an enormous crow mockingly +repeated the father's coarse laugh, and a squirrel scampered away from +the strangely assorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and forehead +with his pocket-handkerchief, said:-- + +“And did you send it?” + +“Oh! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said that those sort of love-sick +fools made more fuss over little things than they did over big things, +and he sort of toned it down, and fixed it up himself. But it told. For +there were never any more letters in the post-office in her handwriting, +and there wasn't any posted to her in his.” + +They both laughed again, and then Steptoe rose. “I must be getting +along,” he said, looking curiously at the boy. “I've got to catch a +train at Three Boulders Station.” + +“Three Boulders!” repeated the boy. “I'm going there, too, on Friday, to +meet Father Cipriano.” + +“I reckon my work will be all done by Friday,” said Steptoe musingly. +Standing thus, holding his boy's hand, he was thinking that the real +fight at Marshall's would not take place at once, for it might take a +day or two for Marshall to gather forces. But he only pressed his son's +hand gently. + +“I wish you would sometimes take me with you as you used to,” said the +boy curiously. “I'm bigger now, and wouldn't be in your way.” + +Steptoe looked at the boy with a choking sense of satisfaction and +pride. But he said, “No;” and then suddenly with simulated humor, “Don't +you be taken in by any letters from ME, such as you and Van Loo used to +write. You hear?” + +The boy laughed. + +“And,” continued Steptoe, “if anybody says I sent for you, don't you +believe them.” + +“No,” said the boy, smiling. + +“And don't you even believe I'm dead till you see me so. You understand. +By the way, Father Pedro has some money of mine kept for you. Now hurry +back to school and say you met me, but that I was in a great hurry. I +reckon I may have been rather rough to the priests.” + +They had reached the lower road again, and Steptoe silently unhitched +his horse. “Good-by,” he said, as he laid his hand on the boy's arm. + +“Good-by, dad.” + +He mounted his horse slowly. “Well,” he said smilingly, looking down the +road, “you ain't got anything more to say to me, have you?” + +“No, dad.” + +“Nothin' you want?” + +“Nothin', dad.” + +“All right. Good-by.” + +He put spurs to his horse and cantered down the road without looking +back. The boy watched him with idle curiosity until he disappeared from +sight, and then went on his way, whistling and striking off the heads of +the wayside weeds with his walking-stick. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after the +meeting of the three partners that it was small wonder that Barker's +impressionable nature quickly responded to it, and, without awakening +the still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly, and was the first +to greet it in the keen air of the slope behind the hotel. To his +pantheistic spirit it had always seemed as natural for him to early +welcome his returning brothers of the woods and hills as to say +good-morning to his fellow mortals. And, in the joy of seeing Black Spur +rising again to his level in the distance before him, he doffed his hat +to it with a return of his old boyish habit, laid his arm caressingly +around the great girth of the nearest pine, clapped his hands to the +scampering squirrels in his path, and whistled to the dipping jays. +In this way he quite forgot the more serious affairs of the preceding +night, or, rather, saw them only in the gilding of the morning, until, +looking up, he perceived the tall figure of Demorest approaching him; +and then it struck him with his first glance at his old partner's face +that his usual suave, gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a critical +cynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of accent. Barker's loyal +heart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest had been hard hit +by the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern in it, and had +doubtless passed a restless night, while he (Barker) had forgotten all +about it. “I thought of knocking at your door, as I passed,” he said, +with sympathetic apology, “but I was afraid I might disturb you. Isn't +it glorious here? Quite like the old hill. Look at that lizard; he +hasn't moved since he first saw me. Do you remember the one who used to +steal our sugar, and then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of the +bowl until he looked like an ornamental handle to it?” he continued, +rebounding again into spirits. + +“Barker,” said Demorest abruptly, “what sort of woman is this Mrs. Van +Loo, whose rooms I occupy?” + +“Oh,” said Barker, with optimistic innocence, “a most proper woman, old +chap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreign accent and a +still more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't suppose we'd”-- + +“But what is she like?” said Demorest impatiently. + +“Well,” said Barker thoughtfully, “she's the kind of woman who might be +Van Loo's mother, I suppose.” + +“You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?” asked Demorest +sharply. + +“There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers,” said Barker gravely, +“in the way you mean. It's only those poor devils,” he said, pointing, +nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a circling sparrow-hawk above +him, “who have inherited instincts. What I mean is that she might be Van +Loo's mother, because he didn't SELECT her.” + +“Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?” asked +Demorest. + +“She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just after you left. +Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company, sent for her +and her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll see her to-day or +to-morrow probably, when she returns. I'll introduce you; she'll be +rather glad to meet some one from abroad, and all the more if he happens +to be rich and distinguished, and eligible for her daughter.” He stopped +suddenly in his smile, remembering Demorest's lifelong secret. But to +his surprise his companion's face, instead of darkening as it was +wont to do at any such allusion, brightened suddenly with a singular +excitement as he answered dryly, “Ah well, if the girl is pretty, who +knows!” + +Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strange vivacity +as they walked back to the hotel, and he asked many other questions +regarding Mrs. Van Loo and her daughter, and particularly if the +daughter had also been abroad. When they reached the veranda they found +a few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramento papers, which had just +arrived, or, in little knots, discussing the news. Indeed, they would +probably have stopped Barker and his companion had not Barker, anxious +to relieve his friend's curiosity, hurried with him at once to the +manager's office. + +“Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo to return?” asked +Barker quickly. + +The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaper which +he, too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiar smile, “Well +no! she WAS to return to-day, but if you're wanting to keep her rooms, +I should say there wouldn't be any trouble about it, as she'll hardly be +coming back here NOW. She's rather high and mighty in style, I know, and +a determined sort of critter, but I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't +care much to be waltzing round in public after what has happened.” + +“I don't understand you,” said Demorest impatiently. “WHAT has +happened?” + +“Haven't you heard the news?” said the manager in surprise. “It's in +all the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter--has hypothecated +everything he had and skedaddled.” + +Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife's +money--only of HER disappointment and mortification over it. Poor girl! +Perhaps she was also worrying over his resentment,--as if she did not +know him! He would go to her at once at Boomville. Then he remembered +that she was coming with Mrs. Horncastle, and might be already on +her way here by rail or coach, and he would miss her. Demorest in the +meantime had seized a paper, and was intently reading it. + +“There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner,” said the +manager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. “There has been a +drop out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybody is unloading. +Two firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that were carrying things for the +bank, and have thrown everything back on it. There was an awful panic +last night, and they say none of the big speculators know where they +stand. Three of our best customers in the hotel rushed off to the bay +this morning, but Stacy himself started before daylight, and got the +through night express to stop for him on the Divide on signal. Shall I +send any telegrams that may come to your room?” + +Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interested in the +bank, and understood the purport of the question. He answered, with calm +surprise, that he was expecting no telegrams, and added, “But if Mrs. +Van Loo returns I beg you to at once let me know,” and taking Barker's +arm he went in to breakfast. Seated by themselves, Demorest looked at +his companion. “I'm afraid, Barker boy, that this thing is more serious +to Jim than we expected last night, or than he cared to tell us. And +you, old man, I fear are hurt a little by Van Loo's flight. He had some +money of your wife's, hadn't he?” + +Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's fortune was in Stacy's +hands, was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought, and answered +with equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by the fear of Mrs. +Barker's disappointment. “Why, Lord! Phil, whether she's lost or saved +her money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her to do what she liked with +it, but I'm afraid she'll be worrying over what I think of it,--as if +she did not know me! And I'm half a mind, if it were not for missing +her, to go over to Boomville, where she's stopping.” + +“I thought you said she was in San Francisco?” said Demorest +abstractedly. + +Barker colored. “Yes,” he answered quickly. “But I've heard since that +she stopped at Boomville on the way.” + +“Then don't let ME keep you here,” returned Demorest. “For if Jim +telegraphs to me I shall start for San Francisco at once, and I rather +think he will. I did not like to say so before those panic-mongers +outside who are stampeding everything; so run along, Barker boy, and +ease your mind about the wife. We may have other things to think about +soon.” + +Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast and slipped +away. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wife must have heard +the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, if so, would be on her +way with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might be waiting for him--knowing, too, +that he had heard the news--in fear and trembling. For it was Barker's +custom to endow all those he cared for with his own sensitiveness, and +it was not like him to reflect that the woman who had so recklessly +speculated against his opinion would scarcely fear his reproaches in her +defeat. In the fullness of his heart he telegraphed to her in case she +had not yet left Boomville: “All right. Have heard news. Understand +perfectly. Don't worry. Come to me.” Then he left the hotel by the +stable entrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated on +the veranda, and made his way to a little wooded crest which he knew +commanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here he determined to +wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel. He knew that many +of the guests were aware of his wife's speculations with Van Loo, and +that he was her broker. He wished to spare her running the gauntlet +of their curious stares and comments as she drove up alone. As he was +climbing the slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past him on the +road below, but he knew that it had changed horses at Boomville at four +o'clock, and that his tired wife would not have availed herself of it at +that hour, particularly as she could not have yet received the fateful +news. He threw himself under a large pine, and watched the stagecoach +disappear as it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel. + +He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forks +of the red road that diverged below him, but which appeared to become +whiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance. There was +nothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dust which eventually +revealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud out of which a solitary +mule, one of a pack-train of six or eight, would momentarily emerge and +be lost again. Then he suddenly heard his name called, and, looking up, +saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had halted a few paces from him between two +columns of the long-drawn aisle of pines. + +In that mysterious half-light she seemed such a beautiful and +goddess-like figure that his consciousness at first was unable to grasp +anything else. She was always wonderfully well dressed, but the warmth +and seclusion of this mountain morning had enabled her to wear a light +gown of some delicate fabric which set off the grace of her figure, +and even pardoned the rural coquetry of a silken sash around her still +slender waist. An open white parasol thrown over her shoulder made +a nimbus for her charming head and the thick coils of hair under her +lace-edged hat. He had never seen her look so beautiful before. And that +thought was so plainly in his frank face and eyes as he sprang to his +feet that it brought a slight rise of color to her own cheek. + +“I saw you climbing up here as I passed in the coach a few minutes ago,” + she said, with a smile, “and as soon as I had shaken the dust off I +followed you.” + +“Where's Kitty?” he stammered. + +The color faded from her face as it had come, and a shade of something +like reproach crept into her dark eyes. And whatever it had been her +purpose to say, or however carefully she might have prepared herself for +this interview, she was evidently taken aback by the sudden directness +of the inquiry. Barker saw this as quickly, and as quickly referred it +to his own rudeness. His whole soul rushed in apology to his face as he +said, “Oh, forgive me! I was anxious about Kitty; indeed, I had thought +of coming again to Boomville, for you've heard the news, of course? Van +Loo is a defaulter, and has run away with the poor child's money.” + +Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the hotel. She paused a moment to +collect herself, and then said slowly and tentatively, with a watchful +intensity in her eyes, “Mrs. Barker went, I think, to the Divide”-- + +But she was instantly interrupted by the eager Barker. “I see. I thought +of that at once. She went directly to the company's offices to see if +she could save anything from the wreck before she saw me. It was like +her, poor girl! And you--you,” he went on eagerly, his whole face +beaming with gratitude,--“you, out of your goodness, came here to tell +me.” He held out both hands and took hers in his. + +For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless and vacillating. She had +often noticed before that it was part of the irony of the creation of +such a simple nature as Barker's that he was not only open to deceit, +but absolutely seemed to invite it. Instead of making others franker, +people were inclined to rebuke his credulity by restraint and +equivocation on their own part. But the evasion thus offered to her, +although only temporary, was a temptation she could not resist. And it +prolonged an interview that a ruthless revelation of the truth might +have shortened. + +“She did not tell me she was going there,” she replied still evasively; +“and, indeed,” she added, with a burst of candor still more dangerous, +“I only learned it from the hotel clerk after she was gone. But I want +to talk to you about her relations to Van Loo,” she said, with a return +of her former intensity of gaze, “and I thought we would be less subject +to interruption here than at the hotel. Only I suppose everybody knows +this place, and any of those flirting couples are likely to come here. +Besides,” she added, with a little half-hysterical laugh and a slight +shiver, as she looked up at the high interlacing boughs above her head, +“it's as public as the aisles of a church, and really one feels as if +one were 'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a little +more secluded, where we could sit down,” she went on, as she poked her +parasol into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth which mingled +with the carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, “and not get all +sticky and dirty?” + +Barker's eyes sparkled. “I know every foot of this hill, Mrs. +Horncastle,” he said, “and if you will follow me I'll take you to one of +the loveliest nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian spring now +forgotten, and I think known only to me and the birds. It's not more +than ten minutes from here; only”--he hesitated as he caught sight +of the smart French bronze buckled shoe and silken ankle which +Mrs. Horncastle's gathering up of her dainty skirts around her had +disclosed--“it may be a little rough and dusty going to your feet.” + +But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had already irretrievably +ruined her shoes and stockings in climbing up to him,--although Barker +could really distinguish no diminution of their freshness,--and that +she might as well go on. Whereat they both passed down the long aisle of +slope to a little hollow of manzanita, which again opened to a view of +Black Spur, but left the hotel hidden. + +“What time did Kitty go?” began Barker eagerly, when they were half down +the slope. + +But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine-needles, +and not only stopped an answer, but obliged Barker to give all his +attention to keep his companion from falling again until they reached +the open. Then came the plunge through the manzanita thicket, then a +cool wade through waist-deep ferns, and then they emerged, holding each +other's hand, breathless and panting before the spring. + +It did not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangular hollow, +niched in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a point from which +the overflow of the spring percolated through a fringe of alder, to +fall in what seemed from the valley to be a green furrow down the whole +length of the mountain-side. Overhung by pines above, which met and +mingled with the willows that everywhere fringed it, it made the one +cooling shade in the whole basking expanse of the mountain, and yet was +penetrated throughout by the intoxicating spice of the heated pines. +Flowering reeds and long lush grasses drew a magic circle round an open +bowl-like pool in the centre, that was always replenished to the slow +murmur of an unseen rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavern +in the mountain-side like a vein opened in its flank. Shadows of timid +wings crossed it, quick rustlings disturbed the reeds, but nothing more. +It was silent, but breathing; it was hidden to everything but the sky +and the illimitable distance. + +They threaded their way around it on the spongy carpet, covered by +delicate lace-like vines that seemed to caress rather than trammel their +moving feet, until they reached an open space before the pool. It was +cushioned and matted with disintegrated pine bark, and here they sat +down. Mrs. Horncastle furled her parasol and laid it aside; raised +both hands to the back of her head and took two hat-pins out, which she +placed in her smiling mouth; removed her hat, stuck the hat-pins in it, +and handed it to Barker, who gently placed it on the top of a tall reed, +where during the rest of that momentous meeting it swung and drooped +like a flower; removed her gloves slowly; drank still smilingly and +gratefully nearly a wineglassful of the water which Barker brought +her in the green twisted chalice of a lily leaf; looked the picture of +happiness, and then burst into tears. + +Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror-stricken. Mrs. Horncastle +crying! Mrs. Horncastle, the imperious, the collected, the coldly +critical, the cynical, smiling woman of the world, actually crying! +Other women might cry--Kitty had cried often--but Mrs. Horncastle! +Yet, there she was, sobbing; actually sobbing like a schoolgirl, +her beautiful shoulders rising and falling with her grief; crying +unmistakably through her long white fingers, through a lace +pocket-handkerchief which she had hurriedly produced and shaken from +behind her like a conjurer's trick; her beautiful eyes a thousand times +more lustrous for the sparkling beads that brimmed her lashes and welled +over like the pool before her. + +“Don't mind me,” she murmured behind her handkerchief. “It's very +foolish, I know. I was nervous--worried, I suppose; I'll be better in a +moment. Don't notice me, please.” + +But Barker had drawn beside her and was trying, after the fashion of his +sex, to take her handkerchief away in apparently the firm belief that +this action would stop her tears. “But tell me what it is. Do Mrs. +Horncastle, please,” he pleaded in his boyish fashion. “Is it anything I +can do? Only say the word; only tell me SOMETHING!” + +But he had succeeded in partially removing the handkerchief, and so +caught a glimpse of her wet eyes, in which a faint smile struggled out +like sunshine through rain. But they clouded again, although she didn't +cry, and her breath came and went with the action of a sob, and her +hands still remained against her flushed face. + +“I was only going to talk to you of Kitty” (sob)--“but I suppose I'm +weak” (sob)--“and such a fool” (sob) “and I got to thinking of myself +and my own sorrows when I ought to be thinking only of you and Kitty.” + +“Never mind Kitty,” said Barker impulsively. “Tell me about +yourself--your own sorrows. I am a brute to have bothered you about her +at such a moment; and now until you have told me what is paining you so +I shall not let you speak of her.” He was perfectly sincere. What +were Kitty's possible and easy tears over the loss of her money to the +unknown agony that could wrench a sob from a woman like this? “Dear Mrs. +Horncastle,” he went on as breathlessly, “think of me now not as Kitty's +husband, but as your true friend. Yes, as your BEST and TRUEST friend, +and speak to me as you would speak to him.” + +“You will be my friend?” she said suddenly and passionately, +grasping his hand, “my best and truest friend? and if I tell you +all,--everything, you will not cast me from you and hate me?” + +Barker felt the same thrill from her warm hand slowly possess his whole +being as it had the evening before, but this time he was prepared and +answered the grasp and her eyes together as he said breathlessly, “I +will be--I AM your friend.” + +She withdrew her hand and passed it over her eyes. After a moment she +caught his hand again, and, holding it tightly as if she feared he might +fly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, without looking at him, +said, “I lied to you about myself and Kitty that night; I did not come +with her. I came alone and secretly to Boomville to see--to see the man +who is my husband.” + +“Your husband!” said Barker in surprise. He had believed, with the rest +of the world, that there had been no communication between them for +years. Yet so intense was his interest in her that he did not notice +that this revelation was leaving now no excuse for his wife's presence +at Boomville. + +Mrs. Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, “Yes, my husband. I went +to him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child. Yes, MY child,” she +said frantically, tightening her hold upon his hand, “for I lied to you +when I once told you I had none. I had a child, and, more than that, a +child who at his birth I did not dare to openly claim.” + +She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her former intensity +as if she would pluck the thought that followed from his brain. But +he only moved closer to her, passed his arm over her shoulders with a +movement so natural and protecting that it had a certain dignity in it, +and, looking down upon her bent head with eyes brimming with sympathy, +whispered, “Poor, poor child!” + +Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears. And then, with her head +half drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,--all that had passed +between her and her husband,--even all that they had then but hinted at. +It was as if she felt she could now, for the first time, voice all these +terrible memories of the past which had come back to her last night when +her husband had left her. She concealed nothing, she veiled nothing; +there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel +hardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner took +their place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter +satisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him. “I never had a +friend,” she whispered; “there were women who persecuted me with their +jealous sneers; there were men who persecuted me with their selfish +affections. When I first saw YOU, you seemed something so apart and +different from all other men that, although I scarcely knew you, I +wanted to tell you, even then, all that I have told you now. I wanted +you to be my friend; something told me that you could,--that you could +separate me from my past; that you could tell me what to do; that you +could make me think as you thought, see life as YOU saw it, and trust +always to some goodness in people as YOU did. And in this faith I +thought that you would understand me now, and even forgive me all.” + +She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and, possibly, +to look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively were bent upon her +downcast head. But he only held her the more tightly until her cheek +was close against his breast. “What could I do?” she murmured. “A man +in sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for sympathy and support and the +world will not gainsay or misunderstand him. But a woman--weaker, more +helpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving for light--must not in her +agony go to a man for succor and sympathy.” + +“Why should she not?” burst out Barker passionately, releasing her in +his attempt to gaze into her face. “What man dare refuse her?” + +“Not THAT,” she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, “but because +the world would say she LOVED him.” + +“And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands aside +and lets her suffer? Why should she heed its wretched babble?” he went +on in flashing indignation. + +“Because,” she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and parted +lips towards him,--“because it would be TRUE!” + +There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to withhold +its song as their eyes and lips met. When the spring recommenced its +murmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee above them and the +rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, with her face against his +breast: “You did not think it strange that I should follow you--that I +should risk everything to tell you what I have told you before I told +you anything else? You will never hate me for it, George?” + +There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked again +into the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, “I have ALWAYS +loved you. I know now I loved you from the first, from the day when I +leaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and saw your tenderness +for him in your eyes. I could have kissed you THEN, dearest, as I do +now.” + +“And,” she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, “you +will always remember, George, that you told me this BEFORE I told you +anything of her.” + +“HER? Of whom, dearest?” he asked, leaning over her tenderly. + +“Of Kitty--of your wife,” she said impatiently, as she drew back shyly +with her former intense gaze. + +He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, “Let us not +talk of her NOW. Later we shall have MUCH to say of her. For,” he added +quietly, “you know I must tell her all.” + +The color faded from her cheek. “Tell her all!” she repeated vacantly; +then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, “But what if she is +gone?” + +“Gone?” he repeated. + +“Yes; gone. What if she has run away with Van Loo? What if she has +disgraced you and her child?” + +“What do you mean?” he said, seizing both her hands and gazing at her +fixedly. + +“I mean,” she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, “that she has +already gone with Van Loo. George! George!” she burst out suddenly and +passionately, falling upon her knees before him, “do you think that I +would have followed you here and told you what I did if I thought that +she had now the slightest claim upon your love or honor? Don't you +understand me? I came to tell you of her flight to Boomville with that +man; how I accidentally intercepted them there; how I tried to save her +from him, and even lied to you to try to save her from your indignation; +but how she deceived me as she has you, and even escaped and joined her +lover while you were with me. I came to tell you that and nothing more, +George, I swear it. But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I was +mad--wild! I wanted to win you first out of your own love. I wanted you +to respond to MINE before you knew your wife was faithless. Yet I would +have saved her if I could. Listen, George! A moment more before you +speak!” + +Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife's dishonor, +from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her later appeal +for concealment from her husband's unexpected presence, to the use she +made of that concealment to fly with her lover. She spared no detail, +and even repeated the insult Mrs. Barker had cast upon her with the +triumphant reproach that her husband would not believe her. “Perhaps,” + she added bitterly, “you may not believe me now. I could even stand that +from you, George, if it could make you happier; but you would still have +to believe it from others. The people at the Boomville Hotel saw them +leave it together.” + +“I do believe you,” he said slowly, but with downcast eyes, “and if I +did not love you before you told me this I could love you now for the +part you have taken; but”--He stopped. + +“You love her still,” she burst out, “and I might have known it. +Perhaps,” she went on distractedly, “you love her the more that you have +lost her. It is the way of men--and women.” + +“If I had loved her truly,” said Barker, lifting his frank eyes to hers, +“I could not have touched YOUR lips. I could not even have wished to--as +I did three years ago--as I did last night. Then I feared it was my +weakness, now I know it was my love. I have thought of it ever since, +even while waiting my wife's return here, knowing that I did not and +never could have loved her. But for that very reason I must try to save +her for her own sake, if I cannot save her for mine; and if I fail, +dearest, it shall not be said that we climbed to happiness over her +back bent with the burden of her shame. If I loved you and told you so, +thinking her still guiltless and innocent, how could I profit now by her +fault?” + +Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. “Then you would take her +back?” she said frenziedly. + +“To my home--which is hers--yes. To my heart--no. She never was there.” + +“And I,” said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering lip,--“where do I +go when you have settled this? Back to my past again? Back to my +husbandless, childless life?” + +She was turning away, but Barker caught her in his arms again. “No!” + he said, his whole face suddenly radiating with hope and youthful +enthusiasm. “No! Kitty will help us; we will tell her all. You do not +know her, dearest, as I do--how good and kind she is, in spite of all. +We will appeal to her; she will devise some means by which, without the +scandal of a divorce, she and I may be separated. She will take dear +little Sta with her--it is only right, poor girl; but she will let me +come and see him. She will be a sister to us, dearest. Courage! All will +come right yet. Trust to me.” + +An hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's lips and then stopped. +For as she looked up at him in his supreme hopefulness, his divine +confidence in himself and others--at his handsome face beaming with +love and happiness, and his clear gray eyes glittering with an almost +spiritual prescience--she, woman of the world and bitter experience, +and perfectly cognizant of her own and Kitty's possibilities, was, +nevertheless, completely carried away by her lover's optimism. For of +all optimism that of love is the most convincing. Dear boy!--for he was +but a boy in experience--only his love for her could work this magic. So +she gave him kiss for kiss, largely believing, largely hoping, that Mrs. +Barker was in love with Van Loo and would NOT return. And in this hope +an invincible belief in the folly of her own sex soothed and sustained +her. + +“We must go now, dearest,” said Barker, pointing to the sun already near +the meridian. Three hours had fled, they knew not how. “I will bring +you back to the hill again, but there we had better separate, you taking +your way alone to the hotel as you came, and I will go a little way on +the road to the Divide and return later. Keep your own counsel about +Kitty for her sake and ours; perhaps no one else may know the truth +yet.” With a farewell kiss they plunged again hand in hand through the +cool bracken and again through the hot manzanita bushes, and so parted +on the hilltop, as they had never parted before, leaving their whole +world behind them. + +Barker walked slowly along the road under the flickering shade of +wayside sycamore, his sensitive face also alternating with his thought +in lights and shadows. Presently there crept towards him out of the +distance a halting, vacillating, deviating buggy, trailing a cloud of +dust after it like a broken wing. As it came nearer he could see that +the horse was spent and exhausted, and that the buggy's sole occupant--a +woman--was equally exhausted in her monotonous attempt to urge it +forward with whip and reins that rose and fell at intervals with feeble +reiteration. Then he stepped out of the shadow and stood in the middle +of the sunlit road to await it. For he recognized his wife. + +The buggy came nearer. And then the most exquisite pang he had ever felt +before at his wife's hands shot through him. For as she recognized +him she made a wild but impotent attempt to dash past him, and then as +suddenly pulled up in the ditch. + +He went up to her. She was dirty, she was disheveled, she was haggard, +she was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear-swept eyes and +smudges of dust-dried perspiration over her fair cheek. He thought of +the beauty, freshness, and elegance of the woman he had just left, and +an infinite pity swept the soul of this weak-minded gentleman. He ran +towards her, and tenderly lifting her in her shame-stained garments from +the buggy, said hurriedly, “I know it all, poor Kitty! You heard the +news of Van Loo's flight, and you ran over to the Divide to try and save +some of your money. Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?” + +There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuine pity and +tenderness of his action; but the woman saw before her only the familiar +dupe of her life, and felt an infinite relief mingled with a certain +contempt for his weakness and anger at her previous fears of him. + +“You might have driven over, then, yourself,” she said in a high, +querulous voice, “if you knew it so well, and have spared ME this +horrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved +anything--there! And I have had all this disgusting bother!” + +For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to her face, but +he checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coat from her shoulders +and shook it out, wiped the dust from her face and eyes with his own +handkerchief, held her hat and blew the dust from it with a vivid memory +of performing the same service for Mrs. Horncastle only an hour before, +while she arranged her hair; and then, lifting her again into the buggy, +said quietly, as he took his seat beside her and grasped the reins:-- + +“I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and you can go +at once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired, you are +nervous and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anything now until you +feel quite yourself again.” + +He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at the reins, +lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes they were at the +hotel. + +As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the great dining-room, a little +pale and abstracted, she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidently into the +room, fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing toilette. With a swift +glance of conscious power towards the other guests she walked towards +Mrs. Horncastle. “Ah, here you are, dear,” she said in a voice that +could easily reach all ears, “and you've arrived only a little before +me, after all. And I've had such an AWFUL drive to the Divide! And only +think! poor George telegraphed to me at Boomville not to worry, and his +dispatch has only just come back here.” + +And with a glance of complacency she laid Barker's gentle and forgiving +dispatch before the astonished Mrs. Horncastle. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +As the day advanced the excitement over the financial crisis increased +at Hymettus, until, in spite of its remote and peaceful isolation, +it seemed to throb through all its verandas and corridors with some +pulsation from the outer world. Besides the letters and dispatches +brought by hurried messengers and by coach from the Divide, there was +a crowd of guests and servants around the branch telegraph at the new +Heavy Tree post-office which was constantly augmenting. Added to the +natural anxiety of the deeply interested was the stimulated fever of the +few who wished to be “in the fashion.” It was early rumored that a heavy +operator, a guest of the hotel, who was also a director in the telegraph +company, had bought up the wires for his sole use, that the dispatches +were doctored in his interests as a “bear,” and there was wild talk +of lynching by the indignant mob. Passengers from Sacramento, San +Francisco, and Marysville brought incredible news and the wildest +sensations. Firm after firm had failed in the great cities. Old +established houses that dated back to the “spring of '49,” and had +weathered the fires and inundations of their perilous Californian +infancy, collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, impalpable +breath of panic. Companies rooted in respectability and sneered at for +old-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelessly speculated with +trusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the church was found dead in +his room with a bullet in his heart and a damning confession on the desk +before him! Foreign bankers were sending their gold out of the country; +government would be appealed to to open the vaults of the Mint; there +would be an embargo on all bullion shipment! Nothing was too wild or +preposterous to be repeated or credited. + +And with this fever of sordid passion the summer temperature had +increased. For the last two weeks the thermometer had stood abnormally +high during the day-long sunshine; and the metallic dust in the roads +over mineral ranges pricked the skin like red-hot needles. In the +deepest woods the aromatic sap stood in beads on felled logs and +splintered tree-shafts; even the mountain night breeze failed to cool +these baked and heated fastnesses. There were ominous clouds of smoke by +day that were pillars of fire by night along the distant valleys. Some +of the nearer crests were etched against the midnight sky by dull red +creeping lines like a dying firework. The great hotel itself creaked +and crackled and warped though all its painted, blistered, and veneered +expanse, and was filled with the stifling breath of desiccation. The +stucco cracked and crumbled away from the cornices; there were yawning +gaps in the boarded floors beneath the Turkey carpets. Plate-glass +windows became hopelessly fixed in their warped and twisted sashes, +and added to the heat; there was a warm incense of pine sap in the +dining-room that flavored all the cuisine. And yet the babble of stocks +and shares went on, and people pricked their ears over their soup to +catch the gossip of the last arrival. + +Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found bitterness, was nevertheless +impatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting a telegram from +Stacy; Barker had disappeared since luncheon. Suddenly there was +a commotion on the veranda as a carriage drove up with a handsome, +gray-haired woman. In the buzzing of voices around him Demorest heard +the name of Mrs. Van Loo. In further comments, made in more smothered +accents, he heard that Van Loo had been stopped at Canyon Station, but +that no warrant had yet been issued against him; that it was generally +believed that the bank dared not hold him; that others openly averred +that he had been used as a scapegoat to avert suspicion from higher +guilt. And certainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, confident air seemed to +corroborate these assertions. + +He was still wondering if the strange coincidence which had brought both +mother and son into his own life was not merely a fancy, as far as SHE +was concerned, when a waiter brought a message from Mrs. Van Loo that +she would be glad to see him for a few moments in her room. Last +night he could scarcely have restrained his eagerness to meet her and +elucidate the mystery of the photograph; now he was conscious of an +equally strong revulsion of feeling, and a dull premonition of evil. +However, it was no doubt possible that the man had told her of his +previous inquiries, and she had merely acknowledged them by that +message. + +Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private sitting-room where he and his +old partners had supped on the preceding night. She received him with +unmistakable courtesy and even a certain dignity that might or might +not have been assumed. He had no difficulty in recognizing the son's +mechanical politeness in the first, but he was puzzled at the second. + +“The manager of this hotel,” she began, with a foreigner's precision of +English, “has just told me that you were at present occupying my rooms +at his invitation, but that you wished to see me at once on my return, +and I believe that I was not wrong in apprehending that you preferred +to hear my wishes from my own lips rather than from an innkeeper. I had +intended to keep these rooms for some weeks, but, unfortunately for me, +though fortunately for you, the present terrible financial crisis, which +has most unjustly brought my son into such scandalous prominence, will +oblige me to return to San Francisco until his reputation is fully +cleared of these foul aspersions. I shall only ask you to allow me the +undisturbed possession of these rooms for a couple of hours until I can +pack my trunks and gather up a few souvenirs that I almost always keep +with me.” + +“Pray, consider that your wishes are my own in respect to that, my +dear madam,” returned Demorest gravely, “and that, indeed, I protested +against even this temporary intrusion upon your apartments; but I +confess that now that you have spoken of your souvenirs I have the +greatest curiosity about one of them, and that even my object in seeking +this interview was to gratify it. It is in regard to a photograph which +I saw on the chimney-piece in your bedroom, which I think I recognized +as that of some one whom I formerly knew.” + +There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hard aggressiveness +that quite changed the lady's face as he mentioned the word “souvenir,” + but it quickly changed to a smile as she put up her fan with a gesture +of arch deprecation, and said: + +“Ah! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph.” + +The reply irritated Demorest. More than that, he felt a sudden sense of +the absolute sentimentality of his request, and the consciousness +that he was about to invite the familiar confidence of this strange +woman--whose son had forged his name--in regard to HER! + +“It was a Venetian picture,” he began, and stopped, a singular disgust +keeping him from voicing the name. + +But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. “Oh, you mean my dearest friend--a +lovely picture, and you know her? Why, yes, surely. You are THE Mr. +Demorest who--Of course, that old love-affair. Well, you are a marvel! +Five years ago, at least, and you have not forgotten! I really must +write and tell her.” + +“Write and tell her!” Then it was all a lie about her death! He felt +not only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but even his +self-control. With an effort he said.-- + +“I think you have already satisfied my curiosity. I was told five years +ago that she was dead. It was because of the date of the photograph--two +years later--that I ventured to intrude upon you. I was anxious only to +know the truth.” + +“She certainly was very much living and of the world when I saw her +last, two years ago,” said Mrs. Van Loo, with an easy smile. “I dare say +that was a ruse of her relatives--a very stupid one--to break off the +affair, for I think they had other plans. But, dear me! now I remember, +was there not some little quarrel between you before? Some letter from +you that was not very kind? My impression is that there was something +of the sort, and that the young lady was indignant. But only for a time, +you know. She very soon forgot it. I dare say if you wrote something +very charming to her it might not be too late. We women are very +forgiving, Mr. Demorest, and although she is very much sought after, as +are all young American girls whose fathers can give them a comfortable +'dot', her parents might be persuaded to throw over a poor prince for +a rich countryman in the end. Of course, you know, to you Republicans +there is always something fascinating in titles and blood, and our dear +friend is like other girls. Still, it is worth the risk. And five years +of waiting and devotion really ought to tell. It's quite a romance! +Shall I write to her and tell her I have seen you, looking well and +prosperous? Nothing more. Do let me! I should be delighted.” + +“I think it hardly worth while for you to give yourself that trouble,” + said Demorest quietly, looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smiling eyes, “now that +I know the story of the young lady's death was a forgery. And I will not +intrude further on your time. Pray give yourself no needless hurry over +your packing. I may go to San Francisco this afternoon, and not even +require the rooms to-night.” + +“At least, let me make you a present of the souvenir as an +acknowledgment of your courtesy,” said Mrs. Van Loo, passing into her +bedroom and returning with the photograph. “I feel that with your five +years of constancy it is more yours than mine.” As a gentleman Demorest +knew he could not refuse, and taking the photograph from her with a low +bow, with another final salutation he withdrew. + +Alone by himself in a corner of the veranda he was surprised that +the interview had made so little impression on him, and had so little +altered his conviction. His discovery that the announcement of his +betrothed's death was a fiction did not affect the fact that though +living she was yet dead to him, and apparently by her own consent. +The contrast between her life and his during those five years had been +covertly accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whether intentionally or not, and +he saw again as last night the full extent of his sentimental folly. He +could not even condole with himself that he was the victim of miserable +falsehoods that others had invented. SHE had accepted them, and had even +excused her desertion of him by that last deceit of the letter. + +He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as a +lover. Had she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Was the +spirituality and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely his own idiotic +fancy? Had she always been like this? Yes. There was the girl who could +weakly strive, weakly revenge herself, and weakly forget. There was the +figure that he had expected to find carved upon the tomb which he had +long sought that he might weep over. He laughed aloud. + +It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What was Barker +doing, and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And what were those +people in the courtyard doing? Were they discussing news of further +disaster and ruin? Perhaps he was even now a beggar. Well, his fortune +might go with his faith. + +But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, and he +now saw that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard, and was +conscious of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped down from the +veranda among the mingled guests and servants, and saw that the smoke +was only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, that the chimney had +been on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and that +when the startled servants had knocked at the locked door she had told +them that she was only burning some old letters and newspapers, the +refuse of her trunks. There was naturally some indignation that the +hotel had been so foolishly endangered, in such scorching weather, and +the manager had had a scene with her which resulted in her leaving the +hotel indignantly with her half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke +had died away and the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth, +there was an acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upper +floors of the hotel all that afternoon. + +When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to the +rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still littered +with charred ashes of burnt paper. “My belief is,” said the manager +darkly, “that the old hag came here just to burn up a lot of +incriminating papers that her son had intrusted to her keeping. It looks +mighty suspicious. You see she got up an awful lot of side when I told +her I didn't reckon to run a smelting furnace in a wooden hotel with the +thermometer at one hundred in the office, and I reckon it was just an +excuse for getting off in a hurry.” + +But the continued delay in Stacy's promised telegram had begun to +work upon Demorest's usual equanimity, and he scarcely listened in his +anxiety for his old partner. He knew that Stacy should have arrived in +San Francisco by noon. He had almost determined to take the next train +from the Divide when two horsemen dashed into the courtyard. There +was the usual stir on the veranda and rush for news, but the two new +arrivals turned out to be Barker, on a horse covered with foam, and a +dashing, elegantly dressed stranger on a mustang as carefully groomed +and as spotless as himself. Demorest instantly recognized Jack Hamlin. + +He had not seen Hamlin since that day, five years before, when the +latter had accompanied the three partners with their treasure to +Boomville, and had handed him the mysterious packet. As the two men +dismounted hurriedly and moved towards him, he felt a premonition of +something as fateful and important as then. In obedience to a sign from +Barker he led them to a more secluded angle of the veranda. He could not +help noticing that his younger partner's face was mobile as ever, but +more thoughtful and older; yet his voice rang with the old freemasonry +of the camp, as he said, with a laugh, “The signal has been given, and +it's boot and saddle and away.” + +“But I have had no dispatch from Stacy,” said Demorest in surprise. “He +was to telegraph to me from San Francisco in any emergency.” + +“He never got there at all,” said Barker. “Jack ran slap into Van Loo at +the Divide, and sent a dispatch to Jim, which stopped him halfway until +Jack could reach him, which he nearly broke his neck to do; and then +Jack finished up by bringing a message from Stacy to us that we should +all meet together on the slope of Heavy Tree, near the Bar. I met Jack +just as I was riding into the Divide, and came back with him. He will +tell you the rest, and you can swear by what Jack says, for he's white +all through,” he added, laying his hand affectionately on Hamlin's +shoulder. + +Hamlin winced slightly. For he had NOT told Barker that his wife was +with Van Loo, nor his first reason for interfering. But he related how +he had finally overtaken Van Loo at Canyon Station, and how the fugitive +had disclosed the conspiracy of Steptoe and Hall against the bank and +Marshall as the price of his own release. On this news, remembering that +Stacy had passed the Divide on his way to the station, he had first sent +a dispatch to him, and then met him at the first station on the road. +“I reckon, gentlemen,” said Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in his +voice, “that he'd not only got my telegram, but ALL THE NEWS that had +been flying around this morning, for he looked like a man to whom it +was just a 'toss-up' whether he took his own life then and there or was +willing to have somebody else take it for him, for he said, 'I'll go +myself,' and telegraphed to have the surveyor stopped from coming. Then +he told me to tell you fellows, and ask you to come too.” Jack paused, +and added half mischievously, “He sort of asked ME what I would take +to stand by him in the row, if there was one, and I told him I'd +take--whiskey! You see, boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, and +I wouldn't mind for the sake of old times to finish the game with old +Steptoe that I began a matter of five years ago.” + +“All right,” said Demorest, with a kindling eye; “I suppose we'd better +start at once. One moment,” he added. “Barker boy, will you excuse me if +I speak a word to Hamlin?” As Barker nodded and walked to the rails of +the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, “You and I,” he said hurriedly, +“are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be no +child's play.” + +But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions which +Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, he surmised +that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He answered a little +more seriously than his wont, “I don't think as regards HIS WIFE that +would make much difference to him or her how stiff the work was.” + +Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed only +this confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself had +seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his return, to shake +his last remaining faith. “We'll all go together, then,” he said, with +a laugh, “as in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that we have no +woman in our confidence.” + +An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel, scarcely +noticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious of their absence +during the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered from her fatiguing +ride, was in high spirits and the most beautiful and spotless of summer +gowns, and was considered quite a heroine by the other ladies as she +dwelt upon the terrible heat of her return journey. “Only I knew Mr. +Barker would be worried--and the poor man actually walked a mile down +the Divide road to meet me--I believe I should have stayed there all +day.” She glanced round the other groups for Mrs. Horncastle, but that +lady had retired early. Possibly she alone had noticed the absence of +the two partners. + +The guests sat up until quite late, for the heat seemed to grow still +more oppressive, and the strange smell of burning wood revived the +gossip about Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in setting fire to her +chimney. Some averred that it would be days before the smell could be +got out of the house; others referred it to the fires in the woods, +which were now dangerously near. One spoke of the isolated position +of the hotel as affording the greatest security, but was met by the +assertion of a famous mountaineer that the forest fires were wont to +leap from crest to crest mysteriously, without any apparent continuous +contact. This led to more or less light-hearted conjecture of present +danger and some amusing stories of hotel fires and their ludicrous +revelations. There were also some entertaining speculations as to what +they would do and what they would try to save in such an emergency. + +“For myself,” said Mrs. Barker audaciously, “I should certainly let Mr. +Barker look after Sta and confine myself entirely to getting away with +my diamonds. I know the wretch would never think of them.” + +It was still later when, exhausted by the heat and some reaction from +the excitement of the day, they at last deserted the veranda for their +rooms, and for a while the shadowy bulk of the whole building was picked +out with regularly spaced lights from its open windows, until now these +finally faded and went out one by one. An hour later the whole building +had sunk to rest. It was said that it was only four in the morning when +a yawning porter, having put out the light in a dark, upper corridor, +was amazed by a dull glow from the top of the wall, and awoke to the +fact that a red fire, as yet smokeless and flameless, was creeping along +the cornice. He ran to the office and gave the alarm; but on returning +with assistance was stopped in the corridor by an impenetrable wall of +smoke veined with murky flashes. The alarm was given in all the lower +floors, and the occupants rushed from their beds half dressed to the +courtyard, only to see, as they afterwards averred, the flames burst +like cannon discharges from the upper windows and unite above the +crackling roof. So sudden and complete was the catastrophe, although +slowly prepared by a leak in the overheated chimney between the floors, +that even the excitement of fear and exertion was spared the survivors. +There was bewilderment and stupor, but neither uproar nor confusion. +People found themselves wandering in the woods, half awake and half +dressed, having descended from the balconies and leaped from the +windows,--they knew not how. Others on the upper floor neither awoke nor +moved from their beds, but were suffocated without a cry. From the first +an instinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating the conflagration +possessed them all; to a blind, automatic feeling to flee the building +was added the slow mechanism of the somnambulist; delicate women walked +speechlessly, but securely, along ledges and roofs from which they +would have fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. There was no +crowding or impeding haste in their dumb exodus. It was only when Mrs. +Barker awoke disheveled in the courtyard, and with an hysterical outcry +rushed back into the hotel, that there was any sign of panic. + +Mrs. Horncastle, who was standing near, fully dressed as from some +night-long vigil, quickly followed her. The half-frantic woman was +making directly for her own apartments, whose windows those in +the courtyard could see were already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs. +Horncastle stopped with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It had +just flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told her only a few hours +before that Sta had been removed with the nurse to the UPPER FLOOR! It +was not the forgotten child that Mrs. Barker was returning for, but her +diamonds! Mrs. Horncastle called her; she did not reply. The smoke was +already pouring down the staircase. Mrs. Horncastle hesitated for a +moment only, and then, drawing a long breath, dashed up the stairs. On +the first landing she stumbled over something--the prostrate figure of +the nurse. But this saved her, for she found that near the floor she +could breathe more freely. Before her appeared to be an open door. She +crept along towards it on her hands and knees. The frightened cry of +a child, awakened from its sleep in the dark, gave her nerve to rise, +enter the room, and dash open the window. By the flashing light she +could see a little figure rising from a bed. It was Sta. There was not +a moment to be lost, for the open window was beginning to draw the smoke +from the passage. Luckily, the boy, by some childish instinct, threw +his arms round her neck and left her hands free. Whispering him to +hold tight, she clambered out of the window. A narrow ledge of cornice +scarcely wide enough for her feet ran along the house to a distant +balcony. With her back to the house she zigzagged her feet along the +cornice to get away from the smoke, which now poured directly from the +window. Then she grew dizzy; the weight of the child on her bosom seemed +to be toppling her forward towards the abyss below. She closed her eyes, +frantically grasping the child with crossed arms on her breast as she +stood on the ledge, until, as seen from below through the twisting +smoke, they might have seemed a figure of the Madonna and Child niched +in the wall. Then a voice from above called to her, “Courage!” and she +felt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an upper window against +her face. She grasped it eagerly; it held firmly. Then she heard a cry +from below, saw them carrying a ladder, and at last was lifted with her +burden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then only did she raise her +eyes to the upper window whence had come her help. Smoke and flame were +pouring from it. The unknown hero who had sacrificed his only chance of +escape to her remained forever unknown. + +***** + +Only four miles away that night a group of men were waiting for the dawn +in the shadow of a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the sky glowed redly +over the crest between them and Hymettus, Hamlin said:-- + +“Another one of those forest fires. It's this side of Black Spur, and a +big one, I reckon.” + +“Do you know,” said Barker thoughtfully, “I was thinking of the time +the old cabin burnt up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about in the same +place.” + +“Hush!” said Stacy sharply. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +An abandoned tunnel--an irregular orifice in the mountain flank which +looked like a dried-up sewer that had disgorged through its opening the +refuse of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and a peculiar clay known +as “cement,” in a foul streak down its side; a narrow ledge on either +side, broken up by heaps of quartz, tailings, and rock, and half +hidden in scrub, oak, and myrtle; a decaying cabin of logs, bark, and +cobblestones--these made up the exterior of the Marshall claim. To this +defacement of the mountain, the rude clearing of thicket and underbrush +by fire or blasting, the lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitation +of saplings, might be added the debris and ruins of half-civilized +occupancy. The ground before the cabin was covered with broken boxes, +tin cans, the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the cast-off rags +of blankets and clothing. The whole claim in its unsavory, unpicturesque +details, and its vulgar story of sordid, reckless, and selfish occupancy +and abandonment, was a foul blot on the landscape, which the first rosy +dawn only made the more offending. Surely the last spot in the world +that men should quarrel and fight for! + +So thought George Barker, as with his companions they moved in single +file slowly towards it. The little party consisted only of himself, +Demorest, and Stacy; Marshall and Hamlin--according to a prearranged +plan--were still in ambush to join them at the first appearance of +Steptoe and his gang. The claim was yet unoccupied; they had secured +their first success. Steptoe's followers, unaware that his design had +been discovered, and confident that they could easily reach the claim +before Marshall and the surveyor, had lingered. Some of them had held +a drunken carouse at their rendezvous at Heavy Tree. Others were still +engaged in procuring shovels and picks and pans for their mock equipment +as miners, and this, again, gave Marshall's adherents the advantage. +THEY knew that their opponents would probably first approach the +empty claim encumbered only with their peaceful implements, while they +themselves had brought their rifles with them. + +Stacy, who by tacit consent led the party, on reaching the claim at +once posted Demorest and Barker each behind a separate heap of quartz +tailings on the ledge, which afforded them a capital breastwork, and +stationed himself at the mouth of the tunnel which was nearest the +trail. It had already been arranged what each man was to do. They were +in possession. For the rest they must wait. What they thought at +that moment no one knew. Their characteristic appearance had slightly +changed. The melancholy and philosophic Demorest was alert and bitter. +Barker's changeful face had become fixed and steadfast. Stacy alone wore +his “fighting look,” which the others had remembered. + +They had not long to wait. The sounds of rude laughter, coarse +skylarking, and voices more or less still confused with half-spent +liquor came from the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared with part +of his straggling followers, who were celebrating their easy invasion +by clattering their picks and shovels and beating loudly upon their tins +and prospecting-pans. The three partners quickly recognized the stamp +of the strangers, in spite of their peaceful implements. They were +the waifs and strays of San Francisco wharves, of Sacramento dens, of +dissolute mountain towns; and there was not, probably, a single actual +miner among them. A raging scorn and contempt took possession of Barker +and Demorest, but Stacy knew their exact value. As Steptoe passed before +the opening of the tunnel he heard the cry of “Halt!” + +He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards before him with his rifle +at half-cock. He saw Barker and Demorest, fully armed, rise from behind +their breastworks of rock along the ledge and thus fully occupy the +claim. But he saw more. He saw that his plot was known. Outlaw and +desperado as he was, he saw that he had lost his moral power in this +actual possession, and that from that moment he must be the aggressor. +He saw he was fighting no irresponsible hirelings like his own, but men +of position and importance, whose loss would make a stir. Against their +rifles the few revolvers that his men chanced to have slung to them +were of little avail. But he was not cowed, although his few followers +stumbled together at this momentary check, half angrily, half timorously +like wolves without a leader. “Bring up the other men and their guns,” + he whispered fiercely to the nearest. Then he faced Stacy. + +“Who are YOU to stop peaceful miners going to work on their own claim?” + he said coarsely. “I'll tell you WHO, boys,” he added, suddenly turning +to his men with a hoarse laugh. “It ain't even the bank! It's only Jim +Stacy, that the bank kicked out yesterday to save itself,--Jim Stacy +and his broken-down pals. And what's the thief doing here--in Marshall's +tunnel--the only spot that Marshall can claim? We ain't no particular +friends o' Marshall's, though we're neighbors on the same claim; but we +ain't going to see Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys?” + +“No, by G-d!” said his followers, dropping the pans and seizing their +picks and revolvers. They understood the appeal to arms if not to their +reason. For an instant the fight seemed imminent. Then a voice from +behind them said:-- + +“You needn't trouble yourselves about that! I'M Marshall! I sent these +gentlemen to occupy the claim until I came here with the surveyor,” and +two men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in the rear of Steptoe and +his followers. The speaker, Marshall, was a thin, slight, overworked, +over-aged man; his companion, the surveyor, was equally slight, +but red-bearded, spectacled, and professional-looking, with a long +traveling-duster that made him appear even clerical. They were scarcely +a physical addition to Stacy's party, whatever might have been their +moral and legal support. + +But it was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in his +designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor was +really the only disinterested witness between the two parties. If +Steptoe could confuse his mind before the actual fighting--from which he +would, of course, escape as a non-combatant--it would go far afterwards +to rehabilitate Steptoe's party. “Very well, then,” he said to Marshall, +“I shall call this gentleman to witness that we have been attacked +here in peaceable possession of our part of the claim by these armed +strangers, and whether they are acting on your order or not, their blood +will be on your head.” + +“Then I reckon,” said the surveyor, as he tore away his beard, wig, +spectacles, and mustache, and revealed the figure of Jack Hamlin, “that +I'm about the last witness that Mr. Steptoe-Horncastle ought to call, +and about the last witness that he ever WILL call!” + +But he had not calculated upon the desperation of Steptoe over the +failure of this last hope. For there sprang up in the outlaw's brain the +same hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at the Divide. With +a hoarse cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxe into the brain of +Marshall, who stood near him, and sprang forward. Three or four shots +were exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bullet from Stacy's rifle pierced +Steptoe's leg, and he dropped forward on one knee. He heard the steps +of his reinforcements with their weapons coming close behind him, and +rolled aside on the sloping ledge to let them pass. But he rolled too +far. He felt himself slipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shoot +of the tunnel. He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but the +treacherous drift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he were +part of its refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, but +otherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundred feet +below. + +When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above him had +ceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by a +circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could only +reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend to +the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growth +of hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, and dragged himself on his +hands and knees laboriously to the outcrop. He did not look up; since +his pick had crashed into Marshall's brain he had but one blind thought +before him--to escape at once! That his revenge and compensation would +come later he never doubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, from +bush to bush through the sloping thickets, until he saw the red road a +few feet below him. + +If he only had a horse he could put miles between him and any present +pursuit! Why should he not have one? The road was frequented by solitary +horsemen--miners and Mexicans. He had his revolver with him; what +mattered the life of another man if he escaped from the consequences of +the one he had just taken? He heard the clatter of hoofs; two priests on +mules rode slowly by; he ground his teeth with disappointment. But they +had scarcely passed before another and more rapid clatter came from +their rear. It was a lad on horseback. He started. It was his own son! + +He remembered in a flash how the boy had said he was coming to meet the +padre at the station on that day. His first impulse was to hide himself, +his wound, and his defeat from the lad, but the blind idea of escape +was still paramount. He leaned over the bank and called to him. The +astonished lad cantered eagerly to his side. + +“Give me your horse, Eddy,” said the father; “I'm in bad luck, and must +get.” + +The boy glanced at his father's face, at his tattered garments and +bandaged leg, and read the whole story. It was a familiar page to him. +He paled first and then flushed, and then, with an odd glitter in his +eyes, said, “Take me with you, father. Do! You always did before. I'll +bring you luck.” + +Desperation is superstitious. Why not take him? They had been lucky +before, and the two together might confound any description of their +identity to the pursuers. “Help me up, Eddy, and then get up before me.” + +“BEHIND, you mean,” said the boy, with a laugh, as he helped his father +into the saddle. + +“No,” said Steptoe harshly. “BEFORE me,--do you hear? And if anything +happens BEHIND you, don't look! If I drop off, don't stop! Don't get +down, but go on and leave me. Do you understand?” he repeated almost +savagely. + +“Yes,” said the boy tremulously. + +“All right,” said the father, with a softer voice, as he passed his one +arm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. “Hold tight when we come +to the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, for old luck's sake, +to the Mission.” + +They were the last words exchanged between them, for as they wheeled +rapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin and Demorest swung +as quickly out of another road to the right immediately behind them. +Jack's challenge to “Halt!” was only answered by Steptoe's horse +springing forward under the sharp lash of the riata. + +“Hold up!” said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the rifle which +Demorest had lifted to his shoulder. “He's carrying some one,--a wounded +comrade, I reckon. We don't want HIM. Swing out and go for the horse; +well forward, in the neck or shoulder.” + +Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised his rifle. As +it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacle +ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, for his head went +down with his fore feet under him, and he turned a half-somersault on +the road, flinging his two riders a dozen feet away. + +Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other figure +never moved. “Hands up!” said Jack, sighting his own weapon. The reports +seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had pierced Steptoe's brain even +before the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air. + +The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to the +prostrate figure that had never moved. + +“By God! it's a boy!” said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the +shoulders from which the head hung loosely. “Neck broken and dead as +his pal.” Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, began +hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand. + +“What are you doing?” demanded Demorest in creeping horror. + +“Look!” said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. The first two +fingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hidden in the padded +glove. + +“Good God! Van Loo's brother!” said Demorest, recoiling. + +“No!” said Jack, with a grim face, “it's what I have long +suspected,--it's Steptoe's son!” + +“His son?” repeated Demorest. + +“Yes,” said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies with +a long-drawn whistle of concern, “and I wouldn't, if I were you, say +anything of this to Barker.” + +“Why?” said Demorest. + +“Well,” returned Jack, “when our scrimmage was over down there, and they +brought the news to Barker that his wife and her diamonds were burnt up +at the hotel, you remember that they said that Mrs. Horncastle had saved +his boy.” + +“Yes,” said Demorest; “but what has that to do with it?” + +“Nothing, I reckon,” said Jack, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, +“only Mrs. Horncastle was the mother of the boy that's lying there.” + +***** + +Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat before the fire in the old +cabin on Marshall's claim--now legally their own--they looked from the +door beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to the pallid snow-line of the +Sierras, still as remote and unchanged to them as when they had +gazed upon it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for the matter of that, they +themselves seemed to have been left so unchanged that even now, as +in the old days, it was Barker's voice as he greeted them from the +darkening trail that alone broke their reverie. + +“Well,” said Demorest cheerfully, “your usual luck, Barker boy!” for +they already saw in his face the happy light they had once seen there on +an eventful night seven years ago. + +“I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next month,” he said breathlessly, +“and little Sta loves her already as if she was his own mother. Wish me +joy.” + +A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face; but his hand was the first to +grasp Barker's, and his voice the first to say “Amen!” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Partners, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE PARTNERS *** + +***** This file should be named 2560-0.txt or 2560-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/2560/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Three Partners + +Author: Bret Harte + +Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2560] +Last Updated: March 5, 2018 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE PARTNERS *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE THREE PARTNERS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Bret Harte + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PROL"> <b>PROLOGUE.</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PROL" id="link2H_PROL"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PROLOGUE. + </h2> + <p> + The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it had + kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, showing + through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the interstices of broken + boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly out again like sparks in + burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept down the whole mountain side, + and began its usual struggle with the shadows upclimbing from the valley, + only to lose itself in the end and be absorbed in the all-conquering + darkness. Yet for some time the pines on the long slope of Heavy Tree Hill + murmured and protested with swaying arms; but as the shadows stole + upwards, and cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel were swallowed up, + a complete silence followed. Only the sky remained visible—a vast + concave mirror of dull steel, in which the stars did not seem to be set, + but only reflected. + </p> + <p> + A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remained open to + the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an invisible figure, + afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire it was stirring. At first + only this figure brooding over the hearth was shown, but as the flames + leaped up, two other figures could be seen sitting motionless before it. + When the door was shut, they acknowledged that interruption by slightly + changing their position; the one who had risen to shut the door sank back + into an invisible seat, but the attitude of each man was one of profound + reflection or reserve, and apparently upon some common subject which made + them respect each other's silence. However, this was at last broken by a + laugh. It was a boyish laugh, and came from the youngest of the party. The + two others turned their profiles and glanced inquiringly towards him, but + did not speak. + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking,” he began in apologetic explanation, “how mighty queer it + was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages, without the + ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to sit here, night after + night, and flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd do if we ever DID make + one; and now, Great Scott! that we HAVE made it, and are just wallowing in + gold, here we are sitting as glum and silent as if we'd had a washout! + Why, Lord! I remember one night—not so long ago, either—that + you two quarreled over the swell hotel you were going to stop at in + 'Frisco, and whether you wouldn't strike straight out for London and Rome + and Paris, or go away to Japan and China and round by India and the Red + Sea.” + </p> + <p> + “No, we didn't QUARREL over it,” said one of the figures gently; “there + was only a little discussion.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but you did, though,” returned the young fellow mischievously, “and + you told Stacy, there, that we'd better learn something of the world + before we tried to buy it or even hire it, and that it was just as well to + get the hayseed out of our hair and the slumgullion off our boots before + we mixed in polite society.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't see what's the matter with that sentiment now,” returned + the second speaker good-humoredly; “only,” he added gravely, “we didn't + quarrel—God forbid!” + </p> + <p> + There was something in the speaker's tone which seemed to touch a common + chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with sudden and + almost pathetic earnestness. “I tell you what, boys, we ought to swear + here to-night to always stand by each other—in luck and out of it! + We ought to hold ourselves always at each other's call. We ought to have a + kind of password or signal, you know, by which we could summon each other + at any time from any quarter of the globe!” + </p> + <p> + “Come off the roof, Barker,” murmured Stacy, without lifting his eyes from + the fire. But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly at the younger man. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but look here, Stacy,” continued Barker, “comrades like us, in the + old days, used to do that in times of trouble and adventures. Why + shouldn't we do it in our luck?” + </p> + <p> + “There's a good deal in that, Barker boy,” said Demorest, “though, as a + general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and the ordinary, every-day, + single yelp from a wolf brings the whole pack together for business about + as quick as a password. But you cling to that sentiment, and put it away + with your gold-dust in your belt.” + </p> + <p> + “What I like about Barker is his commodiousness,” said Stacy. “Here he is, + the only man among us that has his future fixed and his preemption lines + laid out and registered. He's already got a girl that he's going to marry + and settle down with on the strength of his luck. And I'd like to know + what Kitty Carter, when she's Mrs. Barker, would say to her husband being + signaled for from Asia or Africa. I don't seem to see her tumbling to any + password. And when he and she go into a new partnership, I reckon she'll + let the old one slide.” + </p> + <p> + “That's just where you're wrong!” said Barker, with quickly rising color. + “She's the sweetest girl in the world, and she'd be sure to understand our + feelings. Why, she thinks everything of you two; she was just eager for + you to get this claim, which has put us where we are, when I held back, + and if it hadn't been for her, by Jove! we wouldn't have had it.” + </p> + <p> + “That was only because she cared for YOU,” returned Stacy, with a + half-yawn; “and now that you've got YOUR share she isn't going to take a + breathless interest in US. And, by the way, I'd rather YOU'D remind us + that we owe our luck to her than that SHE should ever remind YOU of it.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” said Barker quickly. But Demorest here rose lazily, + and, throwing a gigantic shadow on the wall, stood between the two with + his back to the fire. “He means,” he said slowly, “that you're talking + rot, and so is he. However, as yours comes from the heart and his from the + head, I prefer yours. But you're both making me tired. Let's have a fresh + deal.” + </p> + <p> + Nobody ever dreamed of contradicting Demorest. Nevertheless, Barker + persisted eagerly: “But isn't it better for us to look at this cheerfully + and happily all round? There's nothing criminal in our having made a + strike! It seems to me, boys, that of all ways of making money it's the + squarest and most level; nobody is the poorer for it; our luck brings no + misfortune to others. The gold was put there ages ago for anybody to find; + we found it. It hasn't been tarnished by man's touch before. I don't know + how it strikes you, boys, but it seems to me that of all gifts that are + going it is the straightest. For whether we deserve it or not, it comes to + us first-hand—from God!” + </p> + <p> + The two men glanced quickly at the speaker, whose face flushed and then + smiled embarrassedly as if ashamed of the enthusiasm into which he had + been betrayed. But Demorest did not smile, and Stacy's eyes shone in the + firelight as he said languidly, “I never heard that prospecting was a + religious occupation before. But I shouldn't wonder if you're right, + Barker boy. So let's liquor up.” + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless he did not move, nor did the others. The fire leaped higher, + bringing out the rude rafters and sternly economic details of the rough + cabin, and making the occupants in their seats before the fire look + gigantic by contrast. + </p> + <p> + “Who shut the door?” said Demorest after a pause. + </p> + <p> + “I did,” said Barker. “I reckoned it was getting cold.” + </p> + <p> + “Better open it again, now that the fire's blazing. It will light the way + if any of the men from below want to drop in this evening.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy stared at his companion. “I thought that it was understood that we + were giving them that dinner at Boomville tomorrow night, so that we might + have the last evening here by ourselves in peace and quietness?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but if any one DID want to come it would seem churlish to shut him + out,” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “I reckon you're feeling very much as I am,” said Stacy, “that this good + fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself, I know,” he + continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed, covered pile in the + corner of the cabin, “that I feel rather oppressed by—by its + specific gravity, I calculate—and sort of crampy and twitchy in the + legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and do something, and yet it holds me + here. All the same, I doubt if anybody will come up—except from + curiosity. Our luck has made them rather sore down the hill, for all + they're coming to the dinner to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “That's only human nature,” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “But,” said Barker eagerly, “what does it mean? Why, only this afternoon, + when I was passing the 'Old Kentuck' tunnel, where those Marshalls have + been grubbing along for four years without making a single strike, I felt + ashamed to look at them, and as they barely nodded to me I slinked by as + if I had done them an injury. I don't understand it.” + </p> + <p> + “It somehow does not seem to square with this 'gift of God' idea of yours, + does it?” said Stacy. “But we'll open the door and give them a show.” + </p> + <p> + As he did so it seemed as if the night were their only guest, and had been + waiting on the threshold to now enter bodily and pervade all things with + its presence. With that cool, fragrant inflow of air they breathed freely. + The red edge had gone from Black Spur, but it was even more clearly + defined against the sky in its towering blackness. The sky itself had + grown lighter, although the stars still seemed mere reflections of the + solitary pin-points of light scattered along the concave valley below. + Mingling with the cooler, restful air of the summit, yet penetratingly + distinct from it, arose the stimulating breath of the pines below, still + hot and panting from the day-long sun. The silence was intense. The + far-off barking of a dog on the invisible river-bar nearly a mile beneath + them came to them like a sound in a dream. They had risen, and, standing + in the doorway, by common consent turned their faces to the east. It was + the frequent attitude of the home-remembering miner, and it gave him the + crowning glory of the view. For, beyond the pine-hearsed summits, rarely + seen except against the evening sky, lay a thin, white cloud like a + dropped portion of the Milky Way. Faint with an indescribable pallor, + remote yet distinct enough to assert itself above and beyond all + surrounding objects, it was always there. It was the snow-line of the + Sierras. + </p> + <p> + They turned away and silently reseated themselves, the same thought in the + minds of each. Here was something they could not take away, something to + be left forever and irretrievably behind,—left with the healthy life + they had been leading, the cheerful endeavor, the undying hopefulness + which it had fostered and blessed. Was what they WERE taking away worth + it? And oddly enough, frank and outspoken as they had always been to each + other, that common thought remained unuttered. Even Barker was silent; + perhaps he was also thinking of Kitty. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly two figures appeared in the very doorway of the cabin. The effect + was startling upon the partners, who had only just reseated themselves, + and for a moment they had forgotten that the narrow band of light which + shot forth from the open door rendered the darkness on either side of it + more impenetrable, and that out of this darkness, although themselves + guided by the light, the figures had just emerged. Yet one was familiar + enough. It was the Hill drunkard, Dick Hall, or, as he was called, + “Whiskey Dick,” or, indicated still more succinctly by the Hill humorists, + “Alky Hall.” + </p> + <p> + Everybody had seen that sodden, puffy, but good-humored face; everybody + had felt the fiery exhalations of that enormous red beard, which always + seemed to be kept in a state of moist, unkempt luxuriance by liquor; + everybody knew the absurd dignity of manner and attempted precision of + statement with which he was wont to disguise his frequent excesses. Very + few, however, knew, or cared to know, the pathetic weariness and chilling + horror that sometimes looked out of those bloodshot eyes. + </p> + <p> + He was evidently equally unprepared for the three silent seated figures + before the door, and for a moment looked at them blankly with the doubts + of a frequently deceived perception. Was he sure that they were quite + real? He had not dared to look at his companion for verification, but + smiled vaguely. + </p> + <p> + “Good-evening,” said Demorest pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + Whiskey Dick's face brightened. “Good-evenin', good-evenin' yourselves, + boys—and see how you like it! Lemme interdrush my ole frien' William + J. Steptoe, of Red Gulch. Stepsho—Steptoe—is shtay—ish + stay—” He stopped, hiccupped, waved his hand gravely, and with an + air of reproachful dignity concluded, “sojourning for the present on the + Bar. We wish to offer our congrashulashen and felish—felish—” + He paused again, and, leaning against the door-post, added severely, “—itations.” + </p> + <p> + His companion, however, laughed coarsely, and, pushing past Dick, entered + the cabin. He was a short, powerful man, with a closely cropped crust of + beard and hair that seemed to adhere to his round head like moss or + lichen. He cast a glance—furtive rather than curious around the + cabin, and said, with a familiarity that had not even good humor to excuse + it, “So you're the gay galoots who've made the big strike? Thought I'd + meander up the Hill with this old bloat Alky, and drop in to see the show. + And here you are, feeling your oats, eh? and not caring any particular G-d + d—n if school keeps or not.” + </p> + <p> + “Show Mr. Steptoe—the whiskey,” said Demorest to Stacy. Then quietly + addressing Dick, but ignoring Steptoe as completely as Steptoe had ignored + his unfortunate companion, he said, “You quite startled us at first. We + did not see you come up the trail.” + </p> + <p> + “No. We came up the back trail to please Steptoe, who wanted to see round + the cabin,” said Dick, glancing nervously yet with a forced indifference + towards the whiskey which Stacy was offering to the stranger. + </p> + <p> + “What yer gettin' off there?” said Steptoe, facing Dick almost brutally. + “YOU know your tangled legs wouldn't take you straight up the trail, and + you had to make a circumbendibus. Gosh! if you hadn't scented this licker + at the top you'd have never found it.” + </p> + <p> + “No matter! I'm glad you DID find it, Dick,” said Demorest, “and I hope + you'll find the liquor good enough to pay you for the trouble.” + </p> + <p> + Barker stared at Demorest. This extraordinary tolerance of the drunkard + was something new in his partner. But at a glance from Demorest he led + Dick to the demijohn and tin cup which stood on a table in the corner. And + in another moment Dick had forgotten his companion's rudeness. + </p> + <p> + Demorest remained by the door, looking out into the darkness. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Steptoe, putting down his emptied cup, “trot out your strike. + I reckon our eyes are strong enough to bear it now.” Stacy drew the + blanket from the vague pile that stood in the corner, and discovered a + deep tin prospecting-pan. It was heaped with several large fragments of + quartz. At first the marble whiteness of the quartz and the glittering + crystals of mica in its veins were the most noticeable, but as they drew + closer they could see the dull yellow of gold filling the decomposed and + honeycombed portion of the rock as if still liquid and molten. The eyes of + the party sparkled like the mica—even those of Barker and Stacy, who + were already familiar with the treasure. + </p> + <p> + “Which is the richest chunk?” asked Steptoe in a thickening voice. + </p> + <p> + Stacy pointed it out. + </p> + <p> + “Why, it's smaller than the others.” + </p> + <p> + “Heft it in your hand,” said Barker, with boyish enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + The short, thick fingers of Steptoe grasped it with a certain aquiline + suggestion; his whole arm strained over it until his face grew purple, but + he could not lift it. + </p> + <p> + “Thar useter be a little game in the 'Frisco Mint,” said Dick, restored to + fluency by his liquor, “when thar war ladies visiting it, and that was to + offer to give 'em any of those little boxes of gold coin, that contained + five thousand dollars, ef they would kindly lift it from the counter and + take it away! It wasn't no bigger than one of these chunks; but Jiminy! + you oughter have seed them gals grip and heave on it, and then hev to give + it up! You see they didn't know anything about the paci—(hic) the + speshif—” He stopped with great dignity, and added with painful + precision, “the specific gravity of gold.” + </p> + <p> + “Dry up!” said Steptoe roughly. Then turning to Stacy he said abruptly, + “But where's the rest of it? You've got more than that.” + </p> + <p> + “We sent it to Boomville this morning. You see we've sold out our claim to + a company who take it up to-morrow, and put up a mill and stamps. In fact, + it's under their charge now. They've got a gang of men on the claim + already.” + </p> + <p> + “And what mout ye hev got for it, if it's a fair question?” said Steptoe, + with a forced smile. + </p> + <p> + Stacy smiled also. “I don't know that it's a business question,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Five hundred thousand dollars,” said Demorest abruptly from the doorway, + “and a treble interest.” + </p> + <p> + The eyes of the two men met. There was no mistaking the dull fire of envy + in Steptoe's glance, but Demorest received it with a certain cold + curiosity, and turned away as the sound of arriving voices came from + without. + </p> + <p> + “Five hundred thousand's a big figger,” said Steptoe, with a coarse laugh, + “and I don't wonder it makes you feel so d——d sassy. But it + WAS a fair question.” + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately it here occurred to the whiskey-stimulated brain of Dick + that the friend he had introduced was being treated with scant courtesy, + and he forgot his own treatment by Steptoe. Leaning against the wall he + waved a dignified rebuke. “I'm sashified my ole frien' is akshuated by + only businesh principles.” He paused, recollected himself, and added with + great precision: “When I say he himself has a valuable claim in Red Gulch, + and to my shertain knowledge has received offers—I have said + enough.” + </p> + <p> + The laugh that broke from Stacy and Barker, to whom the infelicitous + reputation of Red Gulch was notorious, did not allay Steptoe's irritation. + He darted a vindictive glance at the unfortunate Dick, but joined in the + laugh. “And what was ye goin' to do with that?” he said, pointing to the + treasure. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we're taking that with us. There's a chunk for each of us as a + memento. We cast lots for the choice, and Demorest won,—that one + which you couldn't lift with one hand, you know,” said Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, couldn't I? I reckon you ain't goin' to give me the same chance that + they did at the Mint, eh?” + </p> + <p> + Although the remark was accompanied with his usual coarse, familiar laugh, + there was a look in his eye so inconsequent in its significance that Stacy + would have made some reply, but at this moment Demorest re-entered the + cabin, ushering in a half dozen miners from the Bar below. They were, + although youngish men, some of the older locators in the vicinity, yet, + through years of seclusion and uneventful labors, they had acquired a + certain childish simplicity of thought and manner that was alternately + amusing and pathetic. They had never intruded upon the reserve of the + three partners of Heavy Tree Hill before; nothing but an infantine + curiosity, a shy recognition of the partners' courtesy in inviting them + with the whole population of Heavy Tree to the dinner the next day, and + the never-to-be-resisted temptation of an evening of “free liquor” and + forgetfulness of the past had brought them there now. Among them, and yet + not of them, was a young man who, although speaking English without + accent, was distinctly of a different nationality and race. This, with a + certain neatness of dress and artificial suavity of address, had gained + him the nickname of “the Count” and “Frenchy,” although he was really of + Flemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch Company's agent on the Bar, by + virtue of his knowledge of languages. + </p> + <p> + Barker uttered an exclamation of pleasure when he saw him. Himself the + incarnation of naturalness, he had always secretly admired this young + foreigner, with his lacquered smoothness, although a vague consciousness + that neither Stacy nor Demorest shared his feelings had restricted their + acquaintance. Nevertheless, he was proud now to see the bow with which + Paul Van Loo entered the cabin as if it were a drawing-room, and perhaps + did not reflect upon that want of real feeling in an act which made the + others uncomfortable. + </p> + <p> + The slight awkwardness their entrance produced, however, was quickly + forgotten when the blanket was again lifted from the pan of treasure. + Singularly enough, too, the same feverish light came into the eyes of each + as they all gathered around this yellow shrine. Even the polite Paul + rudely elbowed his way between the others, though his artificial “Pardon” + seemed to Barker to condone this act of brutal instinct. But it was more + instructive to observe the manner in which the older locators received + this confirmation of the fickle Fortune that had overlooked their weary + labors and years of waiting to lavish her favors on the new and + inexperienced amateurs. Yet as they turned their dazzled eyes upon the + three partners there was no envy or malice in their depths, no reproach on + their lips, no insincerity in their wondering satisfaction. Rather there + was a touching, almost childlike resumption of hope as they gazed at this + conclusive evidence of Nature's bounty. The gold had been there—THEY + had only missed it! And if there, more could be found! Was it not a proof + of the richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this reflected on + their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with the thoughtful + countenances of the real owners, would have thought them the lucky ones. + It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, it made Demorest + more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. Whiskey Dick alone + remained stolid and impassive in a desperate attempt to pull himself once + more together. Eventually he succeeded, even to the ambitious achievement + of mounting a chair and lifting his tin cup with a dangerously unsteady + hand, which did not, however, affect his precision of utterance, and said:— + </p> + <p> + “Order, gentlemen! We'll drink success to—to”— + </p> + <p> + “The next strike!” said Barker, leaping impetuously on another chair and + beaming upon the old locators—“and may it come to those who have so + long deserved it!” + </p> + <p> + His sincere and generous enthusiasm seemed to break the spell of silence + that had fallen upon them. Other toasts quickly followed. In the general + good feeling Barker attached himself to Van Loo with his usual boyish + effusion, and in a burst of confidence imparted the secret of his + engagement to Kitty Carter. Van Loo listened with polite attention, formal + congratulations, but inscrutable eyes, that occasionally wandered to Stacy + and again to the treasure. A slight chill of disappointment came over + Barker's quick sensitiveness. Perhaps his enthusiasm had bored this + superior man of the world. Perhaps his confidences were in bad taste! With + a new sense of his inexperience he turned sadly away. Van Loo took that + opportunity to approach Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “What's all this I hear of Barker being engaged to Miss Carter?” he said, + with a faintly superior smile. “Is it really true?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Why shouldn't it be?” returned Stacy bluntly. + </p> + <p> + Van Loo was instantly deprecating and smiling. “Why not, of course? But + isn't it sudden?” + </p> + <p> + “They have known each other ever since he's been on Heavy Tree Hill,” + responded Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes! True,” said Van Loo. “But now”— + </p> + <p> + “Well—he's got money enough to marry, and he's going to marry.” + </p> + <p> + “Rather young, isn't he?” said Van Loo, still deprecatingly. “And she's + got nothing. Used to wait on the table at her father's hotel in Boomville, + didn't she?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. What of that? We all know it.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. It's an excellent thing for her—and her father. He'll + have a rich son-in-law. About two hundred thousand is his share, isn't it? + I suppose old Carter is delighted?” + </p> + <p> + Stacy had thought this before, but did not care to have it corroborated by + this superfine young foreigner. “And I don't reckon that Barker is + offended if he is,” he said curtly as he turned away. Nevertheless, he + felt irritated that one of the three superior partners of Heavy Tree Hill + should be thought a dupe. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the conversation dropped, the laughter ceased. Every one turned + round, and, by a common instinct, looked towards the door. From the + obscurity of the hill slope below came a wonderful tenor voice, modulated + by distance and spiritualized by the darkness:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “When at some future day + I shall be far away, + Thou wilt be weeping, + Thy lone watch keeping.” + </pre> + <p> + The men looked at one another. “That's Jack Hamlin,” they said. “What's he + doing here?” + </p> + <p> + “The wolves are gathering around fresh meat,” said Steptoe, with his + coarse laugh and a glance at the treasure. “Didn't ye know he came over + from Red Dog yesterday?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, give Jack a fair show and his own game,” said one of the old + locators, “and he'd clean out that pile afore sunrise.” + </p> + <p> + “And lose it next day,” added another. + </p> + <p> + “But never turn a hair or change a muscle in either case,” said a third. + “Lord! I've heard him sing away just like that when he's been leaving the + board with five thousand dollars in his pocket, or going away stripped of + his last red cent.” + </p> + <p> + Van Loo, who had been listening with a peculiar smile, here said in his + most deprecating manner, “Yes, but did you never consider the influence + that such a man has on the hard-working tunnelmen, who are ready to gamble + their whole week's earnings to him? Perhaps not. But I know the + difficulties of getting the Ditch rates from these men when he has been in + camp.” + </p> + <p> + He glanced around him with some importance, but only a laugh followed his + speech. “Come, Frenchy,” said an old locator, “you only say that because + your little brother wanted to play with Jack like a grown man, and when + Jack ordered him off the board and he became sassy, Jack scooted him outer + the saloon.” + </p> + <p> + Van Loo's face reddened with an anger that had the apparent effect of + removing every trace of his former polished repose, and leaving only a + hard outline beneath. At which Demorest interfered:— + </p> + <p> + “I can't say that I see much difference in gambling by putting money into + a hole in the ground and expecting to take more from it than by putting it + on a card for the same purpose.” + </p> + <p> + Here the ravishing tenor voice, which had been approaching, ceased, and + was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodious whistling to + finish the bar of the singer's song. And the next moment Jack Hamlin + appeared in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + Whatever was his present financial condition, in perfect self-possession + and charming sang-froid he fully bore out his previous description. He was + as clean and refreshing looking as a madrono-tree in the dust-blown + forest. An odor of scented soap and freshly ironed linen was wafted from + him; there was scarcely a crease in his white waistcoat, nor a speck upon + his varnished shoes. He might have been an auditor of the previous + conversation, so quickly and completely did he seem to take in the whole + situation at a glance. Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his + black-ribboned Panama hat, and a certain dancing devilry in his brown eyes—which + might also have been an answer to adverse criticism. + </p> + <p> + “When I, his truth to prove, would trifle with my love,” he warbled in + general continuance from the doorway. Then dropping cheerfully into + speech, he added, “Well, boys, I am here to welcome the little stranger, + and to trust that the family are doing as well as can be expected. Ah! + there it is! Bless it!” he went on, walking leisurely to the treasure. + “Triplets, too!—and plump at that. Have you had 'em weighed?” + </p> + <p> + Frankness was an essential quality of Heavy Tree Hill. “We were just + saying, Jack,” said an old locator, “that, giving you a fair show and your + own game, you could manage to get away with that pile before daybreak.” + </p> + <p> + “And I'm just thinking,” said Jack cheerfully, “that there were some of + you here that could do that without any such useless preliminary.” His + brown eyes rested for a moment on Steptoe, but turning quite abruptly to + Van Loo, he held out his hand. Startled and embarrassed before the others, + the young man at last advanced his, when Jack coolly put his own, as if + forgetfully, in his pocket. “I thought you might like to know what that + little brother of yours is doing,” he said to Van Loo, yet looking at + Steptoe. “I found him wandering about the Hill here quite drunk.” + </p> + <p> + “I have repeatedly warned him”—began Van Loo, reddening. + </p> + <p> + “Against bad company—I know,” suggested Jack gayly; “yet in spite of + all that, I think he owes some of his liquor to Steptoe yonder.” + </p> + <p> + “I never supposed the fool would get drunk over a glass of whiskey offered + in fun,” said Steptoe harshly, yet evidently quite as much disconcerted as + angry. + </p> + <p> + “The trouble with Steptoe,” said Hamlin, thoughtfully spanning his slim + waist with both hands as he looked down at his polished shoes, “is that he + has such a soft-hearted liking for all weaknesses. Always wanting to + protect chaps that can't look after themselves, whether it's Whiskey Dick + there when he has a pull on, or some nigger when he's made a little + strike, or that straying lamb of Van Loo's when he's puppy drunk. But + you're wrong about me, boys. You can't draw me in any game to-night. This + is one of my nights off, which I devote exclusively to contemplation and + song. But,” he added, suddenly turning to his three hosts with a + bewildering and fascinating change of expression, “I couldn't resist + coming up here to see you and your pile, even if I never saw the one or + the other before, and am not likely to see either again. I believe in + luck! And it comes a mighty sight oftener than a fellow thinks it does. + But it doesn't come to stay. So I'd advise you to keep your eyes skinned, + and hang on to it while it's with you, like grim death. So long!” + </p> + <p> + Resisting all attempts of his hosts—who had apparently fallen as + suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner—to detain + him longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presently rising again in + melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at all remarkable that the + others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable magnetism, were impelled + to follow him, naturally joining their voices with his, leaving Steptoe + and Van Loo so markedly behind them alone that they were compelled at last + in sheer embarrassment to close up the rear of the procession. In another + moment the cabin and the three partners again relapsed into the peace and + quiet of the night. With the dying away of the last voices on the hillside + the old solitude reasserted itself. + </p> + <p> + But since the irruption of the strangers they had lost their former + sluggish contemplation, and now busied themselves in preparation for their + early departure from the cabin the next morning. They had arranged to + spend the following day and night at Boomville and Carter's Hotel, where + they were to give their farewell dinner to Heavy Tree Hill. They talked + but little together: since the rebuff his enthusiastic confidences had + received from Van Loo, Barker had been grave and thoughtful, and Stacy, + with the irritating recollection of Van Loo's criticisms in his mind, had + refrained from his usual rallying of Barker. Oddly enough, they spoke + chiefly of Jack Hamlin,—till then personally a stranger to them, on + account of his infelix reputation,—and even the critical Demorest + expressed a wish they had known him before. “But you never know the real + value of anything until you're quitting it or it's quitting you,” he added + sententiously. + </p> + <p> + Barker and Stacy both stared at their companion. It was unlike Demorest to + regret anything—particularly a mere social diversion. + </p> + <p> + “They say,” remarked Stacy, “that if you had known Jack Hamlin earlier and + professionally, a great deal of real value would have quitted you before + he did.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't repeat that rot flung out by men who have played Jack's game and + lost,” returned Demorest derisively. “I'd rather trust him than”—He + stopped, glanced at the meditative Barker, and then concluded abruptly, + “the whole caboodle of his critics.” + </p> + <p> + They were silent for a few moments, and then seemed to have fallen into + their former dreamy mood as they relapsed into their old seats again. At + last Stacy drew a long breath. “I wish we had sent those nuggets off with + the others this morning.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” said Demorest suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “Why? Well, d—n it all! they kind of oppress me, don't you see. I + seem to feel 'em here, on my chest—all the three,” returned Stacy + only half jocularly. “It's their d——d specific gravity, I + suppose. I don't like the idea of sleeping in the same room with 'em. + They're altogether too much for us three men to be left alone with.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't mean that you think that anybody would attempt”—said + Demorest. + </p> + <p> + Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. “No; I don't think THAT—I + rather wish I did. It's the blessed chunks of solid gold that seem to have + got US fast, don't you know, and are going to stick to us for good or ill. + A sort of Frankenstein monster that we've picked out of a hole from + below.” + </p> + <p> + “I know just what Stacy means,” said Barker breathlessly, rounding his + gray eyes. “I've felt it, too. Couldn't we make a sort of cache of it—bury + it just outside the cabin for to-night? It would be sort of putting it + back into its old place, you know, for the time being. IT might like it.” + </p> + <p> + The other two laughed. “Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy,” said + Stacy, “handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon! Besides, what's to keep + any prospector from coming along and making a strike of it? You know + that's mining law—if you haven't preempted the spot as a claim.” + </p> + <p> + But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to make any reply, + and Demorest arose. “And I feel that you'd both better be turning in, as + we've got to get up early.” He went to the corner of the cabin, and threw + the blanket back over the pan and its treasure. “There that'll keep the + chunks from getting up to ride astride of you like a nightmare.” He shut + the door and gave a momentary glance at its cheap hinges and the absence + of bolt or bar. Stacy caught his eye. “We'll miss this security in San + Francisco—perhaps even in Boomville,” he sighed. + </p> + <p> + It was scarcely ten o'clock, but Stacy and Barker had begun to undress + themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk, Barker continuing + an amusing story, with one stocking off and his trousers hanging on his + arm, until at last both men were snugly curled up in their respective + bunks. Presently Stacy's voice came from under the blankets:— + </p> + <p> + “Hallo! aren't you going to turn in too?” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet,” said Demorest from his chair before the fire. “You see it's the + last night in the old shanty, and I reckon I'll see the rest of it out.” + </p> + <p> + “That's so,” said the impulsive Barker, struggling violently with his + blankets. “I tell you what, boys: we just ought to make a watch-night of + it—a regular vigil, you know—until twelve at least. Hold on! + I'll get up, too!” But here Demorest arose, caught his youthful partner's + bare foot which went searching painfully for the ground in one hand, + tucked it back under the blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, + patted the bulk with an authoritative, paternal air. + </p> + <p> + “You'll just say your prayers and go to sleep, sonny. You'll want to be + fresh as a daisy to appear before Miss Kitty to-morrow early, and you can + keep your vigils for to-morrow night, after dinner, in the back + drawing-room. I said 'Good-night,' and I mean it!” + </p> + <p> + Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a nestling shiver and a + sudden silence. Demorest walked back to his chair. A prolonged snore came + from Stacy's bunk; then everything was quiet. Demorest stirred up the + fire, cast a huge root upon it, and, leaning back in his chair, sat with + half-closed eyes and dreamed. + </p> + <p> + It was an old dream that for the past three years had come to him daily, + sometimes even overtaking him under the shade of a buckeye in his noontide + rest on his claim,—a dream that had never yet failed to wait for him + at night by the fireside when his partners were at rest; a dream of the + past, but so real that it always made the present seem the dream through + which he was moving towards some sure awakening. + </p> + <p> + It was not strange that it should come to him to-night, as it had often + come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurity as the vision of a + fair young girl seated in one of the empty chairs before him. Always the + same pretty, childlike face, fraught with a half-frightened, + half-wondering trouble; always the same slender, graceful figure, but + always glimmering in diamonds and satin, or spiritual in lace and pearls, + against his own rude and sordid surroundings; always silent with parted + lips, until the night wind smote some chord of recollection, and then + mingled a remembered voice with his own. For at those times he seemed to + speak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance inaudible to all but + her. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he said sadly. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with his own. + </p> + <p> + “You know it all now,” he went on. “You know that it has come at last,—all + that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have made us happy here; + all that would have saved you to me has come at last, and all too late!” + </p> + <p> + “Too late!” echoed the voice with his. + </p> + <p> + “You remember,” he went on, “the last day we were together. You remember + your friends and family would have you give me up—a penniless man. + You remember when they reproached you with my poverty, and told you that + it was only your wealth that I was seeking, that I then determined to go + away and never to return to claim you until that reproach could be + removed. You remember, dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay with + you, even fly with you, but not to leave you alone with them. You wore the + same dress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering childlike + fear and trouble in them; your jewels glittered on you as you trembled, + and I refused. In my pride, or rather in my weakness and cowardice, I + refused. I came away and broke my heart among these rocks and ledges, yet + grew strong; and you, my love, YOU, sheltered and guarded by those you + loved, YOU”—He stopped and buried his face in his hands. The night + wind breathed down the chimney, and from the stirred ashes on the hearth + came the soft whisper, “I died.” + </p> + <p> + “And then,” he went on, “I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heart awoke for + this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a girl that + even in her humble station was far beyond his hopes, and I pitied myself + in him. Home, fortune, friends, I no longer cared for—all were + forgotten. And now they are returning to me—only that I may see the + hollowness and vanity of them, and taste the bitterness for which I have + sacrificed you. And here, on this last night of my exile, I am confronted + with only the jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and selfishness that is to + come. Too late! Too late!” + </p> + <p> + The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to + clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in the + chimney that seemed to whisper to him: “Too late, beloved, for ME, but not + for you. I died, but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in your + happiness I too may live again”? + </p> + <p> + He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. The wind that + had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a sound like the + passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill in the air and a smell like + that of opened earth. A nervous shiver passed over him. Then he sat + upright. There was no mistake; it was no superstitious fancy, but a faint, + damp current of air was actually flowing across his feet towards the + fireplace. He was about to rise when he stopped suddenly and became + motionless. + </p> + <p> + He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected him + even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was a gentle brushing of some + yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the sweep of + a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland sound, it was + not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor + the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations + of his sleeping companions were distinct from that monotonous sound. He + could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or without. Suddenly his eye + fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket that covered the treasure + was actually moving! + </p> + <p> + He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing. For + this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches had + disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred treasure. The + movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing sound recommenced. He + drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot-leg, and in three noiseless + strides was beside the pile. There he saw what he fully expected to see,—a + narrow, horizontal gap between the log walls of the cabin and the adobe + floor, slowly widening and deepening by the burrowing of unseen hands from + without. The cold outer air which he had felt before was now plainly + flowing into the heated cabin through the opening. The swishing sound + recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of a hand, palm downwards, + were cautiously introduced between the bottom log and the denuded floor. + Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knife of Demorest descended like a + flash of lightning. There was no outcry. Even in that supreme moment + Demorest felt a pang of admiration for the stoicism of the unseen + trespasser. But the maimed hand was quickly withdrawn, and as quickly + Demorest rushed to the door and dashed into the outer darkness. + </p> + <p> + For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change. But the + next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure running before him, and + threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell, but even in that + contact Demorest felt the tangled beard and alcoholic fumes of Whiskey + Dick, and felt also that the hands which were thrown up against his + breast, the palms turned outward with the instinctive movement of a timid, + defenseless man, were unstained with soil or blood. With an oath he threw + the drunkard from him and dashed to the rear of the cabin. But too late! + There, indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened burrow as it had + been excavated apparently by that mutilated hand—but nothing else! + </p> + <p> + He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, although still + retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered his feet in a + kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of injury. What did Demorest + mean by attacking “innoshent” gentlemen on the trail outside his cabin? + Yes! OUTSIDE his cabin, he would swear it! + </p> + <p> + “What were you doing here at midnight?” demanded Demorest. + </p> + <p> + What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasn't any + molly-coddle to go to bed at ten o'clock! What was he doing? Well—he'd + been with men who didn't shut their doors and turn the boys out just in + the shank of the evening. He wasn't any Barker to be wet-nursed by + Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Some one else was here!” said Demorest sternly, with his eyes fixed on + Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil the outer world from the + drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly with such a look of direct horror that + Demorest was fain to turn away his own. But the veil mercifully returned, + and with it Dick's worked-up sense of injury. Nobody was there—not + “a shole.” Did Demorest think if there had been any of his friends there + they would have stood by like “dogsh” and seen him insulted? + </p> + <p> + Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurched heavily + forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitement over, a sickening + repugnance to the whole incident took the place of Demorest's resentment + and indignation. There had been a cowardly attempt to rob them of their + miserable treasure. He had met it and frustrated it in almost as brutal a + fashion: the gold was already tarnished with blood. To his surprise, yet + relief, he found his partners unconscious of the outrage, still sleeping + with the physical immobility of over-excited and tired men. Should he + awaken them? No! He should have to awaken also their suspicions and desire + for revenge. There was no danger of a further attack; there was no fear + that the culprit would disclose himself, and to-morrow they would be far + away. Let oblivion rest upon that night's stain on the honor of Heavy Tree + Hill. + </p> + <p> + He rolled a small barrel before the opening, smoothed the dislodged earth, + replaced the pan with its treasure, and trusted that in the bustle of the + early morning departure his partners might not notice any change. Stopping + before the bunk of Stacy he glanced at the sleeping man. He was lying on + his back, but breathing heavily, and his hands were moving towards his + chest as if, indeed, his strange fancy of the golden incubus were being + realized. Demorest would have wakened him, but presently, with a sigh of + relief, the sleeper turned over on his side. It was pleasanter to look at + Barker, whose damp curls were matted over his smooth, boyish forehead, and + whose lips were parted in a smile under the silken wings of his brown + mustache. He, too, seemed to be trying to speak, and remembering some + previous revelations which had amused them, Demorest leaned over him + fraternally with an answering smile, waiting for the beloved one's name to + pass the young man's lips. But he only murmured, “Three—hundred—thousand + dollars!” The elder man turned away with a grave face. The influence of + the treasure was paramount. + </p> + <p> + When he had placed one of the chairs against the unprotected door at an + angle which would prevent any easy or noiseless intrusion, Demorest threw + himself on his bunk without undressing, and turned his face towards the + single window of the cabin that looked towards the east. He did not + apprehend another covert attempt against the gold. He did not fear a + robbery with force and arms, although he was satisfied that there was more + than one concerned in it, but this he attributed only to the encumbering + weight of their expected booty. He simply waited for the dawn. It was some + time before his eyes were greeted with the vague opaline brightness of the + firmament which meant the vanishing of the pallid snow-line before the + coming day. A bird twittered on the roof. The air was chill; he drew his + blanket around him. Then he closed his eyes, he fancied only for a moment, + but when he opened them the door was standing open in the strong daylight. + He sprang to his feet, but the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who + had passed out, and was returning fully dressed, bringing water from the + spring to fill the kettle. But Stacy's face was so grave that, recalling + his disturbed sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if he had been haunted + by the treasure. But to his surprise Stacy put down the kettle, and, with + a hurried glance at the still sleeping Barker, said in a low voice:— + </p> + <p> + “I want you to do something for me without asking why. Later I will tell + you.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest looked at him fixedly. “What is it?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “The pack-mules will be here in a few moments. Don't wait to close up or + put away anything here, but clap that gold in the saddle-bags, and take + Barker with you and 'lite' out for Boomville AT ONCE. I will overtake you + later.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there no time to discuss this?” asked Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Stacy bluntly. “Call me a crank, say I'm in a blue funk”—his + compressed lips and sharp black eyes did not lend themselves much to that + hypothesis—“only get out of this with that stuff, and take Barker + with you! I'm not responsible for myself while it's here.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest knew Stacy to be combative, but practical. If he had not been + assured of his partner's last night slumbers he might have thought he knew + of the attempt. Or if he had discovered the turned-up ground in the rear + of the cabin his curiosity would have demanded an explanation. Demorest + paused only for a moment, and said, “Very well, I will go.” + </p> + <p> + “Good! I'll rouse out Barker, but not a word to him—except that he + must go.” + </p> + <p> + The rousing out of Barker consisted of Stacy's lifting that young + gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright in the open + doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan process, and after a + moment's balancing with closed lids like an unwrapped mummy, he sat down + in the doorway and began to dress. He at first demurred to their departure + except all together—it was so unfraternal; but eventually he allowed + himself to be persuaded out of it and into his clothes. For Barker had + also had HIS visions in the night, one of which was that they should build + a beautiful villa on the site of the old cabin and solemnly agree to come + every year and pass a week in it together. “I thought at first,” he said, + sliding along the floor in search of different articles of his dress, or + stopping gravely to catch them as they were thrown to him by his partners, + “that we'd have it at Boomville, as being handier to get there; but I've + concluded we'd better have it here, a little higher up the hill, where it + could be seen over the whole Black Spur Range. When we weren't here we + could use it as a Hut of Refuge for broken-down or washed-out miners or + weary travelers, like those hospices in the Alps, you know, and have + somebody to keep it for us. You see I've thought even of THAT, and Van Loo + is the very man to take charge of it for us. You see he's got such good + manners and speaks two languages. Lord! if a German or Frenchman came + along, poor and distressed, Van Loo would just chip in his own language. + See? You've got to think of all these details, you see, boys. And we might + call it 'The Rest of the Three Partners,' or 'Three Partners' Rest.'” + </p> + <p> + “And you might begin by giving us one,” said Stacy. “Dry up and drink your + coffee.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll draw out the plans. I've got it all in my head,” continued the + enthusiastic Barker, unheeding the interruption. “I'll just run out and + take a look at the site, it's only right back of the cabin.” But here + Stacy caught him by his dangling belt as he was flying out of the door + with one boot on, and thrust him down in a chair with a tin cup of coffee + in his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Keep the plans in your head, Barker boy,” said Demorest, “for here are + the pack mules and packer.” This was quite enough to divert the + impressionable young man, who speedily finished his dressing, as a mule + bearing a large pack-saddle and two enormous saddle-bags or pouches drove + up before the door, led by a muleteer on a small horse. The transfer of + the treasure to the saddle-bags was quickly made by their united efforts, + as the first rays of the sun were beginning to paint the hillside. Shading + his keen eyes with his hand, Stacy stood in the doorway and handed + Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. “Hadn't YOU better keep one?” + he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his first challenge of + curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle into Stacy's glance as + he returned, “Not much! And you'd better take my revolver with you, too. + I'm feeling a little better now,” he said, looking at the saddlebags, “but + I'm not fit to be trusted yet with carnal weapons. When the other mule + comes and is packed I'll overtake you on the horse.” + </p> + <p> + A little more satisfied, although still wondering and perplexed, Demorest + shouldered one rifle, and with Barker, who was carrying the other, + followed the muleteer and his equipage down the trail. For a while he was + a little ashamed of his part in this unusual spectacle of two armed men + convoying a laden mule in broad daylight, but, luckily, it was too early + for the Bar miners to be going to work, and as the tunnelmen were now at + breakfast the trail was free of wayfarers. At the point where it crossed + the main road Demorest, however, saw Steptoe and Whiskey Dick emerge from + the thicket, apparently in earnest conversation. Demorest felt his + repugnance and half-restrained suspicions suddenly return. Yet he did not + wish to betray them before Barker, nor was he willing, in case of an + emergency, to allow the young man to be entirely unprepared. Calling him + to follow, he ran quickly ahead of the laden mule, and was relieved to + find that, looking back, his companion had brought his rifle to a “ready,” + through some instinctive feeling of defense. As Steptoe and Whiskey Dick, + a moment later discovering them, were evidently surprised, there seemed, + however, to be no reason for fearing an outbreak. Suddenly, at a whisper + from Steptoe, he and Whiskey Dick both threw up their hands, and stood + still on the trail a few yards from them in a burlesque of the usual + recognized attitude of helplessness, while a hoarse laugh broke from + Steptoe. + </p> + <p> + “D——d if we didn't think you were road-agents! But we see + you're only guarding your treasure. Rather fancy style for Heavy Tree + Hill, ain't it? Things must be gettin' rough up thar to hev to take out + your guns like that!” + </p> + <p> + Demorest had looked keenly at the four hands thus exhibited, and was more + concerned that they bore no trace of wounds or mutilation than at the + insult of the speech, particularly as he had a distinct impression that + the action was intended to show him the futility of his suspicions. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad to see that if you haven't any arms in your hands you're not + incapable of handling them,” said Demorest coolly, as he passed by them + and again fell into the rear of the muleteer. + </p> + <p> + But Barker had thought the incident very funny, and laughed effusively at + Whiskey Dick. “I didn't know that Steptoe was up to that kind of fun,” he + said, “and I suppose we DID look rather rough with these guns as we ran on + ahead of the mule. But then you know that when you called to me I really + thought you were in for a shindy. All the same, Whiskey Dick did that + 'hands up' to perfection: how he managed it I don't know, but his knees + seemed to knock together as if he was in a real funk.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest had thought so too, but he made no reply. How far that miserable + drunkard was a forced or willing accomplice of the events of last night + was part of a question that had become more and more repugnant to him as + he was leaving the scene of it forever. It had come upon him, desecrating + the dream he had dreamt that last night and turning its hopeful climax to + bitterness. Small wonder that Barker, walking by his side, had his quick + sympathies aroused, and as he saw that shadow, which they were all + familiar with, but had never sought to penetrate, fall upon his + companion's handsome face, even his youthful spirits yielded to it. They + were both relieved when the clatter of hoofs behind them, as they reached + the valley, announced the approach of Stacy. “I started with the second + mule and the last load soon after you left,” he explained, “and have just + passed them. I thought it better to join you and let the other load + follow. Nobody will interfere with THAT.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you are satisfied?” said Demorest, regarding him steadfastly. + </p> + <p> + “You bet! Look!” + </p> + <p> + He turned in his saddle and pointed to the crest of the hill they had just + descended. Above the pines circling the lower slope above the bare ledges + of rock and outcrop, a column of thick black smoke was rising straight as + a spire in the windless air. + </p> + <p> + “That's the old shanty passing away,” said Stacy complacently. “I reckon + there won't be much left of it before we get to Boomville.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest and Barker stared. “You fired it?” said Barker, trembling with + excitement. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Stacy. “I couldn't bear to leave the old rookery for coyotes + and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before I left.” + </p> + <p> + “But”—said Barker. + </p> + <p> + “But,” repeated Stacy composedly. “Hallo! what's the matter with that new + plan of 'The Rest' that you're going to build, eh? You don't want them + BOTH.” + </p> + <p> + “And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin to strangers?” said + Barker, with kindling eyes. “Stacy, I didn't think you had that poetry in + you!” + </p> + <p> + “There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don't know, and I don't exactly + sabe myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Only,” continued the young fellow eagerly, “we ought to have ALL been + there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,—a kind + of sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of libation on the ground!” + </p> + <p> + “I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I think,” returned Stacy, “just + to help things along. But if you want to see her flaming, Barker, you just + run back to that last corner on the road beyond the big red wood. That's + the spot for a view.” + </p> + <p> + As Barker—always devoted to a spectacle—swiftly disappeared + the two men faced each other. “Well, what does it all mean?” said Demorest + gravely. + </p> + <p> + “It means, old man,” said Stacy suddenly, “that if we hadn't had nigger + luck, the same blind luck that sent us that strike, you and I and that + Barker over there would have been swirling in that smoke up to the sky + about two hours ago!” He stopped and added in a lower, but earnest voice, + “Look here, Phil! When I went out to fetch water this morning I smelt + something queer. I went round to the back of the cabin and found a hole + dug under the floor, and piled against the corner wall a lot of brush-wood + and a can of kerosene. Some of the kerosene had been already poured on the + brush. Everything was ready to light, and only my coming out an hour + earlier had frightened the devils away. The idea was to set the place on + fire, suffocate us in the smoke of the kerosene poured into the hole, and + then to rush in and grab the treasure. It was a systematic plan!” + </p> + <p> + “No!” said Demorest quietly. + </p> + <p> + “No?” repeated Stacy. “I told you I saw the whole thing and took away the + kerosene, which I hid, and after you had gone used it to fire the cabin + with, to see if the ones I suspected would gather to watch their work.” + </p> + <p> + “It was no part of their FIRST plan”' said Demorest, “which was only + robbery. Listen!” He hurriedly recounted his experience of the preceding + night to the astonished Stacy. “No, the fire was an afterthought and + revenge,” he added sternly. + </p> + <p> + “But you say you cut the robber in the hand; there would be no difficulty + in identifying him by that.” + </p> + <p> + “I wounded only a HAND,” said Demorest. “But there was a HEAD in that + attempt that I never saw.” He then revealed his own half-suspicions, but + how they were apparently refuted by the bravado of Steptoe and Whiskey + Dick. + </p> + <p> + “Then that was the reason THEY didn't gather at the fire,” said Stacy + quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Demorest, “then YOU too suspected them?” + </p> + <p> + Stacy hesitated, and then said abruptly, “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest was silent for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't you tell me this this morning?” he said gently. + </p> + <p> + Stacy pointed to the distant Barker. “I didn't want you to tell him. I + thought it better for one partner to keep a secret from two than for the + two to keep it from one. Why didn't you tell me of your experience last + night?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid it was for the same reason,” said Demorest, with a faint + smile. “And it sometimes seems to me, Jim, that we ought to imitate + Barker's frankness. In our dread of tainting him with our own knowledge of + evil we are sending him out into the world very poorly equipped, for all + his three hundred thousand dollars.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon you're right,” said Stacy briefly, extending his hand. “Shake on + that!” + </p> + <p> + The two men grasped each other's hands. + </p> + <p> + “And he's no fool, either,” continued Demorest. “When we met Steptoe on + the road, without a word from me, he closed up alongside, with his hand on + the lock of his rifle. And I hadn't the heart to praise him or laugh it + off.” + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless they were both silent as the object of their criticism + bounded down the trail towards them. He had seen the funeral pyre. It was + awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but there was something grand in it! + Who could have thought Stacy could be so poetic? But he wanted to tell + them something else that was mighty pretty. + </p> + <p> + “What was it?” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Barker, “don't laugh! But you know that Jack Hamlin? Well, + boys, he's been hovering around us on his mustang, keeping us and that + pack-mule in sight ever since we left. Sometimes he's on a side trail off + to the right, sometimes off to the left, but always at the same distance. + I didn't like to tell you, boys, for I thought you'd laugh at me; but I + think, you know, he's taken a sort of shine to us since he dropped in last + night. And I fancy, you see, he's sort of hanging round to see that we get + along all right. I'd have pointed him out before only I reckoned you and + Stacy would say he was making up to us for our money.” + </p> + <p> + “And we'd have been wrong, Barker boy,” said Stacy, with a heartiness that + surprised Demorest, “for I reckon your instinct's the right one.” + </p> + <p> + “There he is now,” said the gratified Barker, “just abreast of us on the + cut-off. He started just after we did, and he's got a horse that could + have brought him into Boomville hours ago. It's just his kindness.” + </p> + <p> + He pointed to a distant fringe of buckeye from which Jack Hamlin had just + emerged. Although evidently holding in a powerful mustang, nothing could + be more unconscious and utterly indifferent than his attitude. He did not + seem to know of the proximity of any other traveler, and to care less. His + handsome head was slightly thrown back, as if he was caroling after his + usual fashion, but the distance was too great to make his melody audible + to them, or to allow Barker's shout of invitation to reach him. Suddenly + he lowered his tightened rein, the mustang sprang forward, and with a + flash of silver spurs and bridle fripperies he had disappeared. But as the + trail he was pursuing crossed theirs a mile beyond, it seemed quite + possible that they should again meet him. + </p> + <p> + They were now fairly into the Boomville valley, and were entering a narrow + arroyo bordered with dusky willows which effectually excluded the view on + either side. It was the bed of a mountain torrent that in winter descended + the hillside over the trail by which they had just come, but was now sunk + into the thirsty plain between banks that varied from two to five feet in + height. The muleteer had advanced into the narrow channel when he suddenly + cast a hurried glance behind him, uttered a “Madre de Dios!” and backed + his mule and his precious freight against the bank. The sound of hoofs on + the trail in their rear had caught his quicker ear, and as the three + partners turned they beheld three horsemen thundering down the hill + towards them. They were apparently Mexican vaqueros of the usual common + swarthy type, their faces made still darker by the black silk handkerchief + tied round their heads under their stiff sombreros. Either they were + unable or unwilling to restrain their horses in their headlong speed, and + a collision in that narrow passage was imminent, but suddenly, before + reaching its entrance, they diverged with a volley of oaths, and dashing + along the left bank of the arroyo, disappeared in the intervening willows. + Divided between relief at their escape and indignation at what seemed to + be a drunken, feast-day freak of these roystering vaqueros, the little + party re-formed, when a cry from Barker arrested them. He had just + perceived a horseman motionless in the arroyo who, although unnoticed by + them, had evidently been seen by the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped + into it from the bank, and had halted as if to witness this singular + incident. As the clatter of the vaqueros' hoofs died away he lightly + leaped the bank again and disappeared. But in that single glimpse of him + they recognized Jack Hamlin. When they reached the spot where he had + halted, they could see that he must have approached it from the trail + where they had previously seen him, but which they now found crossed it at + right angles. Barker was right. He had really kept them at easy distance + the whole length of the journey. + </p> + <p> + But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at last from the + arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great stage-road. + Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach were just panting along the + last half mile of the steep upgrade as they approached. They halted + mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed and creaked by them. In their + ordinary working dress, sunburnt with exposure, covered with dust, and + carrying their rifles still in their hands, they, perhaps, presented a + sufficiently characteristic appearance to draw a few faces—some of + them pretty and intelligent—to the windows of the coach as it + passed. The sensitive Barker was quickest to feel that resentment with + which the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed criticism of the Eastern + tourist or “greenhorn,” and reddened under the bold scrutiny of a pair of + black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. That annoyance was + communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the bearded Demorest and + Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that great world in which they + were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed of their appearance, and yet + ashamed of that feeling. They felt a secret satisfaction when Barker said, + “They'd open their eyes wider if they knew what was in that pack-saddle,” + and yet they corrected him for what they were pleased to call his + “snobbishness.” They hurried a little faster as the road became more + frequented, as if eager to shorten their distance to clean clothes and + civilization. + </p> + <p> + Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with the + stagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past. He + felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look back upon the + dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it had returned so often, + and wondered if he had left it there forever, and it were now slowly + exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke of their burning cabin. + </p> + <p> + His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him at some + distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the thick dust, + and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlin's gauntlet on his shoulder. + The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grime and sweat, but Jack + himself was as immaculate and fresh as ever. With a delightful affectation + of embarrassment and timidity he began flicking the side buttons of his + velvet vaquero trousers with the thong of his riata. “I reckoned to sling + a word along with you before you went,” he said, looking down, “but I'm so + shy that I couldn't do it in company. So I thought I'd get it off on you + while you were alone.” + </p> + <p> + “We've seen you once or twice before, this morning,” said Demorest + pleasantly, “and we were sorry you didn't join us.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon I might have,” said Jack gayly, “if my horse had only made up + his mind whether he was a bird or a squirrel, and hadn't been so various + and promiscuous about whether he wanted to climb a tree or fly. He's not a + bad horse for a Mexican plug, only when he thinks there is any devilment + around he wants to wade in and take a hand. However, I reckoned to see the + last of you and your pile into Boomville. And I DID. When I meet three + fellows like you that are clean white all through I sort of cotton to 'em, + even if I'M a little of a brunette myself. And I've got something to give + you.” + </p> + <p> + He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small parcel neatly folded in + white paper as fresh and spotless as himself. Holding it in his fingers, + he went on: “I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hill early this morning before + sun-up. In the darkness I struck your cabin, and I reckon—I struck + somebody else! At first I thought it was one of you chaps down on your + knees praying at the rear of the cabin, but the way the fellow lit out + when he smelt me coming made me think it wasn't entirely fasting and + prayer. However, I went to the rear of the cabin, and then I reckoned some + kind friend had been bringing you kindlings and firewood for your early + breakfast. But that didn't satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had knelt, + and then I saw—well, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw JUST WHAT YOU HAVE + SEEN! But even then I wasn't quite satisfied, for that man had been + grubbing round as if searching for something. So I searched too—and + I found IT. I've got it here. I'm going to give it to you, for it may some + day come in handy, and you won't find anything like it among the folks + where you're going. It's something unique, as those fine-art-collecting + sharps in 'Frisco say—something quite matchless, unless you try to + match it one day yourself! Don't open the paper until I run on and say 'So + long' to your partners. Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + He grasped Demorest's hand and then dropped the little packet into his + palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the packet in his + hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest watched the gambler give + Stacy's hand a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap on the back + to the delighted Barker, and then vanish in a flash of red sash and silver + buttons. At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his partners, opened + the packet, and stood suddenly still. It contained the dried and bloodless + second finger of a human hand cut off at the first joint! + </p> + <p> + For an instant he held it at arm's length, as if about to cast it away. + Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in his pocket, + and silently walked after his companions. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of Stacy's + Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the regular + splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks and the + usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking-house had long since + received the epithet of “palatial” from an enthusiastic local press fresh + from the “opening” luncheon in its richly decorated directors' rooms, and + it was said that once a homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was + so cowed by its magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, + and mumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with his + greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in the dingy + Mint around the corner. Perhaps there was something of this feeling, + mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in the hesitation of a + stranger of a higher class who entered the bank that rainy morning and + finally tendered his card to the important negro messenger. + </p> + <p> + The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across + heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James + Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid before him. He was not + alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy, stood + a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently writing a + memorandum. The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a curiosity + hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy did not look + at it until he had finished his memorandum. + </p> + <p> + “There,” he said, with business decision, “you can tell your people that + if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger + margin. Ditches are not what they were three years ago when miners were + willing to waste their money over your rates. They don't gamble THAT WAY + any more, and your company ought to know it, and not gamble themselves + over that prospect.” He handed the paper to the stranger, who bowed over + it with studied politeness, and backed towards the door. Stacy took up the + waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, “Show him in,” and in the + same breath turned to his guest: “I say, Van Loo, it's George Barker! You + know him.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted at the door. + “He was—I think—er—in your employ at Heavy Tree Hill.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him since at + Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stock—through you—at + 110, which were worth about 80! SOMEBODY must have made money enough by it + to remember him.” + </p> + <p> + “I was only speaking of him socially,” said Van Loo, with a deprecating + smile. “You know he married a young woman—the hotel-keeper's + daughter, who used to wait at the table—and after my mother and + sister came out to keep house for me at Boomville it was quite impossible + for me to see much of him, for he seldom went out without his wife, you + know.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Stacy dryly, “I think you didn't like his marriage. But I'm + glad your disinclination to see him isn't on account of that deal in + stocks.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no,” said Van Loo. “Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + But, unfortunately, in the next passage he came upon Barker, who with a + cry of unfeigned pleasure, none the less sincere that he was feeling a + little alien in these impressive surroundings, recognized him. Nothing + could exceed Van Loo's protest of delight at the meeting; nothing his + equal desolation at the fact that he was hastening to another engagement. + “But your old partner,” he added, with a smile, “is waiting for you; he + has just received your card, and I should be only keeping you from him. So + glad to see you; you're looking so well. Good-by! Good-by!” + </p> + <p> + Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his old + impetuousness into his former partner's room. Stacy, already deeply + absorbed in other business, was sitting with his back towards him, and + Barker's arms were actually encircling his neck before the astonished and + half-angry man looked up. But when his eyes met the laughing gray ones of + Barker above him he gently disengaged himself with a quick return of the + caress, rose, shut the door of an inner office, and returning pushed + Barker into an armchair in quite the old suppressive fashion of former + days. Yes; it was the same Stacy that Barker looked at, albeit his brown + beard was now closely cropped around his determined mouth and jaw in a + kind of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs already attuned to the + rigor of clothes of fashionable cut and still more rigorous sombreness of + color. + </p> + <p> + “Barker boy,” he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keen eyes which + the younger partner remembered, “I don't encourage stag dancing among my + young men during bank hours, and you'll please to remember that we are not + on Heavy Tree Hill”— + </p> + <p> + “Where,” broke in Barker enthusiastically, “we were only overlooked by the + Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; where the nearest voice that + came to you was quarter of a mile away as the crow flies and nearly a mile + by the trail.” + </p> + <p> + “And was generally an oath!” said Stacy. “But you're in San Francisco NOW. + Where are you stopping?” He took up a pencil and held it over a memorandum + pad awaitingly. + </p> + <p> + “At the Brook House. It's”— + </p> + <p> + “Hold on! 'Brook House,'” Stacy repeated as he jotted it down. “And for + how long?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty”— + </p> + <p> + Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and then wrote + down, “'Day or two.' Wife with you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah!” he went on, with a laugh, knocking + aside the remonstrating pencil, “you must listen! He's just the sweetest, + knowingest little chap living. Do you know what we're going to christen + him? Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker. Good names, aren't they? And + then it perpetuates the dear old friendship.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote “Wife and child S. D. B.,” and + leaned back in his chair. “Now, Barker,” he said briefly, “I'm coming to + dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. THEN we'll talk Heavy Tree Hill, + wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I'm all for business. Have you any with + me?” + </p> + <p> + Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment out + of Stacy's memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look of eager + confidence and said, “Certainly; that's just what it is—business. + Lord! Stacy, I'm ALL business now. I'm in everything. And I bank with you, + though perhaps you don't know it; it's in your Branch at Marysville. I + didn't want to say anything about it to you before. But Lord! you don't + suppose that I'd bank anywhere else while you are in the business—checks, + dividends, and all that; but in this matter I felt you knew, old chap. I + didn't want to talk to a banker nor to a bank, but to Jim Stacy, my old + partner.” + </p> + <p> + “Barker,” said Stacy curtly, “how much money are you short of?” + </p> + <p> + At this direct question Barker's always quick color rose, but, with an + equally quick smile, he said, “I don't know yet that I'm short at all.” + </p> + <p> + “But I do!” + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Jim: why, I'm just overloaded with shares and stocks,” said + Barker, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice. Barker, three + years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars put to your account at + San Francisco.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh. “I remember I wanted + to draw it out in one check to see how it would look.” + </p> + <p> + “And you've drawn out all in three years, and it looks d——d + bad.” + </p> + <p> + “How did you know it?” asked Barker, his face beaming only with admiration + of his companion's omniscience. + </p> + <p> + “How did I know it?” retorted Stacy. “I know YOU, and I know the kind of + people who have unloaded to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, Stacy,” said Barker, “I've only invested in shares and stocks like + everybody else, and then only on the best advice I could get: like Van + Loo's, for instance,—that man who was here just now, the new manager + of the Empire Ditch Company; and Carter's, my own Kitty's father. And when + I was offered fifty thousand Wide West Extensions, and was hesitating over + it, he told me YOU were in it too—and that was enough for me to buy + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Barker, with an eager smile, “but you SOLD at his figures, for + I knew that when I found that YOU, my old partner, was in it; don't you + see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, and did at 110. Of course, + you wouldn't have sold it at that figure if it wasn't worth it then, and + neither I nor you are to blame if it dropped the next week to 60, don't + you see?” + </p> + <p> + Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into his former + partner's bright gray ones, but there was no trace of irony in Barker's. + On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came over them. “No,” he said + reflectively, “I don't think I've ever been foolish or followed out my OWN + ideas, except once, and that was extravagant, I admit. That was my idea of + building a kind of refuge, you know, on the site of our old cabin, where + poor miners and played-out prospectors waiting for a strike could stay + without paying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand dollars in that, and + might have lost more, only Carter—Kitty's father—persuaded me—he's + an awful clever old fellow—into turning it into a kind of branch + hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to take poor chaps who + couldn't pay, at half prices, or quarter prices, PRIVATELY, don't you see, + so as to spare their pride,—awfully pretty, wasn't it?—and + make the hotel profit by it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Stacy as Barker paused. + </p> + <p> + “They didn't come,” said Barker. + </p> + <p> + “But,” he added eagerly, “it shows that things were better than I had + imagined. Only the others did not come, either.” + </p> + <p> + “And you lost your twenty thousand dollars,” said Stacy curtly. + </p> + <p> + “FIFTY thousand,” said Barker, “for of course it had to be a larger hotel + than the other. And I think that Carter wouldn't have gone into it except + to save me from losing money.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead of twenty. For I don't + suppose HE advanced anything.” + </p> + <p> + “He gave his time and experience,” said Barker simply. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think it worth thirty thousand dollars,” said Stacy dryly. “But + all this doesn't tell me what your business is with me to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Barker, brightening up, “but it is business, you know. + Something in the old style—as between partner and partner—and + that's why I came to YOU, and not to the 'banker.' And it all comes out of + something that Demorest once told us; so you see it's all us three again! + Well, you know, of course, that the Excelsior Ditch Company have abandoned + the Bar and Heavy Tree Hill. It didn't pay.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; nor does the company pay any dividends now. You ought to know, with + fifty thousand of their stock on your hands.” + </p> + <p> + Barker laughed. “But listen. I found that I could buy up their whole plant + and all the ditching along the Black Spur Range for ten thousand dollars.” + </p> + <p> + “And Great Scott! you don't think of taking up their business?” said + Stacy, aghast. + </p> + <p> + Barker laughed more heartily. “No. Not their business. But I remember that + once Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that it cost nearly as much + to make a water ditch as a railroad, in the way of surveying and + engineering and levels, you know. And here's the plant for a railroad. + Don't you see?” + </p> + <p> + “But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy Tree Hill—what's the good + of that?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the new Divide Railroad they're + trying to get a bill for in the legislature.” + </p> + <p> + “An infamous piece of wildcat jobbing that will never pass,” said Stacy + decisively. + </p> + <p> + “They said BECAUSE it was that, it would pass,” said Barker simply. “They + say that Watson's Bank is in it, and is bound to get it through. And as + that is a rival bank of yours, don't you see, I thought that if WE could + get something real good or valuable out of it,—something that would + do the Black Spur good,—it would be all right.” + </p> + <p> + “And was your business to consult me about it?” said Stacy bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Barker, “it's too late to consult you now, though I wish I had. + I've given my word to take it, and I can't back out. But I haven't the ten + thousand dollars, and I came to you.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair, and put both hands in his + pockets. “Not a cent, Barker, not a cent.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not asking it of the BANK,” said Barker, with a smile, “for I could + have gone to the bank for it. But as this was something between us, I am + asking you, Stacy, as my old partner.” + </p> + <p> + “And I am answering you, Barker, as your old partner, but also as the + partner of a hundred other men, who have even a greater right to ask me. + And my answer is, not a cent!” + </p> + <p> + Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished face and slightly parted + lips. Stacy rose, thrust his hands deeper in his pockets, and standing + before him went on:— + </p> + <p> + “Now look here! It's time you should understand me and yourself. Three + years ago, when our partnership was dissolved by accident, or mutual + consent, we will say, we started afresh, each on our own hook. Through + foolishness and bad advice you have in those three years hopelessly + involved yourself as you never would have done had we been partners, and + yet in your difficulty you ask me and my new partners to help you out of a + difficulty in which they have no concern.” + </p> + <p> + “Your NEW partners?” stammered Barker. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, my new partners; for every man who has a share, or a deposit, or an + interest, or a dollar in this bank is my PARTNER—even you, with your + securities at the Branch, are one; and you may say that in THIS I am + protecting you against yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “But you have money—you have private means.” + </p> + <p> + “None to speculate with as you wish me to—on account of my position; + none to give away foolishly as you expect me to—on account of + precedent and example. I am a soulless machine taking care of capital + intrusted to me and my brains, but decidedly NOT to my heart nor my + sentiment. So my answer is, not a cent!” + </p> + <p> + Barker's face had changed; his color had come back, but with an older + expression. Presently, however, his beaming smile returned, with the + additional suggestion of an affectionate toleration which puzzled Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you're right, old chap,” he said, extending his hand to the + banker, “and I wish I had talked to you before. But it's too late now, and + I've given my word.” + </p> + <p> + “Your WORD!” said Stacy. “Have you no written agreement?” + </p> + <p> + “No. My word was accepted.” He blushed slightly as if conscious of a great + weakness. + </p> + <p> + “But that isn't legal nor business. And you couldn't even hold the Ditch + Company to it if THEY chose to back out.” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't think they will,” said Barker simply. “And you see my word + wasn't given entirely to THEM. I bought the thing through my wife's + cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he makes something by it, from the + company, on commission. And I can't go back on HIM. What did you say?” + </p> + <p> + Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. “Nothing,” he said briefly, + “except that I'm coming, as I said before, to dine with you to-night; but + no more BUSINESS. I've enough of that with others, and there are some + waiting for me in the outer office now.” + </p> + <p> + Barker rose at once, but with the same affectionate smile and tender + gravity of countenance, and laid his hand caressingly on Stacy's shoulder. + “It's like you to give up so much of your time to me and my foolishness + and be so frank with me. And I know it's mighty rough on you to have to be + a mere machine instead of Jim Stacy. Don't you bother about me. I'll sell + some of my Wide West Extension and pull the thing through myself. It's all + right, but I'm sorry for you, old chap.” He glanced around the room at the + walls and rich paneling, and added, “I suppose that's what you have to pay + for all this sort of thing?” + </p> + <p> + Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor was announced for the second + time, and Barker, with another hand-shake and a reassuring smile to his + old partner, passed into the hall, as if the onus of any infelicity in the + interview was upon himself alone. But Stacy did not seem to be in a + particularly accessible mood to the new caller, who in his turn appeared + to be slightly irritated by having been kept waiting over some irksome + business. “You don't seem to follow me,” he said to Stacy after reciting + his business perplexity. “Can't you suggest something?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, why don't you get hold of one of your board of directors?” said + Stacy abstractedly. “There's Captain Drummond; you and he are old friends. + You were comrades in the Mexican War, weren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “That be d——d!” said his visitor bitterly. “All his interests + are the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, that a + man would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose that he'd let up on a + sure thing that he's got just because he and I fought side by side at + Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us? You're the last man I ever + expected to hear that kind of flapdoodle from. If it's because your bank + has got some other interest and you can't advise me, why don't you say + so?” Nevertheless, in spite of Stacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few + minutes later, half convinced that Stacy's lukewarmness was due to some + adverse influence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and + at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone. + </p> + <p> + But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. After a few moments of purely + mechanical memoranda-making, he rose abruptly and opened a small drawer in + a cabinet, from which he took a letter still in its envelope. It bore a + foreign postmark. Glancing over it hastily, his eyes at last became fixed + on a concluding paragraph. “I hope,” wrote his correspondent, “that even + in the rush of your big business you will sometimes look after Barker. Not + that I think the dear old chap will ever go wrong—indeed, I often + wish I was as certain of myself as of him and his insight; but I am afraid + we were more inclined to be merely amused and tolerant of his wonderful + trust and simplicity than to really understand it for his own good and + ours. I know you did not like his marriage, and were inclined to believe + he was the victim of a rather unscrupulous father and a foolish, unequal + girl; but are you satisfied that he would have been the happier without + it, or lived his perfect life under other and what you may think wiser + conditions? If he WROTE the poetry that he LIVES everybody would think him + wonderful; for being what he is we never give him sufficient credit.” + Stacy smiled grimly, and penciled on his memorandum, “He wants it to the + amount of ten thousand dollars.” “Anyhow,” continued the writer, “look + after him, Jim, for his sake, your sake, and the sake of—PHIL + DEMOREST.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and tossing it grimly aside + went on with his calculations. Presently he stopped, restored the letter + to his cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. “Send Mr. North here,” he + said to the negro messenger. In a few moments his chief book-keeper + appeared in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + “Turn to the Branch ledger and bring me a statement of Mr. George Barker's + account.” + </p> + <p> + “He was here a moment ago,” said North, essaying a confidential look + towards his chief. + </p> + <p> + “I know it,” said Stacy coolly, without looking up. + </p> + <p> + “He's been running a good deal on wildcat lately,” suggested North. + </p> + <p> + “I asked for his account, and not your opinion of it,” said Stacy shortly. + </p> + <p> + The subordinate withdrew somewhat abashed but still curious, and returned + presently with a ledger which he laid before his chief. Stacy ran his eyes + over the list of Barker's securities; it seemed to him that all the + wildest schemes of the past year stared him in the face. His finger, + however, stopped on the Wide West Extension. “Mr. Barker will be wanting + to sell some of this stock. What is it quoted at now?” + </p> + <p> + “Sixty.” + </p> + <p> + “But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should not offer in the open market at + present. Give him seventy for it—private sale; that will be ten + thousand dollars paid to his credit. Advise the Branch of this at once, + and to keep the transaction quiet.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir,” responded the clerk as he moved towards the door. But he + hesitated, and with another essay at confidence said insinuatingly, “I + always thought, sir, that Wide West would recover.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what had evidently passed in his + subordinate's mind, looked at him and said dryly, “Then I would advise you + also to keep that opinion to yourself.” But, clever as he was, he had not + anticipated the result. Mr. North, though a trusted employee, was human. + On arriving in the outer office he beckoned to one of the lounging + brokers, and in a low voice said, “I'll take two shares of Wide West, if + you can get it cheap.” + </p> + <p> + The broker's face became alert and eager. “Yes, but I say, is anything + up?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not here to give the business of the bank away,” retorted North + severely; “take the order or leave it.” + </p> + <p> + The man hurried away. Having thus vindicated his humanity by also passing + the snub he had received from Stacy to an inferior, he turned away to + carry out his master's instructions, yet secure in the belief that he had + profited by his superior discernment of the real reason of that master's + singular conduct. But when he returned to the private room, in hopes of + further revelations, Mr. Stacy was closeted with another financial + magnate, and had apparently divested his mind of the whole affair. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. + </h2> + <p> + When George Barker returned to the outer ward of the financial stronghold + he had penetrated, with its curving sweep of counters, brass railings, and + wirework screens defended by the spruce clerks behind them, he was again + impressed with the position of the man he had just quitted, and for a + moment hesitated, with an inclination to go back. It was with no idea of + making a further appeal to his old comrade, but—what would have been + odd in any other nature but his—he was affected by a sense that HE + might have been unfair and selfish in his manner to the man panoplied by + these defenses, and who was in a measure forced to be a part of them. He + would like to have returned and condoled with him. The clerks, who were + heartlessly familiar with the anxious bearing of the men who sought + interviews with their chief, both before and after, smiled with the + whispered conviction that the fresh and ingenuous young stranger had been + “chucked” like others until they met his kindly, tolerant, and even + superior eyes, and were puzzled. Meanwhile Barker, who had that sublime, + natural quality of abstraction over small impertinences which is more + exasperating than studied indifference, after his brief hesitation passed + out unconcernedly through the swinging mahogany doors into the blowy + street. Here the wind and rain revived him; the bank and its curt refusal + were forgotten; he walked onward with only a smiling memory of his partner + as in the old days. He remembered how Stacy had burned down their old + cabin rather than have it fall into sordid or unworthy hands—this + Stacy who was now condemned to sink his impulses and become a mere + machine. He had never known Stacy's real motive for that act,—both + Demorest and Stacy had kept their knowledge of the attempted robbery from + their younger partner,—it always seemed to him to be a precious + revelation of Stacy's inner nature. Facing the wind and rain, he recalled + how Stacy, though never so enthusiastic about his marriage as Demorest, + had taken up Van Loo sharply for some foolish sneer about his own + youthfulness. He was affectionately tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to + his wife's relations, for Stacy did not know them as he did. Indeed, + Barker, whose own father and mother had died in his infancy, had accepted + his wife's relations with a loving trust and confidence that was supreme, + from the fact that he had never known any other. + </p> + <p> + At last he reached his hotel. It was a new one, the latest creation of a + feverish progress in hotel-building which had covered five years and as + many squares with large showy erections, utterly beyond the needs of the + community, yet each superior in size and adornment to its predecessor. It + struck him as being the one evidence of an abiding faith in the future of + the metropolis that he had seen in nothing else. As he entered its + frescoed hall that afternoon he was suddenly reminded, by its challenging + opulency, of the bank he had just quitted, without knowing that the bank + had really furnished its capital and its original design. The gilded + bar-rooms, flashing with mirrors and cut glass; the saloons, with their + desert expanse of Turkey carpet and oasis of clustered divans and gilded + tables; the great dining-room, with porphyry columns, and walls and + ceilings shining with allegory—all these things which had attracted + his youthful wonder without distracting his correct simplicity of taste he + now began to comprehend. It was the bank's money “at work.” In the clatter + of dishes in the dining-room he even seemed to hear again the chinking of + coin. + </p> + <p> + It was a short cut to his apartments to pass through a smaller public + sitting-room popularly known as “Flirtation Camp,” where eight or ten + couples generally found refuge on chairs and settees by the windows, half + concealed by heavy curtains. But the occupants were by no means youthful + spinsters or bachelors; they were generally married women, guests of the + hotel, receiving other people's husbands whose wives were “in the States,” + or responsible middle-aged leaders of the town. In the elaborate toilettes + of the women, as compared with the less formal business suits of the men, + there was an odd mingling of the social attitude with perhaps more + mysterious confidences. The idle gossip about them had never affected + Barker; rather he had that innate respect for the secrets of others which + is as inseparable from simplicity as it is from high breeding, and he + scarcely glanced at the different couples in his progress through the + room. He did not even notice a rather striking and handsome woman, who, + surrounded by two or three admirers, yet looked up at Barker as he passed + with self-conscious lids as if seeking a return of her glance. But he + moved on abstractedly, and only stopped when he suddenly saw the familiar + skirt of his wife at a further window, and halted before it. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it's YOU,” said Mrs. Barker, with a half-nervous, half-impatient + laugh. “Why, I thought you'd certainly stay half the afternoon with your + old partner, considering that you haven't met for three years.” + </p> + <p> + There was no doubt she HAD thought so; there was equally no doubt that the + conversation she was carrying on with her companion—a good-looking, + portly business man—was effectually interrupted. But Barker did not + notice it. “Captain Heath, my husband,” she went on, carelessly rising and + smoothing her skirts. The captain, who had risen too, bowed vaguely at the + introduction, but Barker extended his hand frankly. “I found Stacy busy,” + he said in answer to his wife, “but he is coming to dine with us + to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean Jim Stacy, the banker,” said Captain Heath, brightening into + greater ease, “he's the busiest man in California. I've seen men standing + in a queue outside his door as in the old days at the post-office. And he + only gives you five minutes and no extension. So you and he were partners + once?” he said, looking curiously at the still youthful Barker. + </p> + <p> + But it was Mrs. Barker who answered, “Oh yes! and always such good + friends. I was awfully jealous of him.” Nevertheless, she did not respond + to the affectionate protest in Barker's eyes nor to the laugh of Captain + Heath, but glanced indifferently around the room as if to leave further + conversation to the two men. It was possible that she was beginning to + feel that Captain Heath was as de trop now as her husband had been a + moment before. Standing there, however, between them both, idly tracing a + pattern on the carpet with the toe of her slipper, she looked prettier + than she had ever looked as Kitty Carter. Her slight figure was more fully + developed. That artificial severity covering a natural virgin coyness with + which she used to wait at table in her father's hotel at Boomville had + gone, and was replaced by a satisfied consciousness of her power to + please. Her glance was freer, but not as frank as in those days. Her dress + was undoubtedly richer and more stylish; yet Barker's loyal heart often + reverted fondly to the chintz gown, coquettishly frilled apron, and + spotless cuffs and collar in which she had handed him his coffee with a + faint color that left his own face crimson. + </p> + <p> + Captain Heath's tact being equal to her indifference, he had excused + himself, although he was becoming interested in this youthful husband. But + Mrs. Barker, after having asserted her husband's distinction as the equal + friend of the millionaire, was by no means willing that the captain should + be further interested in Barker for himself alone, and did not urge him to + stay. As he departed she turned to her husband, and, indicating the group + he had passed the moment before, said:— + </p> + <p> + “That horrid woman has been staring at us all the time. I don't see what + you see in her to admire.” + </p> + <p> + Poor Barker's admiration had been limited to a few words of civility in + the enforced contact of that huge caravansary and in his quiet, youthful + recognition of her striking personality. But he was just then too + preoccupied with his interview with Stacy to reply, and perhaps he did not + quite understand his wife. It was odd how many things he did not quite + understand now about Kitty, but that he knew must be HIS fault. But Mrs. + Barker apparently did not require, after the fashion of her sex, a reply. + For the next moment, as they moved towards their rooms, she said + impatiently, “Well, you don't tell what Stacy said. Did you get the + money?” + </p> + <p> + I grieve to say that this soul of truth and frankness lied—only to + his wife. Perhaps he considered it only lying to HIMSELF, a thing of which + he was at times miserably conscious. “It wasn't necessary, dear,” he said; + “he advised me to sell my securities in the bank; and if you only knew how + dreadfully busy he is.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker curled her pretty lip. “It doesn't take very long to lend ten + thousand dollars!” she said. “But that's what I always tell you. You have + about made me sick by singing the praises of those wonderful partners of + yours, and here you ask a favor of one of them and he tells you to sell + your securities! And you know, and he knows, they're worth next to + nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand, dear”—began Barker. + </p> + <p> + “I understand that you've given your word to poor Harry,” said Mrs. Barker + in pretty indignation, “who's responsible for the Ditch purchase.” + </p> + <p> + “And I shall keep it. I always do,” said Barker very quietly, but with + that same singular expression of face that had puzzled Stacy. But Mrs. + Barker, who, perhaps, knew her husband better, said in an altered voice:— + </p> + <p> + “But HOW can you, dear?” + </p> + <p> + “If I'm short a thousand or two I'll ask your father.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker was silent. “Father's so very much harried now, George. Why + don't you simply throw the whole thing up?” + </p> + <p> + “But I've given my word to your cousin Henry.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but only your WORD. There was no written agreement. And you couldn't + even hold him to it.” + </p> + <p> + Barker opened his frank eyes in astonishment. Her own cousin, too! And + they were Stacy's very words! + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” added Mrs. Barker audaciously, “he could get rid of it + elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best. So don't + be silly.” + </p> + <p> + By this time they had reached their rooms. Barker, apparently dismissing + the subject from his mind with characteristic buoyancy, turned into the + bedroom and walked smilingly towards a small crib which stood in the + corner. “Why, he's gone!” he said in some dismay. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, “you didn't expect me to + take him into the public parlor, where I was seeing visitors, did you? I + sent him out with the nurse into the lower hall to play with the other + children.” + </p> + <p> + A shade momentarily passed over Barker's face. He always looked forward to + meeting the child when he came back. He had a belief, based on no grounds + whatever, that the little creature understood him. And he had a father's + doubt of the wholesomeness of other people's children who were born into + the world indiscriminately and not under the exceptional conditions of his + own. “I'll go and fetch him,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “You haven't told me anything about your interview; what you did and what + your good friend Stacy said,” said Mrs. Barker, dropping languidly into a + chair. “And really if you are simply running away again after that child, + I might just as well have asked Captain Heath to stay longer.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, as to Stacy,” said Barker, dropping beside her and taking her hand; + “well, dear, he was awfully busy, you know, and shut up in the innermost + office like the agate in one of the Japanese nests of boxes. But,” he + continued, brightening up, “just the same dear old Jim Stacy of Heavy Tree + Hill, when I first knew you. Lord! dear, how it all came back to me! That + day I proposed to you in the belief that I was unexpectedly rich and even + bought a claim for the boys on the strength of it, and how I came back to + them to find that they had made a big strike on the very claim. Lord! I + remember how I was so afraid to tell them about you—and how they + guessed it—that dear old Stacy one of the first.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mrs. Barker, “and I hope your friend Stacy remembered that but + for ME, when you found out that you were not rich, you'd have given up the + claim, but that I really deceived my own father to make you keep it. I've + often worried over that, George,” she said pensively, turning a diamond + bracelet around her pretty wrist, “although I never said anything about + it.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Kitty darling,” said Barker, grasping his wife's hand, “I gave my + note for it; you know you said that was bargain enough, and I had better + wait until the note was due, and until I found I couldn't pay, before I + gave up the claim. It was very clever of you, and the boys all said so, + too. But you never deceived your father, dear,” he said, looking at her + gravely, “for I should have told him everything.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, if you look at it in that way,” said his wife languidly, “it's + nothing; only I think it ought to be remembered when people go about + saying papa ruined you with his hotel schemes.” + </p> + <p> + “Who dares say that?” said Barker indignantly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, if they don't SAY it they look it,” said Mrs. Barker, with a toss + of her pretty head, “and I believe that's at the bottom of Stacy's + refusal.” + </p> + <p> + “But he never said a word, Kitty,” said Barker, flushing. + </p> + <p> + “There, don't excite yourself, George,” said Mrs. Barker resignedly, “but + go for the baby. I know you're dying to go, and I suppose it's time Norah + brought it upstairs.” + </p> + <p> + At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations, but just + then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstanding made him anxious + to shorten this domestic colloquy. He rose, pressed his wife's hand, and + went out. But yet he was not entirely satisfied with himself for leaving + her. “I suppose it isn't right my going off as soon as I come in,” he + murmured reproachfully to himself, “but I think she wants the baby back as + much as I; only, womanlike, she didn't care to let me know it.” + </p> + <p> + He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favorite promenade for the + nurses who were gathered at the farther end, where a large window looked + upon Montgomery Street. But Norah, the Irish nurse, was not among them; he + passed through several corridors in his search, but in vain. At last, + worried and a little anxious, he turned to regain his rooms through the + long saloon where he had found his wife previously. It was deserted now; + the last caller had left—even frivolity had its prescribed limits. + He was consequently startled by a gentle murmur from one of the heavily + curtained window recesses. It was a woman's voice—low, sweet, + caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic tenderness. And it was + followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow. + </p> + <p> + Barker turned instantly in that direction. A step brought him to the + curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself. + </p> + <p> + Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by her treasure, was + the “horrid woman” whom his wife had indicated only a little while ago, + holding a baby—Kitty's sacred baby—in her wanton lap! The + child was feebly grasping the end of the slender jeweled necklace which + the woman held temptingly dangling from a thin white jeweled finger above + it. But its eyes were beaming with an intense delight, as if trying to + respond to the deep, concentrated love in the handsome face that was bent + above it. + </p> + <p> + At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up. There was a faint rise in + her color, but no loss of sell-possession. + </p> + <p> + “Please don't scold the nurse,” she said, “nor say anything to Mrs. + Barker. It is all my fault. I thought that both the nurse and child looked + dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed the little fellow for a + while to try and amuse him. At least I haven't made him cry, have I, + dear?” The last epithet, it is needless to say, was addressed to the + little creature in her lap, but in its tender modulation it touched the + father's quick sympathies as if he had shared it with the child. “You + see,” she said softly, disengaging the baby fingers from her necklace, + “that OUR sex is not the only one tempted by jewelry and glitter.” + </p> + <p> + Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago was gone; it + was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked up at him. + Nevertheless he was touched. “Have you—ever—had a child, Mrs. + Horncastle?” he asked gently and hesitatingly. He had a vague recollection + that she passed for a widow, and in his simple eyes all women were virgins + or married saints. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said abruptly. Then she added with a laugh, “Or perhaps I should + not admire them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling bachelors have + for other people's wives. But I know you're dying to take that boy from + me. Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to carry him yourself just + because I'm here; you know you would delight to do it if I weren't.” + </p> + <p> + Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably + nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. + Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh. + Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious + infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of + objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other he + grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into + contact. Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right, Norah,” said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she disengaged + herself from the linking child. “Mr. Barker has claimed the baby, and has + agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to Mrs. Barker.” Norah, with + the inscrutable criticism of her sex on her sex, thought it extremely + probable, and halted with exasperating discretion. “There,” continued Mrs. + Horncastle, playfully evading the child's further advances, “go with papa, + that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to carry him back, Norah.” + </p> + <p> + “But,” said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering in hopes + of recalling the woman's previous expression, “you DO love children, and + you think him a bright little chap for his age?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, “so round + and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye for jewelry. Really you + ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker—it would please + both, you know.” She moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah and + Barker scarcely sufficing to restrain the struggling child from leaping + after her as she turned at the door and blew him a kiss. + </p> + <p> + When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had dismissed + Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah's aid in laying out + her smartest gown for dinner. “But why take all this trouble, dear?” said + her simple-minded husband; “we are going to dine in a private room so that + we can talk over old times all by ourselves, and any dress would suit him. + And, Lord, dear!” he added, with a quick brightening at the fancy, “if you + could only just rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown you used to wear + at Boomville—it would be too killing, and just like old times. I put + it away myself in one of our trunks—I couldn't bear to leave it + behind; I know just where it is. I'll”—But Mrs. Barker's restraining + scorn withheld him. + </p> + <p> + “George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw away and utterly + WASTE Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private room with closed doors—and + I dare say you'd like to sit in your dressing-gown and slippers—you + are entirely mistaken. I know what is due, not to your old partner, but to + the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I know what is due FROM HIM TO US! + No! We dine in the great dining-room, publicly, and, if possible, at the + very next table to those stuck-up Peterburys and their Eastern friends, + including that horrid woman, which, I'm sure, ought to satisfy you. Then + you can talk as much as you like, and as loud as you like, about old + times,—and the louder and the more the better,—but I don't + think HE'LL like it.” + </p> + <p> + “But the baby!” expostulated Barker. “Stacy's just wild to see him—and + we can't bring him down to the table—though we MIGHT,” he added, + momentarily brightening. + </p> + <p> + “After dinner,” said Mrs. Barker severely, “we will walk through the big + drawing-rooms, and THEN Mr. Stacy may come upstairs and see him in his + crib; but not before. And now, George, I do wish that to-night, FOR ONCE, + you would not wear a turn-down collar, and that you would go to the + barber's and have him cut your hair and smooth out the curls. And, for + Heaven's sake! let him put some wax or gum or SOMETHING on your mustache + and twist it up on your cheek like Captain Heath's, for it positively + droops over your mouth like a girl's ringlet. It's quite enough for me to + hear people talk of your inexperience, but really I don't want you to look + as if I had run away with a pretty schoolboy. And, considering the size of + that child, it's positively disgraceful. And, one thing more, George. When + I'm talking to anybody, please don't sit opposite to me, beaming with + delight, and your mouth open. And don't roar if by chance I say something + funny. And—whatever you do—don't make eyes at me in company + whenever I happen to allude to you, as I did before Captain Heath. It is + positively too ridiculous.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing could exceed the laughing good humor with which her husband + received these cautions, nor the evident sincerity with which he promised + amendment. Equally sincere was he, though a little more thoughtful, in his + severe self-examination of his deficiencies, when, later, he seated + himself at the window with one hand softly encompassing his child's chubby + fist in the crib beside him, and, in the instinctive fashion of all + loneliness, looked out of the window. The southern trades were whipping + the waves of the distant bay and harbor into yeasty crests. Sheets of rain + swept the sidewalks with the regularity of a fusillade, against which a + few pedestrians struggled with flapping waterproofs and slanting + umbrellas. He could look along the deserted length of Montgomery Street to + the heights of Telegraph Hill and its long-disused semaphore. It seemed + lonelier to him than the mile-long sweep of Heavy Tree Hill, writhing + against the mountain wind and its aeolian song. He had never felt so + lonely THERE. In his rigid self-examination he thought Kitty right in + protesting against the effect of his youthfulness and optimism. Yet he was + also right in being himself. There is an egoism in the highest simplicity; + and Barker, while willing to believe in others' methods, never abandoned + his own aims. He was right in loving Kitty as he did; he knew that she was + better and more lovable than she could believe herself to be; but he was + willing to believe it pained and discomposed her if he showed it before + company. He would not have her change even this peculiarity—it was + part of herself—no more than he would have changed himself. And + behind what he had conceived was her clear, practical common sense, all + this time had been her belief that she had deceived her father! Poor dear, + dear Kitty! And she had suffered because stupid people had conceived that + her father had led him away in selfish speculations. As if he—Barker—would + not have first discovered it, and as if anybody—even dear Kitty + herself—was responsible for HIS convictions and actions but himself. + Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the + child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his + caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than before. It was with a slight + sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its hands to the mere + hireling, Norah, who had never given it the love that he had seen even in + the frivolous Mrs. Horncastle's eyes. Later, when his wife came in, + looking very pretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same + conflicting emotions. He knew that they had already passed that phase of + their married life when she no longer dressed to please him, and that the + dictates of fashion or the rivalry of another woman she held superior to + his tastes; yet he did not blame her. But he was a little surprised to see + that her dress was copied from one of Mrs. Horncastle's most striking + ones, and that it did not suit her. That which adorned the maturer woman + did not agree with the demure and slightly austere prettiness of the young + wife. + </p> + <p> + But Barker forgot all this when Stacy—reserved and somewhat + severe-looking in evening dress—arrived with business punctuality. + He fancied that his old partner received the announcement that they would + dine in the public room with something of surprise, and he saw him glance + keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he had suspected it was her + choice, and understood her motives. Indeed, the young husband had found + himself somewhat nervous in regard to Stacy's estimate of Kitty; he was + conscious that she was not looking and acting like the old Kitty that + Stacy had known; it did not enter his honest heart that Stacy had, + perhaps, not appreciated her then, and that her present quality might + accord more with his worldly tastes and experience. It was, therefore, + with a kind of timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her + mood, and with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he seemed to + sympathize not only with her, but with her half-rallying, half-serious + attitude towards his (Barker's) inexperience and simplicity. He was glad + that she had made a friend of Stacy, even in this way. Stacy would + understand, as he did, her pretty willfulness at last; she would + understand what a true friend Stacy was to him. It was with unfeigned + satisfaction that he followed them in to dinner as she leaned upon his + guest's arm, chatting confidentially. He was only uneasy because her + manner had a slight ostentation. + </p> + <p> + The entrance of the little party produced a quick sensation throughout the + dining-room. Whispers passed from table to table; all heads were turned + towards the great financier as towards a magnet; a few guests even + shamelessly faced round in their chairs as he passed. Mrs. Barker was + pink, pretty, and voluble with excitement; Stacy had a slight mask of + reserve; Barker was the only one natural and unconscious. + </p> + <p> + As the dinner progressed Barker found that there was little chance for him + to invoke his old partner's memories of the past. He found, however, that + Stacy had received a letter from Demorest, and that he was coming home + from Europe. His letters were still sad; they both agreed upon that. And + then for the first time that day Stacy looked intently at Barker with the + look that he had often worn on Heavy Tree Hill. + </p> + <p> + “Then you think it is the same old trouble that worries him?” said Barker + in an awed and sympathetic voice. + </p> + <p> + “I believe it is,” said Stacy, with an equal feeling. Mrs. Barker pricked + up her pretty ears; her husband's ready sympathy was familiar enough; but + that this cold, practical Stacy should be moved at anything piqued her + curiosity. + </p> + <p> + “And you believe that he has never got over it?” continued Barker. + </p> + <p> + “He had one chance, but he threw it away,” said Stacy energetically. “If, + instead of going off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he had joined + me in business, he'd have been another man.” + </p> + <p> + “But not Demorest,” said Barker quickly. + </p> + <p> + “What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?” said Mrs. Barker + petulantly. “Is he ill?” + </p> + <p> + Both men were silent by their old common instinct. But it was Stacy who + said “No” in a way that put any further questioning at an end, and Barker + was grateful and for the moment disloyal to his Kitty. + </p> + <p> + It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention of the + next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle had glanced + from time to time at Stacy. But she was not prepared for the evident equal + effect that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon Stacy. His cold face warmed, + his critical eye softened; he asked her name. Mrs. Barker was voluble, + prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed. + </p> + <p> + “I know it all,” said Stacy, with didactic emphasis. “Her husband was as + bad as they make them. When her life had become intolerable WITH HIM, he + tried to make it shameful WITHOUT HIM by abandoning her. She could get a + divorce a dozen times over, but she won't.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose that's what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen,” said + Mrs. Barker ironically. + </p> + <p> + “I have never seen her before,” continued Stacy, with business precision, + “although I and two other men are guardians of her property, and have + saved it from the clutches of her husband. They told me she was handsome—and + so she is.” + </p> + <p> + Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at his + wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously another way, and the + young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification, fell upon Mrs. + Horncastle's. She looked away with a bright color. Whereupon the sanguine + Barker—perfectly convinced that she returned Stacy's admiration—was + seized with one of his old boyish dreams of the future, and saw Stacy + happily united to her, and was only recalled to the dinner before him by + its end. Then Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with Mrs. Barker on + his arm, visited the baby in her apartments, and took an easy leave. But + he grasped Barker's hand before parting in quite his old fashion, and + said, “Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll talk of Phil + Demorest,” and left Barker as happy as if the appointment were to confer + the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, who had overheard, + was more dubious. + </p> + <p> + “You don't suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and his + stupid secret, do you?” she said scornfully. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps not only about that,” said Barker, glad that she had not demanded + the secret. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” returned Mrs. Barker as she turned away, “he might just as well + lunch here and talk about HER—and see her, too.” + </p> + <p> + Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squares distant. His + appearance created the same interest that it had produced at the hotel, + but with less reserve among his fellow members. + </p> + <p> + “Have you heard the news?” said a dozen voices. Stacy had not; he had been + dining out. + </p> + <p> + “That infernal swindle of a Divide Railroad has passed the legislature.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy instantly remembered Barker's absurd belief in it and his reasons. + He smiled and said carelessly, “Are you quite sure it's a swindle?” + </p> + <p> + There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had been most + outspoken against it. + </p> + <p> + “But,” said a voice hesitatingly, “you know it goes nowhere and to no + purpose.” + </p> + <p> + “But that does not prevent it, now that it's a fact, from going anywhere + and to some purpose,” said Stacy, turning away. He passed into the + reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and quickly descended by + another staircase into the hall, hurriedly put on his overcoat, and + slipping out was a moment later re-entering the hotel. Here he hastily + summoned Barker, who came down, flushed and excited. Laying his hand on + Barker's arm in his old dominant way, he said:— + </p> + <p> + “Don't delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for that Ditch + property.” + </p> + <p> + Barker smiled. “But I have. Got it this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you know?” ejaculated Stacy in surprise. + </p> + <p> + “I only know,” said Barker, coloring, “that you said I could back out of + it if it wasn't signed, and that's what Kitty said, too. And I thought it + looked awfully mean for me to hold a man to that kind of a bargain. And so—you + won't be mad, old fellow, will you?—I thought I'd put it beyond any + question of my own good faith by having it in black and white.” He + stopped, laughing and blushing, but still earnest and sincere. “You don't + think me a fool, do you?” he said pathetically. + </p> + <p> + Stacy smiled grimly. “I think, Barker boy, that if you go to the Branch + you'll have no difficulty in paying for the Ditch property. Good-night.” + </p> + <p> + In a few moments he was back at the club again before any one knew he had + even left the building. As he again re-entered the smoking-room he found + the members still in eager discussion about the new railroad. One was + saying, “If they could get an extension, and carry the road through Heavy + Tree Hill to Boomville they'd be all right.” + </p> + <p> + “I quite agree with you,” said Stacy. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. + </h2> + <p> + The swaying, creaking, Boomville coach had at last reached the level + ridge, and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh of relief and the + slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung in clouds around it. The + whole coach, inside and out, was covered with this impalpable powder; it + had poured into the windows that gaped widely in the insufferable heat; it + lay thick upon the novel read by the passenger who had for the third or + fourth time during the ascent made a gutter of the half-opened book and + blown the dust away in a single puff, like the smoke from a pistol. It lay + in folds and creases over the yellow silk duster of the handsome woman on + the back seat, and when she endeavored to shake it off enveloped her in a + reddish nimbus. It grimed the handkerchiefs of others, and left sanguinary + streaks on their mopped foreheads. But as the coach had slowly climbed the + summit the sun was also sinking behind the Black Spur Range, and with its + ultimate disappearance a delicious coolness spread itself like a wave + across the ridge. The passengers drew a long breath, the reader closed his + book, the lady lifted the edge of her veil and delicately wiped her + forehead, over which a few damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even a + distinguished-looking man who had sat as impenetrable and remote as a + statue in one of the front seats moved and turned his abstracted face to + the window. His deeply tanned cheek and clearly cut features harmonized + with the red dust that lay in the curves of his brown linen dust-cloak, + and completed his resemblance to a bronze figure. Yet it was Demorest, + changed only in coloring. Now, as five years ago, his abstraction had a + certain quality which the most familiar stranger shrank from disturbing. + But in the general relaxation of relief the novel-reader addressed him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, we ain't far from Boomville now, and it's all down-grade the rest + of the way. I reckon you'll be as glad to get a 'wash up' and a 'shake' as + the rest of us.” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid I won't have so early an opportunity,” said Demorest, with a + faint, grave smile, “for I get off at the cross-road to Heavy Tree Hill.” + </p> + <p> + “Heavy Tree Hill!” repeated the other in surprise. “You ain't goin' to + Heavy Tree Hill? Why, you might have gone there direct by railroad, and + have been there four hours ago. You know there's a branch from the Divide + Railroad goes there straight to the hotel at Hymettus.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” said Demorest, with a puzzled smile. + </p> + <p> + “Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've given to the watering-place on + the slope. But I reckon you're a stranger here?” + </p> + <p> + “For five years,” said Demorest. “I fancy I've heard of the railroad, + although I prefer to go to Heavy Tree this way. But I never heard of a + watering-place there before.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks that are tired of the fogs + of 'Frisco and the heat of Sacramento all go there. It's four thousand + feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing, and a band plays every + night. And it all sprang out of the Divide Railroad and a crank named + George Barker, who bought up some old Ditch property and ran a branch line + along its levels, and made a junction with the Divide. You can come all + the way from 'Frisco or Sacramento by rail. It's a mighty big thing!” + </p> + <p> + “Yet,” said Demorest, with some animation, “you call the man who + originated this success a crank. I should say he was a genius.” + </p> + <p> + The other passenger shook his head. “All sheer nigger luck. He bought the + Ditch plant afore there was a ghost of a chance for the Divide Railroad, + just out o' pure d——d foolishness. He expected so little from + it that he hadn't even got the agreement done in writin', and hadn't paid + for it, when the Divide Railroad passed the legislature, as it never + oughter done! For, you see, the blamedest cur'ous thing about the whole + affair was that this 'straw' road of a Divide, all pure wildcat, was only + gotten up to frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into buying it up. And + the road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a rail of it laid was + pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant had been bought up, + for they thought there was a big thing behind it. Even the hotel was, at + first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house that this yer Barker had built + for broken-down miners!” + </p> + <p> + “Nevertheless,” continued Demorest, smiling, “you admit that it is a great + success?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the other, a little irritated by some complacency in + Demorest's smile, “but the success isn't HIS'N. Fools has ideas, and wise + men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's bank behind it, and + is even a kind of country branch of the Brook House in 'Frisco. Barker's + out of it, I reckon. Anyhow, HE couldn't run a hotel, for all that his + wife—she that's one of the big 'Frisco swells now—used to help + serve in her father's. No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' the first + taste and leavin' the rest to others.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck,” returned Demorest, with + persistent gravity; “and I suppose he's satisfied with it.” But so + heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, especially as + he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat appeared to be + interested in the conversation, and even sympathetic with Demorest. The + man was in the main a good-natured fellow and loyal to his friends; but + this did not preclude any virulent criticism of others, and for a moment + he hated this bronze-faced stranger, and even saw blemishes in the + handsome woman's beauty. “That may be YOUR idea of an Eastern man,” he + said bluntly, “but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't run on those lines. + No, sir.” Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of his ill humor, and + as the coach at last pulled up at the cross-road for Demorest to descend + he smiled affably at his departing companion. + </p> + <p> + “You allowed just now that you'd bin five years away. Whar mout ye have + bin?” + </p> + <p> + “In Europe,” said Demorest pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + “I reckoned ez much,” returned his interrogator, smiling significantly at + the other passengers. “But in what place?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, many,” said Demorest, smiling also. + </p> + <p> + “But what place war ye last livin' at?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for a moment + with his hand on the door of the coach, “oddly enough, now you remind me + of it—at Hymettus!” + </p> + <p> + He closed the door, and the coach rolled on. The passenger reddened, + glanced indignantly after the departing figure of Demorest and + suspiciously at the others. The lady was looking from the window with a + faint smile on her face. + </p> + <p> + “He might hev given me a civil answer,” muttered the passenger, and + resumed his novel. + </p> + <p> + When the coach drew up before Carter's Hotel the lady got down, and the + curiosity of her susceptible companions was gratified to the extent of + learning from the register that her name was Horncastle. + </p> + <p> + She was shown to a private sitting-room, which chanced to be the one which + had belonged to Mrs. Barker in the days of her maidenhood, and was the + sacred, impenetrable bower to which she retired when her daily duties of + waiting upon her father's guests were over. But the breath of custom had + passed through it since then, and but little remained of its former maiden + glories, except a few schoolgirl crayon drawings on the wall and an + unrecognizable portrait of herself in oil, done by a wandering artist and + still preserved as a receipt for his unpaid bill. Of these facts Mrs. + Horncastle knew nothing; she was evidently preoccupied, and after she had + removed her outer duster and entered the room, she glanced at the clock on + the mantel-shelf and threw herself with an air of resigned abstraction in + an armchair in the corner. Her traveling-dress, although unostentatious, + was tasteful and well-fitting; a slight pallor from her fatiguing journey, + and, perhaps, from some absorbing thought, made her beauty still more + striking. She gave even an air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments + of the room, which it is to be feared it never possessed in Miss Kitty's + occupancy. Again she glanced at the clock. There was a tap at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Come in.” + </p> + <p> + The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of torn paper with a + name written on it in lieu of a card. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name, and handed the paper back. + </p> + <p> + “There must be some mistake,” she said, “it do not know Mr. Steptoe.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but you know ME all the same,” said a voice from the doorway as a man + entered, coolly took the Chinese servant by the elbows and thrust him into + the passage, closing the door upon him. “Steptoe and Horncastle are the + same man, only I prefer to call myself Steptoe HERE. And I see YOU'RE down + on the register as 'Horncastle.' Well, it's plucky of you, and it's not a + bad name to keep; you might be thankful that I have always left it to you. + And if I call myself Steptoe here it's a good blind against any of your + swell friends knowing you met your HUSBAND here.” + </p> + <p> + In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she had given him when he entered + there was no doubt that she recognized him as the man she had come to see. + He had changed little in the five years that had elapsed since he entered + the three partners' cabin at Heavy Tree Hill. His short hair and beard + still clung to his head like curled moss or the crisp flocculence of + Astrakhan. He was dressed more pretentiously, but still gave the same idea + of vulgar strength. She listened to him without emotion, but said, with + even a deepening of scorn in her manner:— + </p> + <p> + “What new shame is this?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing NEW,” he replied. “Only five years ago I was livin' over on the + Bar at Heavy Tree Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks here might + recognize me. I was here when your particular friend, Jim Stacy, who only + knew me as Steptoe, and doesn't know me as Horncastle, your HUSBAND,—for + all he's bound up my property for you,—made his big strike with his + two partners. I was in his cabin that very night, and drank his whiskey. + Oh, I'm all right there! I left everything all right behind me—only + it's just as well he doesn't know I'm Horncastle. And as the boy happened + to be there with me”—He stopped, and looked at her significantly. + </p> + <p> + The expression of her face changed. Eagerness, anxiety, and even fear came + into it in turn, but always mingling with some scorn that dominated her. + “The boy!” she said in a voice that had changed too; “well, what about + him? You promised to tell me all,—all!” + </p> + <p> + “Where's the money?” he said. “Husband and wife are ONE, I know,” he went + on with a coarse laugh, “but I don't trust MYSELF in these matters.” + </p> + <p> + She took from a traveling-reticule that lay beside her a roll of notes and + a chamois leather bag of coin, and laid them on the table before him. He + examined both carefully. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” he said. “I see you've got the checks made out 'to bearer.' + Your head's level, Conny. Pity you and me can't agree.” + </p> + <p> + “I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrived,” she said, with + contemptuous directness. “I told them I was going over to Hymettus and + might want money.” + </p> + <p> + He dropped into a chair before her with his broad heavy hands upon his + knees, and looked at her with an equal, though baser, contempt: for his + was mingled with a certain pride of mastery and possession. + </p> + <p> + “And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut a splurge as you always do. + The beautiful Mrs. Horncastle! The helpless victim of a wretched, + dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So dreadfully sad, you know, and + so interesting! Could get a divorce from the brute if she wanted, but + won't, on account of her religious scruples. And so while the brute is + gambling, swindling, disgracing himself, and dodging a shot here and a + lynch committee there, two or three hundred miles away, you're splurging + round in first-class hotels and watering-places, doing the injured and + abused, and run after by a lot of men who are ready to take my place, and, + maybe, some of my reputation along with it.” + </p> + <p> + “Stop!” she said suddenly, in a voice that made the glass chandelier ring. + He had risen too, with a quick, uneasy glance towards the door. But her + outbreak passed as suddenly, and sinking back into her chair, she said, + with her previous scornful resignation, “Never mind. Go on. You KNOW + you're lying!” + </p> + <p> + He sat down again and looked at her critically. “Yes, as far as you're + concerned I WAS lying! I know your style. But as you know, too, that I'd + kill you and the first man I suspected, and there ain't a judge or a jury + in all Californy that wouldn't let me go free for it, and even consider, + too, that it had wiped off the whole slate agin me—it's to my + credit!” + </p> + <p> + “I know what you men call chivalry,” she said coldly, “but I did not come + here to buy a knowledge of that. So now about the child?” she ended + abruptly, leaning forward again with the same look of eager solicitude in + her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Well, about the child—our child—though, perhaps, I prefer to + say MY child,” he began, with a certain brutal frankness. “I'll tell you. + But first, I don't want you to talk about BUYING your information of me. + If I haven't told you anything before, it's because I didn't think you + oughter know. If I didn't trust the child to YOU, it's because I didn't + think you could go shashaying about with a child that was three years old + when I”—he stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—“made + an honest woman of you—I think that's what they call it.” + </p> + <p> + “But,” she said eagerly, ignoring the insult, “I could have hidden it + where no one but myself would have known it. I could have sent it to + school and visited it as a relation.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said curtly, “like all women, and then blurted it out some day + and made it worse.” + </p> + <p> + “But,” she said desperately, “even THEN, suppose I had been willing to + take the shame of it! I have taken more!” + </p> + <p> + “But I didn't intend that you should,” he said roughly. + </p> + <p> + “You are very careful of my reputation,” she returned scornfully. + </p> + <p> + “Not by a d——d sight,” he burst out; “but I care for HIS! I'm + not goin' to let any man call him a bastard!” + </p> + <p> + Callous as she had become even under this last cruel blow, she could not + but see something in his coarse eyes she had never seen before; could not + but hear something in his brutal voice she had never heard before! Was it + possible that somewhere in the depths of his sordid nature he had his own + contemptible sense of honor? A hysterical feeling came over her hitherto + passive disgust and scorn, but it disappeared with his next sentence in a + haze of anxiety. “No!” he said hoarsely, “he had enough wrong done him + already.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” she said imploringly. “Or are you again lying? You + said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;' that was your excuse + for keeping him from me. Or was that a lie, too?” + </p> + <p> + His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for his companion, + but rather from some change in his own feelings. “Oh, that,” he said, with + a rough laugh, “that was only a kind o' trouble any sassy kid like him was + likely to get into. You ain't got no call to hear that, for,” he added, + with a momentary return to his previous manner, “the wrong that was done + him is MY lookout! You want to know what I did with him, how he's been + looked arter, and where he is? You want the worth of your money. That's + square enough. But first I want you to know, though you mayn't believe it, + that every red cent you've given me to-night goes to HIM. And don't you + forget it.” + </p> + <p> + For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had lied to her many times + before,—maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but never evasively; + yet there was again that something in his manner which told her he was now + telling the truth. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he began, settling himself back in his chair, “I told you I + brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to trust + him to no school; he knew enough for me; but when I left those parts where + nobody knew you, and got a little nearer 'Frisco, where people might have + known us both, I thought it better not to travel round with a kid o' that + size as his FATHER. So I got a young fellow here to pass him off as HIS + little brother, and look after him and board him; and I paid him a big + price for it, too, you bet! You wouldn't think it was a man who's now + swelling around here, the top o' the pile, that ever took money from a + brute like me, and for such schoolmaster work, too; but he did, and his + name was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company.” + </p> + <p> + “Van Loo!” said the woman, with a movement of disgust; “THAT man!” + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter with Van Loo?” he said, with a coarse laugh, enjoying + his wife's discomfiture. “He speaks French and Spanish, and you oughter + hear the kid roll off the lingo he's got from him. He's got style, and + knows how to dress, and you ought to see the kid bow and scrape, and how + he carries himself. Now, Van Loo wasn't exactly my style, and I reckon I + don't hanker after him much, but he served my purpose.” + </p> + <p> + “And this man knows”—she said, with a shudder. + </p> + <p> + “He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't know Horncastle nor YOU. Don't + you be skeert. He's the last man in the world who would hanker to see me + or the kid again, or would dare to say that he ever had! Lord! I'd like to + see his fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon him and his + high-toned mother and sister some arternoon.” He threw himself back and + laughed a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from being + genial that it even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of pain in + others rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed at her in + the same way. + </p> + <p> + “And where is he now?” she said, with a compressed lip. + </p> + <p> + “At school. Where, I don't tell you. You know why. But he's looked after + by me, and d——d well looked after, too.” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated, composed her face with an effort, parted her lips, and + looked out of the window into the gathering darkness. Then after a moment + she said slowly, yet with a certain precision:— + </p> + <p> + “And his mother? Do you ever talk to him of HER? Does—does he ever + speak of ME?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think?” he said comfortably, changing his position in the + chair, and trying to read her face in the shadow. “Come, now. You don't + know, eh? Well—no! NO! You understand. No! He's MY friend—MINE! + He's stood by me through thick and thin. Run at my heels when everybody + else fled me. Dodged vigilance committees with me, laid out in the brush + with me with his hand in mine when the sheriff's deputies were huntin' me; + shut his jaw close when, if he squealed, he'd have been called another + victim of the brute Horncastle, and been as petted and canoodled as you.” + </p> + <p> + It would have been difficult for any one but the woman who knew the man + before her to have separated his brutish delight in paining her from + another feeling she had never dreamt him capable of,—an intense and + fierce pride in his affection for his child. And it was the more hopeless + to her that it was not the mere sentiment of reciprocation, but the + material instinct of paternity in its most animal form. And it seemed + horrible to her that the only outcome of what had been her own wild, + youthful passion for this brute was this love for the flesh of her flesh, + for she was more and more conscious as he spoke that her yearning for the + boy was the yearning of an equally dumb and unreasoning maternity. They + had met again as animals—in fear, contempt, and anger of each other; + but the animal had triumphed in both. + </p> + <p> + When she spoke again it was as the woman of the world,—the woman who + had laughed two years ago at the irrepressible Barker. “It's a new thing,” + she said, languidly turning her rings on her fingers, “to see you in the + role of a doting father. And may I ask how long you have had this amiable + weakness, and how long it is to last?” + </p> + <p> + To her surprise and the keen retaliating delight of her sex, a conscious + flush covered his face to the crisp edges of his black and matted beard. + For a moment she hoped that he had lied. But, to her greater surprise, he + stammered in equal frankness: “It's growed upon me for the last five years—ever + since I was alone with him.” He stopped, cleared his throat, and then, + standing up before her, said in his former voice, but with a more settled + and intense deliberation: “You wanter know how long it will last, do ye? + Well, you know your special friend, Jim Stacy—the big millionaire—the + great Jim of the Stock Exchange—the man that pinches the money + market of Californy between his finger and thumb and makes it squeal in + New York—the man who shakes the stock market when he sneezes? Well, + it will go on until that man is a beggar; until he has to borrow a dime + for his breakfast, and slump out of his lunch with a cent's worth of rat + poison or a bullet in his head! It'll go on until his old partner—that + softy George Barker—comes to the bottom of his d——d fool + luck and is a penny-a-liner for the papers and a hanger-round at free + lunches, and his scatter-brained wife runs away with another man! It'll go + on until the high-toned Demorest, the last of those three little tin gods + of Heavy Tree Hill, will have to climb down, and will know what I feel and + what he's made me feel, and will wish himself in hell before he ever made + the big strike on Heavy Tree! That's me! You hear me! I'm shoutin'! It'll + last till then! It may be next week, next month, next year. But it'll + come. And when it does come you'll see me and Eddy just waltzin' in and + takin' the chief seats in the synagogue! And you'll have a free pass to + the show!” + </p> + <p> + Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful vision, or the shadows of + the room had deepened, but he did not see the quick flush that had risen + to his wife's face with this allusion to Barker, nor the after-settling of + her handsome features into a dogged determination equal to his own. His + blind fury against the three partners did not touch her curiosity; she was + only struck with the evident depth of his emotion. He had never been a + braggart; his hostility had always been lazy and cynical. Remembering + this, she had a faint stirring of respect for the undoubted courage and + consciousness of strength shown in this wild but single-handed crusade + against wealth and power; rather, perhaps, it seemed to her to condone her + own weakness in her youthful and inexplicable passion for him. No wonder + she had submitted. + </p> + <p> + “Then you have nothing more to tell me?” she said after a pause, rising + and going towards the mantel. + </p> + <p> + “You needn't light up for me,” he returned, rising also. “I am going. + Unless,” he added, with his coarse laugh, “you think it wouldn't look well + for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in the dark with—a + stranger!” He paused as she contemptuously put down the candlestick and + threw the unlit match into the grate. “No, I've nothing more to tell. He's + a fancy-looking pup. You'd take him for twenty-one, though he's only + sixteen—clean-limbed and perfect—but for one thing”—He + stopped. He met her quick look of interrogation, however, with a lowering + silence that, nevertheless, changed again as he surveyed her erect figure + by the faint light of the window with a sardonic smile. “He favors you, I + think, and in all but one thing, too.” + </p> + <p> + “And that?” she queried coldly, as he seemed to hesitate. + </p> + <p> + “He ain't ashamed of ME,” he returned, with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + The door closed behind him; she heard his heavy step descend the creaking + stairs; he was gone. She went to the window and threw it open, as if to + get rid of the atmosphere charged with his presence,—a presence + still so potent that she now knew that for the last five minutes she had + been, to her horror, struggling against its magnetism. She even recoiled + now at the thought of her child, as if, in these new confidences over it, + it had revived the old intimacy in this link of their common flesh. She + looked down from her window on the square shoulders, thick throat, and + crisp matted hair of her husband as he vanished in the darkness, and drew + a breath of freedom,—a freedom not so much from him as from her own + weakness that he was bearing away with him into the exonerating night. + </p> + <p> + She shut the window and sank down in her chair again, but in the + encompassing and compassionate obscurity of the room. And this was the man + she had loved and for whom she had wrecked her young life! Or WAS it love? + and, if NOT, how was she better than he? Worse; for he was more loyal to + that passion that had brought them together and its responsibilities than + she was. She had suffered the perils and pangs of maternity, and yet had + only the mere animal yearning for her offspring, while he had taken over + the toil and duty, and even the devotion, of parentage himself. But then + she remembered also how he had fascinated her—a simple schoolgirl—by + his sheer domineering strength, and how the objections of her parents to + this coarse and common man had forced her into a clandestine intimacy that + ended in her complete subjection to him. She remembered the birth of an + infant whose concealment from her parents and friends was compassed by his + low cunning; she remembered the late atonement of marriage preferred by + the man she had already begun to loathe and fear, and who she now believed + was eager only for her inheritance. She remembered her abject compliance + through the greater fear of the world, the stormy scenes that followed + their ill-omened union, her final abandonment of her husband, and the + efforts of her friends and family who had rescued the last of her property + from him. She was glad she remembered it; she dwelt upon it, upon his + cruelty, his coarseness and vulgarity, until she saw, as she honestly + believed, the hidden springs of his affection for their child. It was HIS + child in nature, however it might have favored her in looks; it was HIS + own brutal SELF he was worshiping in his brutal progeny. How else could it + have ignored HER—its own mother? She never doubted the truth of what + he had told her—she had seen it in his own triumphant eyes. And yet + she would have made a kind mother; she remembered with a smile and a + slight rising of color the affection of Barker's baby for her; she + remembered with a deepening of that color the thrill of satisfaction she + had felt in her husband's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, more than + all, she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of Barker himself a + delicious condonation of the strange feeling that had sprung up in her + heart for Barker's simple, straightforward nature. How could HE + understand, how could THEY understand (by the plural she meant Mrs. Barker + and Horncastle), a character so innately noble. In her strange attraction + towards him she had felt a charming sense of what she believed was a + superior and even matronly protection; in the utter isolation of her life + now—and with her husband's foolish abuse of him ringing in her ears—it + seemed a sacred duty. She had lost a son. Providence had sent her an ideal + friend to replace him. And this was quite consistent, too, with a faint + smile that began to play about her mouth as she recalled some instances of + Barker's delightful and irresistible youthfulness. + </p> + <p> + There was a clatter of hoofs and the sound of many voices from the street. + Mrs. Horncastle knew it was the down coach changing horses; it would be + off again in a few moments, and, no doubt, bearing her husband away with + it. A new feeling of relief came over her as she at last heard the warning + “All aboard!” and the great vehicle clattered and rolled into the + darkness, trailing its burning lights across her walls and ceiling. But + now she heard steps on the staircase, a pause before her room, a whisper + of voices, the opening of the door, the rustle of a skirt, and a little + feminine cry of protest as a man apparently tried to follow the figure + into the room. “No, no! I tell you NO!” remonstrated the woman's voice in + a hurried whisper. “It won't do. Everybody knows me here. You must not + come in now. You must wait to be announced by the servant. Hush! Go!” + </p> + <p> + There was a slight struggle, the sound of a kiss, and the woman succeeded + in finally shutting the door. Then she walked slowly, but with a certain + familiarity towards the mantel, struck a match and lit the candle. The + light shone upon the bright eyes and slightly flushed face of Mrs. Barker. + But the motionless woman in the chair had recognized her voice and the + voice of her companion at once. And then their eyes met. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker drew back, but did not utter a cry. Mrs. Horncastle, with eyes + even brighter than her companion's, smiled. The red deepened in Mrs. + Barker's cheek. + </p> + <p> + “This is my room!” she said indignantly, with a sweeping gesture around + the walls. + </p> + <p> + “I should judge so,” said Mrs. Horncastle, following the gesture; “but,” + she added quietly, “they put ME into it. It appears, however, they did not + expect you.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker saw her mistake. “No, no,” she said apologetically, “of course + not.” Then she added, with nervous volubility, sitting down and tugging at + her gloves, “You see, I just ran down from Marysville to take a look at my + father's old house on my way to Hymettus. I hope I haven't disturbed you. + Perhaps,” she said, with sudden eagerness, “you were asleep when I came + in!” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Mrs. Horncastle, “I was not sleeping nor dreaming. I heard you + come in.” + </p> + <p> + “Some of these men are such idiots,” said Mrs. Barker, with a + half-hysterical laugh. “They seem to think if a woman accepts the least + courtesy from them they've a right to be familiar. But I fancy that fellow + was a little astonished when I shut the door in his face.” + </p> + <p> + “I fancy he WAS,” returned Mrs. Horncastle dryly. “But I shouldn't call + Mr. Van Loo an idiot. He has the reputation of being a cautious business + man.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker bit her lip. Her companion had been recognized. She rose with + a slight flirt of her skirt. “I suppose I must go and get a room; there + was nobody in the office when I came. Everything is badly managed here + since my father took away the best servants to Hymettus.” She moved with + affected carelessness towards the door, when Mrs. Horncastle, without + rising from her seat, said:— + </p> + <p> + “Why not stay here?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker brightened for a moment. “Oh,” she said, with polite + deprecation, “I couldn't think of turning you out.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't intend you shall,” said Mrs. Horncastle. “We will stay here + together until you go with me to Hymettus, or until Mr. Van Loo leaves the + hotel. He will hardly attempt to come in here again if I remain.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker, with a half-laugh, sat down irresolutely. Mrs. Horncastle + gazed at her curiously; she was evidently a novice in this sort of thing. + But, strange to say,—and I leave the ethics of this for the sex to + settle,—the fact did not soften Mrs. Horncastle's heart, nor in the + least qualify her attitude towards the younger woman. After an awkward + pause Mrs. Barker rose again. “Well, it's very good of you, and—and—-I'll + just run out and wash my hands and get the dust off me, and come back.” + </p> + <p> + “No, Mrs. Barker,” said Mrs. Horncastle, rising and approaching her, “you + will first wash your hands of this Mr. Van Loo, and get some of the dust + of the rendezvous off you before you do anything else. You CAN do it by + simply telling him, SHOULD YOU MEET HIM IN THE HALL, that I was sitting + here when he came in, and heard EVERYTHING! Depend upon it, he won't + trouble you again.” + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Barker, though inexperienced in love, was a good fighter. The + best of the sex are. She dropped into the rocking-chair, and began rocking + backwards and forwards while still tugging at her gloves, and said, in a + gradually warming voice, “I certainly shall not magnify Mr. Van Loo's + silliness to that importance. And I have yet to learn what you mean by + talking about a rendezvous! And I want to know,” she continued, suddenly + stopping her rocking and tilting the rockers impertinently behind her, as, + with her elbows squared on the chair arms, she tilted her own face + defiantly up into Mrs. Horncastle's, “how a woman in your position—who + doesn't live with her husband—dares to talk to ME!” + </p> + <p> + There was a lull before the storm. Mrs. Horncastle approached nearer, and, + laying her hand on the back of the chair, leaned over her, and, with a + white face and a metallic ring in her voice, said: “It is just because I + am a woman IN MY POSITION that I do! It is because I don't live with my + husband that I can tell you what it will be when you no longer live with + yours—which will be the inevitable result of what you are now doing. + It is because I WAS in this position that the very man who is pursuing + you, because he thinks you are discontented with YOUR husband, once + thought he could pursue me because I had left MINE. You are here with him + alone, without the knowledge of your husband; call it folly, caprice, + vanity, or what you like, it can have but one end—to put you in my + place at last, to be considered the fair game afterwards for any man who + may succeed him. You can test him and the truth of what I say by telling + him now that I heard all.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose he doesn't care what you have heard,” said Mrs. Barker sharply. + “Suppose he says nobody would believe you, if 'telling' is your game. + Suppose he is a friend of my husband and he thinks him a much better + guardian of my reputation than a woman like you. Suppose he should be the + first one to tell my husband of the foul slander invented by you!” + </p> + <p> + For an instant Mrs. Horncastle was taken aback by the audacity of the + woman before her. She knew the simple confidence and boyish trust of + Barker in his wife in spite of their sometimes strained relations, and she + knew how difficult it would be to shake it. And she had no idea of + betraying Mrs. Barker's secret to him, though she had made this scene in + his interest. She had wished to save Mrs. Barker from a compromising + situation, even if there was a certain vindictiveness in her exposing her + to herself. Yet she knew it was quite possible now, if Mrs. Barker had + immediate access to her husband, that she would convince him of her + perfect innocence. Nevertheless, she had still great confidence in Van + Loo's fear of scandal and his utter unmanliness. She knew he was not in + love with Mrs. Barker, and this puzzled her when she considered the + evident risk he was running now. Her face, however, betrayed nothing. She + drew back from Mrs. Barker, and, with an indifferent and graceful gesture + towards the door, said, as she leaned against the mantel, “Go, then, and + see this much-abused gentleman, and then go together with him and make + peace with your husband—even on those terms. If I have saved you + from the consequences of your folly I shall be willing to bear even HIS + blame.” + </p> + <p> + “Whatever I do,” said Mrs. Barker, rising hotly, “I shall not stay here + any longer to be insulted.” She flounced out of the room and swept down + the staircase into the office. Here she found an overworked clerk, and + with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes wanted to know why in her own + father's hotel she had found her own sitting-room engaged, and had been + obliged to wait half an hour before she could be shown into a decent + apartment to remove her hat and cloak in; and how it was that even the + gentleman who had kindly escorted her had evidently been unable to procure + her any assistance. She said this in a somewhat high voice, which might + have reached the ears of that gentleman had he been in the vicinity. But + he was not, and she was forced to meet the somewhat dazed apologies of the + clerk alone, and to accompany the chambermaid to a room only a few paces + distant from the one she had quitted. Here she hastily removed her outer + duster and hat, washed her hands, and consulted her excited face in the + mirror, with the door ajar and an ear sensitively attuned to any step in + the corridor. But all this was effected so rapidly that she was at last + obliged to sit down in a chair near the half-opened door, and wait. She + waited five minutes—ten—but still no footstep. Then she went + out into the corridor and listened, and then, smoothing her face, she + slipped downstairs, past the door of that hateful room, and reappeared + before the clerk with a smiling but somewhat pale and languid face. She + had found the room very comfortable, but it was doubtful whether she would + stay over night or go on to Hymettus. Had anybody been inquiring for her? + She expected to meet friends. No! And her escort—the gentleman who + came with her—was possibly in the billiard-room or the bar? + </p> + <p> + “Oh no! He was gone,” said the clerk. + </p> + <p> + “Gone!” echoed Mrs. Barker. “Impossible! He was—he was here only a + moment ago.” + </p> + <p> + The clerk rang a bell sharply. The stableman appeared. + </p> + <p> + “That tall, smooth-faced man, in a high hat, who came with the lady,” said + the clerk severely and concisely,—“didn't you tell me he was gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir,” said the stableman. + </p> + <p> + “Are you sure?” interrupted Mrs. Barker, with a dazzling smile that, + however, masked a sudden tightening round her heart. + </p> + <p> + “Quite sure, miss,” said the stableman, “for he was in the yard when + Steptoe came, after missing the coach. He wanted a buggy to take him over + to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over to the other stables, and he + didn't come back, so I reckon he's gone. I remember it, because Steptoe + came by a minute after he'd gone, in another buggy, and as he was going to + the Divide, too, I wondered why the gentleman hadn't gone with him.” + </p> + <p> + “And he left no message for me? He said nothing?” asked Mrs. Barker, quite + breathless, but still smiling. + </p> + <p> + “He said nothin' to me but 'Isn't that Steptoe over there?' when Steptoe + came in. And I remember he said it kinder suddent—as if he was + reminded o' suthin' he'd forgot; and then he asked for a buggy. Ye see, + miss,” added the man, with a certain rough consideration for her + disappointment, “that's mebbe why he clean forgot to leave a message.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Barker turned away, and ascended the stairs. Selfishness is quick to + recognize selfishness, and she saw in a flash the reason of Van Loo's + abandonment of her. Some fear of discovery had alarmed him; perhaps + Steptoe knew her husband; perhaps he had heard of Mrs. Horncastle's + possession of the sitting-room; perhaps—for she had not seen him + since their playful struggle at the door—he had recognized the woman + who was there, and the selfish coward had run away. Yes; Mrs. Horncastle + was right: she had been only a miserable dupe. + </p> + <p> + Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room she had just quitted, and threw + herself in a chair by the window. She bit her lip as she remembered how + for the last three months she had been slowly yielding to Van Loo's + cautious but insinuating solicitation, from a flirtation in the San + Francisco hotel to a clandestine meeting in the street; from a ride in the + suburbs to a supper in a fast restaurant after the theatre. Other women + did it who were fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed out to her. + Other fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had their private + broker in a “Charley” or a “Jack.” Why should not Mrs. Barker have + business with a “Paul” Van Loo, particularly as this fast craze permitted + secret meetings?—for business of this kind could not be conducted in + public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at private offices without + fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker's vanity, Mrs. Barker's love of + ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's snobbishness, were flattered by the + attentions of this polished gentleman with a foreign name, which even had + the flavor of nobility, who never picked up her fan and handed it to her + without bowing, and always rose when she entered the room. Mrs. Barker's + scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this gentleman, who spoke French + fluently, and delicately explained to her the libretto of a risky opera + bouffe. And now she had finally yielded to a meeting out of San Francisco—and + an ostensible visit—still as a speculator—to one or two mining + districts—with HER BROKER. This was the boldest of her steps—an + original idea of the fashionable Van Loo—which, no doubt, in time + would become a craze, too. But it was a long step—and there was a + streak of rustic decorum in Mrs. Barker's nature—the instinct that + made Kitty Carter keep a perfectly secluded and distinct sitting-room in + the days when she served her father's guests—that now had impelled + her to make it a proviso that the first step of her journey should be from + her old home in her father's hotel. It was this instinct of the + proprieties that had revived in her suddenly at the door of the old + sitting-room. + </p> + <p> + Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her. It was hard for her + vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary and final. What if that + hateful woman had lured him away by some trick or artfully designed + message? She was capable of such meanness to insure the fulfillment of her + prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought, what if she had some hold on his + affections—she had said that he had pursued her; or, more infamous + still, there were some secret understanding between them, and that she—Mrs. + Barker—was the dupe of them both! What was she doing in the hotel at + such a moment? What was her story of going to Hymettus but a lie as + transparent as her own? The tortures of jealousy, which is as often the + incentive as it is the result of passion, began to rack her. She had + probably yet known no real passion for this man; but with the thought of + his abandoning her, and the conception of his faithlessness, came the wish + to hold and keep him that was dangerously near it. What if he were even + then in that room, the room where she had said she would not stay to be + insulted, and they, thus secured against her intrusion, were laughing at + her now? She half rose at the thought, but a sound of a horse's hoofs in + the stable-yard arrested her. She ran to the window which gave upon it, + and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly. The clatter of hoofs + ceased; the stableman was talking to some one; suddenly she heard the + stableman say, “Mrs. Barker is here.” Her heart leaped,—Van Loo had + returned. + </p> + <p> + But here the voice of the other man which she had not yet heard arose for + the first time clear and distinct. “Are you quite sure? I didn't know she + left San Francisco.” + </p> + <p> + The room reeled around her. The voice was George Barker's, her husband! + “Very well,” he continued. “You needn't put up my horse for the night. I + may take her back a little later in the buggy.” + </p> + <p> + In another moment she had swept down the passage, and burst into the other + room. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting by the table with a book in her hand. + She started as the half-maddened woman closed the door, locked it behind + her, and cast herself on her knees at her feet. + </p> + <p> + “My husband is here,” she gasped. “What shall I do? In heaven's name help + me!” + </p> + <p> + “Is Van Loo still here?” said Mrs. Horncastle quickly. + </p> + <p> + “No; gone. He went when I came.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked intently into her frightened + face. “Then what have you to fear from your husband?” she said abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand. He didn't know I was here. He thought me in San + Francisco.” + </p> + <p> + “Does he know it now?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I heard the stableman tell him. Couldn't you say I came here with + you; that we were here together; that it was just a little freak of ours? + Oh, do!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment. “Yes,” she said, “we'll see him here + together.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no! no!” said Mrs. Barker suddenly, clinging to her dress and looking + fearfully towards the door. “I couldn't, COULDN'T see him now. Say I'm + sick, tired out, gone to my room.” + </p> + <p> + “But you'll have to see him later,” said Mrs. Horncastle wonderingly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but he may go first. I heard him tell them not to put up his horse.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said Mrs. Horncastle suddenly. “Go to your room and lock the door, + and I'll come to you later. Stop! Would Mr. Barker be likely to disturb + you if I told him you would like to be alone?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he never does. I often tell him that.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle smiled faintly. “Come, quick, then,” she said, “for he may + come HERE first.” + </p> + <p> + Opening the door she passed into the half-dark and empty hall. “Now run!” + She heard the quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt die away in the + distance, the opening and shutting of a door—silence—and then + turned back into her own room. + </p> + <p> + She was none too soon. Presently she heard Barker's voice saying, “Thank + you, I can find the way,” his still buoyant step on the staircase, and + then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. The light streaming + through the open door of the sitting room into the half-lit hall had + partially dazzled him, and, already bewildered, he was still more dazzled + at the unexpected apparition of the smiling face and bright eyes of Mrs. + Horncastle standing in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + “You have fairly caught us,” she said, with charming composure; “but I had + half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a little longer. Come in.” + Barker followed her in mechanically, and she closed the door. “Now, sit + down,” she said gayly, “and tell me how you knew we were here, and what + you mean by surprising us at this hour.” + </p> + <p> + Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, for whom he + entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fear of her worldly + superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhat blankly around the + room, at the familiar walls, at the chair from which Mrs. Horncastle had + just risen, and finally at his wife's glove, which Mrs. Horncastle had a + moment before ostentatiously thrown on the table. Seeing which she pounced + upon it with assumed archness, and pretended to conceal it. + </p> + <p> + “I had no idea my wife was here,” he said at last, “and I was quite + surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to me about it.” + As his face was brightening, she for the first time noticed that his frank + gray eyes had an abstracted look, and there was a faint line of + contraction on his youthful forehead. “Still less,” he added, “did I look + for the pleasure of meeting you. For I only came here to inquire about my + old partner, Demorest, who arrived from Europe a few days ago, and who + should have reached Hymettus early this afternoon. But now I hear he came + all the way by coach instead of by rail, and got off at the cross-road, + and we must have passed each other on the different trails. So my journey + would have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have the pleasure of + going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovely drive by moonlight.” + </p> + <p> + Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs. Horncastle to + launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty—but, I grieve to say, + entirely imaginative—account of her escapade with Mrs. Barker. How, + left alone at the San Francisco hotel while their gentlemen friends were + enjoying themselves at Hymettus, they resolved upon a little trip, partly + for the purpose of looking into some small investments of their own, and + partly for the fun of the thing. What funny experiences they had! How, in + particular, one horrid inquisitive, vulgar wretch had been boring a + European fellow passenger who was going to Hymettus, finally asking him + where he had come from last, and when he answered “Hymettus,” thought the + man was insulting him— + </p> + <p> + “But,” interrupted the laughing Barker, “that passenger may have been + Demorest, who has just come from Greece, and surely Kitty would have + recognized him.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, and not only retrieved it, but + turned it to account. Ah, yes! but by that time poor Kitty, unused to long + journeys and the heat, was utterly fagged out, was asleep, and perfectly + unrecognizable in veils and dusters on the back seat of the coach. And + this brought her to the point—which was, that she was sorry to say, + on arriving, the poor child was nearly wild with a headache from fatigue + and had gone to bed, and she had promised not to disturb her. + </p> + <p> + The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that had overspread + Barker's face during this lively recital might have pricked the conscience + of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason I fear it did not. But it + emboldened her to go on. “I said I promised her that I would see she + wasn't disturbed; but, of course, now that YOU, her HUSBAND, have come, + if”— + </p> + <p> + “Not for worlds,” interrupted Barker earnestly. “I know poor Kitty's + headaches, and I never disturb her, poor child, except when I'm + thoughtless.” And here one of the most thoughtful men in the world in his + sensitive consideration of others beamed at her with such frank and + wonderful eyes that the arch hypocrite before him with difficulty + suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh, and felt the conscious blood + flush her to the root of her hair. “You know,” he went on, with a sigh, + half of relief and half of reminiscence, “that I often think I'm a great + bother to a clear-headed, sensible girl like Kitty. She knows people so + much better than I do. She's wonderfully equipped for the world, and, you + see, I'm only 'lucky,' as everybody says, and I dare say part of my luck + was to have got her. I'm very glad she's a friend of yours, you know, for + somehow I fancied always that you were not interested in her, or that you + didn't understand each other until now. It's odd that nice women don't + always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you; I was quite + startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it out. I thought at + first she might have got anxious about our little Sta, who is with me and + the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it was only a lark. I shouldn't + wonder,” he added, with a laugh, “although she always declares she isn't + one of those 'doting, idiotic mothers,' that she found it a little dull + without the boy, for all she thought it was better for ME to take him + somewhere for a change of air.” + </p> + <p> + The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she had + conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its first direct appeal + to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish desire to + save the relations between husband and wife if she could. But she had not + calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their effect upon + herself. She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a moment of + folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now might be + possible that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent her husband + and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole truth? How long + had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo had deserted her now, + was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an intrigue rather than its + beginning? Had she been as great a dupe of this woman as the husband + before her? A new and double consciousness came over her that for a moment + prevented her from meeting his honest eyes. She felt the shame of being an + accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at the idea of a climax that might + separate him from his wife forever. + </p> + <p> + Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief threw + himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls broke + into his youthful laugh. “Lord! how I remember this room in the old days. + It was Kitty's own private sitting-room, you know, and I used to think it + looked just as fresh and pretty as she. I used to think her crayon drawing + wonderful, and still more wonderful that she should have that unnecessary + talent when it was quite enough for her to be just 'Kitty.' You know, + don't you, how you feel at those times when you're quite happy in being + inferior”—He stopped a moment with a sudden recollection that Mrs. + Horncastle's marriage had been notoriously unhappy. “I mean,” he went on + with a shy little laugh and an innocent attempt at gallantry which the + very directness of his simple nature made atrociously obvious,—“I + mean what you've made lots of young fellows feel. There used to be a + picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in full uniform, and signed + by himself 'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I was of it, for Kitty never + took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even was allowed in here, though + she helped her father all over the hotel. She was awfully strict in those + days,” he interpolated, with a thoughtful look and a half-sigh; “but then + she wasn't married. I proposed to her in this very room! Lord! I remember + how frightened I was.” He stopped for an instant, and then said with a + certain timidity, “Do you mind my telling you something about it?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous domestic + details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not suppress a + somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barker noticed it, but to + her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and in a half-entreating way + said, “I hope I don't bore you, but it's something confidential. Do you + know that she first REFUSED me?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss of her head. “I + believe they all do when they are sure of a man.” + </p> + <p> + “No!” said Barker eagerly, “you don't understand. I proposed to her + because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I had + discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulous value. She + believed it, too, but because she thought I was now a rich man and she + only a poor girl—a mere servant to her father's guests—she + refused me. Refused me because she thought I might regret it in the + future, because she would not have it said that she had taken advantage of + my proposal only when I was rich enough to make it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straight before her; + “and then?” + </p> + <p> + “In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks were worthless, + that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest to return to her and + tell her, even though I had no hope. And then she pitied me, and cried, + and accepted me. I tell it to you as her friend.” He drew a little nearer + and quite fraternally laid his hand upon her own. “I know you won't betray + me, though you may think it wrong for me to have told it; but I wanted you + to know how good she was and true.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited, although she saw, + with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency between the + Kitty of those days and the Kitty now shamefully hiding from her husband + in the same hotel. No doubt Kitty had some good reason for her chivalrous + act. But she could see the unmistakable effect of that act upon the more + logically reasoning husband, and that it might lead him to be more + merciful to the later wrong. And there was a keener irony that his first + movement of unconscious kindliness towards her was the outcome of his + affection for his undeserving wife. + </p> + <p> + “You said just now she was more practical than you,” she said dryly. + “Apart from this evidence of it, what other reasons have you for thinking + so? Do you refer to her independence or her dealings in the stock market?” + she added, with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Barker seriously, “for I do not think her quite practical + there; indeed, I'm afraid she is about as bad as I am. But I'm glad you + have spoken, for I can now talk confidentially with you, and as you and + she are both in the same ventures, perhaps she will feel less compunction + in hearing from you—as your own opinion—what I have to tell + you than if I spoke to her myself. I am afraid she trusts implicitly to + Van Loo's judgment as her broker. I believe he is strictly honorable, but + the general opinion of his business insight is not high. They—perhaps + I ought to say HE—have been at least so unlucky that they might have + learned prudence. The loss of twenty thousand dollars in three months”— + </p> + <p> + “Twenty thousand!” echoed Mrs. Horncastle. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Why, you knew that; it was in the mine you and she visited; or, + perhaps,” he added hastily, as he flushed at his indiscretion, “she didn't + tell you that.” + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Horncastle as hastily said, “Yes—yes—of course, only + I had forgotten the amount;” and he continued:— + </p> + <p> + “That loss would have frightened any man; but you women are more daring. + Only Van Loo ought to have withdrawn. Don't you think so? Of course I + couldn't say anything to him without seeming to condemn my own wife; I + couldn't say anything to HER because it's her own money.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know that Mrs. Barker had any money of her own,” said Mrs. + Horncastle. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I gave it to her,” said Barker, with sublime simplicity, “and that + would make it all the worse for me to speak about it.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle was silent. A new theory flashed upon her which seemed to + reconcile all the previous inconsistencies of the situation. Van Loo, + under the guise of a lover, was really possessing himself of Mrs. Barker's + money. This accounted for the risks he was running in this escapade, which + were so incongruous to the rascal's nature. He was calculating that the + scandal of an intrigue would relieve him of the perils of criminal + defalcation. It was compatible with Kitty's innocence, though it did not + relieve her vanity of the part it played in this despicable comedy of + passion. All that Mrs. Horncastle thought of now was the effect of its + eventful revelation upon the man before her. Of course, he would overlook + his wife's trustfulness and business ignorance—it would seem so like + his own unselfish faith! That was the fault of all unselfish goodness; it + even took the color of adjacent evil, without altering the nature of + either. Mrs. Horncastle set her teeth tightly together, but her beautiful + mouth smiled upon Barker, though her eyes were bent upon the tablecloth + before her. + </p> + <p> + “I shall do all I can to impress your views upon her,” she said at last, + “though I fear they will have little weight if given as my own. And you + overrate my general influence with her.” + </p> + <p> + Her handsome head drooped in such a thoughtful humility that Barker + instinctively drew nearer to her. Besides, she had not lifted her dark + lashes for some moments, and he had the still youthful habit of looking + frankly into the eyes of those he addressed. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said eagerly; “how could I? She could not help but love you and + do as you would wish. I can't tell you how glad and relieved I am to find + that you and she have become such friends. You know I always thought you + beautiful, I always thought you so clever—I was even a little + frightened of you; but I never until now knew you were so GOOD. No, stop! + Yes, I DID know it. Do you remember once in San Francisco, when I found + you with Sta in your lap in the drawing-room? I knew it then. You tried to + make me think it was a whim—the fancy of a bored and worried woman. + But I knew better. And I knew what you were thinking then. Shall I tell + you?” + </p> + <p> + As her eyes were still cast down, although her mouth was still smiling, in + his endeavors to look into them his face was quite near hers. He fancied + that it bore the look she had worn once before. + </p> + <p> + “You were thinking,” he said in a voice which had grown suddenly quite + hesitating and tremulous,—he did not know why,—“that the poor + little baby was quite friendless and alone. You were pitying it—you + know you were—because there was no one to give it the loving care + that was its due, and because it was intrusted to that hired nurse in that + great hotel. You were thinking how you would love it if it were yours, and + how cruel it was that Love was sent without an object to waste itself + upon. You were: I saw it in your face.” + </p> + <p> + She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full into his with a look that + held and possessed him. For a moment his whole soul seemed to tremble on + the verge of their lustrous depths, and he drew back dizzy and frightened. + What he saw there he never clearly knew; but, whatever it was, it seemed + to suddenly change his relations to her, to the room, to his wife, to the + world without. It was a glimpse of a world of which he knew nothing. He + had looked frankly and admiringly into the eyes of other pretty women; he + had even gazed into her own before, but never with this feeling. A sudden + sense that what he had seen there he had himself evoked, that it was an + answer to some question he had scarcely yet formulated, and that they were + both now linked by an understanding and consciousness that was + irretrievable, came over him. He rose awkwardly and went to the window. + She rose also, but more leisurely and easily, moved one of the books on + the table, smoothed out her skirts, and changed her seat to a little sofa. + It is the woman who always comes out of these crucial moments unruffled. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you will be glad to see your friend Mr. Demorest when you go + back,” she said pleasantly; “for of course he will be at Hymettus awaiting + you.” + </p> + <p> + He turned eagerly, as he always did at the name. But even then he felt + that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He felt, too, that + he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what to say. As he + hesitated she went on half playfully: “It seems hard that you had to come + all the way here on such a bootless errand. You haven't even seen your + wife yet.” + </p> + <p> + The mention of his wife recalled him to himself, oddly enough, when + Demorest's name had failed. But very differently. Out of his whirling + consciousness came the instinctive feeling that he could not see her now. + He turned, crossed the room, sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. Horncastle, + and without, however, looking at her, said, with his eyes on the floor, + “No; and I've been thinking that it's hardly worth while to disturb her so + early to-morrow as I should have to go. So I think it's a good deal better + to let her have a good night's rest, remain here quietly with you + to-morrow until the stage leaves, and that both of you come over together. + My horse is still saddled, and I will be back at Hymettus before Demorest + has gone to bed.” + </p> + <p> + He was obliged to look up at her as he rose. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting + erect, beautiful and dazzling as even he had never seen her before. For + his resolution had suddenly lifted a great weight from her shoulders,—the + dangerous meeting of husband and wife the next morning, and its results, + whatever they might be, had been quietly averted. She felt, too, a + half-frightened joy even in the constrained manner in which he had + imparted his determination. That frankness which even she had sometimes + found so crushing was gone. + </p> + <p> + “I really think you are quite right,” she said, rising also, “and, + besides, you see, it will give me a chance to talk to her as you wished.” + </p> + <p> + “To talk to her as I wished?” echoed Barker abstractedly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, about Van Loo, you know,” said Mrs. Horncastle, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, certainly—about Van Loo, of course,” he returned hurriedly. + </p> + <p> + “And then,” said Mrs. Horncastle brightly, “I'll tell her. Stay!” she + interrupted herself hurriedly. “Why need I say anything about your having + been here AT ALL? It might only annoy her, as you yourself suggest.” She + stopped breathlessly with parted lips. + </p> + <p> + “Why, indeed?” said Barker vaguely. Yet all this was so unlike his usual + truthfulness that he slightly hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” continued Mrs. Horncastle, noticing it, “you know you can + always tell her later, if necessary.” And she added with a charming + mischievousness, “As she didn't tell you she was coming, I really don't + see why you are bound to tell her that you were here.” + </p> + <p> + The sophistry pleased Barker, even though it put him into a certain + retaliating attitude towards his wife which he was not aware of feeling. + But, as Mrs. Horncastle put it, it was only a playful attitude. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” he said. “Don't say anything about it.” + </p> + <p> + He moved to the door with his soft, broad-brimmed hat swinging between his + fingers. She noticed for the first time that he looked taller in his long + black serape and riding-boots, and, oddly enough, much more like the hero + of an amorous tryst than Van Loo. “I know,” she said brightly, “you are + eager to get back to your old friend, and it would be selfish for me to + try to keep you longer. You have had a stupid evening, but you have made + it pleasant to me by telling me what you thought of me. And before you go + I want you to believe that I shall try to keep that good opinion.” She + spoke frankly in contrast to the slight worldly constraint of Barker's + manner; it seemed as if they had changed characters. And then she extended + her hand. + </p> + <p> + With a low bow, and without looking up, he took it. Again their pulses + seemed to leap together with one accord and the same mysterious + understanding. He could not tell if he had unconsciously pressed her hand + or if she had returned the pressure. But when their hands unclasped it + seemed as if it were the division of one flesh and spirit. + </p> + <p> + She remained standing by the open door until his footsteps passed down the + staircase. Then she suddenly closed and locked the door with an instinct + that Mrs. Barker might at once return now that he was gone, and she wished + to be a moment alone to recover herself. But she presently opened it again + and listened. There was a noise in the courtyard, but it sounded like the + rattle of wheels more than the clatter of a horseman. Then she was + overcome—a sudden sense of pity for the unfortunate woman still + hiding from her husband—and felt a momentary chivalrous exaltation + of spirit. Certainly she had done “good” to that wretched “Kitty;” perhaps + she had earned the epithet that Barker had applied to her. Perhaps that + was the meaning of all this happiness to her, and the result was to be + only the happiness and reconciliation of the wife and husband. This was to + be her reward. I grieve to say that the tears had come into her beautiful + eyes at this satisfactory conclusion, but she dashed them away and ran out + into the hall. It was quite dark, but there was a faint glimmer on the + opposite wall as if the door of Mrs. Barker's bedroom were ajar to an + eager listener. She flew towards the glimmer, and pushed the door open: + the room was empty. Empty of Mrs. Barker, empty of her dressing-box, her + reticule and shawl. She was gone. + </p> + <p> + Still, Mrs. Horncastle lingered; the woman might have got frightened and + retreated to some further room at the opening of the door and the coming + out of her husband. She walked along the passage, calling her name softly. + She even penetrated the dreary, half-lit public parlor, expecting to find + her crouching there. Then a sudden wild idea took possession of her: the + miserable wife had repented of her act and of her concealment, and had + crept downstairs to await her husband in the office. She had told him some + new lie, had begged him to take her with him, and Barker, of course, had + assented. Yes, she now knew why she had heard the rattling wheels instead + of the clattering hoofs she had listened for. They had gone together, as + he first proposed, in the buggy. + </p> + <p> + She ran swiftly down the stairs and entered the office. The overworked + clerk was busy and querulously curt. These women were always asking such + idiotic questions. Yes, Mr. Barker had just gone. + </p> + <p> + “With Mrs. Barker in the buggy?” asked Mrs. Horncastle. + </p> + <p> + “No, as he came—on horseback. Mrs. Barker left HALF AN HOUR AGO.” + </p> + <p> + “Alone?” + </p> + <p> + This was apparently too much for the long-suffering clerk. He lifted his + eyes to the ceiling, and then, with painful precision, and accenting every + word with his pencil on the desk before him, said deliberately, “Mrs. + George Barker—left—here—with her—escort—the—man + she—was—always—asking—for—in—the—buggy—at + exactly—9.35.” And he plunged into his work again. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, re-entered the sitting-room, + and slamming the door behind her, halted in the centre of the room, + panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. And she was alone in this empty + room—this deserted hotel. From this very room her husband had left + her with a brutality on his lips. From this room the fool and liar she had + tried to warn had gone to her ruin with a swindling hypocrite. And from + this room the only man in the world she ever cared for had gone forth + bewildered, wronged, and abused, and she knew now she could have kept and + comforted him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. + </h2> + <p> + When Philip Demorest left the stagecoach at the cross-roads he turned into + the only wayside house, the blacksmith's shop, and, declaring his + intention of walking over to Hymettus, asked permission to leave his + hand-bag and wraps until they could be sent after him. The blacksmith was + surprised that this “likely mannered,” distinguished-looking “city man” + should WALK eight miles when he could ride, and tried to dissuade him, + offering his own buggy. But he was still more surprised when Demorest, + laying aside his duster, took off his coat, and, slinging it on his arm, + prepared to set forth with the good-humored assurance that he would do the + distance in a couple of hours and get in in time for supper. “I wouldn't + be too sure of that,” said the blacksmith grimly, “or even of getting a + room. They're a stuck-up lot over there, and they ain't goin' to hump + themselves over a chap who comes traipsin' along the road like any tramp, + with nary baggage.” But Demorest laughingly accepted the risk, and taking + his stout stick in one hand, pressed a gold coin into the blacksmith's + palm, which was, however, declined with such reddening promptness that + Demorest as promptly reddened and apologized. The habits of European + travel had been still strong on him, and he felt a slight patriotic thrill + as he said, with a grave smile, “Thank you, then; and thank you still more + for reminding me that I am among my own 'people,'” and stepped lightly out + into the road. + </p> + <p> + The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer currents from the heated + pines began to alternate with the wind from the summit. He found himself + sometimes walking through a stratum of hot air which seemed to exhale from + the wood itself, while his head and breast were swept by the mountain + breeze. He felt the old intoxication of the balmy-scented air again, and + the five years of care and hopelessness laid upon his shoulders since he + had last breathed its fragrance slipped from them like a burden. There had + been but little change here; perhaps the road was wider and the dust lay + thicker, but the great pines still mounted in serried ranks on the slopes + as before, with no gaps in their unending files. Here was the spot where + the stagecoach had passed them that eventful morning when they were coming + out of their camp-life into the world of civilization; a little further + back, the spot where Jack Hamlin had forced upon him that grim memento of + the attempted robbery of their cabin, which he had kept ever since. He + half smiled again at the superstitious interest that had made him keep it, + with the intention of some day returning to bury it, with all + recollections of the deed, under the site of the old cabin. As he went on + in the vivifying influence of the air and scene, new life seemed to course + through his veins; his step seemed to grow as elastic as in the old days + of their bitter but hopeful struggle for fortune, when he had gayly + returned from his weekly tramp to Boomville laden with the scant provision + procured by their scant earnings and dying credit. Those were the days + when HER living image still inspired his heart with faith and hope; when + everything was yet possible to youth and love, and before the irony of + fate had given him fortune with one hand only to withdraw HER with the + other. It was strange and cruel that coming back from his quest of rest + and forgetfulness he should find only these youthful and sanguine dreams + revive with his reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedly as if to + escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one or two carryalls and + char-a-bancs filled with gayly dressed pleasure parties—evidently + visitors to Hymettus—which passed him on the road. Here were the + first signs of change. He recalled the train of pack-mules of the old + days, the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the squaw with the + papoose strapped to her shoulder, or the wandering and foot-sore + prospector, who were the only wayfarers he used to meet. He contrasted + their halts and friendly greetings with the insolent curiosity or + undisguised contempt of the carriage folk, and smiled as he thought of the + warning of the blacksmith. But this did not long divert him; he found + himself again returning to his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a + young girl in one of the carriages had quite startled him with its + resemblance to an old memory of his lost love as he saw her,—her + frail, pale elegance encompassed in laces as she leaned back in her drive + through Fifth Avenue, with eyes that lit up and became transfigured only + as he passed. He tried to think of his useless quest in search of her last + resting-place abroad; how he had been baffled by the opposition of her + surviving relations, already incensed by the thought that her decline had + been the effect of her hopeless passion. He tried to recall the few frigid + lines that reconveyed to him the last letter he had sent her, with the + announcement of her death and the hope that “his persecutions” would now + cease. A wild idea had sometimes come to him out of the very insufficiency + of his knowledge of this climax, but he had always put it aside as a + precursor of that madness which might end his ceaseless thought. And now + it was returning to him, here, thousands of miles away from where she was + peacefully sleeping, and even filling him with the vigor of youthful hope. + </p> + <p> + The brief mountain twilight was giving way now to the radiance of the + rising moon. He endeavored to fix his thoughts upon his partners who were + to meet him at Hymettus after these long years of separation. + </p> + <p> + Hymettus! He recalled now the odd coincidence that he had mischievously + used as a gag to his questioning fellow traveler; but now he had really + come from a villa near Athens to find his old house thus classically + rechristened after it, and thought of it with a gravity he had not felt + before. He wondered who had named it. There was no suggestion of the soft, + sensuous elegance of the land he had left in those great heroics of nature + before him. Those enormous trees were no woods for fauns or dryads; they + had their own godlike majesty of bulk and height, and as he at last + climbed the summit and saw the dark-helmeted head of Black Spur before + him, and beyond it the pallid, spiritual cloud of the Sierras, he did not + think of Olympus. Yet for a moment he was startled, as he turned to the + right, by the Doric-columned facade of a temple painted by the moonbeams + and framed in an opening of the dark woods before him. It was not until he + had reached it that he saw that it was the new wooden post-office of Heavy + Tree Hill. + </p> + <p> + And now the buildings of the new settlement began to faintly appear. But + the obscurity of the shadow and the equally disturbing unreality of the + moonlight confused him in his attempts to recognize the old landmarks. A + broad and well-kept winding road had taken the place of the old steep, but + direct trail to his cabin. He had walked for some moments in uncertainty, + when a sudden sweep of the road brought the full crest of the hill above + and before him, crowned with a tiara of lights, overtopping a long base of + flashing windows. That was all that was left of Heavy Tree Hill. The old + foreground of buckeye and odorous ceanothus was gone. Even the great grove + of pines behind it had vanished. + </p> + <p> + There was already a stir of life in the road, and he could see figures + moving slowly along a kind of sterile, formal terrace spread with a few + dreary marble vases and plaster statues which had replaced the natural + slope and the great quartz buttresses of outcrop that supported it. + Presently he entered a gate, and soon found himself in the carriage drive + leading to the hotel veranda. A number of fair promenaders were facing the + keen mountain night wind in wraps and furs. Demorest had replaced his + coat, but his boots were red with dust, and as he ascended the steps he + could see that he was eyed with some superciliousness by the guests and + with considerable suspicion by the servants. One of the latter was + approaching him with an insolent smile when a figure darted from the + vestibule, and, brushing the waiter aside, seized Demorest's two hands in + his and held him at arm's length. + </p> + <p> + “Demorest, old man!” + </p> + <p> + “Stacy, old chap!” + </p> + <p> + “But where's your team? I've had all the spare hostlers and hall-boys + listening for you at the gate. And where's Barker? When he found you'd + given the dead-cut to the railroad—HIS railroad, you know—he + loped over to Boomville after you.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest briefly explained that he had walked by the old road and probably + missed him. But by this time the waiters, crushed by the spectacle of this + travel-worn stranger's affectionate reception by the great financial + magnate, were wildly applying their brushes and handkerchiefs to his + trousers and boots until Stacy again swept them away. + </p> + <p> + “Get off, all of you! Now, Phil, you come with me. The house is full, but + I've made the manager give you a lady's drawing-room suite. When you + telegraphed you'd meet us HERE there was no chance to get anything else. + It's really Mrs. Van Loo's family suite; but they were sent for to go to + Marysville yesterday, and so we'll run you in for the night.” + </p> + <p> + “But”—protested Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” said Stacy, dragging him away. “We'll pay for it; and I reckon + the old lady won't object to taking her share of the damage either, or she + isn't Van Loo's mother. Come.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest felt himself hurried forward by the energetic Stacy, preceded by + the obsequious manager, through a corridor to a handsomely furnished + suite, into whose bathroom Stacy incontinently thrust him. + </p> + <p> + “There! Wash up; and by the time you're ready Barker ought to be back, and + we'll have supper. It's waiting for us in the other room.” + </p> + <p> + “But how about Barker, the dear boy?” persisted Demorest, holding open the + door. “Tell me, is he well and happy?” + </p> + <p> + “About as well as we all are,” said Stacy quickly, yet with a certain dry + significance. “Never mind now; wait until you see him.” + </p> + <p> + The door closed. When Demorest had finished washing, and wiped away the + last red stain of the mountain road, he found Stacy seated by the window + of the larger sitting-room. In the centre a table was spread for supper. A + bright fire of hickory logs burnt on a marble hearth between two large + windows that gave upon the distant outline of Black Spur. As Stacy turned + towards him, by the light of the shaded lamp and flickering fire, Demorest + had a good look at the face of his old friend and partner. It was as keen + and energetic as ever, with perhaps an even more hawk-like activity + visible in the eye and nostril; but it was more thoughtful and reticent in + the lines of the mouth under the closely clipped beard and mustache, and + when he looked up, at first there were two deep lines or furrows across + his low broad forehead. Demorest fancied, too, that there was a little of + the old fighting look in his eye, but it softened quickly as his friend + approached, and he burst out with his curt but honest single-syllabled + laugh. “Ha! You look a little less like a roving Apache than you did when + you came. I really thought the waiters were going to chuck you. And you + ARE tanned! Darned if you don't look like the profile stamped on a + Continental penny! But here's luck and a welcome back, old man!” + </p> + <p> + Demorest passed his arm around the neck of his seated partner, and + grasping his upraised hand said, looking down with a smile, “And now about + Barker.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Parker, d—n him! He's the same unshakable, unchangeable, + ungrow-upable Barker! With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing into risks + and waltzing out of 'em. With fads enough to put him in the insane asylum + if people did not prefer to keep him out of it to help 'em. Always + believing in everybody, until they actually believe in themselves, and + shake him! And he's got a wife that's making a fool of herself, and I + shouldn't wonder in time—of him!” + </p> + <p> + Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's mouth. “Come, Jim! You know + you never really liked that marriage, simply because you thought that old + man Carter made a good thing of it. And you never seem to have taken into + consideration the happiness Barker got out of it, for he DID love the + girl. And he still is happy, is he not?” he added quickly, as Stacy + uttered a grunt. + </p> + <p> + “As happy as a man can be who has his child here with a nurse while his + wife is gallivanting in San Francisco, and throwing her money—and + Lord knows what else—away at the bidding of a smooth-tongued, shady + operator.” + </p> + <p> + “Does HE complain of it?” asked Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Not he; the fool trusts her!” said Stacy curtly. + </p> + <p> + Demorest laughed. “That is happiness! Come, Jim! don't let us begrudge him + that. But I've heard that his affairs have again prospered.” + </p> + <p> + “He built this railroad and this hotel. The bank owns both now. He didn't + care to keep money in them after they were a success; said he wasn't an + engineer nor a hotel-keeper, and drew it out to find something new. But + here he comes,” he added, as a horseman dashed into the drive before the + hotel. “Question him yourself. You know you and he always get along best + without me.” + </p> + <p> + In another moment Barker had burst into the room, and in his first + tempestuous greeting of Demorest the latter saw little change in his + younger partner as he held him at arm's length to look at him. “Why, + Barker boy, you haven't got a bit older since the day when—you + remember—you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds, and then + came back and burst upon us like this to tell us you were a beggar.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” laughed Barker, “and all the while you fellows were holding four + aces up your sleeve in the shape of the big strike.” + </p> + <p> + “And you, Georgy, old boy,” returned Demorest, swinging Barker's two hands + backwards and forwards, “were holding a royal flush up yours in the shape + of your engagement to Kitty.” + </p> + <p> + The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the frank laugh was + still on his mouth. He turned his face for a moment towards the window, + and a swift and almost involuntary glance passed between the others. But + he almost as quickly turned his glistening eyes back to Demorest again, + and said eagerly, “Yes, dear Kitty! You shall see her and the baby + to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past, and for + some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisily together, all at the + same time, with even the spirits of the Past. They recalled every detail + of their old life; eagerly and impetuously recounted the old struggles, + hopes, and disappointments, gave the strange importance of schoolboys to + unimportant events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth of their own; + roared over old jokes with a delight they had never since given to new; + reawakened idiotic nicknames and bywords with intense enjoyment; grew + grave, anxious, and agonized over forgotten names, trifling dates, useless + distances, ineffective records, and feeble chronicles of their domestic + economy. It was the thoughtful and melancholy Demorest who remembered the + exact color and price paid for a certain shirt bought from a Greaser + peddler amidst the envy of his companions; it was the financial magnate, + Stacy, who could inform them what were the exact days they had saleratus + bread and when flapjacks; it was the thoughtless and mercurial Barker who + recalled with unheard-of accuracy, amidst the applause of the others, the + full name of the Indian squaw who assisted at their washing. Even then + they were almost feverishly loath to leave the subject, as if the Past, at + least, was secure to them still, and they were even doubtful of their own + free and full accord in the Present. Then they slipped rather reluctantly + into their later experiences, but with scarcely the same freedom or + spontaneity; and it was noticeable that these records were elicited from + Barker by Stacy or from Stacy by Barker for the information of Demorest, + often with chaffing and only under good-humored protest. “Tell Demorest + how you broke the 'Copper Ring,'” from the admiring Barker, or, “Tell + Demorest how your d——d foolishness in buying up the right and + plant of the Ditch Company got you control of the railroad,” from the + mischievous Stacy, were challenges in point. Presently they left the + table, and, to the astonishment of the waiters who removed the cloth, + common brier-wood pipes, thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemoration + of the Past, were lit, and they ranged themselves in armchairs before the + fire quite unconsciously in their old attitudes. The two windows on either + side of the hearth gave them the same view that the open door of the old + cabin had made familiar to them, the league-long valley below the shadowy + bulk of the Black Spur rising in the distance, and, still more remote, the + pallid snow-line that soared even beyond its crest. + </p> + <p> + As in the old time, they were for many moments silent; and then, as in the + old time, it was the irrepressible Barker who broke the silence. “But + Stacy does not tell you anything about his friend, the beautiful Mrs. + Horncastle. You know he's the guardian of one of the finest women in + California—a woman as noble and generous as she is handsome. And + think of it! He's protecting her from her brute of a husband, and looking + after her property. Isn't it good and chivalrous of him?” + </p> + <p> + The irrepressible laughter of the two men brought only wonder and + reproachful indignation into the widely opened eyes of Barker. HE was + perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of Stacy's admiration for Mrs. + Horncastle in his ride from Boomville, and, strange to say, yet + characteristic of his nature, it was equally the natural outcome of his + interview with her and the singular effect she had upon him. That he + (Barker) thoroughly sympathized with her only convinced him that Stacy + must feel the same for her, and that, no doubt, she must respond to him + equally. And how noble it was in his old partner, with his advantages of + position in the world and his protecting relations to her, not to avail + himself of this influence upon her generous nature. If he himself—a + married man and the husband of Kitty—was so conscious of her charm, + how much greater it must be to the free and INEXPERIENCED Stacy. + </p> + <p> + The italics were in Barker's thought; for in those matters he felt that + Stacy and even Demorest, occupied in other things, had not his knowledge. + There was no idea or consciousness of heroically sacrificing himself or + Mrs. Horncastle in this. I am afraid there was not even an idea of a + superior morality in himself in giving up the possibility of loving her. + Ever since Stacy had first seen her he had fancied that Stacy liked her,—indeed, + Kitty fancied it, too,—and it seemed almost providential now that he + should know how to assist his old partner to happiness. For it was + inconceivable that Stacy should not be able to rescue this woman from her + shameful bonds, or that she should not consent to it through his + (Barker's) arguments and entreaties. To a “champion of dames” this seemed + only right and proper. In his unfailing optimism he translated Stacy's + laugh as embarrassment and Demorest's as only ignorance of the real + question. But Demorest had noticed, if he had not, that Stacy's laugh was + a little nervously prolonged for a man of his temperament, and that he had + cast a very keen glance at Barker. A messenger arriving with a telegram + brought from Boomville called Stacy momentarily away, and Barker was not + slow to take advantage of his absence. + </p> + <p> + “I wish, Phil,” he said, hitching his chair closer to Demorest, “that you + would think seriously of this matter, and try to persuade Stacy—who, + I believe, is more interested in Mrs. Horncastle than he cares to show—to + put a little of that determination in love that he has shown in business. + She's an awfully fine woman, and in every way suited to him, and he is + letting an absurd sense of pride and honor keep him from influencing her + to get rid of her impossible husband. There's no reason,” continued Barker + in a burst of enthusiastic simplicity, “that BECAUSE she has found some + one she likes better, and who would treat her better, that she should + continue to stick to that beast whom all California would gladly see her + divorced from. I never could understand that kind of argument, could you?” + </p> + <p> + Demorest looked at his companion's glowing cheek and kindling eye with a + smile. “A good deal depends upon the side from which you argue. But, + frankly, Barker boy, though I think I know you in all your phases, I am + not prepared yet to accept you as a match-maker! However, I'll think it + over, and find out something more of this from your goddess, who seems to + have bewitched you both. But what does Mistress Kitty say to your + admiration?” + </p> + <p> + Barker's face clouded, but instantly brightened. “Oh, they're the best of + friends; they're quite like us, you know, even to larks they have + together.” He stopped and colored at his slip. But Demorest, who had + noticed his change of expression, was more concerned at the look of half + incredulity and half suspicion with which Stacy, who had re-entered the + room in time to hear Barker's speech, was regarding his unconscious + younger partner. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know that Mrs. Horncastle and Mrs. Barker were such friends,” he + said dryly as he sat down again. But his face presently became so + abstracted that Demorest said gayly:— + </p> + <p> + “Well, Jim, I'm glad I'm not a Napoleon of Finance! I couldn't stand it to + have my privacy or my relaxation broken in upon at any moment, as yours + was just now. What confounded somersault in stocks has put that face on + you?” + </p> + <p> + Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh. “I'm afraid you'd be none + the wiser if I told you. That was a pony express messenger from New York. + You remember how Barker, that night of the strike, when we were sitting + together here, or very near here, proposed that we ought to have a + password or a symbol to call us together in case of emergency, for each + other's help? Well, let us say I have two partners, one in Europe and one + in New York. That was my password.” + </p> + <p> + “And, I hope, no more serious than ours,” added Demorest. + </p> + <p> + Stacy laughed his short laugh. Nevertheless, the conversation dragged + again. The feverish gayety of the early part of the evening was gone, and + they seemed to be suffering from the reaction. They fell into their old + attitudes, looking from the firelight to the distant bulk of Black Spur + without a word. The occasional sound of the voices of promenaders on the + veranda at last ceased; there was the noise of the shutting of heavy doors + below, and Barker rose. + </p> + <p> + “You'll excuse me, boys; but I must go and say good-night to little Sta, + and see that he's all right. I haven't seen him since I got back. But”—to + Demorest—“you'll see him to-morrow, when Kitty comes. It is as much + as my life is worth to show him before she certifies him as being + presentable.” He paused, and then added: “Don't wait up, you fellows, for + me; sometimes the little chap won't let me go. It's as if he thought, now + Kitty's away, I was all he had. But I'll be up early in the morning and + see you. I dare say you and Stacy have a heap to say to each other on + business, and you won't miss me. So I'll say good-night.” He laughed + lightly, pressed the hands of his partners in his usual hearty fashion, + and went out of the room, leaving the gloom a little deeper than before. + It was so unusual for Barker to be the first to leave anybody or anything + in trouble that they both noticed it. “But for that,” said Demorest, + turning to Stacy as the door closed, “I should say the dear fellow was + absolutely unchanged. But he seemed a little anxious to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn't wonder. He's got two women on his mind,—as if one was + not enough.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand. You say his wife is foolish, and this other”— + </p> + <p> + “Never mind that now,” interrupted Stacy, getting up and putting down his + pipe. “Let's talk a little business. That other stuff will keep.” + </p> + <p> + “By all means,” said Demorest, with a smile, settling down into his chair + a little wearily, however. “I forgot business. And I forgot, my dear Jim, + to congratulate you. I've heard all about you, even in New York. You're + the man who, according to everybody, now holds the finances of the Pacific + Slope in his hands. And,” he added, leaning affectionately towards his old + partner, “I don't know any one better equipped in honesty, + straightforwardness, and courage for such a responsibility than you.” + </p> + <p> + “I only wish,” said Stacy, looking thoughtfully at Demorest, “that I + didn't hold nearly a million of your money included in the finances of the + Pacific Slope.” + </p> + <p> + “Why,” said the smiling Demorest, “as long as I am satisfied?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I am not. If you're satisfied, I'm a wretched idiot and not fit + for my position. Now, look here, Phil. When you wrote me to sell out your + shares in the Wheat Trust I was a little staggered. I knew your gait, my + boy, and I knew, too, that, while you didn't know enough to trust your own + opinions or feeling, you knew too much to trust any one's opinion that + wasn't first-class. So I reckoned you had the straight tip; but I didn't + see it. Now, I ought not to have been staggered if I was fit for your + confidence, or, if I was staggered, I ought to have had enough confidence + in myself not to mind you. See?” + </p> + <p> + “I admit your logic, old man,” said Demorest, with an amused face, “but I + don't see your premises. WHEN did I tell you to sell out?” + </p> + <p> + “Two days ago. You wrote just after you arrived.” + </p> + <p> + “I have never written to you since I arrived. I only telegraphed to you to + know where we should meet, and received your message to come here.” + </p> + <p> + “You never wrote me from San Francisco?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy looked concernedly at his friend. Was he in his right mind? He had + heard of cases where melancholy brooding on a fixed idea had affected the + memory. He took from his pocket a letter-case, and selecting a letter + handed it to Demorest without speaking. + </p> + <p> + Demorest glanced at it, turned it over, read its contents, and in a grave + voice said, “There is something wrong here. It is like my handwriting, but + I never wrote the letter, nor has it been in my hand before.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy sprang to his side. “Then it's a forgery!” + </p> + <p> + “Wait a moment.” Demorest, who, although very grave, was the more + collected of the two, went to a writing-desk, selected a sheet of paper, + and took up a pen. “Now,” he said, “dictate that letter to me.” + </p> + <p> + Stacy began, Demorest's pen rapidly following him:— + </p> + <p> + “DEAR JIM,—On receipt of this get rid of my Wheat Trust shares at + whatever figure you can. From the way things pointed in New York”— + </p> + <p> + “Stop!” interrupted Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said Stacy impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “Now, my dear Jim,” said Demorest plaintively, “when did you ever know me + to write such a sentence as 'the way things pointed'?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me finish reading,” said Stacy. This literary sensitiveness at such a + moment seemed little short of puerility to the man of business. + </p> + <p> + “From the way things pointed in New York,” continued Stacy, “and from + private advices received, this seems to be the only prudent course before + the feathers begin to fly. Longing to see you again and the dear old + stamping-ground at Heavy Tree. Love to Barker. Has the dear old boy been + at any fresh crank lately? + </p> + <p> + “Yours, PHIL DEMOREST.” + </p> + <p> + The dictation and copy finished together. Demorest laid the freshly + written sheet beside the letter Stacy had produced. They were very much + alike and yet quite distinct from each other. Only the signature seemed + identical. + </p> + <p> + “That's the invariable mistake with the forger,” said Demorest; “he always + forgets that signatures ought to be identical with the text rather than + with each other.” + </p> + <p> + But Stacy did not seem to hear this or require further proof. His face was + quite gray and his lips compressed until lost in his closely set beard as + he gazed fixedly out of the window. For the first time, really concerned + and touched, Demorest laid his hand gently on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, Jim, how much does this mean to you apart from me? Don't think + of me.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know yet,” said Stacy slowly. “That's the trouble. And I won't + know until I know who's at the bottom of it. Does anybody know of your + affairs with me?” + </p> + <p> + “No one.” + </p> + <p> + “No confidential friend, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “None.” + </p> + <p> + “No one who has access to your secrets? No—no—woman? Excuse + me, Phil,” he said, as a peculiar look passed over Demorest's face, “but + this is business.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he returned, with that gentleness that used to frighten them in the + old days, “it's ignorance. You fellows always say 'Cherchez la femme' when + you can't say anything else. Come now,” he went on more brightly, “look at + the letter. Here's a man, commercially educated, for he has used the usual + business formulas, 'on receipt of this,' and 'advices received,' which I + won't merely say I don't use, but which few but commercial men use. Next, + here's a man who uses slang, not only ineptly, but artificially, to give + the letter the easy, familiar turn it hasn't from beginning to end. I need + only say, my dear Stacy, that I don't write slang to you, but that nobody + who understands slang ever writes it in that way. And then the knowledge + of my opinion of Barker is such as might be gained from the reading of my + letters by a person who couldn't comprehend my feelings. Now, let me play + inquisitor for a few moments. Has anybody access to my letters to YOU?” + </p> + <p> + “No one. I keep them locked up in a cabinet. I only make memorandums of + your instructions, which I give to my clerks, but never your letters.” + </p> + <p> + “But your clerks sometimes see you make memorandums from them?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but none of them have the ability to do this sort of thing, nor the + opportunity of profiting by it.” + </p> + <p> + “Has any woman—now this is not retaliation, my dear Jim, for I fancy + I detect a woman's cleverness and a woman's stupidity in this forgery—any + access to your secrets or my letters? A woman's villainy is always + effective for the moment, but always defective when probed.” + </p> + <p> + The look of scorn which passed over Stacy's face was quite as distinct as + Demorest's previous protest, as he said contemptuously, “I'm not such a + fool as to mix up petticoats with my business, whatever I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, one thing more. I have told you that in my opinion the forger has a + commercial education or style, that he doesn't know me nor Barker, and + don't understand slang. Now, I have to add what must have occurred to you, + Jim, that the forger is either a coward, or his object is not altogether + mercenary: for the same ability displayed in this letter would on the + signature alone—had it been on a check or draft—have drawn + from your bank twenty times the amount concerned. Now, what is the actual + loss by this forgery?” + </p> + <p> + “Very little; for you've got a good price for your stocks, considering the + depreciation in realizing suddenly on so large an amount. I told my broker + to sell slowly and in small quantities to avoid a panic. But the real loss + is the control of the stock.” + </p> + <p> + “But the amount I had was not enough to affect that,” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “No, but I was carrying a large amount myself, and together we controlled + the market, and now I have unloaded, too.” + </p> + <p> + “You sold out! and with your doubts?” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “That's just it,” said Stacy, looking steadily at his companion's face, + “because I HAD doubts, and it won't do for me to have them. I ought either + to have disobeyed your letter and kept your stock and my own, or have done + just what I did. I might have hedged on my own stock, but I don't believe + in hedging. There is no middle course to a man in my business if he wants + to keep at the top. No great success, no great power, was ever created by + it.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest smiled. “Yet you accept the alternative also, which is ruin?” + </p> + <p> + “Precisely,” said Stacy. “When you returned the other day you were bound + to find me what I was or a beggar. But nothing between. However,” he + added, “this has nothing to do with the forgery, or,” he smiled grimly, + “everything to do with it. Hush! Barker is coming.” + </p> + <p> + There was a quick step along the corridor approaching the room. The next + moment the door flew open to the bounding step and laughing face of + Barker. Whatever of thoughtfulness or despondency he had carried from the + room with him was completely gone. With his amazing buoyancy and power of + reaction he was there again in his usual frank, cheerful simplicity. + </p> + <p> + “I thought I'd come in and say goodnight,” he began, with a laugh. “I got + Sta asleep after some high jinks we had together, and then I reckoned it + wasn't the square thing to leave just you two together, the first night + you came. And I remembered I had some business to talk over, too, so I + thought I'd chip in again and take a hand. It's only the shank of the + evening yet,” he continued gayly, “and we ought to sit up at least long + enough to see the old snow-line vanish, as we did in old times. But I + say,” he added suddenly, as he glanced from the one to the other, “you've + been having it pretty strong already. Why, you both look as you did that + night the backwater of the South Fork came into our cabin. What's up?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” said Demorest hastily, as he caught a glance of Stacy's + impatient face. “Only all business is serious, Barker boy, though you + don't seem to feel it so.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon you're right there,” said Barker, with a chuckle. “People always + laugh, of course, when I talk business, so it might make it a little + livelier for you and more of a change if I chipped in now. Only I don't + know which you'll do. Hand me a pipe. Well,” he continued, filling the + pipe Demorest shoved towards him, “you see, I was in Sacramento yesterday, + and I went into Van Loo's branch office, as I heard he was there, and I + wanted to find out something about Kitty's investments, which I don't + think he's managing exactly right. He wasn't there, however, but as I was + waiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in the Wheat Trust, and that + there was a lot of it put upon the market. They seemed to think that + something had happened, and it was going down still further. Now I knew it + was your pet scheme, and that Phil had a lot of shares in it, too, so I + just slipped out and went to a broker's and told him to buy all he could + of it. And, by Jove! I was a little taken aback when I found what I was in + for, for everybody seemed to have unloaded, and I found I hadn't money + enough to pay margins, but I knew that Demorest was here, and I reckoned + on his seeing me through.” He stopped and colored, but added hopefully, “I + reckon I'm safe, anyway, for just as the thing was over those same clerks + of Van Loo's came bounding into the office to buy up everything. And + offered to take it off my hands and pay the margins.” + </p> + <p> + “And you?” said both men eagerly, and in a breath. + </p> + <p> + Barker stared at them, and reddened and paled by turns. “I held on,” he + stammered. “You see, boys”— + </p> + <p> + Both men had caught him by the arms. “How much have you got?” they said, + shaking him as if to precipitate the answer. + </p> + <p> + “It's a heap!” said Barker. “It's a ghastly lot now I think of it. I'm + afraid I'm in for fifty thousand, if a cent.” + </p> + <p> + To his infinite astonishment and delight he was alternately hugged and + tossed backwards and forwards between the two men quite in the fashion of + the old days. Breathless but laughing, he at length gasped out, “What does + it all mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Tell him everything, Jim,—EVERYTHING,” said Demorest quickly. + </p> + <p> + Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, and then laid the letter + and its copy before him. But Barker only read the forgery. + </p> + <p> + “How could YOU, Stacy—one of the three partners of Heavy Tree—be + deceived! Don't you see it's Phil's handwriting—but it isn't PHIL!” + </p> + <p> + “But have you any idea WHO it is?” said Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “Not me,” said Barker, with widely opened eyes. “You see it must be + somebody whom we are familiar with. I can't imagine such a scoundrel.” + </p> + <p> + “How did YOU know that Demorest had stock?” asked Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “He told me in one of his letters and advised me to go into it. But just + then Kitty wanted money, I think, and I didn't go in.” + </p> + <p> + “I remember it,” struck in Demorest. “But surely it was no secret. My name + would be on the transfer books for any one to see.” + </p> + <p> + “Not so,” said Stacy quickly. “You were one of the original shareholders; + there was no transfer, and the books as well as the shares of the company + were in my hands.” + </p> + <p> + “And your clerks?” added Demorest. + </p> + <p> + Stacy was silent. After a pause he asked, “Did anybody ever see that + letter, Barker?” + </p> + <p> + “No one but myself and Kitty.” + </p> + <p> + “And would she be likely to talk of it?” continued Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “Of course not. Why should she? Whom could she talk to?” Yet he stopped + suddenly, and then with his characteristic reaction added, with a laugh, + “Why no, certainly not.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, everybody knew that you had bought the shares at Sacramento?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Why, you know I told you the Van Loo clerks came to me and wanted to + take it off my hands.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I remember; the Van Loo clerks; they knew it, of course,” said Stacy + with a grim smile. “Well, boys,” he said, with sudden alacrity, “I'm going + to turn in, for by sun-up to-morrow I must be on my way to catch the first + train at the Divide for 'Frisco. We'll hunt this thing down together, for + I reckon we're all concerned in it,” he added, looking at the others, “and + once more we're partners as in the old times. Let us even say that I've + given Barker's signal or password,” he added, with a laugh, “and we'll + stick together. Barker boy,” he went on, grasping his younger partner's + hand, “your instinct has saved us this time; d——d if I don't + sometimes think it better than any other man's sabe; only,” he dropped his + voice slightly, “I wish you had it in other things than FINANCE. Phil, + I've a word to say to you alone before I go. I may want you to follow me.” + </p> + <p> + “But what can I do?” said Barker eagerly. “You're not going to leave me + out.” + </p> + <p> + “You've done quite enough for us, old man,” said Stacy, laying his hand on + Barker's shoulder. “And it may be for US to do something for YOU. Trot off + to bed now, like a good boy. I'll keep you posted when the time comes.” + </p> + <p> + Shoving the protesting and leave-taking Barker with paternal familiarity + from the room, he closed the door and faced Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “He's the best fellow in the world,” said Stacy quietly, “and has saved + the situation; but we mustn't trust too much to him for the present—not + even seem to.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense, man!” said Demorest impatiently. “You're letting your + prejudices go too far. Do you mean to say that you suspect his wife.” + </p> + <p> + “D—n his wife!” said Stacy almost savagely. “Leave her out of this. + It's Van Loo that I suspect. It was Van Loo who I knew was behind it, who + expected to profit by it, and now we have lost him.” + </p> + <p> + “But how?” said Demorest, astonished. + </p> + <p> + “How?” repeated Stacy impatiently. “You know what Barker said? Van Loo, + either through stupidity, fright, or the wish to get the lowest prices, + was too late to buy up the market. If he had, we might have openly + declared the forgery, and if it was known that he or his friends had + profited by it, even if we could not have proven his actual complicity, we + could at least have made it too hot for him in California. But,” said + Stacy, looking intently at his friend, “do you know how the case stands + now?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Demorest, a little uneasily under his friend's keen eyes, + “we've lost that chance, but we've kept control of the stock.” + </p> + <p> + “You think so? Well, let me tell you how the case stands and the price we + pay for it,” said Stacy deliberately, as he folded his arms and gazed at + Demorest. “You and I, well known as old friends and former partners, for + no apparent reason—for we cannot prove the forgery now—have + thrown upon the market all our stock, with the usual effect of + depreciating it. Another old friend and former partner has bought it in + and sent up the price. A common trick, a vulgar trick, but not a trick + worthy of James Stacy or Stacy's Bank!” + </p> + <p> + “But why not simply declare the forgery without making any specific charge + against Van Loo?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you imagine, Phil, that any man would believe it, and the story of a + providentially appointed friend like Barker who saved us from loss? Why, + all California, from Cape Mendocino to Los Angeles, would roar with + laughter over it! No! We must swallow it and the reputation of 'jockeying' + with the Wheat Trust, too. That Trust's as good as done for, for the + present! Now you know why I didn't want poor Barker to know it, nor have + much to do with our search for the forger.” + </p> + <p> + “It would break the dear fellow's heart if he knew it,” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Well, it's to save him from having his heart broken further that I intend + to find out this forger,” said Stacy grimly. “Good-night, Phil! I'll + telegraph to you when I want you, and then COME!” + </p> + <p> + With another grip of the hand he left Demorest to his thoughts. In the + first excitement of meeting his old partners, and in the later discovery + of the forgery, Demorest had been diverted from his old sorrow, and for + the time had forgotten it in sympathetic interest with the present. But, + to his horror, when alone again, he found that interest growing as remote + and vapid as the stories they had laughed over at the table, and even the + excitement of the forged letter and its consequences began to be as + unreal, as impotent, as shadowy, as the memory of the attempted robbery in + the old cabin on that very spot. He was ashamed of that selfishness which + still made him cling to this past, so much his own, that he knew it + debarred him from the human sympathy of his comrades. And even Barker, in + whose courtship and marriage he had tried to resuscitate his youthful + emotions and condone his selfish errors—even the suggestion of his + unhappiness only touched him vaguely. He would no longer be a slave to the + Past, or the memory that had deluded him a few hours ago. He walked to the + window; alas, there was the same prospect that had looked upon his dreams, + had lent itself to his old visions. There was the eternal outline of the + hills; there rose the steadfast pines; there was no change in THEM. It was + this surrounding constancy of nature that had affected him. He turned away + and entered the bedroom. Here he suddenly remembered that the mother of + this vague enemy, Van Loo,—for his feeling towards him was still + vague, as few men really hate the personality they don't know,—had + only momentarily vacated it, and to his distaste of his own intrusion was + now added the profound irony of his sleeping in the same bed lately + occupied by the mother of the man who was suspected of having forged his + name. He smiled faintly and looked around the apartment. It was handsomely + furnished, and although it still had much of the characterlessness of the + hotel room, it was distinctly flavored by its last occupant, and still + brightened by that mysterious instinct of the sex which is inevitable. + Where a man would have simply left his forgotten slippers or collars there + was a glass of still unfaded flowers; the cold marble top of the + dressing-table was littered with a few linen and silk toilet covers; and + on the mantel-shelf was a sheaf of photographs. He walked towards them + mechanically, glanced at them abstractedly, and then stopped suddenly with + a beating heart. Before him was the picture of his past, the photograph of + the one woman who had filled his life! + </p> + <p> + He cast a hurried glance around the room as if he half expected to see the + original start up before him, and then eagerly seized it and hurried with + it to the light. Yes! yes! It was SHE,—she as she had lived in his + actual memory; she as she had lived in his dream. He saw her sweet eyes, + but the frightened, innocent trouble had passed from them; there was the + sensitive elegance of her graceful figure in evening dress; but the figure + was fuller and maturer. Could he be mistaken by some wonderful resemblance + acting upon his too willing brain? He turned the photograph over. No; + there on the other side, written in her own childlike hand, endeared and + familiar to his recollection, was her own name, and the date! It was + surely she! + </p> + <p> + How did it come there? Did the Van Loos know her? It was taken in Venice; + there was the address of the photographers. The Van Loos were foreigners, + he remembered; they had traveled; perhaps had met her there in 1858: that + was the date in her handwriting; that was the date on the photographer's + address—1858. Suddenly he laid the photograph down, took with + trembling fingers a letter-case from his pocket, opened it, and laid his + last letter to her, indorsed with the cruel announcement of her death, + before him on the table. He passed his hand across his forehead and opened + the letter. It was dated 1856! The photograph must have been taken two + years AFTER her alleged death! + </p> + <p> + He examined it again eagerly, fixedly, tremblingly. A wild impulse to + summon Barker or Stacy on the spot was restrained with difficulty and only + when he remembered that they could not help him. Then he began to + oscillate between a joy and a new fear, which now, for the first time, + began to dawn upon him. If the news of her death had been a fiendish trick + of her relations, why had SHE never sought him? It was not ill health, + restraint, nor fear; there was nothing but happiness and the strength of + youth and beauty in that face and figure. HE had not disappeared from the + world; he was known of men; more, his memorable good fortune must have + reached her ears. Had he wasted all these miserable years to find himself + abandoned, forgotten, perhaps even a dupe? For the first time the sting of + jealousy entered his soul. Perhaps, unconsciously to himself, his strange + and varying feelings that afternoon had been the gathering climax of his + mental condition; at all events, in the sudden revulsion there was a + shaking off of his apathetic thought; there was activity, even if it was + the activity of pain. Here was a mystery to be solved, a secret to be + discovered, a past wrong to be exposed, an enemy or, perhaps, even a + faithless love to be punished. Perhaps he had even saved his reason at the + expense of his love. He quickly replaced the photograph on the + mantel-shelf, returned the letter carefully to his pocket-book,—no + longer a souvenir of the past, but a proof of treachery,—and began + to mechanically undress himself. He was quite calm now, and went to bed + with a strange sense of relief, and slept as he had not slept since he was + a boy. + </p> + <p> + The whole hotel had sunk to rest by this time, and then began the usual + slow, nightly invasion and investment of it by nature. For all its broad + verandas and glaring terraces, its long ranges of windows and glittering + crest of cupola and tower, it gradually succumbed to the more potent + influences around it, and became their sport and playground. The mountain + breezes from the distant summit swept down upon its flimsy structure, + shook the great glass windows as with a strong hand, and sent the balm of + bay and spruce through every chink and cranny. In the great hall and + corridors the carpets billowed with the intruding blast along the floors; + there was the murmur of the pines in the passages, and the damp odor of + leaves in the dining-room. There was the cry of night birds in the + creaking cupola, and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom windows. + Lissome shapes crept along the terraces between the stolid wooden statues, + or, bolder, scampered the whole length of the great veranda. In the + lulling of the wind the breath of the woods was everywhere; even the aroma + of swelling sap—as if the ghastly stumps on the deforested slope + behind the hotel were bleeding afresh in the dewless night—stung the + eyes and nostrils of the sleepers. + </p> + <p> + It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that Barker was awakened suddenly + by the voice of the boy from the crib beside him, crying, “Mamma! mamma!” + Taking the child in his arms, he comforted him, saying she would come that + morning, and showed him the faint dawn already veiling with color the + ghostly pallor of the Sierras. As they looked at it a great star shot + forth from its brethren and fell. It did not fall perpendicularly, but + seemed for some seconds to slip along the slopes of Black Spur, gleaming + through the trees like a chariot of fire. It pleased the child to say that + it was the light of mamma's buggy that was fetching her home, and it + pleased the father to encourage the boy's fancy. And talking thus in + confidential whispers they fell asleep once more, the father—himself + a child in so many things—holding the smaller and frailer hand in + his. + </p> + <p> + They did not know that on the other side of the Divide the wife and + mother, scared, doubting, and desperate, by the side of her scared, + doubting, and desperate accomplice, was flying down the slope on her + night-long road to ruin. Still less did they know that, with the early + singing birds, a careless horseman, emerging from the trail as the + dust-stained buggy dashed past him, glanced at it with a puzzled air, + uttered a quiet whistle of surprise, and then, wheeling his horse, gayly + cantered after it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. + </h2> + <p> + In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack Hamlin had sat up all + night in the magnolia saloon of the Divide, and as it was rather early to + go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, shaken off the sedentary + attitude and prepared himself for sleep by a fierce preliminary gallop in + the woods. Besides, he had been a large winner, and on those occasions he + generally isolated himself from his companions to avoid foolish + altercations with inexperienced players. Even in fighting Jack was + fastidious, and did not like to have his stomach for a real difficulty + distended and vitiated by small preliminary indulgences. + </p> + <p> + He was just emerging from the wood into the highroad when a buggy dashed + past him, containing a man and a woman. The woman wore a thick veil; the + man was almost undistinguishable from dust. The glimpse was momentary, but + dislike has a keen eye, and in that glimpse Mr. Hamlin recognized Van Loo. + The situation was equally clear. The bent heads and averted faces, the + dust collected in the heedlessness of haste, the early hour,—indicating + a night-long flight,—all made it plain to him that Van Loo was + running away with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral scruples, but he had + the ethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van Loo was not. Whether the + woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress, he was satisfied that Van + Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin also had a taste for + mischief, and whether the woman was or was not fair game, he knew that for + HIS purposes Van Loo was. With the greatest cheerfulness in the world he + wheeled his horse and cantered after them. + </p> + <p> + They were evidently making for the Divide and a fresh horse, or to take + the coach due an hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's present object to + circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in his way to return. + Incidentally, however, the superior speed of his horse gave him the + opportunity of frequently lunging towards them at a furious pace, which + had the effect of frantically increasing their own speed, when he would + pull up with a silent laugh before he was fairly discovered, and allow the + sound of his rapid horse's hoofs to die out. In this way he amused himself + until the straggling town of the Divide came in sight, when, putting his + spurs to his horse again, he managed, under pretense of the animal + becoming ungovernable, to twice “cross the bows” of the fugitives, + compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these passages Van Loo + apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his whip, the lash caught + slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr. Hamlin instantly + acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and speeded on to the hotel, + arriving at the steps and throwing himself from the saddle exactly as the + buggy drove up. With characteristic audacity, he actually assisted the + frightened and eager woman to alight and run into the hotel. But in this + action her veil was accidentally lifted. Mr. Hamlin instantly recognized + the pretty woman who had been pointed out to him in San Francisco as Mrs. + Barker, the wife of one of the partners whose fortunes had interested him + five years ago. It struck him that this was an additional reason for his + interference on Barker's account, although personally he could not + conceive why a man should ever try to prevent a woman from running away + from him. But then Mr. Hamlin's personal experiences had been quite the + other way. + </p> + <p> + It was enough, however, to cause him to lay his hand lightly on Van Loo's + arm as the latter, leaping down, was about to follow Mrs. Barker into the + hotel. “You'll have time enough now,” said Hamlin. + </p> + <p> + “Time for what?” said Van Loo savagely. + </p> + <p> + “Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip,” said Jack + sweetly. “We don't want to quarrel before a woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I've no time for fooling!” said Van Loo, endeavoring to pass. + </p> + <p> + But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's wrist, although he still smiled + cheerfully. “Ah! Then you DID mean it, and you propose to give me + satisfaction?” + </p> + <p> + Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack's reputation as a duelist. But he was + desperate. “You see my position,” he said hurriedly. “I'm in a hurry; I + have a lady with me. No man of honor”— + </p> + <p> + “You do me wrong,” interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,—“you + do, indeed. You are in a hurry—well, I have plenty of time. If you + cannot attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany you and the lady + to the next station. Of course,” he added, with a smile, “at a proper + distance, and without interfering with the lady, whom I am pleased to + recognize as the wife of an old friend. It would be more sociable, + perhaps, if we had some general conversation on the road; it would prevent + her being alarmed. I might even be of some use to YOU. If we are overtaken + by her husband on the road, for instance, I should certainly claim the + right to have the first shot at you. Boy!” he called to the hostler, “just + sponge out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be ready when the buggy goes?” + And, loosening his grip of Van Loo's wrist, he turned away as the other + quickly entered the hotel. + </p> + <p> + But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He had already some + experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility on the drive, and had + begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an impediment to his flight + from the country. And another idea had come to him. He had already + effected his purpose of compromising her with him in that flight, but it + was still known only to few. If he left her behind for the foolish, doting + husband, would not that devoted man take her back to avoid a scandal, and + even forbear to pursue HIM for his financial irregularities? What were + twenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker's money to the scandal of Mrs. + Barker's elopement? Again, the failure to realize the forgery had left him + safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with the bank and Demorest to + hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only obstacle to his flight; but + even he would scarcely pursue HIM if Mrs. Barker were left behind. And it + would be easier to elude him if he did. + </p> + <p> + In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered the bar-room, + but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; a glass of spirits + would revive him. As he drank it he saw that the room was full of rough + men, apparently miners or packers—some of them Mexican, with here + and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two men more ostentatiously clad, though + apparently on equal terms with the others, were standing in the corner + with their backs towards him. From the general silence as he entered he + imagined that he had been the subject of conversation, and that his + altercation with Hamlin had been overheard. Suddenly one of the two men + turned and approached him. To his consternation he recognized Steptoe,—Steptoe, + whom he had not seen for five years until last night, when he had avoided + him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. His first instinct was to + retreat, but it was too late. And the spirits had warmed him into + temporary recklessness. + </p> + <p> + “You ain't goin' to be backed down by a short-card gambler, are yer?” said + Steptoe, with coarse familiarity. + </p> + <p> + “I have a lady with me, and am pressed for time,” said Van Loo quickly. + “He knows it, otherwise he would not have dared”— + </p> + <p> + “Well, look here,” said Steptoe roughly. “I ain't particularly sweet on + you, as you know; but I and these gentlemen,” he added, glancing around + the room, “ain't particularly sweet on Mr. Jack Hamlin neither, and we + kalkilate to stand by you if you say so. Now, I reckon you want to get + away with the woman, and the quicker the better, as you're afraid there'll + be somebody after you afore long. That's the way it pans out, don't it? + Well, when you're ready to go, and you just tip us the wink, we'll get in + a circle round Jack and cover him, and if he starts after you we'll send + him on a little longer journey!—eh, boys?” + </p> + <p> + The men muttered their approval, and one or two drew their revolvers from + their belts. Van Loo's heart, which had leaped at first at this proposal + of help, sank at this failure of his little plan of abandoning Mrs. + Barker. He hesitated, and then stammered, “Thank you! Haste is everything + with us now; but I shouldn't mind leaving the lady among CHIVALROUS + GENTLEMEN like yourselves for a few hours only, until I could communicate + with my friends and return to properly chastise this scoundrel.” + </p> + <p> + Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight whistle, and gazed at Van Loo. He + instantly understood him. But the plea did not suit Steptoe, who, for + purposes of his own, wished to put Mrs. Barker beyond her husband's + possible reach. He smiled grimly. “I think you'd better take the woman + with you,” he said. “I don't think,” he added in a lower voice, “that the + boys would like your leaving her. They're very high-toned, they are!” he + concluded ironically. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said Van Loo, with another desperate idea, “could you not let us + have saddle-horses instead of the buggy? We could travel faster, and in + the event of pursuit and anything happening to ME,” he added loftily, “SHE + at least could escape her pursuer's vengeance.” + </p> + <p> + This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as the guilty couple fled + TOGETHER, and in the presence of witnesses. But he was not deceived by Van + Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice. “Quite right,” he said + sarcastically, “it shall be done, and I've no doubt ONE of you will + escape. I'll send the horses round to the back door and keep the buggy in + front. That will keep Jack there, TOO,—with the boys handy.” + </p> + <p> + But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo's methods and + of his OWN standing with Steptoe's gang of roughs as Mr. Steptoe himself. + More than that, he also had a hold on a smaller but more devoted and loyal + following than Steptoe's. The employees and hostlers of the hotel + worshiped him. A single word of inquiry revealed to him the fact that the + buggy was NOT going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and Mrs. Barker WERE—on + two horses, a temporary side-saddle having been constructed out of a + mule's pack-tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, with his usual audacity, walked + into the bar-room, and going to the bar leaned carelessly against it. Then + turning to the lowering faces around him, he said, with a flash of his + white teeth, “Well, boys, I'm calculating to leave the Divide in a few + minutes to follow some friends in the buggy, and it seems to me only the + square thing to stand the liquor for the crowd, without prejudice to any + feeling or roughness there may be against me. Everybody who knows me knows + that I'm generally there when the band plays, and I'm pretty sure to turn + up for THAT sort of thing. So you'll just consider that I've had a good + game on the Divide, and I'm reckoning it's only fair to leave a little of + it behind me here, to 'sweeten the pot' until I call again. I only ask + you, gentlemen, to drink success to my friends in the buggy as early and + as often as you can.” He flung two gold pieces on the counter and paused, + smiling. + </p> + <p> + He was right in his conjecture. Even the men who would have willingly + “held him up” a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, saw no reason for + declining a free drink “without prejudice.” And it was a part of the irony + of the situation that Steptoe and Van Loo were also obliged to participate + to keep in with their partisans. It was, however, an opportune diversion + to Van Loo, who managed to get nearer the door leading to the back + entrance of the hotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who was watching him, as + the men closed up to the bar. + </p> + <p> + The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another and yet another. + Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, were both wondering if + Hamlin's intention were to intoxicate and incapacitate the crowd at the + crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled grimly over his superior knowledge of + their alcoholic capacity. But suddenly there was the greater diversion of + a shout from the road, the on-coming of a cloud of red dust, and the halt + of another vehicle before the door. This time it was no jaded single horse + and dust-stained buggy, but a double team of four spirited trotters, whose + coats were scarcely turned with foam, before a light station wagon + containing a single man. But that man was instantly recognized by every + one of the outside loungers and stable-boys as well as the staring crowd + within the saloon. It was James Stacy, the millionaire and banker. No one + but himself knew that he had covered half the distance of a night-long + ride from Boomville in two hours. But before they could voice their + astonishment Stacy had thrown a letter to the obsequious landlord, and + then gathering up the reins had sped away to the railroad station half a + mile distant. + </p> + <p> + “Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a hurry,” said one of the eager + gazers in the doorway. “Somebody goin' to get smashed, sure.” + </p> + <p> + “More like as if he was just humpin' himself to keep from getting + smashed,” said Steptoe. “The bank hasn't got over the effect of their + smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything they had in their hands tumbled + yesterday in Sacramento. Men like me and you ain't goin' to trust their + money to be 'jockeyed' with in that style. Nobody but a man with a swelled + head like Stacy would have even dared to try it on. And now, by G-d! he's + got to pay for it.” + </p> + <p> + The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker showed that he had quite forgotten + Van Loo and Hamlin in his superior hatred of the millionaire, and both men + noticed it. Van Loo edged still nearer to the door, as Steptoe continued, + “Ever since he made that big strike on Heavy Tree five years ago, the + country hasn't been big enough to hold him. But mark my words, gentlemen, + the time ain't far off when he'll find a two-foot ditch again and a pick + and grub wages room enough and to spare for him and his kind of cattle.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not drinking,” said Jack Hamlin cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then started. “Where's Van Loo?” he + demanded of Jack sharply. + </p> + <p> + Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Gone to hurry up his girl, I + reckon. I calculate he ain't got much time to fool away here.” + </p> + <p> + Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at the same moment they were all + startled—even Jack himself—at the apparition of Mrs. Barker + passing hurriedly along the veranda before the windows in the direction of + the still waiting buggy. “D—n it!” said Steptoe in a fierce whisper + to the man next him. “Tell her not THERE—at the back door!” But + before the messenger reached the door there was a sudden rattle of wheels, + and with one accord all except Hamlin rushed to the veranda, only to see + Mrs. Barker driving rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into the room, + but Jack also had disappeared. + </p> + <p> + For in the confusion created at the sight of Mrs. Barker, he had slipped + to the back door and found, as he suspected, only one horse, and that with + a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right. Van Loo, when he disappeared + from the saloon, had instantly fled, taking the other horse and abandoning + the woman to her fate. Jack as instantly leaped upon the remaining saddle + and dashed after him. Presently he caught a glimpse of the fugitive in the + distance, heard the half-angry, half-ironical shouts of the crowd at the + back door, and as he reached the hilltop saw, with a mingling of + satisfaction and perplexity, Mrs. Barker on the other road, still driving + frantically in the direction of the railroad station. At which Mr. Hamlin + halted, threw away his encumbering saddle, and, good rider that he was, + remounted the horse, barebacked but for his blanket-pad, and thrusting his + knees in the loose girths, again dashed forwards,—with such good + results that, as Van Loo galloped up to the stagecoach office, at the next + station, and was about to enter the waiting coach for Marysville, the soft + hand of Mr. Hamlin was laid on his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “I told you,” said Jack blandly, “that I had plenty of time. I would have + been here BEFORE and even overtaken you, only you had the better horse and + the only saddle.” + </p> + <p> + Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate and reckless. Beckoning Jack + out of earshot of the other passengers, he said with tightened lips, “Why + do you follow me? What is your purpose in coming here?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought,” said Hamlin dryly, “that I was to have the pleasure of + getting satisfaction from you for the insult you gave me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, and if I apologize for it, what then?” he said quickly. + </p> + <p> + Hamlin looked at him quietly. “Well, I think I also said something about + the lady being the wife of a friend of mine.” + </p> + <p> + “And I have left her BEHIND. Her husband can take her back without + disgrace, for no one knows of her flight but you and me. Do you think your + shooting me will save her? It will spread the scandal far and wide. For I + warn you, that as I have apologized for what you choose to call my + personal insult, unless you murder me in cold blood without witness, I + shall let them know the REASON of your quarrel. And I can tell you more: + if you only succeed in STOPPING me here, and make me lose my chance of + getting away, the scandal to your friend will be greater still.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. There was a certain amount of + conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind of creature before. + He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition of his character. He amused + and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin was also a man of the world, and knew + that Van Loo's reasoning might be good. He put his hands in his pockets, + and said gravely, “What IS your little game?” + </p> + <p> + Van Loo had been seized with another inspiration of desperation. Steptoe + had been partly responsible for this situation. Van Loo knew that Jack and + Steptoe were not friends. He had certain secrets of Steptoe's that might + be of importance to Jack. Why should he not try to make friends with this + powerful free-lance and half-outlaw? + </p> + <p> + “It's a game,” he said significantly, “that might be of interest to your + friends to hear.” + </p> + <p> + Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, turned on his heel, and said, + “Come with me.” + </p> + <p> + “But I must go by that coach now,” said Van Loo desperately, “or—I've + told you what would happen.” + </p> + <p> + “Come with me,” said Jack coolly. “If I'm satisfied with what you tell me, + I'll put you down at the next station an hour before that coach gets + there.” + </p> + <p> + “You swear it?” said Van Loo hesitatingly. + </p> + <p> + “I've SAID it,” returned Jack. “Come!” and Van Loo followed Mr. Hamlin + into the station hotel. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. + </h2> + <p> + The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and the strange lady and gentleman + visitor was scarcely noticed by the other guests of the Divide House, and + beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, who were a distinct party + and strangers to the town, there was no excitement. Indeed, the hotel + proprietor might have confounded them together, and, perhaps, Van Loo was + not far wrong in his belief that their identity had not been suspected. + Nor were Steptoe's followers very much concerned in an episode in which + they had taken part only at the suggestion of their leader, and which had + terminated so tamely. That they would have liked a “row,” in which Jack + Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to disgorge his winnings, there + was no doubt, but that their interference was asked solely to gratify some + personal spite of Steptoe's against Van Loo was equally plain to them. + There was some grumbling and outspoken criticism of his methods. + </p> + <p> + This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guest for whom + Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting. He was a short, stout man, + whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little more carefully than when he was + first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, the drunkard of Heavy Tree Hill. His + dress, too, exhibited a marked improvement in quality and style, although + still characterized in the waist and chest by the unbuttoned freedom of + portly and slovenly middle age. Civilization had restricted his potations + or limited them to certain festivals known as “sprees,” and his face was + less puffy and sodden. But with the accession of sobriety he had lost his + good humor, and had the irritability and intolerance of virtuous + restraint. + </p> + <p> + “Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me,” he said + querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of the party through + the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. “I want to keep my head level + till our business is over, and I reckon it wouldn't hurt you and your gang + to do the same. They're less likely to blab; and there are few doors that + whiskey won't unlock,” he added, as Steptoe turned the key in the door + after the party had entered. + </p> + <p> + The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors or political + caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and whittled armchairs + and a single long deal table, on which were ink and pens. The men sat down + around it with a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of + formality, their bent brows and isolated looks showing little community of + sentiment and scarcely an attempt to veil that individual selfishness that + was prominent. Still less was there any essay of companionship or sympathy + in the manner of Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table with his + knuckles. + </p> + <p> + “Gentlemen,” he said, with a certain deliberation of utterance, as if he + enjoyed his own coarse directness, “I reckon you all have a sort of + general idea what you were picked up for, or you wouldn't be here. But you + may or may not know that for the present you are honest, hard-working + miners,—the backbone of the State of Californy,—and that you + have formed yourselves into a company called the 'Blue Jay,' and you've + settled yourselves on the Bar below Heavy Tree Hill, on a deserted claim + of the Marshall Brothers, not half a mile from where the big strike was + made five years ago. That's what you ARE, gentlemen; that's what you'll + continue TO BE until the job's finished; and,” he added, with a sudden + dominance that they all felt, “the man who forgets it will have to reckon + with me. Now,” he continued, resuming his former ironical manner, “now, + what are the cold facts of the case? The Marshalls worked this claim ever + since '49, and never got anything out of it; then they dropped off or died + out, leaving only one brother, Tom Marshall, to work what was left of it. + Well, a few days ago HE found indications of a big lead in the rock, and + instead of rushin' out and yellin' like an honest man, and callin' in the + boys to drink, he sneaks off to 'Frisco, and goes to the bank to get 'em + to take a hand in it. Well, you know, when Jim Stacy takes a hand in + anything, IT'S BOTH HANDS, and the bank wouldn't see it until he promised + to guarantee possession of the whole abandoned claim,—'dips, spurs, + and angles,'—and let them work the whole thing, which the d——d + fool DID, and the bank agreed to send an expert down there to-morrow to + report. But while he was away some one on our side, who was an expert + also, got wind of it, and made an examination all by himself, and found it + was a vein sure enough and a big thing, and some one else on our side + found out, too, all that Marshall had promised the bank and what the bank + had promised him. Now, gentlemen, when the bank sends down that expert + to-morrow I expect that he will find YOU IN POSSESSION of every part of + the deserted claim except the spot where Tom is still working.” + </p> + <p> + “And what good is that to us?” asked one of the men contemptuously. + </p> + <p> + “Good?” repeated Steptoe harshly. “Well, if you're not as d——d + a fool as Marshall, you'll see that if he has struck a lead or vein it's + bound to run across OUR CLAIMS, and what's to keep us from sinking for it + as long as Marshall hasn't worked the other claims for years nor + pre-empted them for this lead?” + </p> + <p> + “What'll keep him from preempting now?” + </p> + <p> + “Our possession.” + </p> + <p> + “But if he can prove that the brothers left their claims to him to keep, + he'll just send the sheriff and his posse down upon us,” persisted the + first speaker. + </p> + <p> + “It will take him three months to do that by law, and the sheriff and his + posse can't do it before as long as we're in peaceable possession of it. + And by the time that expert and Marshall return they'll find us in + peaceful possession, unless we're such blasted fools as to stay talking + about it here!” + </p> + <p> + “But what's to prevent Marshall from getting a gang of his own to drive us + off?” + </p> + <p> + “Now your talkin' and not yelpin',” said Steptoe, with slow insolence. “D——d + if I didn't begin to think you kalkilated I was goin' to employ you as + lawyers! Nothing is to prevent him from gettin' up HIS gang, and we hope + he'll do it, for you see it puts us both on the same level before the law, + for we're both BREAKIN' IT. And we kalkilate that we're as good as any + roughs they can pick up at Heavy Tree.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon!” “Ye can count us in!” said half a dozen voices eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “But what's the job goin' to pay us?” persisted a Sydney man. “An' arter + we've beat off this other gang, are we going to scrub along on grub wages + until we're yanked out by process-sarvers three months later? If that's + the ticket I'm not in it. I aren't no b—y quartz miner.” + </p> + <p> + “We ain't going to do no more MINING there than the bank,” said Steptoe + fiercely. “And the bank ain't going to wait no three months for the end of + the lawsuit. They'll float the stock of that mine for a couple of + millions, and get out of it with a million before a month. And they'll + have to buy us off to do that. What they'll pay will depend upon the lead; + but we don't move off those claims for less than five thousand dollars, + which will be two hundred and fifty dollars to each man. But,” said + Steptoe in a lower but perfectly distinct voice, “if there should be a + row,—and they BEGIN it,—and in the scuffle Tom Marshall, their + only witness, should happen to get in the way of a revolver or have his + head caved in, there might be some difficulty in their holdin' ANY OF THE + MINE against honest, hardworking miners in possession. You hear me?” + </p> + <p> + There was a breathless silence for the moment, and a slight movement of + the men in their chairs, but never in fear or protest. Every one had heard + the speaker distinctly, and every man distinctly understood him. Some of + them were criminals, one or two had already the stain of blood on their + hands; but even the most timid, who at other times might have shrunk from + suggested assassination, saw in the speaker's words only the fair removal + of a natural enemy. + </p> + <p> + “All right, boys. I'm ready to wade in at once. Why ain't we on the road + now? We might have been but for foolin' our time away on that man Van + Loo.” + </p> + <p> + “Van Loo!” repeated Hall eagerly,—“Van Loo! Was he here?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Steptoe shortly, administering a kick under the table to Hall, + as he had no wish to revive the previous irritability of his comrades. + “He's gone, but,” turning to the others, “you'd have had to wait for Mr. + Hall's arrival, anyhow. And now you've got your order you can start. Go in + two parties by different roads, and meet on the other side of the hotel at + Hymettus. I'll be there before you. Pick up some shovels and drills as you + go; remember you're honest miners, but don't forget your shootin'-irons + for all that. Now scatter.” + </p> + <p> + It was well that they did, vacating the room more cheerfully and + sympathetically than they had entered it, or Hall's manifest disturbance + over Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When the last man had + disappeared Hall turned quickly to Steptoe. “Well, what did he say? Where + has he gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Don't know,” said Steptoe, with uneasy curtness. “He was running away + with a woman—well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know,” he added, with + rising anger, “the wife of one of those cursed partners. Jack Hamlin was + here, and was jockeying to stop him, and interfered. But what the devil + has that job to do with our job?” He was losing his temper; everything + seemed to turn upon this infernal Van Loo! + </p> + <p> + “He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker,” gasped Hall,—“it was with + her MONEY! and the fear of being connected with the Wheat Trust swindle + which he organized, and with our money which I lent him for the same + purpose. And he knows all about that job, for I wanted to get him to go + into it with us. Your name and mine ain't any too sweet-smelling for the + bank, and we ought to have a middleman who knows business to arrange with + them. The bank daren't object to him, for they've employed him in even + shadier transactions than this when THEY didn't wish to appear. I knew he + was in difficulties along with Mrs. Barker's speculations, but I never + thought him up to this. And,” he added, with sudden desperation, “YOU + trusted him, too.” + </p> + <p> + In an instant Steptoe caught the frightened man by the shoulders and was + bearing him down on the table. “Are you a traitor, a liar, or a besotted + fool?” he said hoarsely. “Speak. WHEN and WHERE did I trust him?” + </p> + <p> + “You said in your note—I was—to—help him,” gasped Hall. + </p> + <p> + “My note,” repeated Steptoe, releasing Hall with astonished eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Hall, tremblingly searching in his vest pocket. “I brought it + with me. It isn't much of a note, but there's your signature plain + enough.” + </p> + <p> + He handed Steptoe a torn piece of paper folded in a three-cornered shape. + Steptoe opened it. He instantly recognized the paper on which he had + written his name and sent up to his wife at the Boomville Hotel. But, + added to it, in apparently the same hand, in smaller characters, were the + words, “Help Van Loo all you can.” + </p> + <p> + The blood rushed into his face. But he quickly collected himself, and said + hurriedly, “All right, I had forgotten it. Let the d——d sneak + go. We've got what's a thousand times better in this claim at Marshall's, + and it's well that he isn't in it to scoop the lion's share. Only we must + not waste time getting there now. You go there first, and at once, and set + those rascals to work. I'll follow you before Marshall comes up. Get; I'll + settle up here.” + </p> + <p> + His face darkened once more as Hall hurried away, leaving him alone. He + drew out the piece of paper from his pocket and stared at it again. Yes; + it was the one he had sent to his wife. How did Van Loo get hold of it? + Was he at the hotel that night? Had he picked it up in the hall or passage + when the servant dropped it? When Hall handed him the paper and he first + recognized it a fiendish thought, followed by a spasm of more fiendish + rage, had sent the blood to his face. But his crude common sense quickly + dismissed that suggestion of his wife's complicity with Van Loo. But had + she seen him passing through the hotel that night, and had sought to draw + from him some knowledge of his early intercourse with the child, and + confessed everything, and even produced the paper with his signature as a + proof of identity? Women had been known to do such desperate things. + Perhaps she disbelieved her son's aversion to her, and was trying to sound + Van Loo. As for the forged words by Van Loo, and the use he had put them + to, he cared little. He believed the man was capable of forgery; indeed, + he suddenly remembered that in the old days his son had spoken innocently, + but admiringly, of Van Loo's wonderful chirographical powers and his + faculty of imitating the writings of others, and how he had even offered + to teach him. A new and exasperating thought came into his feverish + consciousness. What if Van Loo, in teaching the boy, had even made use of + him as an innocent accomplice to cover up his own tricks! The suggestion + was no question of moral ethics to Steptoe, nor of his son's possible + contamination, although since the night of the big strike he had held + different views; it was simply a fierce, selfish jealousy that ANOTHER + might have profited by the lad's helplessness and inexperience. He had + been tormented by this jealousy before in his son's liking for Van Loo. He + had at first encouraged his admiration and imitative regard for this + smooth swindler's graces and accomplishments, which, though he scorned + them himself, he was, after the common parental infatuation, willing that + the boy should profit by. Incapable, through his own consciousness, of + distinguishing between Van Loo's superficial polish and the true breeding + of a gentleman, he had only looked upon it as an equipment for his son + which might be serviceable to himself. He had told his wife the truth when + he informed her of Van Loo's fears of being reminded of their former + intimacy; but he had not told her how its discontinuance after they had + left Heavy Tree Hill had affected her son, and how he still cherished his + old admiration for that specious rascal. Nor had he told her how this had + stung him, through his own selfish greed of the boy's affection. Yet now + that it was possible that she had met Van Loo that evening, she might have + become aware of Van Loo's power over her child. How she would exult, for + all her pretended hatred of Van Loo! How, perhaps, they had plotted + together! How Van Loo might have become aware of the place where his son + was kept, and have been bribed by the mother to tell her! He stopped in a + whirl of giddy fancies. His strong common sense in all other things had + been hitherto proof against such idle dreams or suggestions; but the very + strength of his parental love and jealousy had awakened in him at last the + terrors of imagination. + </p> + <p> + His first impulse had been to seek his wife, regardless of discovery or + consequences, at Hymettus, where she had said she was going. It was on his + way to the rendezvous at Marshall's claim. But this he as instantly set + aside, it was his SON he must find; SHE might not confess, or might + deceive him—the boy would not; and if his fears were correct, she + could be arraigned afterwards. It was possible for him to reach the little + Mission church and school, secluded in a remote valley by the old + Franciscan fathers, where he had placed the boy for the last few years + unknown to his wife. It would be a long ride, but he could still reach + Heavy Tree Hill afterwards before Marshall and the expert arrived. And he + had a feeling he had never felt before on the eve of a desperate + adventure,—that he must see the boy first. He remembered how the + child had often accompanied him in his flight, and how he had gained + strength, and, it seemed to him, a kind of luck, from the touch of that + small hand in his. Surely it was necessary now that at least his mind + should be at rest regarding HIM on the eve of an affair of this moment. + Perhaps he might never see him again. At any other time, and under the + influence of any other emotion, he would have scorned such a + sentimentalism—he who had never troubled himself either with + preparation for the future or consideration for the past. But at that + moment he felt both. He drew a long breath. He could catch the next train + to the Three Boulders and ride thence to San Felipe. He hurriedly left the + room, settled with the landlord, and galloped to the station. By the irony + of circumstances the only horse available for that purpose was Mr. + Hamlin's own. + </p> + <p> + By two o'clock he was at the Three Boulders, where he got a fast horse and + galloped into San Felipe by four. As he descended the last slope through + the fastnesses of pines towards the little valley overlooked in its + remoteness and purely pastoral simplicity by the gold-seeking immigrants,—its + seclusion as one of the furthest northern Californian missions still + preserved through its insignificance and the efforts of the remaining + Brotherhood, who used it as an infirmary and a school for the few + remaining Spanish families,—he remembered how he once blundered upon + it with the boy while hotly pursued by a hue and cry from one of the + larger towns, and how he found sanctuary there. He remembered how, when + the pursuit was over, he had placed the boy there under the padre's + charge. He had lied to his wife regarding the whereabouts of her son, but + he had spoken truly regarding his free expenditure for the boy's + maintenance, and the good fathers had accepted, equally for the child's + sake as for the Church's sake, the generous “restitution” which this + coarse, powerful, ruffianly looking father was apparently seeking to make. + He was quite aware of it at the time, and had equally accepted it with + grim cynicism; but it now came back to him with a new and smarting + significance. Might THEY, too, not succeed in weaning the boy's affection + from him, or if the mother had interfered, would they not side with her in + claiming an equal right? He had sometimes laughed to himself over the + security of this hiding-place, so unknown and so unlikely to be discovered + by her, yet within easy reach of her friends and his enemies; he now + ground his teeth over the mistake which his doting desire to keep his son + accessible to him had caused him to make. He put spurs to his horse, + dashed down the little, narrow, ill-paved street, through the deserted + plaza, and pulled up in a cloud of dust before the only remaining tower, + with its cracked belfry, of the half-ruined Mission church. A new + dormitory and school-building had been extended from its walls, but in a + subdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual glaring white-pine + glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to himself bitterly. Some of + his money had gone in it. + </p> + <p> + He seized the horsehair rope dangling from a bell by the wall and rang it + sharply. A soft-footed priest appeared,—Father Dominico. “Eddy + Horncastle? Ah! yes. Eddy, dear child, is gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Gone!” shouted Steptoe in a voice that startled the padre. “Where? When? + With whom?” + </p> + <p> + “Pardon, senor, but for a time—only a pasear to the next village. It + is his saint's day—he has half-holiday. He is a good boy. It is a + little pleasure for him and for us.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Steptoe, softened into a rough apology. “I forgot. All right. + Has he had any visitors lately—lady, for instance?” + </p> + <p> + Father Dominico cast a look half of fright, half of reproval upon his + guest. + </p> + <p> + “A lady HERE!” + </p> + <p> + In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. “Of course; you see I + forgot that, too. I was thinking of one of his woman folks, you know—relatives—aunts. + Was there any other visitor?” + </p> + <p> + “Only one. Ah! we know the senor's rules regarding his son.” + </p> + <p> + “One?” repeated Steptoe. “Who was it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, quite an hidalgo—an old friend of the child's—most + polite, most accomplished, fluent in Spanish, perfect in deportment. The + Senor Horncastle surely could find nothing to object to. Father Pedro was + charmed with him. A man of affairs, and yet a good Catholic, too. It was a + Senor Van Loo—Don Paul the boy called him, and they talked of the + boy's studies in the old days as if—indeed, but for the stranger + being a caballero and man of the world—as if he had been his + teacher.” + </p> + <p> + It was a proof of the intensity of the father's feelings that they had + passed beyond the power of his usual coarse, brutal expression, and he + only stared at the priest with a dull red face in which the blood seemed + to have stagnated. Presently he said thickly, “When did he come?” + </p> + <p> + “A few days ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Which way did Eddy go?” + </p> + <p> + “To Brown's Mills, scarcely a league away. He will be here—even now—on + the instant. But the senor will come into the refectory and take some of + the old Mission wine from the Catalan grape, planted one hundred and fifty + years ago, until the dear child returns. He will be so happy.” + </p> + <p> + “No! I'm in a hurry. I will go on and meet him.” He took off his hat, + mopped his crisp, wet hair with his handkerchief, and in a thick, slow, + impeded voice, more suggestive than the outburst he restrained, said, “And + as long as my son remains here that man, Van Loo, must not pass this gate, + speak to him, or even see him. You hear me? See to it, you and all the + others. See to it, I say, or”—He stopped abruptly, clapped his hat + on the swollen veins of his forehead, turned quickly, passed out without + another word through the archway into the road, and before the good priest + could cross himself or recover from his astonishment the thud of his + horse's hoofs came from the dusty road. + </p> + <p> + It was ten minutes before his face resumed its usual color. But in that + ten minutes, as if some of the struggle of his rider had passed into him, + his horse was sweating with exhaustion and fear. For in that ten minutes, + in this new imagination with which he was cursed, he had killed both Van + Loo and his son, and burned the refectory over the heads of the + treacherous priests. Then, quite himself again, a voice came to him from + the rocky trail above the road with the hail of “Father!” He started + quickly as a lad of fifteen or sixteen came bounding down the hillside, + and ran towards him. + </p> + <p> + “You passed me and I called to you, but you did not seem to hear,” said + the boy breathlessly. “Then I ran after you. Have you been to the + Mission?” + </p> + <p> + Steptoe looked at him quite as breathlessly, but from a deeper emotion. He + was, even at first sight, a handsome lad, glowing with youth and the + excitement of his run, and, as the father looked at him, he could see the + likeness to his mother in his clear-cut features, and even a resemblance + to himself in his square, compact chest and shoulders and crisp, black + curls. A thrill of purely animal paternity passed over him, the fierce joy + of his flesh over his own flesh! His own son, by God! They could not take + THAT from him; they might plot, swindle, fawn, cheat, lie, and steal away + his affections, but there he was, plain to all eyes, his own son, his very + son! + </p> + <p> + “Come here,” he said in a singular, half-weary and half-protesting voice, + which the boy instantly recognized as his father's accents of affection. + </p> + <p> + The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of the road and pointed with + mingled mischief and fastidiousness to the depths of impalpable red dust + that lay between him and the horseman. Steptoe saw that he was very + smartly attired in holiday guise, with white duck trousers and patent + leather shoes, and, after the Spanish fashion, wore black kid gloves. He + certainly was a bit of a dandy, as he had said. The father's whole face + changed as he wheeled and came before the lad, who lifted up his arms + expectantly. They had often ridden together on the same horse. + </p> + <p> + “No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy,” he said in the same voice. “But + I'll get down and we'll go and sit somewhere under a tree and have some + talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurrying me, and I can't waste time.” + </p> + <p> + “Not one of your old jobs, father? I thought you had quite given that up?” + </p> + <p> + The boy spoke more carelessly than reproachfully, or even wonderingly; + yet, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, Steptoe answered evasively, + “It's a big thing, sonny; maybe we'll make our eternal fortune, and then + we'll light out from this hole and have a gay time elsewhere. Come along.” + </p> + <p> + He took the boy's gloved right hand in his own powerful grasp, and + together they clambered up the steep hillside to a rocky ledge on which a + fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself in twain, and then left + its withered crown to hang half down the slope, while the other half + rested on the ledge. On this they sat, looking down upon the road and the + tethered horse. A gentle breeze moved the treetops above their heads, and + the westering sun played hide-and-seek with the shifting shadows. The + boy's face was quick and alert with all that moved round him, but without + thought the father's face was heavy, except for the eyes that were fixed + upon his son. + </p> + <p> + “Van Loo came to the Mission,” he said suddenly. + </p> + <p> + The boy's eyes glittered quickly, like a steel that pierced the father's + heart. “Oh,” he said simply, “then it was the padre told you?” + </p> + <p> + “How did he know you were here?” asked Steptoe. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” said the boy quietly. “I think he said something, but I've + forgotten it. But it was mighty good of him to come, for I thought, you + know, that he did not care to see me after Heavy Tree, and that he'd gone + back on us.” + </p> + <p> + “What did he tell you?” continued Steptoe. “Did he talk of me or of your + mother?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the boy, but without any show of interest or sympathy; “we + talked mostly about old times.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell ME about those old times, Eddy. You never told me anything about + them.” + </p> + <p> + The boy, momentarily arrested more by something in the tone of his + father's voice—a weakness he had never noticed before—than by + any suggestion of his words, said with a laugh, “Oh, only about what we + used to do when I was very little and used to call myself his 'little + brother,'—don't you remember, long before the big strike on Heavy + Tree? They were gay times we had then.” + </p> + <p> + “And how he used to teach you to imitate other people's handwriting?” said + Steptoe. + </p> + <p> + “What made you think of that, pop?” said the boy, with a slight wonder in + his eyes. “Why, that's the very thing we DID talk about.” + </p> + <p> + “But you didn't do it again; you ain't done it since,” said Steptoe + quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Lord! no,” said the boy contemptuously. “There ain't no chance now, and + there wouldn't be any fun in it. It isn't like the old times when him and + me were all alone, and we used to write letters as coming from other + people to all the boys round Heavy Tree and the Bar, and sometimes as far + as Boomville, to get them to do things, and they'd think the letters were + real, and they'd do 'em. And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, and + nobody ever knew who did it.” + </p> + <p> + Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief, half in + frightened admiration. Sitting astride the log, his elbows on his knees + and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, the boy's handsome face + became illuminated with an impish devilry which the father had never seen + before. With dancing eyes he went on. “It was one of those very games we + played so long ago that he wanted to see me about and wanted me to keep + mum about, for some of the folks that he played it on were around here + now. It was a game we got off on one of the big strike partners long + before the strike. I'll tell YOU, dad, for you know what happened + afterwards, and you'll be glad. Well, that partner—Demorest—was + a kind of silly, you remember—a sort of Miss Nancyish fellow—always + gloomy and lovesick after his girl in the States. Well, we'd written lots + of letters to girls from their chaps before, and got lots of fun out of + it; but we had even a better show for a game here, for it happened that + Van Loo knew all about the girl—things that even the man's own + partners didn't, for Van Loo's mother was a sort of a friend of the girl's + family, and traveled about with her, and knew that the girl was spoony + over this Demorest, and that they corresponded. So, knowing that Van Loo + was employed at Heavy Tree, she wrote to him to find out all about + Demorest and how to stop their foolish nonsense, for the girl's parents + didn't want her to marry a broken-down miner like him. So we thought we'd + do it our own way, and write a letter to her as if it was from him, don't + you see? I wanted to make him call her awful names, and say that he hated + her, that he was a murderer and a horse-thief, and that he had killed a + policeman, and that he was thinking of becoming a Digger Injin, and having + a Digger squaw for a wife, which he liked better than her. Lord! dad, you + ought to have seen what stuff I made up.” The boy burst into a shrill, + half-feminine laugh, and Steptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly + in his own coarse, brutal fashion. + </p> + <p> + For some moments they sat there looking in each other's faces, shaking + with sympathetic emotion, the father forgetting the purpose of his coming + there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and even the rendezvous to which his + horse in the road below was waiting to bring him; the son forgetting their + retreat from Heavy Tree Hill and his shameful vagabond wanderings with + that father in the years that followed. The sinking sun stared blankly in + their faces; the protecting pines above them moved by a stronger gust + shook a few cones upon them; an enormous crow mockingly repeated the + father's coarse laugh, and a squirrel scampered away from the strangely + assorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and forehead with his + pocket-handkerchief, said:— + </p> + <p> + “And did you send it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said that those sort of love-sick + fools made more fuss over little things than they did over big things, and + he sort of toned it down, and fixed it up himself. But it told. For there + were never any more letters in the post-office in her handwriting, and + there wasn't any posted to her in his.” + </p> + <p> + They both laughed again, and then Steptoe rose. “I must be getting along,” + he said, looking curiously at the boy. “I've got to catch a train at Three + Boulders Station.” + </p> + <p> + “Three Boulders!” repeated the boy. “I'm going there, too, on Friday, to + meet Father Cipriano.” + </p> + <p> + “I reckon my work will be all done by Friday,” said Steptoe musingly. + Standing thus, holding his boy's hand, he was thinking that the real fight + at Marshall's would not take place at once, for it might take a day or two + for Marshall to gather forces. But he only pressed his son's hand gently. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would sometimes take me with you as you used to,” said the boy + curiously. “I'm bigger now, and wouldn't be in your way.” + </p> + <p> + Steptoe looked at the boy with a choking sense of satisfaction and pride. + But he said, “No;” and then suddenly with simulated humor, “Don't you be + taken in by any letters from ME, such as you and Van Loo used to write. + You hear?” + </p> + <p> + The boy laughed. + </p> + <p> + “And,” continued Steptoe, “if anybody says I sent for you, don't you + believe them.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the boy, smiling. + </p> + <p> + “And don't you even believe I'm dead till you see me so. You understand. + By the way, Father Pedro has some money of mine kept for you. Now hurry + back to school and say you met me, but that I was in a great hurry. I + reckon I may have been rather rough to the priests.” + </p> + <p> + They had reached the lower road again, and Steptoe silently unhitched his + horse. “Good-by,” he said, as he laid his hand on the boy's arm. + </p> + <p> + “Good-by, dad.” + </p> + <p> + He mounted his horse slowly. “Well,” he said smilingly, looking down the + road, “you ain't got anything more to say to me, have you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, dad.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothin' you want?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothin', dad.” + </p> + <p> + “All right. Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + He put spurs to his horse and cantered down the road without looking back. + The boy watched him with idle curiosity until he disappeared from sight, + and then went on his way, whistling and striking off the heads of the + wayside weeds with his walking-stick. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. + </h2> + <p> + The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after the meeting + of the three partners that it was small wonder that Barker's + impressionable nature quickly responded to it, and, without awakening the + still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly, and was the first to greet it + in the keen air of the slope behind the hotel. To his pantheistic spirit + it had always seemed as natural for him to early welcome his returning + brothers of the woods and hills as to say good-morning to his fellow + mortals. And, in the joy of seeing Black Spur rising again to his level in + the distance before him, he doffed his hat to it with a return of his old + boyish habit, laid his arm caressingly around the great girth of the + nearest pine, clapped his hands to the scampering squirrels in his path, + and whistled to the dipping jays. In this way he quite forgot the more + serious affairs of the preceding night, or, rather, saw them only in the + gilding of the morning, until, looking up, he perceived the tall figure of + Demorest approaching him; and then it struck him with his first glance at + his old partner's face that his usual suave, gentle melancholy had been + succeeded by a critical cynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of + accent. Barker's loyal heart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest + had been hard hit by the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern in + it, and had doubtless passed a restless night, while he (Barker) had + forgotten all about it. “I thought of knocking at your door, as I passed,” + he said, with sympathetic apology, “but I was afraid I might disturb you. + Isn't it glorious here? Quite like the old hill. Look at that lizard; he + hasn't moved since he first saw me. Do you remember the one who used to + steal our sugar, and then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of the + bowl until he looked like an ornamental handle to it?” he continued, + rebounding again into spirits. + </p> + <p> + “Barker,” said Demorest abruptly, “what sort of woman is this Mrs. Van + Loo, whose rooms I occupy?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Barker, with optimistic innocence, “a most proper woman, old + chap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreign accent and a still + more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't suppose we'd”— + </p> + <p> + “But what is she like?” said Demorest impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Barker thoughtfully, “she's the kind of woman who might be + Van Loo's mother, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?” asked Demorest sharply. + </p> + <p> + “There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers,” said Barker gravely, “in + the way you mean. It's only those poor devils,” he said, pointing, + nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a circling sparrow-hawk above + him, “who have inherited instincts. What I mean is that she might be Van + Loo's mother, because he didn't SELECT her.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?” asked Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just after you left. + Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company, sent for her and + her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll see her to-day or to-morrow + probably, when she returns. I'll introduce you; she'll be rather glad to + meet some one from abroad, and all the more if he happens to be rich and + distinguished, and eligible for her daughter.” He stopped suddenly in his + smile, remembering Demorest's lifelong secret. But to his surprise his + companion's face, instead of darkening as it was wont to do at any such + allusion, brightened suddenly with a singular excitement as he answered + dryly, “Ah well, if the girl is pretty, who knows!” + </p> + <p> + Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strange vivacity as they + walked back to the hotel, and he asked many other questions regarding Mrs. + Van Loo and her daughter, and particularly if the daughter had also been + abroad. When they reached the veranda they found a few early risers + eagerly reading the Sacramento papers, which had just arrived, or, in + little knots, discussing the news. Indeed, they would probably have + stopped Barker and his companion had not Barker, anxious to relieve his + friend's curiosity, hurried with him at once to the manager's office. + </p> + <p> + “Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo to return?” asked + Barker quickly. + </p> + <p> + The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaper which he, + too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiar smile, “Well no! + she WAS to return to-day, but if you're wanting to keep her rooms, I + should say there wouldn't be any trouble about it, as she'll hardly be + coming back here NOW. She's rather high and mighty in style, I know, and a + determined sort of critter, but I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't + care much to be waltzing round in public after what has happened.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand you,” said Demorest impatiently. “WHAT has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “Haven't you heard the news?” said the manager in surprise. “It's in all + the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter—has hypothecated + everything he had and skedaddled.” + </p> + <p> + Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife's money—only + of HER disappointment and mortification over it. Poor girl! Perhaps she + was also worrying over his resentment,—as if she did not know him! + He would go to her at once at Boomville. Then he remembered that she was + coming with Mrs. Horncastle, and might be already on her way here by rail + or coach, and he would miss her. Demorest in the meantime had seized a + paper, and was intently reading it. + </p> + <p> + “There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner,” said the + manager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. “There has been a drop + out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybody is unloading. Two + firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that were carrying things for the bank, + and have thrown everything back on it. There was an awful panic last + night, and they say none of the big speculators know where they stand. + Three of our best customers in the hotel rushed off to the bay this + morning, but Stacy himself started before daylight, and got the through + night express to stop for him on the Divide on signal. Shall I send any + telegrams that may come to your room?” + </p> + <p> + Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interested in the + bank, and understood the purport of the question. He answered, with calm + surprise, that he was expecting no telegrams, and added, “But if Mrs. Van + Loo returns I beg you to at once let me know,” and taking Barker's arm he + went in to breakfast. Seated by themselves, Demorest looked at his + companion. “I'm afraid, Barker boy, that this thing is more serious to Jim + than we expected last night, or than he cared to tell us. And you, old + man, I fear are hurt a little by Van Loo's flight. He had some money of + your wife's, hadn't he?” + </p> + <p> + Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's fortune was in Stacy's hands, + was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought, and answered with + equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by the fear of Mrs. + Barker's disappointment. “Why, Lord! Phil, whether she's lost or saved her + money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her to do what she liked with it, + but I'm afraid she'll be worrying over what I think of it,—as if she + did not know me! And I'm half a mind, if it were not for missing her, to + go over to Boomville, where she's stopping.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you said she was in San Francisco?” said Demorest abstractedly. + </p> + <p> + Barker colored. “Yes,” he answered quickly. “But I've heard since that she + stopped at Boomville on the way.” + </p> + <p> + “Then don't let ME keep you here,” returned Demorest. “For if Jim + telegraphs to me I shall start for San Francisco at once, and I rather + think he will. I did not like to say so before those panic-mongers outside + who are stampeding everything; so run along, Barker boy, and ease your + mind about the wife. We may have other things to think about soon.” + </p> + <p> + Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast and slipped + away. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wife must have heard + the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, if so, would be on her + way with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might be waiting for him—knowing, + too, that he had heard the news—in fear and trembling. For it was + Barker's custom to endow all those he cared for with his own + sensitiveness, and it was not like him to reflect that the woman who had + so recklessly speculated against his opinion would scarcely fear his + reproaches in her defeat. In the fullness of his heart he telegraphed to + her in case she had not yet left Boomville: “All right. Have heard news. + Understand perfectly. Don't worry. Come to me.” Then he left the hotel by + the stable entrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated on + the veranda, and made his way to a little wooded crest which he knew + commanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here he determined to + wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel. He knew that many of + the guests were aware of his wife's speculations with Van Loo, and that he + was her broker. He wished to spare her running the gauntlet of their + curious stares and comments as she drove up alone. As he was climbing the + slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past him on the road below, but he + knew that it had changed horses at Boomville at four o'clock, and that his + tired wife would not have availed herself of it at that hour, particularly + as she could not have yet received the fateful news. He threw himself + under a large pine, and watched the stagecoach disappear as it swept round + into the courtyard of the hotel. + </p> + <p> + He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forks of the + red road that diverged below him, but which appeared to become whiter and + more dazzling as he searched their distance. There was nothing to be seen + except an occasional puff of dust which eventually revealed a horseman or + a long trailing cloud out of which a solitary mule, one of a pack-train of + six or eight, would momentarily emerge and be lost again. Then he suddenly + heard his name called, and, looking up, saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had + halted a few paces from him between two columns of the long-drawn aisle of + pines. + </p> + <p> + In that mysterious half-light she seemed such a beautiful and goddess-like + figure that his consciousness at first was unable to grasp anything else. + She was always wonderfully well dressed, but the warmth and seclusion of + this mountain morning had enabled her to wear a light gown of some + delicate fabric which set off the grace of her figure, and even pardoned + the rural coquetry of a silken sash around her still slender waist. An + open white parasol thrown over her shoulder made a nimbus for her charming + head and the thick coils of hair under her lace-edged hat. He had never + seen her look so beautiful before. And that thought was so plainly in his + frank face and eyes as he sprang to his feet that it brought a slight rise + of color to her own cheek. + </p> + <p> + “I saw you climbing up here as I passed in the coach a few minutes ago,” + she said, with a smile, “and as soon as I had shaken the dust off I + followed you.” + </p> + <p> + “Where's Kitty?” he stammered. + </p> + <p> + The color faded from her face as it had come, and a shade of something + like reproach crept into her dark eyes. And whatever it had been her + purpose to say, or however carefully she might have prepared herself for + this interview, she was evidently taken aback by the sudden directness of + the inquiry. Barker saw this as quickly, and as quickly referred it to his + own rudeness. His whole soul rushed in apology to his face as he said, + “Oh, forgive me! I was anxious about Kitty; indeed, I had thought of + coming again to Boomville, for you've heard the news, of course? Van Loo + is a defaulter, and has run away with the poor child's money.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the hotel. She paused a moment to + collect herself, and then said slowly and tentatively, with a watchful + intensity in her eyes, “Mrs. Barker went, I think, to the Divide”— + </p> + <p> + But she was instantly interrupted by the eager Barker. “I see. I thought + of that at once. She went directly to the company's offices to see if she + could save anything from the wreck before she saw me. It was like her, + poor girl! And you—you,” he went on eagerly, his whole face beaming + with gratitude,—“you, out of your goodness, came here to tell me.” + He held out both hands and took hers in his. + </p> + <p> + For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless and vacillating. She had often + noticed before that it was part of the irony of the creation of such a + simple nature as Barker's that he was not only open to deceit, but + absolutely seemed to invite it. Instead of making others franker, people + were inclined to rebuke his credulity by restraint and equivocation on + their own part. But the evasion thus offered to her, although only + temporary, was a temptation she could not resist. And it prolonged an + interview that a ruthless revelation of the truth might have shortened. + </p> + <p> + “She did not tell me she was going there,” she replied still evasively; + “and, indeed,” she added, with a burst of candor still more dangerous, “I + only learned it from the hotel clerk after she was gone. But I want to + talk to you about her relations to Van Loo,” she said, with a return of + her former intensity of gaze, “and I thought we would be less subject to + interruption here than at the hotel. Only I suppose everybody knows this + place, and any of those flirting couples are likely to come here. + Besides,” she added, with a little half-hysterical laugh and a slight + shiver, as she looked up at the high interlacing boughs above her head, + “it's as public as the aisles of a church, and really one feels as if one + were 'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a little more + secluded, where we could sit down,” she went on, as she poked her parasol + into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth which mingled with the + carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, “and not get all sticky and + dirty?” + </p> + <p> + Barker's eyes sparkled. “I know every foot of this hill, Mrs. Horncastle,” + he said, “and if you will follow me I'll take you to one of the loveliest + nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian spring now forgotten, and I + think known only to me and the birds. It's not more than ten minutes from + here; only”—he hesitated as he caught sight of the smart French + bronze buckled shoe and silken ankle which Mrs. Horncastle's gathering up + of her dainty skirts around her had disclosed—“it may be a little + rough and dusty going to your feet.” + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had already irretrievably ruined + her shoes and stockings in climbing up to him,—although Barker could + really distinguish no diminution of their freshness,—and that she + might as well go on. Whereat they both passed down the long aisle of slope + to a little hollow of manzanita, which again opened to a view of Black + Spur, but left the hotel hidden. + </p> + <p> + “What time did Kitty go?” began Barker eagerly, when they were half down + the slope. + </p> + <p> + But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine-needles, and + not only stopped an answer, but obliged Barker to give all his attention + to keep his companion from falling again until they reached the open. Then + came the plunge through the manzanita thicket, then a cool wade through + waist-deep ferns, and then they emerged, holding each other's hand, + breathless and panting before the spring. + </p> + <p> + It did not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangular hollow, niched + in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a point from which the + overflow of the spring percolated through a fringe of alder, to fall in + what seemed from the valley to be a green furrow down the whole length of + the mountain-side. Overhung by pines above, which met and mingled with the + willows that everywhere fringed it, it made the one cooling shade in the + whole basking expanse of the mountain, and yet was penetrated throughout + by the intoxicating spice of the heated pines. Flowering reeds and long + lush grasses drew a magic circle round an open bowl-like pool in the + centre, that was always replenished to the slow murmur of an unseen + rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavern in the mountain-side like + a vein opened in its flank. Shadows of timid wings crossed it, quick + rustlings disturbed the reeds, but nothing more. It was silent, but + breathing; it was hidden to everything but the sky and the illimitable + distance. + </p> + <p> + They threaded their way around it on the spongy carpet, covered by + delicate lace-like vines that seemed to caress rather than trammel their + moving feet, until they reached an open space before the pool. It was + cushioned and matted with disintegrated pine bark, and here they sat down. + Mrs. Horncastle furled her parasol and laid it aside; raised both hands to + the back of her head and took two hat-pins out, which she placed in her + smiling mouth; removed her hat, stuck the hat-pins in it, and handed it to + Barker, who gently placed it on the top of a tall reed, where during the + rest of that momentous meeting it swung and drooped like a flower; removed + her gloves slowly; drank still smilingly and gratefully nearly a + wineglassful of the water which Barker brought her in the green twisted + chalice of a lily leaf; looked the picture of happiness, and then burst + into tears. + </p> + <p> + Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror-stricken. Mrs. Horncastle + crying! Mrs. Horncastle, the imperious, the collected, the coldly + critical, the cynical, smiling woman of the world, actually crying! Other + women might cry—Kitty had cried often—but Mrs. Horncastle! + Yet, there she was, sobbing; actually sobbing like a schoolgirl, her + beautiful shoulders rising and falling with her grief; crying unmistakably + through her long white fingers, through a lace pocket-handkerchief which + she had hurriedly produced and shaken from behind her like a conjurer's + trick; her beautiful eyes a thousand times more lustrous for the sparkling + beads that brimmed her lashes and welled over like the pool before her. + </p> + <p> + “Don't mind me,” she murmured behind her handkerchief. “It's very foolish, + I know. I was nervous—worried, I suppose; I'll be better in a + moment. Don't notice me, please.” + </p> + <p> + But Barker had drawn beside her and was trying, after the fashion of his + sex, to take her handkerchief away in apparently the firm belief that this + action would stop her tears. “But tell me what it is. Do Mrs. Horncastle, + please,” he pleaded in his boyish fashion. “Is it anything I can do? Only + say the word; only tell me SOMETHING!” + </p> + <p> + But he had succeeded in partially removing the handkerchief, and so caught + a glimpse of her wet eyes, in which a faint smile struggled out like + sunshine through rain. But they clouded again, although she didn't cry, + and her breath came and went with the action of a sob, and her hands still + remained against her flushed face. + </p> + <p> + “I was only going to talk to you of Kitty” (sob)—“but I suppose I'm + weak” (sob)—“and such a fool” (sob) “and I got to thinking of myself + and my own sorrows when I ought to be thinking only of you and Kitty.” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind Kitty,” said Barker impulsively. “Tell me about yourself—your + own sorrows. I am a brute to have bothered you about her at such a moment; + and now until you have told me what is paining you so I shall not let you + speak of her.” He was perfectly sincere. What were Kitty's possible and + easy tears over the loss of her money to the unknown agony that could + wrench a sob from a woman like this? “Dear Mrs. Horncastle,” he went on as + breathlessly, “think of me now not as Kitty's husband, but as your true + friend. Yes, as your BEST and TRUEST friend, and speak to me as you would + speak to him.” + </p> + <p> + “You will be my friend?” she said suddenly and passionately, grasping his + hand, “my best and truest friend? and if I tell you all,—everything, + you will not cast me from you and hate me?” + </p> + <p> + Barker felt the same thrill from her warm hand slowly possess his whole + being as it had the evening before, but this time he was prepared and + answered the grasp and her eyes together as he said breathlessly, “I will + be—I AM your friend.” + </p> + <p> + She withdrew her hand and passed it over her eyes. After a moment she + caught his hand again, and, holding it tightly as if she feared he might + fly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, without looking at him, said, + “I lied to you about myself and Kitty that night; I did not come with her. + I came alone and secretly to Boomville to see—to see the man who is + my husband.” + </p> + <p> + “Your husband!” said Barker in surprise. He had believed, with the rest of + the world, that there had been no communication between them for years. + Yet so intense was his interest in her that he did not notice that this + revelation was leaving now no excuse for his wife's presence at Boomville. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, “Yes, my husband. I went + to him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child. Yes, MY child,” she + said frantically, tightening her hold upon his hand, “for I lied to you + when I once told you I had none. I had a child, and, more than that, a + child who at his birth I did not dare to openly claim.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her former intensity as + if she would pluck the thought that followed from his brain. But he only + moved closer to her, passed his arm over her shoulders with a movement so + natural and protecting that it had a certain dignity in it, and, looking + down upon her bent head with eyes brimming with sympathy, whispered, + “Poor, poor child!” + </p> + <p> + Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears. And then, with her head + half drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,—all that had + passed between her and her husband,—even all that they had then but + hinted at. It was as if she felt she could now, for the first time, voice + all these terrible memories of the past which had come back to her last + night when her husband had left her. She concealed nothing, she veiled + nothing; there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel + hardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner took + their place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter + satisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him. “I never had a friend,” + she whispered; “there were women who persecuted me with their jealous + sneers; there were men who persecuted me with their selfish affections. + When I first saw YOU, you seemed something so apart and different from all + other men that, although I scarcely knew you, I wanted to tell you, even + then, all that I have told you now. I wanted you to be my friend; + something told me that you could,—that you could separate me from my + past; that you could tell me what to do; that you could make me think as + you thought, see life as YOU saw it, and trust always to some goodness in + people as YOU did. And in this faith I thought that you would understand + me now, and even forgive me all.” + </p> + <p> + She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and, possibly, to + look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively were bent upon her + downcast head. But he only held her the more tightly until her cheek was + close against his breast. “What could I do?” she murmured. “A man in + sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for sympathy and support and the + world will not gainsay or misunderstand him. But a woman—weaker, + more helpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving for light—must not + in her agony go to a man for succor and sympathy.” + </p> + <p> + “Why should she not?” burst out Barker passionately, releasing her in his + attempt to gaze into her face. “What man dare refuse her?” + </p> + <p> + “Not THAT,” she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, “but because the + world would say she LOVED him.” + </p> + <p> + “And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands aside and + lets her suffer? Why should she heed its wretched babble?” he went on in + flashing indignation. + </p> + <p> + “Because,” she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and parted + lips towards him,—“because it would be TRUE!” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to withhold + its song as their eyes and lips met. When the spring recommenced its + murmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee above them and the + rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, with her face against his + breast: “You did not think it strange that I should follow you—that + I should risk everything to tell you what I have told you before I told + you anything else? You will never hate me for it, George?” + </p> + <p> + There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked again + into the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, “I have ALWAYS + loved you. I know now I loved you from the first, from the day when I + leaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and saw your tenderness + for him in your eyes. I could have kissed you THEN, dearest, as I do now.” + </p> + <p> + “And,” she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, “you will + always remember, George, that you told me this BEFORE I told you anything + of her.” + </p> + <p> + “HER? Of whom, dearest?” he asked, leaning over her tenderly. + </p> + <p> + “Of Kitty—of your wife,” she said impatiently, as she drew back + shyly with her former intense gaze. + </p> + <p> + He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, “Let us not talk + of her NOW. Later we shall have MUCH to say of her. For,” he added + quietly, “you know I must tell her all.” + </p> + <p> + The color faded from her cheek. “Tell her all!” she repeated vacantly; + then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, “But what if she is + gone?” + </p> + <p> + “Gone?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; gone. What if she has run away with Van Loo? What if she has + disgraced you and her child?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” he said, seizing both her hands and gazing at her + fixedly. + </p> + <p> + “I mean,” she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, “that she has + already gone with Van Loo. George! George!” she burst out suddenly and + passionately, falling upon her knees before him, “do you think that I + would have followed you here and told you what I did if I thought that she + had now the slightest claim upon your love or honor? Don't you understand + me? I came to tell you of her flight to Boomville with that man; how I + accidentally intercepted them there; how I tried to save her from him, and + even lied to you to try to save her from your indignation; but how she + deceived me as she has you, and even escaped and joined her lover while + you were with me. I came to tell you that and nothing more, George, I + swear it. But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I was mad—wild! + I wanted to win you first out of your own love. I wanted you to respond to + MINE before you knew your wife was faithless. Yet I would have saved her + if I could. Listen, George! A moment more before you speak!” + </p> + <p> + Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife's dishonor, + from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her later appeal for + concealment from her husband's unexpected presence, to the use she made of + that concealment to fly with her lover. She spared no detail, and even + repeated the insult Mrs. Barker had cast upon her with the triumphant + reproach that her husband would not believe her. “Perhaps,” she added + bitterly, “you may not believe me now. I could even stand that from you, + George, if it could make you happier; but you would still have to believe + it from others. The people at the Boomville Hotel saw them leave it + together.” + </p> + <p> + “I do believe you,” he said slowly, but with downcast eyes, “and if I did + not love you before you told me this I could love you now for the part you + have taken; but”—He stopped. + </p> + <p> + “You love her still,” she burst out, “and I might have known it. Perhaps,” + she went on distractedly, “you love her the more that you have lost her. + It is the way of men—and women.” + </p> + <p> + “If I had loved her truly,” said Barker, lifting his frank eyes to hers, + “I could not have touched YOUR lips. I could not even have wished to—as + I did three years ago—as I did last night. Then I feared it was my + weakness, now I know it was my love. I have thought of it ever since, even + while waiting my wife's return here, knowing that I did not and never + could have loved her. But for that very reason I must try to save her for + her own sake, if I cannot save her for mine; and if I fail, dearest, it + shall not be said that we climbed to happiness over her back bent with the + burden of her shame. If I loved you and told you so, thinking her still + guiltless and innocent, how could I profit now by her fault?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. “Then you would take her back?” + she said frenziedly. + </p> + <p> + “To my home—which is hers—yes. To my heart—no. She never + was there.” + </p> + <p> + “And I,” said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering lip,—“where do I go + when you have settled this? Back to my past again? Back to my husbandless, + childless life?” + </p> + <p> + She was turning away, but Barker caught her in his arms again. “No!” he + said, his whole face suddenly radiating with hope and youthful enthusiasm. + “No! Kitty will help us; we will tell her all. You do not know her, + dearest, as I do—how good and kind she is, in spite of all. We will + appeal to her; she will devise some means by which, without the scandal of + a divorce, she and I may be separated. She will take dear little Sta with + her—it is only right, poor girl; but she will let me come and see + him. She will be a sister to us, dearest. Courage! All will come right + yet. Trust to me.” + </p> + <p> + An hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's lips and then stopped. For + as she looked up at him in his supreme hopefulness, his divine confidence + in himself and others—at his handsome face beaming with love and + happiness, and his clear gray eyes glittering with an almost spiritual + prescience—she, woman of the world and bitter experience, and + perfectly cognizant of her own and Kitty's possibilities, was, + nevertheless, completely carried away by her lover's optimism. For of all + optimism that of love is the most convincing. Dear boy!—for he was + but a boy in experience—only his love for her could work this magic. + So she gave him kiss for kiss, largely believing, largely hoping, that + Mrs. Barker was in love with Van Loo and would NOT return. And in this + hope an invincible belief in the folly of her own sex soothed and + sustained her. + </p> + <p> + “We must go now, dearest,” said Barker, pointing to the sun already near + the meridian. Three hours had fled, they knew not how. “I will bring you + back to the hill again, but there we had better separate, you taking your + way alone to the hotel as you came, and I will go a little way on the road + to the Divide and return later. Keep your own counsel about Kitty for her + sake and ours; perhaps no one else may know the truth yet.” With a + farewell kiss they plunged again hand in hand through the cool bracken and + again through the hot manzanita bushes, and so parted on the hilltop, as + they had never parted before, leaving their whole world behind them. + </p> + <p> + Barker walked slowly along the road under the flickering shade of wayside + sycamore, his sensitive face also alternating with his thought in lights + and shadows. Presently there crept towards him out of the distance a + halting, vacillating, deviating buggy, trailing a cloud of dust after it + like a broken wing. As it came nearer he could see that the horse was + spent and exhausted, and that the buggy's sole occupant—a woman—was + equally exhausted in her monotonous attempt to urge it forward with whip + and reins that rose and fell at intervals with feeble reiteration. Then he + stepped out of the shadow and stood in the middle of the sunlit road to + await it. For he recognized his wife. + </p> + <p> + The buggy came nearer. And then the most exquisite pang he had ever felt + before at his wife's hands shot through him. For as she recognized him she + made a wild but impotent attempt to dash past him, and then as suddenly + pulled up in the ditch. + </p> + <p> + He went up to her. She was dirty, she was disheveled, she was haggard, she + was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear-swept eyes and smudges + of dust-dried perspiration over her fair cheek. He thought of the beauty, + freshness, and elegance of the woman he had just left, and an infinite + pity swept the soul of this weak-minded gentleman. He ran towards her, and + tenderly lifting her in her shame-stained garments from the buggy, said + hurriedly, “I know it all, poor Kitty! You heard the news of Van Loo's + flight, and you ran over to the Divide to try and save some of your money. + Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?” + </p> + <p> + There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuine pity and + tenderness of his action; but the woman saw before her only the familiar + dupe of her life, and felt an infinite relief mingled with a certain + contempt for his weakness and anger at her previous fears of him. + </p> + <p> + “You might have driven over, then, yourself,” she said in a high, + querulous voice, “if you knew it so well, and have spared ME this horrid, + dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved anything—there! + And I have had all this disgusting bother!” + </p> + <p> + For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to her face, but he + checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coat from her shoulders and + shook it out, wiped the dust from her face and eyes with his own + handkerchief, held her hat and blew the dust from it with a vivid memory + of performing the same service for Mrs. Horncastle only an hour before, + while she arranged her hair; and then, lifting her again into the buggy, + said quietly, as he took his seat beside her and grasped the reins:— + </p> + <p> + “I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and you can go at + once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired, you are nervous + and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anything now until you feel + quite yourself again.” + </p> + <p> + He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at the reins, + lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes they were at the + hotel. + </p> + <p> + As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the great dining-room, a little pale + and abstracted, she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidently into the room, + fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing toilette. With a swift glance of + conscious power towards the other guests she walked towards Mrs. + Horncastle. “Ah, here you are, dear,” she said in a voice that could + easily reach all ears, “and you've arrived only a little before me, after + all. And I've had such an AWFUL drive to the Divide! And only think! poor + George telegraphed to me at Boomville not to worry, and his dispatch has + only just come back here.” + </p> + <p> + And with a glance of complacency she laid Barker's gentle and forgiving + dispatch before the astonished Mrs. Horncastle. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. + </h2> + <p> + As the day advanced the excitement over the financial crisis increased at + Hymettus, until, in spite of its remote and peaceful isolation, it seemed + to throb through all its verandas and corridors with some pulsation from + the outer world. Besides the letters and dispatches brought by hurried + messengers and by coach from the Divide, there was a crowd of guests and + servants around the branch telegraph at the new Heavy Tree post-office + which was constantly augmenting. Added to the natural anxiety of the + deeply interested was the stimulated fever of the few who wished to be “in + the fashion.” It was early rumored that a heavy operator, a guest of the + hotel, who was also a director in the telegraph company, had bought up the + wires for his sole use, that the dispatches were doctored in his interests + as a “bear,” and there was wild talk of lynching by the indignant mob. + Passengers from Sacramento, San Francisco, and Marysville brought + incredible news and the wildest sensations. Firm after firm had failed in + the great cities. Old established houses that dated back to the “spring of + '49,” and had weathered the fires and inundations of their perilous + Californian infancy, collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, + impalpable breath of panic. Companies rooted in respectability and sneered + at for old-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelessly speculated + with trusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the church was found dead in + his room with a bullet in his heart and a damning confession on the desk + before him! Foreign bankers were sending their gold out of the country; + government would be appealed to to open the vaults of the Mint; there + would be an embargo on all bullion shipment! Nothing was too wild or + preposterous to be repeated or credited. + </p> + <p> + And with this fever of sordid passion the summer temperature had + increased. For the last two weeks the thermometer had stood abnormally + high during the day-long sunshine; and the metallic dust in the roads over + mineral ranges pricked the skin like red-hot needles. In the deepest woods + the aromatic sap stood in beads on felled logs and splintered tree-shafts; + even the mountain night breeze failed to cool these baked and heated + fastnesses. There were ominous clouds of smoke by day that were pillars of + fire by night along the distant valleys. Some of the nearer crests were + etched against the midnight sky by dull red creeping lines like a dying + firework. The great hotel itself creaked and crackled and warped though + all its painted, blistered, and veneered expanse, and was filled with the + stifling breath of desiccation. The stucco cracked and crumbled away from + the cornices; there were yawning gaps in the boarded floors beneath the + Turkey carpets. Plate-glass windows became hopelessly fixed in their + warped and twisted sashes, and added to the heat; there was a warm incense + of pine sap in the dining-room that flavored all the cuisine. And yet the + babble of stocks and shares went on, and people pricked their ears over + their soup to catch the gossip of the last arrival. + </p> + <p> + Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found bitterness, was nevertheless + impatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting a telegram from Stacy; + Barker had disappeared since luncheon. Suddenly there was a commotion on + the veranda as a carriage drove up with a handsome, gray-haired woman. In + the buzzing of voices around him Demorest heard the name of Mrs. Van Loo. + In further comments, made in more smothered accents, he heard that Van Loo + had been stopped at Canyon Station, but that no warrant had yet been + issued against him; that it was generally believed that the bank dared not + hold him; that others openly averred that he had been used as a scapegoat + to avert suspicion from higher guilt. And certainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, + confident air seemed to corroborate these assertions. + </p> + <p> + He was still wondering if the strange coincidence which had brought both + mother and son into his own life was not merely a fancy, as far as SHE was + concerned, when a waiter brought a message from Mrs. Van Loo that she + would be glad to see him for a few moments in her room. Last night he + could scarcely have restrained his eagerness to meet her and elucidate the + mystery of the photograph; now he was conscious of an equally strong + revulsion of feeling, and a dull premonition of evil. However, it was no + doubt possible that the man had told her of his previous inquiries, and + she had merely acknowledged them by that message. + </p> + <p> + Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private sitting-room where he and his + old partners had supped on the preceding night. She received him with + unmistakable courtesy and even a certain dignity that might or might not + have been assumed. He had no difficulty in recognizing the son's + mechanical politeness in the first, but he was puzzled at the second. + </p> + <p> + “The manager of this hotel,” she began, with a foreigner's precision of + English, “has just told me that you were at present occupying my rooms at + his invitation, but that you wished to see me at once on my return, and I + believe that I was not wrong in apprehending that you preferred to hear my + wishes from my own lips rather than from an innkeeper. I had intended to + keep these rooms for some weeks, but, unfortunately for me, though + fortunately for you, the present terrible financial crisis, which has most + unjustly brought my son into such scandalous prominence, will oblige me to + return to San Francisco until his reputation is fully cleared of these + foul aspersions. I shall only ask you to allow me the undisturbed + possession of these rooms for a couple of hours until I can pack my trunks + and gather up a few souvenirs that I almost always keep with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Pray, consider that your wishes are my own in respect to that, my dear + madam,” returned Demorest gravely, “and that, indeed, I protested against + even this temporary intrusion upon your apartments; but I confess that now + that you have spoken of your souvenirs I have the greatest curiosity about + one of them, and that even my object in seeking this interview was to + gratify it. It is in regard to a photograph which I saw on the + chimney-piece in your bedroom, which I think I recognized as that of some + one whom I formerly knew.” + </p> + <p> + There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hard aggressiveness + that quite changed the lady's face as he mentioned the word “souvenir,” + but it quickly changed to a smile as she put up her fan with a gesture of + arch deprecation, and said: + </p> + <p> + “Ah! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph.” + </p> + <p> + The reply irritated Demorest. More than that, he felt a sudden sense of + the absolute sentimentality of his request, and the consciousness that he + was about to invite the familiar confidence of this strange woman—whose + son had forged his name—in regard to HER! + </p> + <p> + “It was a Venetian picture,” he began, and stopped, a singular disgust + keeping him from voicing the name. + </p> + <p> + But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. “Oh, you mean my dearest friend—a + lovely picture, and you know her? Why, yes, surely. You are THE Mr. + Demorest who—Of course, that old love-affair. Well, you are a + marvel! Five years ago, at least, and you have not forgotten! I really + must write and tell her.” + </p> + <p> + “Write and tell her!” Then it was all a lie about her death! He felt not + only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but even his + self-control. With an effort he said.— + </p> + <p> + “I think you have already satisfied my curiosity. I was told five years + ago that she was dead. It was because of the date of the photograph—two + years later—that I ventured to intrude upon you. I was anxious only + to know the truth.” + </p> + <p> + “She certainly was very much living and of the world when I saw her last, + two years ago,” said Mrs. Van Loo, with an easy smile. “I dare say that + was a ruse of her relatives—a very stupid one—to break off the + affair, for I think they had other plans. But, dear me! now I remember, + was there not some little quarrel between you before? Some letter from you + that was not very kind? My impression is that there was something of the + sort, and that the young lady was indignant. But only for a time, you + know. She very soon forgot it. I dare say if you wrote something very + charming to her it might not be too late. We women are very forgiving, Mr. + Demorest, and although she is very much sought after, as are all young + American girls whose fathers can give them a comfortable 'dot', her + parents might be persuaded to throw over a poor prince for a rich + countryman in the end. Of course, you know, to you Republicans there is + always something fascinating in titles and blood, and our dear friend is + like other girls. Still, it is worth the risk. And five years of waiting + and devotion really ought to tell. It's quite a romance! Shall I write to + her and tell her I have seen you, looking well and prosperous? Nothing + more. Do let me! I should be delighted.” + </p> + <p> + “I think it hardly worth while for you to give yourself that trouble,” + said Demorest quietly, looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smiling eyes, “now that I + know the story of the young lady's death was a forgery. And I will not + intrude further on your time. Pray give yourself no needless hurry over + your packing. I may go to San Francisco this afternoon, and not even + require the rooms to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “At least, let me make you a present of the souvenir as an acknowledgment + of your courtesy,” said Mrs. Van Loo, passing into her bedroom and + returning with the photograph. “I feel that with your five years of + constancy it is more yours than mine.” As a gentleman Demorest knew he + could not refuse, and taking the photograph from her with a low bow, with + another final salutation he withdrew. + </p> + <p> + Alone by himself in a corner of the veranda he was surprised that the + interview had made so little impression on him, and had so little altered + his conviction. His discovery that the announcement of his betrothed's + death was a fiction did not affect the fact that though living she was yet + dead to him, and apparently by her own consent. The contrast between her + life and his during those five years had been covertly accented by Mrs. + Van Loo, whether intentionally or not, and he saw again as last night the + full extent of his sentimental folly. He could not even condole with + himself that he was the victim of miserable falsehoods that others had + invented. SHE had accepted them, and had even excused her desertion of him + by that last deceit of the letter. + </p> + <p> + He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as a lover. Had + she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Was the spirituality + and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely his own idiotic fancy? Had she + always been like this? Yes. There was the girl who could weakly strive, + weakly revenge herself, and weakly forget. There was the figure that he + had expected to find carved upon the tomb which he had long sought that he + might weep over. He laughed aloud. + </p> + <p> + It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What was Barker doing, + and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And what were those people in + the courtyard doing? Were they discussing news of further disaster and + ruin? Perhaps he was even now a beggar. Well, his fortune might go with + his faith. + </p> + <p> + But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, and he now saw + that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard, and was conscious of + a smell of soot and burning. He stepped down from the veranda among the + mingled guests and servants, and saw that the smoke was only pouring from + a chimney. He heard, too, that the chimney had been on fire, and that it + was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and that when the startled servants + had knocked at the locked door she had told them that she was only burning + some old letters and newspapers, the refuse of her trunks. There was + naturally some indignation that the hotel had been so foolishly + endangered, in such scorching weather, and the manager had had a scene + with her which resulted in her leaving the hotel indignantly with her + half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke had died away and the fire + been extinguished in the chimney and hearth, there was an acrid smell of + smouldering pine penetrating the upper floors of the hotel all that + afternoon. + </p> + <p> + When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to the + rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still littered with + charred ashes of burnt paper. “My belief is,” said the manager darkly, + “that the old hag came here just to burn up a lot of incriminating papers + that her son had intrusted to her keeping. It looks mighty suspicious. You + see she got up an awful lot of side when I told her I didn't reckon to run + a smelting furnace in a wooden hotel with the thermometer at one hundred + in the office, and I reckon it was just an excuse for getting off in a + hurry.” + </p> + <p> + But the continued delay in Stacy's promised telegram had begun to work + upon Demorest's usual equanimity, and he scarcely listened in his anxiety + for his old partner. He knew that Stacy should have arrived in San + Francisco by noon. He had almost determined to take the next train from + the Divide when two horsemen dashed into the courtyard. There was the + usual stir on the veranda and rush for news, but the two new arrivals + turned out to be Barker, on a horse covered with foam, and a dashing, + elegantly dressed stranger on a mustang as carefully groomed and as + spotless as himself. Demorest instantly recognized Jack Hamlin. + </p> + <p> + He had not seen Hamlin since that day, five years before, when the latter + had accompanied the three partners with their treasure to Boomville, and + had handed him the mysterious packet. As the two men dismounted hurriedly + and moved towards him, he felt a premonition of something as fateful and + important as then. In obedience to a sign from Barker he led them to a + more secluded angle of the veranda. He could not help noticing that his + younger partner's face was mobile as ever, but more thoughtful and older; + yet his voice rang with the old freemasonry of the camp, as he said, with + a laugh, “The signal has been given, and it's boot and saddle and away.” + </p> + <p> + “But I have had no dispatch from Stacy,” said Demorest in surprise. “He + was to telegraph to me from San Francisco in any emergency.” + </p> + <p> + “He never got there at all,” said Barker. “Jack ran slap into Van Loo at + the Divide, and sent a dispatch to Jim, which stopped him halfway until + Jack could reach him, which he nearly broke his neck to do; and then Jack + finished up by bringing a message from Stacy to us that we should all meet + together on the slope of Heavy Tree, near the Bar. I met Jack just as I + was riding into the Divide, and came back with him. He will tell you the + rest, and you can swear by what Jack says, for he's white all through,” he + added, laying his hand affectionately on Hamlin's shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Hamlin winced slightly. For he had NOT told Barker that his wife was with + Van Loo, nor his first reason for interfering. But he related how he had + finally overtaken Van Loo at Canyon Station, and how the fugitive had + disclosed the conspiracy of Steptoe and Hall against the bank and Marshall + as the price of his own release. On this news, remembering that Stacy had + passed the Divide on his way to the station, he had first sent a dispatch + to him, and then met him at the first station on the road. “I reckon, + gentlemen,” said Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in his voice, “that + he'd not only got my telegram, but ALL THE NEWS that had been flying + around this morning, for he looked like a man to whom it was just a + 'toss-up' whether he took his own life then and there or was willing to + have somebody else take it for him, for he said, 'I'll go myself,' and + telegraphed to have the surveyor stopped from coming. Then he told me to + tell you fellows, and ask you to come too.” Jack paused, and added half + mischievously, “He sort of asked ME what I would take to stand by him in + the row, if there was one, and I told him I'd take—whiskey! You see, + boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, and I wouldn't mind for the sake + of old times to finish the game with old Steptoe that I began a matter of + five years ago.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said Demorest, with a kindling eye; “I suppose we'd better + start at once. One moment,” he added. “Barker boy, will you excuse me if I + speak a word to Hamlin?” As Barker nodded and walked to the rails of the + veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, “You and I,” he said hurriedly, “are + SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be no child's + play.” + </p> + <p> + But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions which + Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, he surmised + that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He answered a little + more seriously than his wont, “I don't think as regards HIS WIFE that + would make much difference to him or her how stiff the work was.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed only this + confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself had seen in + his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his return, to shake his last + remaining faith. “We'll all go together, then,” he said, with a laugh, “as + in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that we have no woman in our + confidence.” + </p> + <p> + An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel, scarcely + noticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious of their absence + during the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered from her fatiguing + ride, was in high spirits and the most beautiful and spotless of summer + gowns, and was considered quite a heroine by the other ladies as she dwelt + upon the terrible heat of her return journey. “Only I knew Mr. Barker + would be worried—and the poor man actually walked a mile down the + Divide road to meet me—I believe I should have stayed there all + day.” She glanced round the other groups for Mrs. Horncastle, but that + lady had retired early. Possibly she alone had noticed the absence of the + two partners. + </p> + <p> + The guests sat up until quite late, for the heat seemed to grow still more + oppressive, and the strange smell of burning wood revived the gossip about + Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in setting fire to her chimney. Some + averred that it would be days before the smell could be got out of the + house; others referred it to the fires in the woods, which were now + dangerously near. One spoke of the isolated position of the hotel as + affording the greatest security, but was met by the assertion of a famous + mountaineer that the forest fires were wont to leap from crest to crest + mysteriously, without any apparent continuous contact. This led to more or + less light-hearted conjecture of present danger and some amusing stories + of hotel fires and their ludicrous revelations. There were also some + entertaining speculations as to what they would do and what they would try + to save in such an emergency. + </p> + <p> + “For myself,” said Mrs. Barker audaciously, “I should certainly let Mr. + Barker look after Sta and confine myself entirely to getting away with my + diamonds. I know the wretch would never think of them.” + </p> + <p> + It was still later when, exhausted by the heat and some reaction from the + excitement of the day, they at last deserted the veranda for their rooms, + and for a while the shadowy bulk of the whole building was picked out with + regularly spaced lights from its open windows, until now these finally + faded and went out one by one. An hour later the whole building had sunk + to rest. It was said that it was only four in the morning when a yawning + porter, having put out the light in a dark, upper corridor, was amazed by + a dull glow from the top of the wall, and awoke to the fact that a red + fire, as yet smokeless and flameless, was creeping along the cornice. He + ran to the office and gave the alarm; but on returning with assistance was + stopped in the corridor by an impenetrable wall of smoke veined with murky + flashes. The alarm was given in all the lower floors, and the occupants + rushed from their beds half dressed to the courtyard, only to see, as they + afterwards averred, the flames burst like cannon discharges from the upper + windows and unite above the crackling roof. So sudden and complete was the + catastrophe, although slowly prepared by a leak in the overheated chimney + between the floors, that even the excitement of fear and exertion was + spared the survivors. There was bewilderment and stupor, but neither + uproar nor confusion. People found themselves wandering in the woods, half + awake and half dressed, having descended from the balconies and leaped + from the windows,—they knew not how. Others on the upper floor + neither awoke nor moved from their beds, but were suffocated without a + cry. From the first an instinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating + the conflagration possessed them all; to a blind, automatic feeling to + flee the building was added the slow mechanism of the somnambulist; + delicate women walked speechlessly, but securely, along ledges and roofs + from which they would have fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. + There was no crowding or impeding haste in their dumb exodus. It was only + when Mrs. Barker awoke disheveled in the courtyard, and with an hysterical + outcry rushed back into the hotel, that there was any sign of panic. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Horncastle, who was standing near, fully dressed as from some + night-long vigil, quickly followed her. The half-frantic woman was making + directly for her own apartments, whose windows those in the courtyard + could see were already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs. Horncastle stopped + with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It had just flashed upon her + that Mrs. Barker had told her only a few hours before that Sta had been + removed with the nurse to the UPPER FLOOR! It was not the forgotten child + that Mrs. Barker was returning for, but her diamonds! Mrs. Horncastle + called her; she did not reply. The smoke was already pouring down the + staircase. Mrs. Horncastle hesitated for a moment only, and then, drawing + a long breath, dashed up the stairs. On the first landing she stumbled + over something—the prostrate figure of the nurse. But this saved + her, for she found that near the floor she could breathe more freely. + Before her appeared to be an open door. She crept along towards it on her + hands and knees. The frightened cry of a child, awakened from its sleep in + the dark, gave her nerve to rise, enter the room, and dash open the + window. By the flashing light she could see a little figure rising from a + bed. It was Sta. There was not a moment to be lost, for the open window + was beginning to draw the smoke from the passage. Luckily, the boy, by + some childish instinct, threw his arms round her neck and left her hands + free. Whispering him to hold tight, she clambered out of the window. A + narrow ledge of cornice scarcely wide enough for her feet ran along the + house to a distant balcony. With her back to the house she zigzagged her + feet along the cornice to get away from the smoke, which now poured + directly from the window. Then she grew dizzy; the weight of the child on + her bosom seemed to be toppling her forward towards the abyss below. She + closed her eyes, frantically grasping the child with crossed arms on her + breast as she stood on the ledge, until, as seen from below through the + twisting smoke, they might have seemed a figure of the Madonna and Child + niched in the wall. Then a voice from above called to her, “Courage!” and + she felt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an upper window against + her face. She grasped it eagerly; it held firmly. Then she heard a cry + from below, saw them carrying a ladder, and at last was lifted with her + burden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then only did she raise her eyes + to the upper window whence had come her help. Smoke and flame were pouring + from it. The unknown hero who had sacrificed his only chance of escape to + her remained forever unknown. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Only four miles away that night a group of men were waiting for the dawn + in the shadow of a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the sky glowed redly over + the crest between them and Hymettus, Hamlin said:— + </p> + <p> + “Another one of those forest fires. It's this side of Black Spur, and a + big one, I reckon.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” said Barker thoughtfully, “I was thinking of the time the + old cabin burnt up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about in the same place.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” said Stacy sharply. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. + </h2> + <p> + An abandoned tunnel—an irregular orifice in the mountain flank which + looked like a dried-up sewer that had disgorged through its opening the + refuse of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and a peculiar clay known as + “cement,” in a foul streak down its side; a narrow ledge on either side, + broken up by heaps of quartz, tailings, and rock, and half hidden in + scrub, oak, and myrtle; a decaying cabin of logs, bark, and cobblestones—these + made up the exterior of the Marshall claim. To this defacement of the + mountain, the rude clearing of thicket and underbrush by fire or blasting, + the lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitation of saplings, might be + added the debris and ruins of half-civilized occupancy. The ground before + the cabin was covered with broken boxes, tin cans, the staves and broken + hoops of casks, and the cast-off rags of blankets and clothing. The whole + claim in its unsavory, unpicturesque details, and its vulgar story of + sordid, reckless, and selfish occupancy and abandonment, was a foul blot + on the landscape, which the first rosy dawn only made the more offending. + Surely the last spot in the world that men should quarrel and fight for! + </p> + <p> + So thought George Barker, as with his companions they moved in single file + slowly towards it. The little party consisted only of himself, Demorest, + and Stacy; Marshall and Hamlin—according to a prearranged plan—were + still in ambush to join them at the first appearance of Steptoe and his + gang. The claim was yet unoccupied; they had secured their first success. + Steptoe's followers, unaware that his design had been discovered, and + confident that they could easily reach the claim before Marshall and the + surveyor, had lingered. Some of them had held a drunken carouse at their + rendezvous at Heavy Tree. Others were still engaged in procuring shovels + and picks and pans for their mock equipment as miners, and this, again, + gave Marshall's adherents the advantage. THEY knew that their opponents + would probably first approach the empty claim encumbered only with their + peaceful implements, while they themselves had brought their rifles with + them. + </p> + <p> + Stacy, who by tacit consent led the party, on reaching the claim at once + posted Demorest and Barker each behind a separate heap of quartz tailings + on the ledge, which afforded them a capital breastwork, and stationed + himself at the mouth of the tunnel which was nearest the trail. It had + already been arranged what each man was to do. They were in possession. + For the rest they must wait. What they thought at that moment no one knew. + Their characteristic appearance had slightly changed. The melancholy and + philosophic Demorest was alert and bitter. Barker's changeful face had + become fixed and steadfast. Stacy alone wore his “fighting look,” which + the others had remembered. + </p> + <p> + They had not long to wait. The sounds of rude laughter, coarse skylarking, + and voices more or less still confused with half-spent liquor came from + the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared with part of his straggling + followers, who were celebrating their easy invasion by clattering their + picks and shovels and beating loudly upon their tins and prospecting-pans. + The three partners quickly recognized the stamp of the strangers, in spite + of their peaceful implements. They were the waifs and strays of San + Francisco wharves, of Sacramento dens, of dissolute mountain towns; and + there was not, probably, a single actual miner among them. A raging scorn + and contempt took possession of Barker and Demorest, but Stacy knew their + exact value. As Steptoe passed before the opening of the tunnel he heard + the cry of “Halt!” + </p> + <p> + He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards before him with his rifle at + half-cock. He saw Barker and Demorest, fully armed, rise from behind their + breastworks of rock along the ledge and thus fully occupy the claim. But + he saw more. He saw that his plot was known. Outlaw and desperado as he + was, he saw that he had lost his moral power in this actual possession, + and that from that moment he must be the aggressor. He saw he was fighting + no irresponsible hirelings like his own, but men of position and + importance, whose loss would make a stir. Against their rifles the few + revolvers that his men chanced to have slung to them were of little avail. + But he was not cowed, although his few followers stumbled together at this + momentary check, half angrily, half timorously like wolves without a + leader. “Bring up the other men and their guns,” he whispered fiercely to + the nearest. Then he faced Stacy. + </p> + <p> + “Who are YOU to stop peaceful miners going to work on their own claim?” he + said coarsely. “I'll tell you WHO, boys,” he added, suddenly turning to + his men with a hoarse laugh. “It ain't even the bank! It's only Jim Stacy, + that the bank kicked out yesterday to save itself,—Jim Stacy and his + broken-down pals. And what's the thief doing here—in Marshall's + tunnel—the only spot that Marshall can claim? We ain't no particular + friends o' Marshall's, though we're neighbors on the same claim; but we + ain't going to see Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys?” + </p> + <p> + “No, by G-d!” said his followers, dropping the pans and seizing their + picks and revolvers. They understood the appeal to arms if not to their + reason. For an instant the fight seemed imminent. Then a voice from behind + them said:— + </p> + <p> + “You needn't trouble yourselves about that! I'M Marshall! I sent these + gentlemen to occupy the claim until I came here with the surveyor,” and + two men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in the rear of Steptoe and his + followers. The speaker, Marshall, was a thin, slight, overworked, + over-aged man; his companion, the surveyor, was equally slight, but + red-bearded, spectacled, and professional-looking, with a long + traveling-duster that made him appear even clerical. They were scarcely a + physical addition to Stacy's party, whatever might have been their moral + and legal support. + </p> + <p> + But it was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in his + designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor was + really the only disinterested witness between the two parties. If Steptoe + could confuse his mind before the actual fighting—from which he + would, of course, escape as a non-combatant—it would go far + afterwards to rehabilitate Steptoe's party. “Very well, then,” he said to + Marshall, “I shall call this gentleman to witness that we have been + attacked here in peaceable possession of our part of the claim by these + armed strangers, and whether they are acting on your order or not, their + blood will be on your head.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I reckon,” said the surveyor, as he tore away his beard, wig, + spectacles, and mustache, and revealed the figure of Jack Hamlin, “that + I'm about the last witness that Mr. Steptoe-Horncastle ought to call, and + about the last witness that he ever WILL call!” + </p> + <p> + But he had not calculated upon the desperation of Steptoe over the failure + of this last hope. For there sprang up in the outlaw's brain the same + hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at the Divide. With a hoarse + cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxe into the brain of Marshall, + who stood near him, and sprang forward. Three or four shots were + exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bullet from Stacy's rifle pierced + Steptoe's leg, and he dropped forward on one knee. He heard the steps of + his reinforcements with their weapons coming close behind him, and rolled + aside on the sloping ledge to let them pass. But he rolled too far. He + felt himself slipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shoot of the + tunnel. He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but the + treacherous drift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he were part + of its refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, but otherwise + uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundred feet below. + </p> + <p> + When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above him had ceased. + He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by a circuitous route + three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could only reach a point of + outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend to the stage road, + down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growth of hazel-brush. + He bound up his wounded leg, and dragged himself on his hands and knees + laboriously to the outcrop. He did not look up; since his pick had crashed + into Marshall's brain he had but one blind thought before him—to + escape at once! That his revenge and compensation would come later he + never doubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, from bush to bush + through the sloping thickets, until he saw the red road a few feet below + him. + </p> + <p> + If he only had a horse he could put miles between him and any present + pursuit! Why should he not have one? The road was frequented by solitary + horsemen—miners and Mexicans. He had his revolver with him; what + mattered the life of another man if he escaped from the consequences of + the one he had just taken? He heard the clatter of hoofs; two priests on + mules rode slowly by; he ground his teeth with disappointment. But they + had scarcely passed before another and more rapid clatter came from their + rear. It was a lad on horseback. He started. It was his own son! + </p> + <p> + He remembered in a flash how the boy had said he was coming to meet the + padre at the station on that day. His first impulse was to hide himself, + his wound, and his defeat from the lad, but the blind idea of escape was + still paramount. He leaned over the bank and called to him. The astonished + lad cantered eagerly to his side. + </p> + <p> + “Give me your horse, Eddy,” said the father; “I'm in bad luck, and must + get.” + </p> + <p> + The boy glanced at his father's face, at his tattered garments and + bandaged leg, and read the whole story. It was a familiar page to him. He + paled first and then flushed, and then, with an odd glitter in his eyes, + said, “Take me with you, father. Do! You always did before. I'll bring you + luck.” + </p> + <p> + Desperation is superstitious. Why not take him? They had been lucky + before, and the two together might confound any description of their + identity to the pursuers. “Help me up, Eddy, and then get up before me.” + </p> + <p> + “BEHIND, you mean,” said the boy, with a laugh, as he helped his father + into the saddle. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Steptoe harshly. “BEFORE me,—do you hear? And if anything + happens BEHIND you, don't look! If I drop off, don't stop! Don't get down, + but go on and leave me. Do you understand?” he repeated almost savagely. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the boy tremulously. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said the father, with a softer voice, as he passed his one + arm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. “Hold tight when we come to + the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, for old luck's sake, to + the Mission.” + </p> + <p> + They were the last words exchanged between them, for as they wheeled + rapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin and Demorest swung as + quickly out of another road to the right immediately behind them. Jack's + challenge to “Halt!” was only answered by Steptoe's horse springing + forward under the sharp lash of the riata. + </p> + <p> + “Hold up!” said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the rifle which + Demorest had lifted to his shoulder. “He's carrying some one,—a + wounded comrade, I reckon. We don't want HIM. Swing out and go for the + horse; well forward, in the neck or shoulder.” + </p> + <p> + Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised his rifle. As + it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacle + ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, for his head went down + with his fore feet under him, and he turned a half-somersault on the road, + flinging his two riders a dozen feet away. + </p> + <p> + Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other figure + never moved. “Hands up!” said Jack, sighting his own weapon. The reports + seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had pierced Steptoe's brain even + before the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air. + </p> + <p> + The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to the + prostrate figure that had never moved. + </p> + <p> + “By God! it's a boy!” said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the + shoulders from which the head hung loosely. “Neck broken and dead as his + pal.” Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, began + hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing?” demanded Demorest in creeping horror. + </p> + <p> + “Look!” said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. The first two + fingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hidden in the padded + glove. + </p> + <p> + “Good God! Van Loo's brother!” said Demorest, recoiling. + </p> + <p> + “No!” said Jack, with a grim face, “it's what I have long suspected,—it's + Steptoe's son!” + </p> + <p> + “His son?” repeated Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies with a + long-drawn whistle of concern, “and I wouldn't, if I were you, say + anything of this to Barker.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” said Demorest. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” returned Jack, “when our scrimmage was over down there, and they + brought the news to Barker that his wife and her diamonds were burnt up at + the hotel, you remember that they said that Mrs. Horncastle had saved his + boy.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Demorest; “but what has that to do with it?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing, I reckon,” said Jack, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, + “only Mrs. Horncastle was the mother of the boy that's lying there.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat before the fire in the old cabin + on Marshall's claim—now legally their own—they looked from the + door beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to the pallid snow-line of the + Sierras, still as remote and unchanged to them as when they had gazed upon + it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for the matter of that, they themselves + seemed to have been left so unchanged that even now, as in the old days, + it was Barker's voice as he greeted them from the darkening trail that + alone broke their reverie. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Demorest cheerfully, “your usual luck, Barker boy!” for they + already saw in his face the happy light they had once seen there on an + eventful night seven years ago. + </p> + <p> + “I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next month,” he said breathlessly, + “and little Sta loves her already as if she was his own mother. Wish me + joy.” + </p> + <p> + A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face; but his hand was the first to + grasp Barker's, and his voice the first to say “Amen!” + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Partners, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE PARTNERS *** + +***** This file should be named 2560-h.htm or 2560-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/2560/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Three Partners + +Author: Bret Harte + +Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2560] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE PARTNERS *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +THE THREE PARTNERS + +By Bret Harte + + + + +PROLOGUE. + + +The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it had +kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, showing +through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the interstices of +broken boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly out again like +sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept down the whole +mountain side, and began its usual struggle with the shadows upclimbing +from the valley, only to lose itself in the end and be absorbed in the +all-conquering darkness. Yet for some time the pines on the long slope +of Heavy Tree Hill murmured and protested with swaying arms; but as the +shadows stole upwards, and cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel +were swallowed up, a complete silence followed. Only the sky remained +visible--a vast concave mirror of dull steel, in which the stars did not +seem to be set, but only reflected. + +A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remained open to +the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an invisible figure, +afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire it was stirring. At first +only this figure brooding over the hearth was shown, but as the flames +leaped up, two other figures could be seen sitting motionless before it. +When the door was shut, they acknowledged that interruption by slightly +changing their position; the one who had risen to shut the door sank +back into an invisible seat, but the attitude of each man was one of +profound reflection or reserve, and apparently upon some common subject +which made them respect each other's silence. However, this was at last +broken by a laugh. It was a boyish laugh, and came from the youngest of +the party. The two others turned their profiles and glanced inquiringly +towards him, but did not speak. + +"I was thinking," he began in apologetic explanation, "how mighty queer +it was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages, without +the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to sit here, night +after night, and flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd do if we ever +DID make one; and now, Great Scott! that we HAVE made it, and are just +wallowing in gold, here we are sitting as glum and silent as if we'd +had a washout! Why, Lord! I remember one night--not so long ago, +either--that you two quarreled over the swell hotel you were going to +stop at in 'Frisco, and whether you wouldn't strike straight out for +London and Rome and Paris, or go away to Japan and China and round by +India and the Red Sea." + +"No, we didn't QUARREL over it," said one of the figures gently; "there +was only a little discussion." + +"Yes, but you did, though," returned the young fellow mischievously, +"and you told Stacy, there, that we'd better learn something of the +world before we tried to buy it or even hire it, and that it was just +as well to get the hayseed out of our hair and the slumgullion off our +boots before we mixed in polite society." + +"Well, I don't see what's the matter with that sentiment now," returned +the second speaker good-humoredly; "only," he added gravely, "we didn't +quarrel--God forbid!" + +There was something in the speaker's tone which seemed to touch a common +chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with sudden and +almost pathetic earnestness. "I tell you what, boys, we ought to swear +here to-night to always stand by each other--in luck and out of it! We +ought to hold ourselves always at each other's call. We ought to have +a kind of password or signal, you know, by which we could summon each +other at any time from any quarter of the globe!" + +"Come off the roof, Barker," murmured Stacy, without lifting his eyes +from the fire. But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly at the younger +man. + +"Yes, but look here, Stacy," continued Barker, "comrades like us, in +the old days, used to do that in times of trouble and adventures. Why +shouldn't we do it in our luck?" + +"There's a good deal in that, Barker boy," said Demorest, "though, as +a general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and the ordinary, +every-day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole pack together for +business about as quick as a password. But you cling to that sentiment, +and put it away with your gold-dust in your belt." + +"What I like about Barker is his commodiousness," said Stacy. "Here he +is, the only man among us that has his future fixed and his preemption +lines laid out and registered. He's already got a girl that he's going +to marry and settle down with on the strength of his luck. And I'd like +to know what Kitty Carter, when she's Mrs. Barker, would say to her +husband being signaled for from Asia or Africa. I don't seem to see her +tumbling to any password. And when he and she go into a new partnership, +I reckon she'll let the old one slide." + +"That's just where you're wrong!" said Barker, with quickly rising +color. "She's the sweetest girl in the world, and she'd be sure to +understand our feelings. Why, she thinks everything of you two; she was +just eager for you to get this claim, which has put us where we are, +when I held back, and if it hadn't been for her, by Jove! we wouldn't +have had it." + +"That was only because she cared for YOU," returned Stacy, with a +half-yawn; "and now that you've got YOUR share she isn't going to take +a breathless interest in US. And, by the way, I'd rather YOU'D remind us +that we owe our luck to her than that SHE should ever remind YOU of it." + +"What do you mean?" said Barker quickly. But Demorest here rose lazily, +and, throwing a gigantic shadow on the wall, stood between the two with +his back to the fire. "He means," he said slowly, "that you're talking +rot, and so is he. However, as yours comes from the heart and his from +the head, I prefer yours. But you're both making me tired. Let's have a +fresh deal." + +Nobody ever dreamed of contradicting Demorest. Nevertheless, Barker +persisted eagerly: "But isn't it better for us to look at this +cheerfully and happily all round? There's nothing criminal in our having +made a strike! It seems to me, boys, that of all ways of making money +it's the squarest and most level; nobody is the poorer for it; our luck +brings no misfortune to others. The gold was put there ages ago for +anybody to find; we found it. It hasn't been tarnished by man's touch +before. I don't know how it strikes you, boys, but it seems to me +that of all gifts that are going it is the straightest. For whether we +deserve it or not, it comes to us first-hand--from God!" + +The two men glanced quickly at the speaker, whose face flushed and then +smiled embarrassedly as if ashamed of the enthusiasm into which he had +been betrayed. But Demorest did not smile, and Stacy's eyes shone in the +firelight as he said languidly, "I never heard that prospecting was a +religious occupation before. But I shouldn't wonder if you're right, +Barker boy. So let's liquor up." + +Nevertheless he did not move, nor did the others. The fire leaped +higher, bringing out the rude rafters and sternly economic details of +the rough cabin, and making the occupants in their seats before the fire +look gigantic by contrast. + +"Who shut the door?" said Demorest after a pause. + +"I did," said Barker. "I reckoned it was getting cold." + +"Better open it again, now that the fire's blazing. It will light the +way if any of the men from below want to drop in this evening." + +Stacy stared at his companion. "I thought that it was understood that +we were giving them that dinner at Boomville tomorrow night, so that we +might have the last evening here by ourselves in peace and quietness?" + +"Yes, but if any one DID want to come it would seem churlish to shut him +out," said Demorest. + +"I reckon you're feeling very much as I am," said Stacy, "that this good +fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself, I know," he +continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed, covered pile +in the corner of the cabin, "that I feel rather oppressed by--by its +specific gravity, I calculate--and sort of crampy and twitchy in the +legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and do something, and yet it holds +me here. All the same, I doubt if anybody will come up--except from +curiosity. Our luck has made them rather sore down the hill, for all +they're coming to the dinner to-morrow." + +"That's only human nature," said Demorest. + +"But," said Barker eagerly, "what does it mean? Why, only this +afternoon, when I was passing the 'Old Kentuck' tunnel, where those +Marshalls have been grubbing along for four years without making a +single strike, I felt ashamed to look at them, and as they barely nodded +to me I slinked by as if I had done them an injury. I don't understand +it." + +"It somehow does not seem to square with this 'gift of God' idea of +yours, does it?" said Stacy. "But we'll open the door and give them a +show." + +As he did so it seemed as if the night were their only guest, and had +been waiting on the threshold to now enter bodily and pervade all things +with its presence. With that cool, fragrant inflow of air they breathed +freely. The red edge had gone from Black Spur, but it was even more +clearly defined against the sky in its towering blackness. The +sky itself had grown lighter, although the stars still seemed mere +reflections of the solitary pin-points of light scattered along the +concave valley below. Mingling with the cooler, restful air of the +summit, yet penetratingly distinct from it, arose the stimulating breath +of the pines below, still hot and panting from the day-long sun. The +silence was intense. The far-off barking of a dog on the invisible +river-bar nearly a mile beneath them came to them like a sound in a +dream. They had risen, and, standing in the doorway, by common consent +turned their faces to the east. It was the frequent attitude of the +home-remembering miner, and it gave him the crowning glory of the view. +For, beyond the pine-hearsed summits, rarely seen except against the +evening sky, lay a thin, white cloud like a dropped portion of the Milky +Way. Faint with an indescribable pallor, remote yet distinct enough to +assert itself above and beyond all surrounding objects, it was always +there. It was the snow-line of the Sierras. + +They turned away and silently reseated themselves, the same thought +in the minds of each. Here was something they could not take away, +something to be left forever and irretrievably behind,--left with the +healthy life they had been leading, the cheerful endeavor, the undying +hopefulness which it had fostered and blessed. Was what they WERE taking +away worth it? And oddly enough, frank and outspoken as they had always +been to each other, that common thought remained unuttered. Even Barker +was silent; perhaps he was also thinking of Kitty. + +Suddenly two figures appeared in the very doorway of the cabin. The +effect was startling upon the partners, who had only just reseated +themselves, and for a moment they had forgotten that the narrow band +of light which shot forth from the open door rendered the darkness on +either side of it more impenetrable, and that out of this darkness, +although themselves guided by the light, the figures had just emerged. +Yet one was familiar enough. It was the Hill drunkard, Dick Hall, or, +as he was called, "Whiskey Dick," or, indicated still more succinctly by +the Hill humorists, "Alky Hall." + +Everybody had seen that sodden, puffy, but good-humored face; everybody +had felt the fiery exhalations of that enormous red beard, which always +seemed to be kept in a state of moist, unkempt luxuriance by liquor; +everybody knew the absurd dignity of manner and attempted precision of +statement with which he was wont to disguise his frequent excesses. +Very few, however, knew, or cared to know, the pathetic weariness and +chilling horror that sometimes looked out of those bloodshot eyes. + +He was evidently equally unprepared for the three silent seated figures +before the door, and for a moment looked at them blankly with the doubts +of a frequently deceived perception. Was he sure that they were quite +real? He had not dared to look at his companion for verification, but +smiled vaguely. + +"Good-evening," said Demorest pleasantly. + +Whiskey Dick's face brightened. "Good-evenin', good-evenin' yourselves, +boys--and see how you like it! Lemme interdrush my ole frien' William +J. Steptoe, of Red Gulch. Stepsho--Steptoe--is shtay--ish stay--" +He stopped, hiccupped, waved his hand gravely, and with an air of +reproachful dignity concluded, "sojourning for the present on the Bar. +We wish to offer our congrashulashen and felish--felish--" He paused +again, and, leaning against the door-post, added severely, "--itations." + +His companion, however, laughed coarsely, and, pushing past Dick, +entered the cabin. He was a short, powerful man, with a closely cropped +crust of beard and hair that seemed to adhere to his round head like +moss or lichen. He cast a glance--furtive rather than curious around +the cabin, and said, with a familiarity that had not even good humor +to excuse it, "So you're the gay galoots who've made the big strike? +Thought I'd meander up the Hill with this old bloat Alky, and drop in +to see the show. And here you are, feeling your oats, eh? and not caring +any particular G-d d--n if school keeps or not." + +"Show Mr. Steptoe--the whiskey," said Demorest to Stacy. Then quietly +addressing Dick, but ignoring Steptoe as completely as Steptoe had +ignored his unfortunate companion, he said, "You quite startled us at +first. We did not see you come up the trail." + +"No. We came up the back trail to please Steptoe, who wanted to see +round the cabin," said Dick, glancing nervously yet with a forced +indifference towards the whiskey which Stacy was offering to the +stranger. + +"What yer gettin' off there?" said Steptoe, facing Dick almost brutally. +"YOU know your tangled legs wouldn't take you straight up the trail, +and you had to make a circumbendibus. Gosh! if you hadn't scented this +licker at the top you'd have never found it." + +"No matter! I'm glad you DID find it, Dick," said Demorest, "and I hope +you'll find the liquor good enough to pay you for the trouble." + +Barker stared at Demorest. This extraordinary tolerance of the drunkard +was something new in his partner. But at a glance from Demorest he led +Dick to the demijohn and tin cup which stood on a table in the corner. +And in another moment Dick had forgotten his companion's rudeness. + +Demorest remained by the door, looking out into the darkness. + +"Well," said Steptoe, putting down his emptied cup, "trot out your +strike. I reckon our eyes are strong enough to bear it now." Stacy drew +the blanket from the vague pile that stood in the corner, and discovered +a deep tin prospecting-pan. It was heaped with several large fragments +of quartz. At first the marble whiteness of the quartz and the +glittering crystals of mica in its veins were the most noticeable, but +as they drew closer they could see the dull yellow of gold filling the +decomposed and honeycombed portion of the rock as if still liquid and +molten. The eyes of the party sparkled like the mica--even those of +Barker and Stacy, who were already familiar with the treasure. + +"Which is the richest chunk?" asked Steptoe in a thickening voice. + +Stacy pointed it out. + +"Why, it's smaller than the others." + +"Heft it in your hand," said Barker, with boyish enthusiasm. + +The short, thick fingers of Steptoe grasped it with a certain aquiline +suggestion; his whole arm strained over it until his face grew purple, +but he could not lift it. + +"Thar useter be a little game in the 'Frisco Mint," said Dick, restored +to fluency by his liquor, "when thar war ladies visiting it, and that +was to offer to give 'em any of those little boxes of gold coin, that +contained five thousand dollars, ef they would kindly lift it from the +counter and take it away! It wasn't no bigger than one of these chunks; +but Jiminy! you oughter have seed them gals grip and heave on it, and +then hev to give it up! You see they didn't know anything about the +paci--(hic) the speshif--" He stopped with great dignity, and added with +painful precision, "the specific gravity of gold." + +"Dry up!" said Steptoe roughly. Then turning to Stacy he said abruptly, +"But where's the rest of it? You've got more than that." + +"We sent it to Boomville this morning. You see we've sold out our claim +to a company who take it up to-morrow, and put up a mill and stamps. +In fact, it's under their charge now. They've got a gang of men on the +claim already." + +"And what mout ye hev got for it, if it's a fair question?" said +Steptoe, with a forced smile. + +Stacy smiled also. "I don't know that it's a business question," he +said. + +"Five hundred thousand dollars," said Demorest abruptly from the +doorway, "and a treble interest." + +The eyes of the two men met. There was no mistaking the dull fire of +envy in Steptoe's glance, but Demorest received it with a certain cold +curiosity, and turned away as the sound of arriving voices came from +without. + +"Five hundred thousand's a big figger," said Steptoe, with a coarse +laugh, "and I don't wonder it makes you feel so d----d sassy. But it WAS +a fair question." + +Unfortunately it here occurred to the whiskey-stimulated brain of Dick +that the friend he had introduced was being treated with scant courtesy, +and he forgot his own treatment by Steptoe. Leaning against the wall he +waved a dignified rebuke. "I'm sashified my ole frien' is akshuated by +only businesh principles." He paused, recollected himself, and added +with great precision: "When I say he himself has a valuable claim in +Red Gulch, and to my shertain knowledge has received offers--I have said +enough." + +The laugh that broke from Stacy and Barker, to whom the infelicitous +reputation of Red Gulch was notorious, did not allay Steptoe's +irritation. He darted a vindictive glance at the unfortunate Dick, but +joined in the laugh. "And what was ye goin' to do with that?" he said, +pointing to the treasure. + +"Oh, we're taking that with us. There's a chunk for each of us as a +memento. We cast lots for the choice, and Demorest won,--that one which +you couldn't lift with one hand, you know," said Stacy. + +"Oh, couldn't I? I reckon you ain't goin' to give me the same chance +that they did at the Mint, eh?" + +Although the remark was accompanied with his usual coarse, familiar +laugh, there was a look in his eye so inconsequent in its significance +that Stacy would have made some reply, but at this moment Demorest +re-entered the cabin, ushering in a half dozen miners from the Bar +below. They were, although youngish men, some of the older locators in +the vicinity, yet, through years of seclusion and uneventful labors, +they had acquired a certain childish simplicity of thought and manner +that was alternately amusing and pathetic. They had never intruded upon +the reserve of the three partners of Heavy Tree Hill before; nothing but +an infantine curiosity, a shy recognition of the partners' courtesy in +inviting them with the whole population of Heavy Tree to the dinner the +next day, and the never-to-be-resisted temptation of an evening of "free +liquor" and forgetfulness of the past had brought them there now. +Among them, and yet not of them, was a young man who, although speaking +English without accent, was distinctly of a different nationality and +race. This, with a certain neatness of dress and artificial suavity +of address, had gained him the nickname of "the Count" and "Frenchy," +although he was really of Flemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch +Company's agent on the Bar, by virtue of his knowledge of languages. + +Barker uttered an exclamation of pleasure when he saw him. Himself the +incarnation of naturalness, he had always secretly admired this young +foreigner, with his lacquered smoothness, although a vague consciousness +that neither Stacy nor Demorest shared his feelings had restricted their +acquaintance. Nevertheless, he was proud now to see the bow with which +Paul Van Loo entered the cabin as if it were a drawing-room, and perhaps +did not reflect upon that want of real feeling in an act which made the +others uncomfortable. + +The slight awkwardness their entrance produced, however, was quickly +forgotten when the blanket was again lifted from the pan of treasure. +Singularly enough, too, the same feverish light came into the eyes of +each as they all gathered around this yellow shrine. Even the polite +Paul rudely elbowed his way between the others, though his artificial +"Pardon" seemed to Barker to condone this act of brutal instinct. But it +was more instructive to observe the manner in which the older locators +received this confirmation of the fickle Fortune that had overlooked +their weary labors and years of waiting to lavish her favors on the new +and inexperienced amateurs. Yet as they turned their dazzled eyes upon +the three partners there was no envy or malice in their depths, no +reproach on their lips, no insincerity in their wondering satisfaction. +Rather there was a touching, almost childlike resumption of hope as they +gazed at this conclusive evidence of Nature's bounty. The gold had been +there--THEY had only missed it! And if there, more could be found! Was +it not a proof of the richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this +reflected on their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with +the thoughtful countenances of the real owners, would have thought them +the lucky ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, +it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. +Whiskey Dick alone remained stolid and impassive in a desperate attempt +to pull himself once more together. Eventually he succeeded, even to the +ambitious achievement of mounting a chair and lifting his tin cup with a +dangerously unsteady hand, which did not, however, affect his precision +of utterance, and said:-- + +"Order, gentlemen! We'll drink success to--to"-- + +"The next strike!" said Barker, leaping impetuously on another chair +and beaming upon the old locators--"and may it come to those who have so +long deserved it!" + +His sincere and generous enthusiasm seemed to break the spell of silence +that had fallen upon them. Other toasts quickly followed. In the general +good feeling Barker attached himself to Van Loo with his usual boyish +effusion, and in a burst of confidence imparted the secret of his +engagement to Kitty Carter. Van Loo listened with polite attention, +formal congratulations, but inscrutable eyes, that occasionally wandered +to Stacy and again to the treasure. A slight chill of disappointment +came over Barker's quick sensitiveness. Perhaps his enthusiasm had bored +this superior man of the world. Perhaps his confidences were in bad +taste! With a new sense of his inexperience he turned sadly away. Van +Loo took that opportunity to approach Stacy. + +"What's all this I hear of Barker being engaged to Miss Carter?" he +said, with a faintly superior smile. "Is it really true?" + +"Yes. Why shouldn't it be?" returned Stacy bluntly. + +Van Loo was instantly deprecating and smiling. "Why not, of course? But +isn't it sudden?" + +"They have known each other ever since he's been on Heavy Tree Hill," +responded Stacy. + +"Ah, yes! True," said Van Loo. "But now"-- + +"Well--he's got money enough to marry, and he's going to marry." + +"Rather young, isn't he?" said Van Loo, still deprecatingly. "And +she's got nothing. Used to wait on the table at her father's hotel in +Boomville, didn't she?" + +"Yes. What of that? We all know it." + +"Of course. It's an excellent thing for her--and her father. He'll have +a rich son-in-law. About two hundred thousand is his share, isn't it? I +suppose old Carter is delighted?" + +Stacy had thought this before, but did not care to have it corroborated +by this superfine young foreigner. "And I don't reckon that Barker is +offended if he is," he said curtly as he turned away. Nevertheless, he +felt irritated that one of the three superior partners of Heavy Tree +Hill should be thought a dupe. + +Suddenly the conversation dropped, the laughter ceased. Every one turned +round, and, by a common instinct, looked towards the door. From +the obscurity of the hill slope below came a wonderful tenor voice, +modulated by distance and spiritualized by the darkness:-- + + "When at some future day + I shall be far away, + Thou wilt be weeping, + Thy lone watch keeping." + +The men looked at one another. "That's Jack Hamlin," they said. "What's +he doing here?" + +"The wolves are gathering around fresh meat," said Steptoe, with his +coarse laugh and a glance at the treasure. "Didn't ye know he came over +from Red Dog yesterday?" + +"Well, give Jack a fair show and his own game," said one of the old +locators, "and he'd clean out that pile afore sunrise." + +"And lose it next day," added another. + +"But never turn a hair or change a muscle in either case," said a third. +"Lord! I've heard him sing away just like that when he's been leaving +the board with five thousand dollars in his pocket, or going away +stripped of his last red cent." + +Van Loo, who had been listening with a peculiar smile, here said in his +most deprecating manner, "Yes, but did you never consider the influence +that such a man has on the hard-working tunnelmen, who are ready to +gamble their whole week's earnings to him? Perhaps not. But I know the +difficulties of getting the Ditch rates from these men when he has been +in camp." + +He glanced around him with some importance, but only a laugh followed +his speech. "Come, Frenchy," said an old locator, "you only say that +because your little brother wanted to play with Jack like a grown +man, and when Jack ordered him off the board and he became sassy, Jack +scooted him outer the saloon." + +Van Loo's face reddened with an anger that had the apparent effect of +removing every trace of his former polished repose, and leaving only a +hard outline beneath. At which Demorest interfered:-- + +"I can't say that I see much difference in gambling by putting money +into a hole in the ground and expecting to take more from it than by +putting it on a card for the same purpose." + +Here the ravishing tenor voice, which had been approaching, ceased, and +was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodious whistling to +finish the bar of the singer's song. And the next moment Jack Hamlin +appeared in the doorway. + +Whatever was his present financial condition, in perfect self-possession +and charming sang-froid he fully bore out his previous description. He +was as clean and refreshing looking as a madrono-tree in the dust-blown +forest. An odor of scented soap and freshly ironed linen was wafted from +him; there was scarcely a crease in his white waistcoat, nor a speck +upon his varnished shoes. He might have been an auditor of the previous +conversation, so quickly and completely did he seem to take in the +whole situation at a glance. Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his +black-ribboned Panama hat, and a certain dancing devilry in his brown +eyes--which might also have been an answer to adverse criticism. + +"When I, his truth to prove, would trifle with my love," he warbled +in general continuance from the doorway. Then dropping cheerfully into +speech, he added, "Well, boys, I am here to welcome the little stranger, +and to trust that the family are doing as well as can be expected. Ah! +there it is! Bless it!" he went on, walking leisurely to the treasure. +"Triplets, too!--and plump at that. Have you had 'em weighed?" + +Frankness was an essential quality of Heavy Tree Hill. "We were just +saying, Jack," said an old locator, "that, giving you a fair show +and your own game, you could manage to get away with that pile before +daybreak." + +"And I'm just thinking," said Jack cheerfully, "that there were some of +you here that could do that without any such useless preliminary." His +brown eyes rested for a moment on Steptoe, but turning quite abruptly +to Van Loo, he held out his hand. Startled and embarrassed before the +others, the young man at last advanced his, when Jack coolly put his +own, as if forgetfully, in his pocket. "I thought you might like to know +what that little brother of yours is doing," he said to Van Loo, yet +looking at Steptoe. "I found him wandering about the Hill here quite +drunk." + +"I have repeatedly warned him"--began Van Loo, reddening. + +"Against bad company--I know," suggested Jack gayly; "yet in spite of +all that, I think he owes some of his liquor to Steptoe yonder." + +"I never supposed the fool would get drunk over a glass of whiskey +offered in fun," said Steptoe harshly, yet evidently quite as much +disconcerted as angry. + +"The trouble with Steptoe," said Hamlin, thoughtfully spanning his slim +waist with both hands as he looked down at his polished shoes, "is that +he has such a soft-hearted liking for all weaknesses. Always wanting +to protect chaps that can't look after themselves, whether it's Whiskey +Dick there when he has a pull on, or some nigger when he's made a little +strike, or that straying lamb of Van Loo's when he's puppy drunk. But +you're wrong about me, boys. You can't draw me in any game to-night. +This is one of my nights off, which I devote exclusively to +contemplation and song. But," he added, suddenly turning to his three +hosts with a bewildering and fascinating change of expression, "I +couldn't resist coming up here to see you and your pile, even if I never +saw the one or the other before, and am not likely to see either again. +I believe in luck! And it comes a mighty sight oftener than a fellow +thinks it does. But it doesn't come to stay. So I'd advise you to keep +your eyes skinned, and hang on to it while it's with you, like grim +death. So long!" + +Resisting all attempts of his hosts--who had apparently fallen as +suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner--to detain him +longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presently rising again in +melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at all remarkable that the +others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable magnetism, were impelled +to follow him, naturally joining their voices with his, leaving Steptoe +and Van Loo so markedly behind them alone that they were compelled at +last in sheer embarrassment to close up the rear of the procession. In +another moment the cabin and the three partners again relapsed into the +peace and quiet of the night. With the dying away of the last voices on +the hillside the old solitude reasserted itself. + +But since the irruption of the strangers they had lost their former +sluggish contemplation, and now busied themselves in preparation for +their early departure from the cabin the next morning. They had arranged +to spend the following day and night at Boomville and Carter's Hotel, +where they were to give their farewell dinner to Heavy Tree Hill. +They talked but little together: since the rebuff his enthusiastic +confidences had received from Van Loo, Barker had been grave and +thoughtful, and Stacy, with the irritating recollection of Van Loo's +criticisms in his mind, had refrained from his usual rallying of Barker. +Oddly enough, they spoke chiefly of Jack Hamlin,--till then personally +a stranger to them, on account of his infelix reputation,--and even the +critical Demorest expressed a wish they had known him before. "But you +never know the real value of anything until you're quitting it or it's +quitting you," he added sententiously. + +Barker and Stacy both stared at their companion. It was unlike Demorest +to regret anything--particularly a mere social diversion. + +"They say," remarked Stacy, "that if you had known Jack Hamlin earlier +and professionally, a great deal of real value would have quitted you +before he did." + +"Don't repeat that rot flung out by men who have played Jack's game and +lost," returned Demorest derisively. "I'd rather trust him than"--He +stopped, glanced at the meditative Barker, and then concluded abruptly, +"the whole caboodle of his critics." + +They were silent for a few moments, and then seemed to have fallen into +their former dreamy mood as they relapsed into their old seats again. +At last Stacy drew a long breath. "I wish we had sent those nuggets off +with the others this morning." + +"Why?" said Demorest suddenly. + +"Why? Well, d--n it all! they kind of oppress me, don't you see. I seem +to feel 'em here, on my chest--all the three," returned Stacy only half +jocularly. "It's their d----d specific gravity, I suppose. I don't like +the idea of sleeping in the same room with 'em. They're altogether too +much for us three men to be left alone with." + +"You don't mean that you think that anybody would attempt"--said +Demorest. + +Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. "No; I don't think +THAT--I rather wish I did. It's the blessed chunks of solid gold that +seem to have got US fast, don't you know, and are going to stick to us +for good or ill. A sort of Frankenstein monster that we've picked out of +a hole from below." + +"I know just what Stacy means," said Barker breathlessly, rounding +his gray eyes. "I've felt it, too. Couldn't we make a sort of cache of +it--bury it just outside the cabin for to-night? It would be sort of +putting it back into its old place, you know, for the time being. IT +might like it." + +The other two laughed. "Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy," said +Stacy, "handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon! Besides, what's to +keep any prospector from coming along and making a strike of it? You +know that's mining law--if you haven't preempted the spot as a claim." + +But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to make any +reply, and Demorest arose. "And I feel that you'd both better be turning +in, as we've got to get up early." He went to the corner of the cabin, +and threw the blanket back over the pan and its treasure. "There +that'll keep the chunks from getting up to ride astride of you like a +nightmare." He shut the door and gave a momentary glance at its cheap +hinges and the absence of bolt or bar. Stacy caught his eye. "We'll miss +this security in San Francisco--perhaps even in Boomville," he sighed. + +It was scarcely ten o'clock, but Stacy and Barker had begun to undress +themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk, Barker +continuing an amusing story, with one stocking off and his trousers +hanging on his arm, until at last both men were snugly curled up in +their respective bunks. Presently Stacy's voice came from under the +blankets:-- + +"Hallo! aren't you going to turn in too?" + +"Not yet," said Demorest from his chair before the fire. "You see it's +the last night in the old shanty, and I reckon I'll see the rest of it +out." + +"That's so," said the impulsive Barker, struggling violently with his +blankets. "I tell you what, boys: we just ought to make a watch-night of +it--a regular vigil, you know--until twelve at least. Hold on! I'll get +up, too!" But here Demorest arose, caught his youthful partner's bare +foot which went searching painfully for the ground in one hand, tucked +it back under the blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, patted +the bulk with an authoritative, paternal air. + +"You'll just say your prayers and go to sleep, sonny. You'll want to be +fresh as a daisy to appear before Miss Kitty to-morrow early, and you +can keep your vigils for to-morrow night, after dinner, in the back +drawing-room. I said 'Good-night,' and I mean it!" + +Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a nestling shiver and a +sudden silence. Demorest walked back to his chair. A prolonged snore +came from Stacy's bunk; then everything was quiet. Demorest stirred up +the fire, cast a huge root upon it, and, leaning back in his chair, sat +with half-closed eyes and dreamed. + +It was an old dream that for the past three years had come to him +daily, sometimes even overtaking him under the shade of a buckeye in his +noontide rest on his claim,--a dream that had never yet failed to wait +for him at night by the fireside when his partners were at rest; a dream +of the past, but so real that it always made the present seem the dream +through which he was moving towards some sure awakening. + +It was not strange that it should come to him to-night, as it had often +come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurity as the vision of +a fair young girl seated in one of the empty chairs before him. Always +the same pretty, childlike face, fraught with a half-frightened, +half-wondering trouble; always the same slender, graceful figure, +but always glimmering in diamonds and satin, or spiritual in lace and +pearls, against his own rude and sordid surroundings; always silent with +parted lips, until the night wind smote some chord of recollection, +and then mingled a remembered voice with his own. For at those times +he seemed to speak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance +inaudible to all but her. + +"Well?" he said sadly. + +"Well?" the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with his own. + +"You know it all now," he went on. "You know that it has come at +last,--all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have made +us happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come at last, and +all too late!" + +"Too late!" echoed the voice with his. + +"You remember," he went on, "the last day we were together. You remember +your friends and family would have you give me up--a penniless man. You +remember when they reproached you with my poverty, and told you that it +was only your wealth that I was seeking, that I then determined to +go away and never to return to claim you until that reproach could be +removed. You remember, dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay +with you, even fly with you, but not to leave you alone with them. You +wore the same dress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering +childlike fear and trouble in them; your jewels glittered on you as +you trembled, and I refused. In my pride, or rather in my weakness and +cowardice, I refused. I came away and broke my heart among these rocks +and ledges, yet grew strong; and you, my love, YOU, sheltered and +guarded by those you loved, YOU"--He stopped and buried his face in his +hands. The night wind breathed down the chimney, and from the stirred +ashes on the hearth came the soft whisper, "I died." + +"And then," he went on, "I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heart awoke +for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a girl +that even in her humble station was far beyond his hopes, and I pitied +myself in him. Home, fortune, friends, I no longer cared for--all were +forgotten. And now they are returning to me--only that I may see the +hollowness and vanity of them, and taste the bitterness for which I +have sacrificed you. And here, on this last night of my exile, I +am confronted with only the jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and +selfishness that is to come. Too late! Too late!" + +The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to +clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in +the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: "Too late, beloved, for ME, +but not for you. I died, but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in +your happiness I too may live again"? + +He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. The wind +that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a sound like +the passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill in the air and a +smell like that of opened earth. A nervous shiver passed over him. Then +he sat upright. There was no mistake; it was no superstitious fancy, +but a faint, damp current of air was actually flowing across his feet +towards the fireplace. He was about to rise when he stopped suddenly and +became motionless. + +He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected him +even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was a gentle brushing of +some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the +sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland +sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching +of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, +deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that +monotonous sound. He could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or +without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket +that covered the treasure was actually moving! + +He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing. For +this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches had +disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred treasure. The +movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing sound recommenced. He +drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot-leg, and in three noiseless +strides was beside the pile. There he saw what he fully expected to +see,--a narrow, horizontal gap between the log walls of the cabin and +the adobe floor, slowly widening and deepening by the burrowing of +unseen hands from without. The cold outer air which he had felt before +was now plainly flowing into the heated cabin through the opening. The +swishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of a +hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the bottom +log and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knife of +Demorest descended like a flash of lightning. There was no outcry. +Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of admiration for +the stoicism of the unseen trespasser. But the maimed hand was quickly +withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushed to the door and dashed into +the outer darkness. + +For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change. But the +next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure running before him, and +threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell, but even in that +contact Demorest felt the tangled beard and alcoholic fumes of Whiskey +Dick, and felt also that the hands which were thrown up against his +breast, the palms turned outward with the instinctive movement of a +timid, defenseless man, were unstained with soil or blood. With an oath +he threw the drunkard from him and dashed to the rear of the cabin. +But too late! There, indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened +burrow as it had been excavated apparently by that mutilated hand--but +nothing else! + +He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, although still +retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered his feet +in a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of injury. What did +Demorest mean by attacking "innoshent" gentlemen on the trail outside +his cabin? Yes! OUTSIDE his cabin, he would swear it! + +"What were you doing here at midnight?" demanded Demorest. + +What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasn't any +molly-coddle to go to bed at ten o'clock! What was he doing? Well--he'd +been with men who didn't shut their doors and turn the boys out just +in the shank of the evening. He wasn't any Barker to be wet-nursed by +Demorest. + +"Some one else was here!" said Demorest sternly, with his eyes fixed on +Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil the outer world from +the drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly with such a look of direct horror +that Demorest was fain to turn away his own. But the veil mercifully +returned, and with it Dick's worked-up sense of injury. Nobody was +there--not "a shole." Did Demorest think if there had been any of +his friends there they would have stood by like "dogsh" and seen him +insulted? + +Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurched heavily +forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitement over, a +sickening repugnance to the whole incident took the place of Demorest's +resentment and indignation. There had been a cowardly attempt to rob +them of their miserable treasure. He had met it and frustrated it in +almost as brutal a fashion: the gold was already tarnished with blood. +To his surprise, yet relief, he found his partners unconscious of the +outrage, still sleeping with the physical immobility of over-excited +and tired men. Should he awaken them? No! He should have to awaken +also their suspicions and desire for revenge. There was no danger of +a further attack; there was no fear that the culprit would disclose +himself, and to-morrow they would be far away. Let oblivion rest upon +that night's stain on the honor of Heavy Tree Hill. + +He rolled a small barrel before the opening, smoothed the dislodged +earth, replaced the pan with its treasure, and trusted that in the +bustle of the early morning departure his partners might not notice any +change. Stopping before the bunk of Stacy he glanced at the sleeping +man. He was lying on his back, but breathing heavily, and his hands were +moving towards his chest as if, indeed, his strange fancy of the golden +incubus were being realized. Demorest would have wakened him, but +presently, with a sigh of relief, the sleeper turned over on his side. +It was pleasanter to look at Barker, whose damp curls were matted over +his smooth, boyish forehead, and whose lips were parted in a smile under +the silken wings of his brown mustache. He, too, seemed to be trying to +speak, and remembering some previous revelations which had amused them, +Demorest leaned over him fraternally with an answering smile, waiting +for the beloved one's name to pass the young man's lips. But he only +murmured, "Three--hundred--thousand dollars!" The elder man turned away +with a grave face. The influence of the treasure was paramount. + +When he had placed one of the chairs against the unprotected door at +an angle which would prevent any easy or noiseless intrusion, Demorest +threw himself on his bunk without undressing, and turned his face +towards the single window of the cabin that looked towards the east. He +did not apprehend another covert attempt against the gold. He did not +fear a robbery with force and arms, although he was satisfied that there +was more than one concerned in it, but this he attributed only to the +encumbering weight of their expected booty. He simply waited for the +dawn. It was some time before his eyes were greeted with the vague +opaline brightness of the firmament which meant the vanishing of the +pallid snow-line before the coming day. A bird twittered on the roof. +The air was chill; he drew his blanket around him. Then he closed his +eyes, he fancied only for a moment, but when he opened them the door +was standing open in the strong daylight. He sprang to his feet, but +the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who had passed out, and was +returning fully dressed, bringing water from the spring to fill the +kettle. But Stacy's face was so grave that, recalling his disturbed +sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if he had been haunted by the +treasure. But to his surprise Stacy put down the kettle, and, with a +hurried glance at the still sleeping Barker, said in a low voice:-- + +"I want you to do something for me without asking why. Later I will tell +you." + +Demorest looked at him fixedly. "What is it?" he said. + +"The pack-mules will be here in a few moments. Don't wait to close up or +put away anything here, but clap that gold in the saddle-bags, and take +Barker with you and 'lite' out for Boomville AT ONCE. I will overtake +you later." + +"Is there no time to discuss this?" asked Demorest. + +"No," said Stacy bluntly. "Call me a crank, say I'm in a blue funk"--his +compressed lips and sharp black eyes did not lend themselves much to +that hypothesis--"only get out of this with that stuff, and take Barker +with you! I'm not responsible for myself while it's here." + +Demorest knew Stacy to be combative, but practical. If he had not been +assured of his partner's last night slumbers he might have thought he +knew of the attempt. Or if he had discovered the turned-up ground in +the rear of the cabin his curiosity would have demanded an explanation. +Demorest paused only for a moment, and said, "Very well, I will go." + +"Good! I'll rouse out Barker, but not a word to him--except that he must +go." + +The rousing out of Barker consisted of Stacy's lifting that young +gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright in the open +doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan process, and after a +moment's balancing with closed lids like an unwrapped mummy, he sat +down in the doorway and began to dress. He at first demurred to their +departure except all together--it was so unfraternal; but eventually +he allowed himself to be persuaded out of it and into his clothes. For +Barker had also had HIS visions in the night, one of which was that they +should build a beautiful villa on the site of the old cabin and solemnly +agree to come every year and pass a week in it together. "I thought at +first," he said, sliding along the floor in search of different articles +of his dress, or stopping gravely to catch them as they were thrown to +him by his partners, "that we'd have it at Boomville, as being handier +to get there; but I've concluded we'd better have it here, a little +higher up the hill, where it could be seen over the whole Black Spur +Range. When we weren't here we could use it as a Hut of Refuge for +broken-down or washed-out miners or weary travelers, like those hospices +in the Alps, you know, and have somebody to keep it for us. You see I've +thought even of THAT, and Van Loo is the very man to take charge of it +for us. You see he's got such good manners and speaks two languages. +Lord! if a German or Frenchman came along, poor and distressed, Van Loo +would just chip in his own language. See? You've got to think of all +these details, you see, boys. And we might call it 'The Rest of the +Three Partners,' or 'Three Partners' Rest.'" + +"And you might begin by giving us one," said Stacy. "Dry up and drink +your coffee." + +"I'll draw out the plans. I've got it all in my head," continued the +enthusiastic Barker, unheeding the interruption. "I'll just run out and +take a look at the site, it's only right back of the cabin." But here +Stacy caught him by his dangling belt as he was flying out of the door +with one boot on, and thrust him down in a chair with a tin cup of +coffee in his hand. + +"Keep the plans in your head, Barker boy," said Demorest, "for here +are the pack mules and packer." This was quite enough to divert the +impressionable young man, who speedily finished his dressing, as a mule +bearing a large pack-saddle and two enormous saddle-bags or pouches +drove up before the door, led by a muleteer on a small horse. The +transfer of the treasure to the saddle-bags was quickly made by their +united efforts, as the first rays of the sun were beginning to paint +the hillside. Shading his keen eyes with his hand, Stacy stood in the +doorway and handed Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. "Hadn't +YOU better keep one?" he said, looking in his partner's eyes with his +first challenge of curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle +into Stacy's glance as he returned, "Not much! And you'd better take +my revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now," he said, +looking at the saddlebags, "but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with +carnal weapons. When the other mule comes and is packed I'll overtake +you on the horse." + +A little more satisfied, although still wondering and perplexed, +Demorest shouldered one rifle, and with Barker, who was carrying the +other, followed the muleteer and his equipage down the trail. For a +while he was a little ashamed of his part in this unusual spectacle of +two armed men convoying a laden mule in broad daylight, but, luckily, +it was too early for the Bar miners to be going to work, and as the +tunnelmen were now at breakfast the trail was free of wayfarers. At the +point where it crossed the main road Demorest, however, saw Steptoe +and Whiskey Dick emerge from the thicket, apparently in earnest +conversation. Demorest felt his repugnance and half-restrained +suspicions suddenly return. Yet he did not wish to betray them before +Barker, nor was he willing, in case of an emergency, to allow the young +man to be entirely unprepared. Calling him to follow, he ran quickly +ahead of the laden mule, and was relieved to find that, looking +back, his companion had brought his rifle to a "ready," through some +instinctive feeling of defense. As Steptoe and Whiskey Dick, a moment +later discovering them, were evidently surprised, there seemed, however, +to be no reason for fearing an outbreak. Suddenly, at a whisper from +Steptoe, he and Whiskey Dick both threw up their hands, and stood +still on the trail a few yards from them in a burlesque of the usual +recognized attitude of helplessness, while a hoarse laugh broke from +Steptoe. + +"D----d if we didn't think you were road-agents! But we see you're only +guarding your treasure. Rather fancy style for Heavy Tree Hill, ain't +it? Things must be gettin' rough up thar to hev to take out your guns +like that!" + +Demorest had looked keenly at the four hands thus exhibited, and was +more concerned that they bore no trace of wounds or mutilation than at +the insult of the speech, particularly as he had a distinct impression +that the action was intended to show him the futility of his suspicions. + +"I am glad to see that if you haven't any arms in your hands you're not +incapable of handling them," said Demorest coolly, as he passed by them +and again fell into the rear of the muleteer. + +But Barker had thought the incident very funny, and laughed effusively +at Whiskey Dick. "I didn't know that Steptoe was up to that kind of +fun," he said, "and I suppose we DID look rather rough with these guns +as we ran on ahead of the mule. But then you know that when you called +to me I really thought you were in for a shindy. All the same, Whiskey +Dick did that 'hands up' to perfection: how he managed it I don't know, +but his knees seemed to knock together as if he was in a real funk." + +Demorest had thought so too, but he made no reply. How far that +miserable drunkard was a forced or willing accomplice of the events +of last night was part of a question that had become more and more +repugnant to him as he was leaving the scene of it forever. It had +come upon him, desecrating the dream he had dreamt that last night and +turning its hopeful climax to bitterness. Small wonder that Barker, +walking by his side, had his quick sympathies aroused, and as he saw +that shadow, which they were all familiar with, but had never sought to +penetrate, fall upon his companion's handsome face, even his youthful +spirits yielded to it. They were both relieved when the clatter of +hoofs behind them, as they reached the valley, announced the approach of +Stacy. "I started with the second mule and the last load soon after you +left," he explained, "and have just passed them. I thought it better +to join you and let the other load follow. Nobody will interfere with +THAT." + +"Then you are satisfied?" said Demorest, regarding him steadfastly. + +"You bet! Look!" + +He turned in his saddle and pointed to the crest of the hill they had +just descended. Above the pines circling the lower slope above the bare +ledges of rock and outcrop, a column of thick black smoke was rising +straight as a spire in the windless air. + +"That's the old shanty passing away," said Stacy complacently. "I reckon +there won't be much left of it before we get to Boomville." + +Demorest and Barker stared. "You fired it?" said Barker, trembling with +excitement. + +"Yes," said Stacy. "I couldn't bear to leave the old rookery for coyotes +and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before I left." + +"But"--said Barker. + +"But," repeated Stacy composedly. "Hallo! what's the matter with that +new plan of 'The Rest' that you're going to build, eh? You don't want +them BOTH." + +"And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin to strangers?" +said Barker, with kindling eyes. "Stacy, I didn't think you had that +poetry in you!" + +"There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don't know, and I don't +exactly sabe myself." + +"Only," continued the young fellow eagerly, "we ought to have ALL been +there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,--a kind of +sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of libation on the ground!" + +"I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I think," returned Stacy, +"just to help things along. But if you want to see her flaming, Barker, +you just run back to that last corner on the road beyond the big red +wood. That's the spot for a view." + +As Barker--always devoted to a spectacle--swiftly disappeared the two +men faced each other. "Well, what does it all mean?" said Demorest +gravely. + +"It means, old man," said Stacy suddenly, "that if we hadn't had nigger +luck, the same blind luck that sent us that strike, you and I and that +Barker over there would have been swirling in that smoke up to the +sky about two hours ago!" He stopped and added in a lower, but earnest +voice, "Look here, Phil! When I went out to fetch water this morning I +smelt something queer. I went round to the back of the cabin and found +a hole dug under the floor, and piled against the corner wall a lot of +brush-wood and a can of kerosene. Some of the kerosene had been already +poured on the brush. Everything was ready to light, and only my coming +out an hour earlier had frightened the devils away. The idea was to set +the place on fire, suffocate us in the smoke of the kerosene poured into +the hole, and then to rush in and grab the treasure. It was a systematic +plan!" + +"No!" said Demorest quietly. + +"No?" repeated Stacy. "I told you I saw the whole thing and took away +the kerosene, which I hid, and after you had gone used it to fire the +cabin with, to see if the ones I suspected would gather to watch their +work." + +"It was no part of their FIRST plan"' said Demorest, "which was only +robbery. Listen!" He hurriedly recounted his experience of the preceding +night to the astonished Stacy. "No, the fire was an afterthought and +revenge," he added sternly. + +"But you say you cut the robber in the hand; there would be no +difficulty in identifying him by that." + +"I wounded only a HAND," said Demorest. "But there was a HEAD in that +attempt that I never saw." He then revealed his own half-suspicions, but +how they were apparently refuted by the bravado of Steptoe and Whiskey +Dick. + +"Then that was the reason THEY didn't gather at the fire," said Stacy +quickly. + +"Ah!" said Demorest, "then YOU too suspected them?" + +Stacy hesitated, and then said abruptly, "Yes." + +Demorest was silent for a moment. + +"Why didn't you tell me this this morning?" he said gently. + +Stacy pointed to the distant Barker. "I didn't want you to tell him. I +thought it better for one partner to keep a secret from two than for the +two to keep it from one. Why didn't you tell me of your experience last +night?" + +"I am afraid it was for the same reason," said Demorest, with a faint +smile. "And it sometimes seems to me, Jim, that we ought to imitate +Barker's frankness. In our dread of tainting him with our own knowledge +of evil we are sending him out into the world very poorly equipped, for +all his three hundred thousand dollars." + +"I reckon you're right," said Stacy briefly, extending his hand. "Shake +on that!" + +The two men grasped each other's hands. + +"And he's no fool, either," continued Demorest. "When we met Steptoe on +the road, without a word from me, he closed up alongside, with his hand +on the lock of his rifle. And I hadn't the heart to praise him or laugh +it off." + +Nevertheless they were both silent as the object of their criticism +bounded down the trail towards them. He had seen the funeral pyre. It +was awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but there was something grand +in it! Who could have thought Stacy could be so poetic? But he wanted to +tell them something else that was mighty pretty. + +"What was it?" said Demorest. + +"Well," said Barker, "don't laugh! But you know that Jack Hamlin? Well, +boys, he's been hovering around us on his mustang, keeping us and that +pack-mule in sight ever since we left. Sometimes he's on a side trail +off to the right, sometimes off to the left, but always at the same +distance. I didn't like to tell you, boys, for I thought you'd laugh +at me; but I think, you know, he's taken a sort of shine to us since he +dropped in last night. And I fancy, you see, he's sort of hanging round +to see that we get along all right. I'd have pointed him out before +only I reckoned you and Stacy would say he was making up to us for our +money." + +"And we'd have been wrong, Barker boy," said Stacy, with a heartiness +that surprised Demorest, "for I reckon your instinct's the right one." + +"There he is now," said the gratified Barker, "just abreast of us on the +cut-off. He started just after we did, and he's got a horse that could +have brought him into Boomville hours ago. It's just his kindness." + +He pointed to a distant fringe of buckeye from which Jack Hamlin had +just emerged. Although evidently holding in a powerful mustang, nothing +could be more unconscious and utterly indifferent than his attitude. He +did not seem to know of the proximity of any other traveler, and to care +less. His handsome head was slightly thrown back, as if he was caroling +after his usual fashion, but the distance was too great to make his +melody audible to them, or to allow Barker's shout of invitation to +reach him. Suddenly he lowered his tightened rein, the mustang sprang +forward, and with a flash of silver spurs and bridle fripperies he had +disappeared. But as the trail he was pursuing crossed theirs a mile +beyond, it seemed quite possible that they should again meet him. + +They were now fairly into the Boomville valley, and were entering a +narrow arroyo bordered with dusky willows which effectually excluded the +view on either side. It was the bed of a mountain torrent that in winter +descended the hillside over the trail by which they had just come, but +was now sunk into the thirsty plain between banks that varied from +two to five feet in height. The muleteer had advanced into the narrow +channel when he suddenly cast a hurried glance behind him, uttered a +"Madre de Dios!" and backed his mule and his precious freight against +the bank. The sound of hoofs on the trail in their rear had caught his +quicker ear, and as the three partners turned they beheld three horsemen +thundering down the hill towards them. They were apparently Mexican +vaqueros of the usual common swarthy type, their faces made still darker +by the black silk handkerchief tied round their heads under their stiff +sombreros. Either they were unable or unwilling to restrain their horses +in their headlong speed, and a collision in that narrow passage was +imminent, but suddenly, before reaching its entrance, they diverged +with a volley of oaths, and dashing along the left bank of the arroyo, +disappeared in the intervening willows. Divided between relief at their +escape and indignation at what seemed to be a drunken, feast-day freak +of these roystering vaqueros, the little party re-formed, when a cry +from Barker arrested them. He had just perceived a horseman motionless +in the arroyo who, although unnoticed by them, had evidently been seen +by the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped into it from the bank, and had +halted as if to witness this singular incident. As the clatter of +the vaqueros' hoofs died away he lightly leaped the bank again and +disappeared. But in that single glimpse of him they recognized Jack +Hamlin. When they reached the spot where he had halted, they could see +that he must have approached it from the trail where they had previously +seen him, but which they now found crossed it at right angles. Barker +was right. He had really kept them at easy distance the whole length of +the journey. + +But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at last from +the arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great +stage-road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach were just +panting along the last half mile of the steep upgrade as they +approached. They halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed +and creaked by them. In their ordinary working dress, sunburnt with +exposure, covered with dust, and carrying their rifles still in their +hands, they, perhaps, presented a sufficiently characteristic appearance +to draw a few faces--some of them pretty and intelligent--to the windows +of the coach as it passed. The sensitive Barker was quickest to feel +that resentment with which the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed +criticism of the Eastern tourist or "greenhorn," and reddened under the +bold scrutiny of a pair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. +That annoyance was communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the +bearded Demorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that great +world in which they were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed of +their appearance, and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt a secret +satisfaction when Barker said, "They'd open their eyes wider if they +knew what was in that pack-saddle," and yet they corrected him for what +they were pleased to call his "snobbishness." They hurried a little +faster as the road became more frequented, as if eager to shorten their +distance to clean clothes and civilization. + +Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with the +stagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past. He +felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look back upon +the dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it had returned so +often, and wondered if he had left it there forever, and it were now +slowly exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke of their burning cabin. + +His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him at some +distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the thick +dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlin's gauntlet on his +shoulder. The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grime and sweat, +but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh as ever. With a delightful +affectation of embarrassment and timidity he began flicking the side +buttons of his velvet vaquero trousers with the thong of his riata. +"I reckoned to sling a word along with you before you went," he said, +looking down, "but I'm so shy that I couldn't do it in company. So I +thought I'd get it off on you while you were alone." + +"We've seen you once or twice before, this morning," said Demorest +pleasantly, "and we were sorry you didn't join us." + +"I reckon I might have," said Jack gayly, "if my horse had only made up +his mind whether he was a bird or a squirrel, and hadn't been so various +and promiscuous about whether he wanted to climb a tree or fly. He's +not a bad horse for a Mexican plug, only when he thinks there is +any devilment around he wants to wade in and take a hand. However, I +reckoned to see the last of you and your pile into Boomville. And I DID. +When I meet three fellows like you that are clean white all through I +sort of cotton to 'em, even if I'M a little of a brunette myself. And +I've got something to give you." + +He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small parcel neatly folded in +white paper as fresh and spotless as himself. Holding it in his fingers, +he went on: "I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hill early this morning +before sun-up. In the darkness I struck your cabin, and I reckon--I +struck somebody else! At first I thought it was one of you chaps down on +your knees praying at the rear of the cabin, but the way the fellow lit +out when he smelt me coming made me think it wasn't entirely fasting and +prayer. However, I went to the rear of the cabin, and then I reckoned +some kind friend had been bringing you kindlings and firewood for your +early breakfast. But that didn't satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had +knelt, and then I saw--well, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw JUST WHAT YOU +HAVE SEEN! But even then I wasn't quite satisfied, for that man had been +grubbing round as if searching for something. So I searched too--and I +found IT. I've got it here. I'm going to give it to you, for it may some +day come in handy, and you won't find anything like it among the folks +where you're going. It's something unique, as those fine-art-collecting +sharps in 'Frisco say--something quite matchless, unless you try to +match it one day yourself! Don't open the paper until I run on and say +'So long' to your partners. Good-by." + +He grasped Demorest's hand and then dropped the little packet into his +palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the packet in +his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest watched the gambler +give Stacy's hand a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap on +the back to the delighted Barker, and then vanish in a flash of red +sash and silver buttons. At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his +partners, opened the packet, and stood suddenly still. It contained the +dried and bloodless second finger of a human hand cut off at the first +joint! + +For an instant he held it at arm's length, as if about to cast it away. +Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in his pocket, +and silently walked after his companions. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of +Stacy's Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the +regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks +and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking-house had +long since received the epithet of "palatial" from an enthusiastic +local press fresh from the "opening" luncheon in its richly decorated +directors' rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor +from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart +failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant +receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to +deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there +was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded +fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who +entered the bank that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the +important negro messenger. + +The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across +heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James +Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid before him. He was +not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy, +stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently +writing a memorandum. The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a +curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy +did not look at it until he had finished his memorandum. + +"There," he said, with business decision, "you can tell your people that +if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger +margin. Ditches are not what they were three years ago when miners were +willing to waste their money over your rates. They don't gamble THAT WAY +any more, and your company ought to know it, and not gamble themselves +over that prospect." He handed the paper to the stranger, who bowed over +it with studied politeness, and backed towards the door. Stacy took up +the waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, "Show him in," and +in the same breath turned to his guest: "I say, Van Loo, it's George +Barker! You know him." + +"Yes," said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted at the door. +"He was--I think--er--in your employ at Heavy Tree Hill." + +"Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him since at +Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stock--through you--at +110, which were worth about 80! SOMEBODY must have made money enough by +it to remember him." + +"I was only speaking of him socially," said Van Loo, with a deprecating +smile. "You know he married a young woman--the hotel-keeper's daughter, +who used to wait at the table--and after my mother and sister came out +to keep house for me at Boomville it was quite impossible for me to see +much of him, for he seldom went out without his wife, you know." + +"Yes," said Stacy dryly, "I think you didn't like his marriage. But I'm +glad your disinclination to see him isn't on account of that deal in +stocks." + +"Oh no," said Van Loo. "Good-by." + +But, unfortunately, in the next passage he came upon Barker, who with a +cry of unfeigned pleasure, none the less sincere that he was feeling a +little alien in these impressive surroundings, recognized him. Nothing +could exceed Van Loo's protest of delight at the meeting; nothing +his equal desolation at the fact that he was hastening to another +engagement. "But your old partner," he added, with a smile, "is waiting +for you; he has just received your card, and I should be only keeping +you from him. So glad to see you; you're looking so well. Good-by! +Good-by!" + +Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his old +impetuousness into his former partner's room. Stacy, already deeply +absorbed in other business, was sitting with his back towards him, and +Barker's arms were actually encircling his neck before the astonished +and half-angry man looked up. But when his eyes met the laughing gray +ones of Barker above him he gently disengaged himself with a quick +return of the caress, rose, shut the door of an inner office, and +returning pushed Barker into an armchair in quite the old suppressive +fashion of former days. Yes; it was the same Stacy that Barker looked +at, albeit his brown beard was now closely cropped around his determined +mouth and jaw in a kind of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs +already attuned to the rigor of clothes of fashionable cut and still +more rigorous sombreness of color. + +"Barker boy," he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keen eyes which +the younger partner remembered, "I don't encourage stag dancing among my +young men during bank hours, and you'll please to remember that we are +not on Heavy Tree Hill"-- + +"Where," broke in Barker enthusiastically, "we were only overlooked by +the Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; where the nearest voice +that came to you was quarter of a mile away as the crow flies and nearly +a mile by the trail." + +"And was generally an oath!" said Stacy. "But you're in San Francisco +NOW. Where are you stopping?" He took up a pencil and held it over a +memorandum pad awaitingly. + +"At the Brook House. It's"-- + +"Hold on! 'Brook House,'" Stacy repeated as he jotted it down. "And for +how long?" + +"Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty"-- + +Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and then +wrote down, "'Day or two.' Wife with you?" + +"Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah!" he went on, with a laugh, knocking +aside the remonstrating pencil, "you must listen! He's just the +sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do you know what we're going to +christen him? Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker. Good names, aren't +they? And then it perpetuates the dear old friendship." + +Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote "Wife and child S. D. B.," and +leaned back in his chair. "Now, Barker," he said briefly, "I'm coming +to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. THEN we'll talk Heavy Tree Hill, +wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I'm all for business. Have you any +with me?" + +Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment out +of Stacy's memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look of eager +confidence and said, "Certainly; that's just what it is--business. Lord! +Stacy, I'm ALL business now. I'm in everything. And I bank with you, +though perhaps you don't know it; it's in your Branch at Marysville. I +didn't want to say anything about it to you before. But Lord! you +don't suppose that I'd bank anywhere else while you are in the +business--checks, dividends, and all that; but in this matter I felt you +knew, old chap. I didn't want to talk to a banker nor to a bank, but to +Jim Stacy, my old partner." + +"Barker," said Stacy curtly, "how much money are you short of?" + +At this direct question Barker's always quick color rose, but, with an +equally quick smile, he said, "I don't know yet that I'm short at all." + +"But I do!" + +"Look here, Jim: why, I'm just overloaded with shares and stocks," said +Barker, smiling. + +"Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice. Barker, three +years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars put to your account at +San Francisco." + +"Yes," said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh. "I remember I wanted +to draw it out in one check to see how it would look." + +"And you've drawn out all in three years, and it looks d----d bad." + +"How did you know it?" asked Barker, his face beaming only with +admiration of his companion's omniscience. + +"How did I know it?" retorted Stacy. "I know YOU, and I know the kind of +people who have unloaded to you." + +"Come, Stacy," said Barker, "I've only invested in shares and stocks +like everybody else, and then only on the best advice I could get: +like Van Loo's, for instance,--that man who was here just now, the +new manager of the Empire Ditch Company; and Carter's, my own Kitty's +father. And when I was offered fifty thousand Wide West Extensions, +and was hesitating over it, he told me YOU were in it too--and that was +enough for me to buy it." + +"Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures." + +"No," said Barker, with an eager smile, "but you SOLD at his figures, +for I knew that when I found that YOU, my old partner, was in it; don't +you see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, and did at 110. Of +course, you wouldn't have sold it at that figure if it wasn't worth it +then, and neither I nor you are to blame if it dropped the next week to +60, don't you see?" + +Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into his former +partner's bright gray ones, but there was no trace of irony in Barker's. +On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came over them. "No," he said +reflectively, "I don't think I've ever been foolish or followed out my +OWN ideas, except once, and that was extravagant, I admit. That was +my idea of building a kind of refuge, you know, on the site of our old +cabin, where poor miners and played-out prospectors waiting for a strike +could stay without paying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand +dollars in that, and might have lost more, only Carter--Kitty's +father--persuaded me--he's an awful clever old fellow--into turning it +into a kind of branch hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to +take poor chaps who couldn't pay, at half prices, or quarter prices, +PRIVATELY, don't you see, so as to spare their pride,--awfully pretty, +wasn't it?--and make the hotel profit by it." + +"Well?" said Stacy as Barker paused. + +"They didn't come," said Barker. + +"But," he added eagerly, "it shows that things were better than I had +imagined. Only the others did not come, either." + +"And you lost your twenty thousand dollars," said Stacy curtly. + +"FIFTY thousand," said Barker, "for of course it had to be a larger +hotel than the other. And I think that Carter wouldn't have gone into it +except to save me from losing money." + +"And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead of twenty. For I don't +suppose HE advanced anything." + +"He gave his time and experience," said Barker simply. + +"I don't think it worth thirty thousand dollars," said Stacy dryly. "But +all this doesn't tell me what your business is with me to-day." + +"No," said Barker, brightening up, "but it is business, you know. +Something in the old style--as between partner and partner--and that's +why I came to YOU, and not to the 'banker.' And it all comes out of +something that Demorest once told us; so you see it's all us three +again! Well, you know, of course, that the Excelsior Ditch Company have +abandoned the Bar and Heavy Tree Hill. It didn't pay." + +"Yes; nor does the company pay any dividends now. You ought to know, +with fifty thousand of their stock on your hands." + +Barker laughed. "But listen. I found that I could buy up their whole +plant and all the ditching along the Black Spur Range for ten thousand +dollars." + +"And Great Scott! you don't think of taking up their business?" said +Stacy, aghast. + +Barker laughed more heartily. "No. Not their business. But I remember +that once Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that it cost nearly +as much to make a water ditch as a railroad, in the way of surveying and +engineering and levels, you know. And here's the plant for a railroad. +Don't you see?" + +"But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy Tree Hill--what's the good of +that?" + +"Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the new Divide Railroad they're +trying to get a bill for in the legislature." + +"An infamous piece of wildcat jobbing that will never pass," said Stacy +decisively. + +"They said BECAUSE it was that, it would pass," said Barker simply. +"They say that Watson's Bank is in it, and is bound to get it through. +And as that is a rival bank of yours, don't you see, I thought that if +WE could get something real good or valuable out of it,--something that +would do the Black Spur good,--it would be all right." + +"And was your business to consult me about it?" said Stacy bluntly. + +"No," said Barker, "it's too late to consult you now, though I wish I +had. I've given my word to take it, and I can't back out. But I haven't +the ten thousand dollars, and I came to you." + +Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair, and put both hands in +his pockets. "Not a cent, Barker, not a cent." + +"I'm not asking it of the BANK," said Barker, with a smile, "for I could +have gone to the bank for it. But as this was something between us, I am +asking you, Stacy, as my old partner." + +"And I am answering you, Barker, as your old partner, but also as the +partner of a hundred other men, who have even a greater right to ask me. +And my answer is, not a cent!" + +Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished face and slightly parted +lips. Stacy rose, thrust his hands deeper in his pockets, and standing +before him went on:-- + +"Now look here! It's time you should understand me and yourself. Three +years ago, when our partnership was dissolved by accident, or mutual +consent, we will say, we started afresh, each on our own hook. Through +foolishness and bad advice you have in those three years hopelessly +involved yourself as you never would have done had we been partners, and +yet in your difficulty you ask me and my new partners to help you out of +a difficulty in which they have no concern." + +"Your NEW partners?" stammered Barker. + +"Yes, my new partners; for every man who has a share, or a deposit, or +an interest, or a dollar in this bank is my PARTNER--even you, with your +securities at the Branch, are one; and you may say that in THIS I am +protecting you against yourself." + +"But you have money--you have private means." + +"None to speculate with as you wish me to--on account of my position; +none to give away foolishly as you expect me to--on account of precedent +and example. I am a soulless machine taking care of capital intrusted to +me and my brains, but decidedly NOT to my heart nor my sentiment. So my +answer is, not a cent!" + +Barker's face had changed; his color had come back, but with an older +expression. Presently, however, his beaming smile returned, with the +additional suggestion of an affectionate toleration which puzzled Stacy. + +"I believe you're right, old chap," he said, extending his hand to the +banker, "and I wish I had talked to you before. But it's too late now, +and I've given my word." + +"Your WORD!" said Stacy. "Have you no written agreement?" + +"No. My word was accepted." He blushed slightly as if conscious of a +great weakness. + +"But that isn't legal nor business. And you couldn't even hold the Ditch +Company to it if THEY chose to back out." + +"But I don't think they will," said Barker simply. "And you see my word +wasn't given entirely to THEM. I bought the thing through my wife's +cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he makes something by it, from the +company, on commission. And I can't go back on HIM. What did you say?" + +Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. "Nothing," he said +briefly, "except that I'm coming, as I said before, to dine with you +to-night; but no more BUSINESS. I've enough of that with others, and +there are some waiting for me in the outer office now." + +Barker rose at once, but with the same affectionate smile and tender +gravity of countenance, and laid his hand caressingly on Stacy's +shoulder. "It's like you to give up so much of your time to me and my +foolishness and be so frank with me. And I know it's mighty rough on +you to have to be a mere machine instead of Jim Stacy. Don't you bother +about me. I'll sell some of my Wide West Extension and pull the thing +through myself. It's all right, but I'm sorry for you, old chap." He +glanced around the room at the walls and rich paneling, and added, "I +suppose that's what you have to pay for all this sort of thing?" + +Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor was announced for the second +time, and Barker, with another hand-shake and a reassuring smile to his +old partner, passed into the hall, as if the onus of any infelicity in +the interview was upon himself alone. But Stacy did not seem to be in a +particularly accessible mood to the new caller, who in his turn appeared +to be slightly irritated by having been kept waiting over some irksome +business. "You don't seem to follow me," he said to Stacy after reciting +his business perplexity. "Can't you suggest something?" + +"Well, why don't you get hold of one of your board of directors?" +said Stacy abstractedly. "There's Captain Drummond; you and he are old +friends. You were comrades in the Mexican War, weren't you?" + +"That be d----d!" said his visitor bitterly. "All his interests are +the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, that a man +would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose that he'd let up on a +sure thing that he's got just because he and I fought side by side at +Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us? You're the last man I ever +expected to hear that kind of flapdoodle from. If it's because your bank +has got some other interest and you can't advise me, why don't you say +so?" Nevertheless, in spite of Stacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few +minutes later, half convinced that Stacy's lukewarmness was due to some +adverse influence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and +at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone. + +But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. After a few moments of +purely mechanical memoranda-making, he rose abruptly and opened a small +drawer in a cabinet, from which he took a letter still in its envelope. +It bore a foreign postmark. Glancing over it hastily, his eyes at +last became fixed on a concluding paragraph. "I hope," wrote his +correspondent, "that even in the rush of your big business you will +sometimes look after Barker. Not that I think the dear old chap will +ever go wrong--indeed, I often wish I was as certain of myself as of +him and his insight; but I am afraid we were more inclined to be merely +amused and tolerant of his wonderful trust and simplicity than to really +understand it for his own good and ours. I know you did not like his +marriage, and were inclined to believe he was the victim of a rather +unscrupulous father and a foolish, unequal girl; but are you satisfied +that he would have been the happier without it, or lived his perfect +life under other and what you may think wiser conditions? If he WROTE +the poetry that he LIVES everybody would think him wonderful; for being +what he is we never give him sufficient credit." Stacy smiled grimly, +and penciled on his memorandum, "He wants it to the amount of ten +thousand dollars." "Anyhow," continued the writer, "look after him, Jim, +for his sake, your sake, and the sake of--PHIL DEMOREST." + +Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and tossing it grimly aside +went on with his calculations. Presently he stopped, restored the letter +to his cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. "Send Mr. North here," +he said to the negro messenger. In a few moments his chief book-keeper +appeared in the doorway. + +"Turn to the Branch ledger and bring me a statement of Mr. George +Barker's account." + +"He was here a moment ago," said North, essaying a confidential look +towards his chief. + +"I know it," said Stacy coolly, without looking up. + +"He's been running a good deal on wildcat lately," suggested North. + +"I asked for his account, and not your opinion of it," said Stacy +shortly. + +The subordinate withdrew somewhat abashed but still curious, and +returned presently with a ledger which he laid before his chief. Stacy +ran his eyes over the list of Barker's securities; it seemed to him that +all the wildest schemes of the past year stared him in the face. His +finger, however, stopped on the Wide West Extension. "Mr. Barker will be +wanting to sell some of this stock. What is it quoted at now?" + +"Sixty." + +"But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should not offer in the open market +at present. Give him seventy for it--private sale; that will be ten +thousand dollars paid to his credit. Advise the Branch of this at once, +and to keep the transaction quiet." + +"Yes, sir," responded the clerk as he moved towards the door. But he +hesitated, and with another essay at confidence said insinuatingly, "I +always thought, sir, that Wide West would recover." + +Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what had evidently passed in his +subordinate's mind, looked at him and said dryly, "Then I would advise +you also to keep that opinion to yourself." But, clever as he was, he +had not anticipated the result. Mr. North, though a trusted employee, +was human. On arriving in the outer office he beckoned to one of the +lounging brokers, and in a low voice said, "I'll take two shares of Wide +West, if you can get it cheap." + +The broker's face became alert and eager. "Yes, but I say, is anything +up?" + +"I'm not here to give the business of the bank away," retorted North +severely; "take the order or leave it." + +The man hurried away. Having thus vindicated his humanity by also +passing the snub he had received from Stacy to an inferior, he turned +away to carry out his master's instructions, yet secure in the belief +that he had profited by his superior discernment of the real reason +of that master's singular conduct. But when he returned to the private +room, in hopes of further revelations, Mr. Stacy was closeted with +another financial magnate, and had apparently divested his mind of the +whole affair. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +When George Barker returned to the outer ward of the financial +stronghold he had penetrated, with its curving sweep of counters, brass +railings, and wirework screens defended by the spruce clerks behind +them, he was again impressed with the position of the man he had just +quitted, and for a moment hesitated, with an inclination to go back. +It was with no idea of making a further appeal to his old comrade, +but--what would have been odd in any other nature but his--he was +affected by a sense that HE might have been unfair and selfish in his +manner to the man panoplied by these defenses, and who was in a measure +forced to be a part of them. He would like to have returned and condoled +with him. The clerks, who were heartlessly familiar with the anxious +bearing of the men who sought interviews with their chief, both before +and after, smiled with the whispered conviction that the fresh and +ingenuous young stranger had been "chucked" like others until they +met his kindly, tolerant, and even superior eyes, and were puzzled. +Meanwhile Barker, who had that sublime, natural quality of abstraction +over small impertinences which is more exasperating than studied +indifference, after his brief hesitation passed out unconcernedly +through the swinging mahogany doors into the blowy street. Here the wind +and rain revived him; the bank and its curt refusal were forgotten; he +walked onward with only a smiling memory of his partner as in the old +days. He remembered how Stacy had burned down their old cabin rather +than have it fall into sordid or unworthy hands--this Stacy who was now +condemned to sink his impulses and become a mere machine. He had never +known Stacy's real motive for that act,--both Demorest and Stacy +had kept their knowledge of the attempted robbery from their younger +partner,--it always seemed to him to be a precious revelation of Stacy's +inner nature. Facing the wind and rain, he recalled how Stacy, though +never so enthusiastic about his marriage as Demorest, had taken up Van +Loo sharply for some foolish sneer about his own youthfulness. He was +affectionately tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to his wife's relations, +for Stacy did not know them as he did. Indeed, Barker, whose own father +and mother had died in his infancy, had accepted his wife's relations +with a loving trust and confidence that was supreme, from the fact that +he had never known any other. + +At last he reached his hotel. It was a new one, the latest creation of a +feverish progress in hotel-building which had covered five years and as +many squares with large showy erections, utterly beyond the needs of the +community, yet each superior in size and adornment to its predecessor. +It struck him as being the one evidence of an abiding faith in the +future of the metropolis that he had seen in nothing else. As he entered +its frescoed hall that afternoon he was suddenly reminded, by its +challenging opulency, of the bank he had just quitted, without knowing +that the bank had really furnished its capital and its original design. +The gilded bar-rooms, flashing with mirrors and cut glass; the saloons, +with their desert expanse of Turkey carpet and oasis of clustered divans +and gilded tables; the great dining-room, with porphyry columns, and +walls and ceilings shining with allegory--all these things which had +attracted his youthful wonder without distracting his correct simplicity +of taste he now began to comprehend. It was the bank's money "at work." +In the clatter of dishes in the dining-room he even seemed to hear again +the chinking of coin. + +It was a short cut to his apartments to pass through a smaller public +sitting-room popularly known as "Flirtation Camp," where eight or ten +couples generally found refuge on chairs and settees by the windows, +half concealed by heavy curtains. But the occupants were by no means +youthful spinsters or bachelors; they were generally married women, +guests of the hotel, receiving other people's husbands whose wives were +"in the States," or responsible middle-aged leaders of the town. In +the elaborate toilettes of the women, as compared with the less formal +business suits of the men, there was an odd mingling of the social +attitude with perhaps more mysterious confidences. The idle gossip about +them had never affected Barker; rather he had that innate respect for +the secrets of others which is as inseparable from simplicity as it is +from high breeding, and he scarcely glanced at the different couples in +his progress through the room. He did not even notice a rather striking +and handsome woman, who, surrounded by two or three admirers, yet looked +up at Barker as he passed with self-conscious lids as if seeking a +return of her glance. But he moved on abstractedly, and only stopped +when he suddenly saw the familiar skirt of his wife at a further window, +and halted before it. + +"Oh, it's YOU," said Mrs. Barker, with a half-nervous, half-impatient +laugh. "Why, I thought you'd certainly stay half the afternoon with your +old partner, considering that you haven't met for three years." + +There was no doubt she HAD thought so; there was equally no doubt that +the conversation she was carrying on with her companion--a good-looking, +portly business man--was effectually interrupted. But Barker did not +notice it. "Captain Heath, my husband," she went on, carelessly rising +and smoothing her skirts. The captain, who had risen too, bowed vaguely +at the introduction, but Barker extended his hand frankly. "I found +Stacy busy," he said in answer to his wife, "but he is coming to dine +with us to-night." + +"If you mean Jim Stacy, the banker," said Captain Heath, brightening +into greater ease, "he's the busiest man in California. I've seen +men standing in a queue outside his door as in the old days at the +post-office. And he only gives you five minutes and no extension. So +you and he were partners once?" he said, looking curiously at the still +youthful Barker. + +But it was Mrs. Barker who answered, "Oh yes! and always such good +friends. I was awfully jealous of him." Nevertheless, she did not +respond to the affectionate protest in Barker's eyes nor to the laugh of +Captain Heath, but glanced indifferently around the room as if to +leave further conversation to the two men. It was possible that she was +beginning to feel that Captain Heath was as de trop now as her husband +had been a moment before. Standing there, however, between them both, +idly tracing a pattern on the carpet with the toe of her slipper, she +looked prettier than she had ever looked as Kitty Carter. Her slight +figure was more fully developed. That artificial severity covering +a natural virgin coyness with which she used to wait at table in her +father's hotel at Boomville had gone, and was replaced by a satisfied +consciousness of her power to please. Her glance was freer, but not +as frank as in those days. Her dress was undoubtedly richer and more +stylish; yet Barker's loyal heart often reverted fondly to the chintz +gown, coquettishly frilled apron, and spotless cuffs and collar in which +she had handed him his coffee with a faint color that left his own face +crimson. + +Captain Heath's tact being equal to her indifference, he had excused +himself, although he was becoming interested in this youthful husband. +But Mrs. Barker, after having asserted her husband's distinction as +the equal friend of the millionaire, was by no means willing that the +captain should be further interested in Barker for himself alone, and +did not urge him to stay. As he departed she turned to her husband, and, +indicating the group he had passed the moment before, said:-- + +"That horrid woman has been staring at us all the time. I don't see what +you see in her to admire." + +Poor Barker's admiration had been limited to a few words of civility in +the enforced contact of that huge caravansary and in his quiet, youthful +recognition of her striking personality. But he was just then too +preoccupied with his interview with Stacy to reply, and perhaps he did +not quite understand his wife. It was odd how many things he did not +quite understand now about Kitty, but that he knew must be HIS fault. +But Mrs. Barker apparently did not require, after the fashion of her +sex, a reply. For the next moment, as they moved towards their rooms, +she said impatiently, "Well, you don't tell what Stacy said. Did you get +the money?" + +I grieve to say that this soul of truth and frankness lied--only to his +wife. Perhaps he considered it only lying to HIMSELF, a thing of which +he was at times miserably conscious. "It wasn't necessary, dear," he +said; "he advised me to sell my securities in the bank; and if you only +knew how dreadfully busy he is." + +Mrs. Barker curled her pretty lip. "It doesn't take very long to lend +ten thousand dollars!" she said. "But that's what I always tell you. +You have about made me sick by singing the praises of those wonderful +partners of yours, and here you ask a favor of one of them and he tells +you to sell your securities! And you know, and he knows, they're worth +next to nothing." + +"You don't understand, dear"--began Barker. + +"I understand that you've given your word to poor Harry," said +Mrs. Barker in pretty indignation, "who's responsible for the Ditch +purchase." + +"And I shall keep it. I always do," said Barker very quietly, but with +that same singular expression of face that had puzzled Stacy. But +Mrs. Barker, who, perhaps, knew her husband better, said in an altered +voice:-- + +"But HOW can you, dear?" + +"If I'm short a thousand or two I'll ask your father." + +Mrs. Barker was silent. "Father's so very much harried now, George. Why +don't you simply throw the whole thing up?" + +"But I've given my word to your cousin Henry." + +"Yes, but only your WORD. There was no written agreement. And you +couldn't even hold him to it." + +Barker opened his frank eyes in astonishment. Her own cousin, too! And +they were Stacy's very words! + +"Besides," added Mrs. Barker audaciously, "he could get rid of it +elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best. So don't +be silly." + +By this time they had reached their rooms. Barker, apparently dismissing +the subject from his mind with characteristic buoyancy, turned into the +bedroom and walked smilingly towards a small crib which stood in the +corner. "Why, he's gone!" he said in some dismay. + +"Well," said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, "you didn't expect me to +take him into the public parlor, where I was seeing visitors, did you? +I sent him out with the nurse into the lower hall to play with the other +children." + +A shade momentarily passed over Barker's face. He always looked forward +to meeting the child when he came back. He had a belief, based on no +grounds whatever, that the little creature understood him. And he had a +father's doubt of the wholesomeness of other people's children who +were born into the world indiscriminately and not under the exceptional +conditions of his own. "I'll go and fetch him," he said. + +"You haven't told me anything about your interview; what you did and +what your good friend Stacy said," said Mrs. Barker, dropping languidly +into a chair. "And really if you are simply running away again after +that child, I might just as well have asked Captain Heath to stay +longer." + +"Oh, as to Stacy," said Barker, dropping beside her and taking her hand; +"well, dear, he was awfully busy, you know, and shut up in the innermost +office like the agate in one of the Japanese nests of boxes. But," he +continued, brightening up, "just the same dear old Jim Stacy of Heavy +Tree Hill, when I first knew you. Lord! dear, how it all came back to +me! That day I proposed to you in the belief that I was unexpectedly +rich and even bought a claim for the boys on the strength of it, and how +I came back to them to find that they had made a big strike on the very +claim. Lord! I remember how I was so afraid to tell them about you--and +how they guessed it--that dear old Stacy one of the first." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Barker, "and I hope your friend Stacy remembered that +but for ME, when you found out that you were not rich, you'd have given +up the claim, but that I really deceived my own father to make you keep +it. I've often worried over that, George," she said pensively, turning +a diamond bracelet around her pretty wrist, "although I never said +anything about it." + +"But, Kitty darling," said Barker, grasping his wife's hand, "I gave my +note for it; you know you said that was bargain enough, and I had better +wait until the note was due, and until I found I couldn't pay, before I +gave up the claim. It was very clever of you, and the boys all said so, +too. But you never deceived your father, dear," he said, looking at her +gravely, "for I should have told him everything." + +"Of course, if you look at it in that way," said his wife languidly, +"it's nothing; only I think it ought to be remembered when people go +about saying papa ruined you with his hotel schemes." + +"Who dares say that?" said Barker indignantly. + +"Well, if they don't SAY it they look it," said Mrs. Barker, with a +toss of her pretty head, "and I believe that's at the bottom of Stacy's +refusal." + +"But he never said a word, Kitty," said Barker, flushing. + +"There, don't excite yourself, George," said Mrs. Barker resignedly, +"but go for the baby. I know you're dying to go, and I suppose it's time +Norah brought it upstairs." + +At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations, but just +then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstanding made him anxious +to shorten this domestic colloquy. He rose, pressed his wife's hand, and +went out. But yet he was not entirely satisfied with himself for leaving +her. "I suppose it isn't right my going off as soon as I come in," he +murmured reproachfully to himself, "but I think she wants the baby back +as much as I; only, womanlike, she didn't care to let me know it." + +He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favorite promenade for +the nurses who were gathered at the farther end, where a large window +looked upon Montgomery Street. But Norah, the Irish nurse, was not among +them; he passed through several corridors in his search, but in vain. +At last, worried and a little anxious, he turned to regain his rooms +through the long saloon where he had found his wife previously. It +was deserted now; the last caller had left--even frivolity had its +prescribed limits. He was consequently startled by a gentle murmur +from one of the heavily curtained window recesses. It was a woman's +voice--low, sweet, caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic +tenderness. And it was followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow. + +Barker turned instantly in that direction. A step brought him to the +curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself. + +Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by her treasure, +was the "horrid woman" whom his wife had indicated only a little while +ago, holding a baby--Kitty's sacred baby--in her wanton lap! The child +was feebly grasping the end of the slender jeweled necklace which the +woman held temptingly dangling from a thin white jeweled finger above +it. But its eyes were beaming with an intense delight, as if trying to +respond to the deep, concentrated love in the handsome face that was +bent above it. + +At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up. There was a faint rise +in her color, but no loss of sell-possession. + +"Please don't scold the nurse," she said, "nor say anything to Mrs. +Barker. It is all my fault. I thought that both the nurse and child +looked dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed the little +fellow for a while to try and amuse him. At least I haven't made +him cry, have I, dear?" The last epithet, it is needless to say, +was addressed to the little creature in her lap, but in its tender +modulation it touched the father's quick sympathies as if he had shared +it with the child. "You see," she said softly, disengaging the baby +fingers from her necklace, "that OUR sex is not the only one tempted by +jewelry and glitter." + +Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago was gone; +it was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked up at him. +Nevertheless he was touched. "Have you--ever--had a child, Mrs. +Horncastle?" he asked gently and hesitatingly. He had a vague +recollection that she passed for a widow, and in his simple eyes all +women were virgins or married saints. + +"No," she said abruptly. Then she added with a laugh, "Or perhaps +I should not admire them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling +bachelors have for other people's wives. But I know you're dying to +take that boy from me. Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to carry him +yourself just because I'm here; you know you would delight to do it if I +weren't." + +Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably +nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. +Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh. +Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious +infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of +objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other +he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into +contact. Upon which humorous situation Norah, the nurse, entered. + +"It's all right, Norah," said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she +disengaged herself from the linking child. "Mr. Barker has claimed +the baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to Mrs. +Barker." Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her sex on her sex, +thought it extremely probable, and halted with exasperating discretion. +"There," continued Mrs. Horncastle, playfully evading the child's +further advances, "go with papa, that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to +carry him back, Norah." + +"But," said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering +in hopes of recalling the woman's previous expression, "you DO love +children, and you think him a bright little chap for his age?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, "so round +and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye for jewelry. Really you +ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker--it would please both, +you know." She moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah and Barker +scarcely sufficing to restrain the struggling child from leaping after +her as she turned at the door and blew him a kiss. + +When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had dismissed +Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah's aid in laying +out her smartest gown for dinner. "But why take all this trouble, dear?" +said her simple-minded husband; "we are going to dine in a private room +so that we can talk over old times all by ourselves, and any dress would +suit him. And, Lord, dear!" he added, with a quick brightening at the +fancy, "if you could only just rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown +you used to wear at Boomville--it would be too killing, and just like +old times. I put it away myself in one of our trunks--I couldn't bear +to leave it behind; I know just where it is. I'll"--But Mrs. Barker's +restraining scorn withheld him. + +"George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw away and +utterly WASTE Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private room with closed +doors--and I dare say you'd like to sit in your dressing-gown and +slippers--you are entirely mistaken. I know what is due, not to your old +partner, but to the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I know what is +due FROM HIM TO US! No! We dine in the great dining-room, publicly, and, +if possible, at the very next table to those stuck-up Peterburys and +their Eastern friends, including that horrid woman, which, I'm sure, +ought to satisfy you. Then you can talk as much as you like, and as +loud as you like, about old times,--and the louder and the more the +better,--but I don't think HE'LL like it." + +"But the baby!" expostulated Barker. "Stacy's just wild to see him--and +we can't bring him down to the table--though we MIGHT," he added, +momentarily brightening. + +"After dinner," said Mrs. Barker severely, "we will walk through the big +drawing-rooms, and THEN Mr. Stacy may come upstairs and see him in his +crib; but not before. And now, George, I do wish that to-night, FOR +ONCE, you would not wear a turn-down collar, and that you would go to +the barber's and have him cut your hair and smooth out the curls. And, +for Heaven's sake! let him put some wax or gum or SOMETHING on your +mustache and twist it up on your cheek like Captain Heath's, for it +positively droops over your mouth like a girl's ringlet. It's quite +enough for me to hear people talk of your inexperience, but really I +don't want you to look as if I had run away with a pretty schoolboy. +And, considering the size of that child, it's positively disgraceful. +And, one thing more, George. When I'm talking to anybody, please don't +sit opposite to me, beaming with delight, and your mouth open. And don't +roar if by chance I say something funny. And--whatever you do--don't +make eyes at me in company whenever I happen to allude to you, as I did +before Captain Heath. It is positively too ridiculous." + +Nothing could exceed the laughing good humor with which her husband +received these cautions, nor the evident sincerity with which he +promised amendment. Equally sincere was he, though a little more +thoughtful, in his severe self-examination of his deficiencies, when, +later, he seated himself at the window with one hand softly encompassing +his child's chubby fist in the crib beside him, and, in the instinctive +fashion of all loneliness, looked out of the window. The southern +trades were whipping the waves of the distant bay and harbor into yeasty +crests. Sheets of rain swept the sidewalks with the regularity of a +fusillade, against which a few pedestrians struggled with flapping +waterproofs and slanting umbrellas. He could look along the deserted +length of Montgomery Street to the heights of Telegraph Hill and its +long-disused semaphore. It seemed lonelier to him than the mile-long +sweep of Heavy Tree Hill, writhing against the mountain wind and +its aeolian song. He had never felt so lonely THERE. In his rigid +self-examination he thought Kitty right in protesting against the +effect of his youthfulness and optimism. Yet he was also right in being +himself. There is an egoism in the highest simplicity; and Barker, while +willing to believe in others' methods, never abandoned his own aims. +He was right in loving Kitty as he did; he knew that she was better and +more lovable than she could believe herself to be; but he was willing to +believe it pained and discomposed her if he showed it before company. +He would not have her change even this peculiarity--it was part of +herself--no more than he would have changed himself. And behind what he +had conceived was her clear, practical common sense, all this time had +been her belief that she had deceived her father! Poor dear, dear Kitty! +And she had suffered because stupid people had conceived that her father +had led him away in selfish speculations. As if he--Barker--would +not have first discovered it, and as if anybody--even dear Kitty +herself--was responsible for HIS convictions and actions but himself. +Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the +child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his +caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than before. It was with a slight +sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its hands to the mere +hireling, Norah, who had never given it the love that he had seen even +in the frivolous Mrs. Horncastle's eyes. Later, when his wife came in, +looking very pretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same +conflicting emotions. He knew that they had already passed that phase +of their married life when she no longer dressed to please him, and +that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of another woman she held +superior to his tastes; yet he did not blame her. But he was a little +surprised to see that her dress was copied from one of Mrs. Horncastle's +most striking ones, and that it did not suit her. That which adorned +the maturer woman did not agree with the demure and slightly austere +prettiness of the young wife. + +But Barker forgot all this when Stacy--reserved and somewhat +severe-looking in evening dress--arrived with business punctuality. He +fancied that his old partner received the announcement that they would +dine in the public room with something of surprise, and he saw him +glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he had suspected it was +her choice, and understood her motives. Indeed, the young husband had +found himself somewhat nervous in regard to Stacy's estimate of Kitty; +he was conscious that she was not looking and acting like the old Kitty +that Stacy had known; it did not enter his honest heart that Stacy had, +perhaps, not appreciated her then, and that her present quality might +accord more with his worldly tastes and experience. It was, therefore, +with a kind of timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her +mood, and with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he +seemed to sympathize not only with her, but with her half-rallying, +half-serious attitude towards his (Barker's) inexperience and +simplicity. He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, even in +this way. Stacy would understand, as he did, her pretty willfulness at +last; she would understand what a true friend Stacy was to him. It was +with unfeigned satisfaction that he followed them in to dinner as she +leaned upon his guest's arm, chatting confidentially. He was only uneasy +because her manner had a slight ostentation. + +The entrance of the little party produced a quick sensation throughout +the dining-room. Whispers passed from table to table; all heads were +turned towards the great financier as towards a magnet; a few guests +even shamelessly faced round in their chairs as he passed. Mrs. Barker +was pink, pretty, and voluble with excitement; Stacy had a slight mask +of reserve; Barker was the only one natural and unconscious. + +As the dinner progressed Barker found that there was little chance for +him to invoke his old partner's memories of the past. He found, however, +that Stacy had received a letter from Demorest, and that he was coming +home from Europe. His letters were still sad; they both agreed upon +that. And then for the first time that day Stacy looked intently at +Barker with the look that he had often worn on Heavy Tree Hill. + +"Then you think it is the same old trouble that worries him?" said +Barker in an awed and sympathetic voice. + +"I believe it is," said Stacy, with an equal feeling. Mrs. Barker +pricked up her pretty ears; her husband's ready sympathy was familiar +enough; but that this cold, practical Stacy should be moved at anything +piqued her curiosity. + +"And you believe that he has never got over it?" continued Barker. + +"He had one chance, but he threw it away," said Stacy energetically. +"If, instead of going off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he had +joined me in business, he'd have been another man." + +"But not Demorest," said Barker quickly. + +"What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?" said Mrs. Barker +petulantly. "Is he ill?" + +Both men were silent by their old common instinct. But it was Stacy +who said "No" in a way that put any further questioning at an end, and +Barker was grateful and for the moment disloyal to his Kitty. + +It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention of +the next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle had +glanced from time to time at Stacy. But she was not prepared for the +evident equal effect that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon Stacy. His +cold face warmed, his critical eye softened; he asked her name. Mrs. +Barker was voluble, prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed. + +"I know it all," said Stacy, with didactic emphasis. "Her husband was as +bad as they make them. When her life had become intolerable WITH HIM, he +tried to make it shameful WITHOUT HIM by abandoning her. She could get a +divorce a dozen times over, but she won't." + +"I suppose that's what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen," said +Mrs. Barker ironically. + +"I have never seen her before," continued Stacy, with business +precision, "although I and two other men are guardians of her property, +and have saved it from the clutches of her husband. They told me she was +handsome--and so she is." + +Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at his +wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously another way, and the +young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification, fell upon +Mrs. Horncastle's. She looked away with a bright color. Whereupon +the sanguine Barker--perfectly convinced that she returned Stacy's +admiration--was seized with one of his old boyish dreams of the future, +and saw Stacy happily united to her, and was only recalled to the dinner +before him by its end. Then Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with +Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited the baby in her apartments, and took an +easy leave. But he grasped Barker's hand before parting in quite his old +fashion, and said, "Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll +talk of Phil Demorest," and left Barker as happy as if the appointment +were to confer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, +who had overheard, was more dubious. + +"You don't suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and his +stupid secret, do you?" she said scornfully. + +"Perhaps not only about that," said Barker, glad that she had not +demanded the secret. + +"Well," returned Mrs. Barker as she turned away, "he might just as well +lunch here and talk about HER--and see her, too." + +Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squares distant. +His appearance created the same interest that it had produced at the +hotel, but with less reserve among his fellow members. + +"Have you heard the news?" said a dozen voices. Stacy had not; he had +been dining out. + +"That infernal swindle of a Divide Railroad has passed the legislature." + +Stacy instantly remembered Barker's absurd belief in it and his reasons. +He smiled and said carelessly, "Are you quite sure it's a swindle?" + +There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had been most +outspoken against it. + +"But," said a voice hesitatingly, "you know it goes nowhere and to no +purpose." + +"But that does not prevent it, now that it's a fact, from going anywhere +and to some purpose," said Stacy, turning away. He passed into the +reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and quickly descended +by another staircase into the hall, hurriedly put on his overcoat, and +slipping out was a moment later re-entering the hotel. Here he hastily +summoned Barker, who came down, flushed and excited. Laying his hand on +Barker's arm in his old dominant way, he said:-- + +"Don't delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for that Ditch +property." + +Barker smiled. "But I have. Got it this afternoon." + +"Then you know?" ejaculated Stacy in surprise. + +"I only know," said Barker, coloring, "that you said I could back out of +it if it wasn't signed, and that's what Kitty said, too. And I thought +it looked awfully mean for me to hold a man to that kind of a bargain. +And so--you won't be mad, old fellow, will you?--I thought I'd put +it beyond any question of my own good faith by having it in black +and white." He stopped, laughing and blushing, but still earnest and +sincere. "You don't think me a fool, do you?" he said pathetically. + +Stacy smiled grimly. "I think, Barker boy, that if you go to the Branch +you'll have no difficulty in paying for the Ditch property. Good-night." + +In a few moments he was back at the club again before any one knew he +had even left the building. As he again re-entered the smoking-room he +found the members still in eager discussion about the new railroad. One +was saying, "If they could get an extension, and carry the road through +Heavy Tree Hill to Boomville they'd be all right." + +"I quite agree with you," said Stacy. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The swaying, creaking, Boomville coach had at last reached the level +ridge, and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh of relief and the +slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung in clouds around +it. The whole coach, inside and out, was covered with this impalpable +powder; it had poured into the windows that gaped widely in the +insufferable heat; it lay thick upon the novel read by the passenger who +had for the third or fourth time during the ascent made a gutter of +the half-opened book and blown the dust away in a single puff, like the +smoke from a pistol. It lay in folds and creases over the yellow silk +duster of the handsome woman on the back seat, and when she endeavored +to shake it off enveloped her in a reddish nimbus. It grimed the +handkerchiefs of others, and left sanguinary streaks on their mopped +foreheads. But as the coach had slowly climbed the summit the sun +was also sinking behind the Black Spur Range, and with its ultimate +disappearance a delicious coolness spread itself like a wave across the +ridge. The passengers drew a long breath, the reader closed his book, +the lady lifted the edge of her veil and delicately wiped her +forehead, over which a few damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even a +distinguished-looking man who had sat as impenetrable and remote as a +statue in one of the front seats moved and turned his abstracted face to +the window. His deeply tanned cheek and clearly cut features harmonized +with the red dust that lay in the curves of his brown linen dust-cloak, +and completed his resemblance to a bronze figure. Yet it was Demorest, +changed only in coloring. Now, as five years ago, his abstraction had a +certain quality which the most familiar stranger shrank from disturbing. +But in the general relaxation of relief the novel-reader addressed him. + +"Well, we ain't far from Boomville now, and it's all down-grade the rest +of the way. I reckon you'll be as glad to get a 'wash up' and a 'shake' +as the rest of us." + +"I am afraid I won't have so early an opportunity," said Demorest, with +a faint, grave smile, "for I get off at the cross-road to Heavy Tree +Hill." + +"Heavy Tree Hill!" repeated the other in surprise. "You ain't goin' to +Heavy Tree Hill? Why, you might have gone there direct by railroad, +and have been there four hours ago. You know there's a branch from the +Divide Railroad goes there straight to the hotel at Hymettus." + +"Where?" said Demorest, with a puzzled smile. + +"Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've given to the watering-place on +the slope. But I reckon you're a stranger here?" + +"For five years," said Demorest. "I fancy I've heard of the railroad, +although I prefer to go to Heavy Tree this way. But I never heard of a +watering-place there before." + +"Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks that are tired of the +fogs of 'Frisco and the heat of Sacramento all go there. It's four +thousand feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing, and a band plays +every night. And it all sprang out of the Divide Railroad and a crank +named George Barker, who bought up some old Ditch property and ran a +branch line along its levels, and made a junction with the Divide. You +can come all the way from 'Frisco or Sacramento by rail. It's a mighty +big thing!" + +"Yet," said Demorest, with some animation, "you call the man who +originated this success a crank. I should say he was a genius." + +The other passenger shook his head. "All sheer nigger luck. He bought +the Ditch plant afore there was a ghost of a chance for the Divide +Railroad, just out o' pure d----d foolishness. He expected so little +from it that he hadn't even got the agreement done in writin', and +hadn't paid for it, when the Divide Railroad passed the legislature, as +it never oughter done! For, you see, the blamedest cur'ous thing about +the whole affair was that this 'straw' road of a Divide, all pure +wildcat, was only gotten up to frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into +buying it up. And the road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a +rail of it laid was pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant +had been bought up, for they thought there was a big thing behind it. +Even the hotel was, at first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house that +this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners!" + +"Nevertheless," continued Demorest, smiling, "you admit that it is a +great success?" + +"Yes," said the other, a little irritated by some complacency in +Demorest's smile, "but the success isn't HIS'N. Fools has ideas, and +wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's bank behind +it, and is even a kind of country branch of the Brook House in 'Frisco. +Barker's out of it, I reckon. Anyhow, HE couldn't run a hotel, for all +that his wife--she that's one of the big 'Frisco swells now--used to +help serve in her father's. No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' +the first taste and leavin' the rest to others." + +"I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck," returned Demorest, +with persistent gravity; "and I suppose he's satisfied with it." But so +heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, especially +as he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat appeared to be +interested in the conversation, and even sympathetic with Demorest. The +man was in the main a good-natured fellow and loyal to his friends; but +this did not preclude any virulent criticism of others, and for a moment +he hated this bronze-faced stranger, and even saw blemishes in the +handsome woman's beauty. "That may be YOUR idea of an Eastern man," +he said bluntly, "but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't run on those +lines. No, sir." Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of his ill +humor, and as the coach at last pulled up at the cross-road for Demorest +to descend he smiled affably at his departing companion. + +"You allowed just now that you'd bin five years away. Whar mout ye have +bin?" + +"In Europe," said Demorest pleasantly. + +"I reckoned ez much," returned his interrogator, smiling significantly +at the other passengers. "But in what place?" + +"Oh, many," said Demorest, smiling also. + +"But what place war ye last livin' at?" + +"Well," said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for a moment +with his hand on the door of the coach, "oddly enough, now you remind me +of it--at Hymettus!" + +He closed the door, and the coach rolled on. The passenger reddened, +glanced indignantly after the departing figure of Demorest and +suspiciously at the others. The lady was looking from the window with a +faint smile on her face. + +"He might hev given me a civil answer," muttered the passenger, and +resumed his novel. + +When the coach drew up before Carter's Hotel the lady got down, and the +curiosity of her susceptible companions was gratified to the extent of +learning from the register that her name was Horncastle. + +She was shown to a private sitting-room, which chanced to be the one +which had belonged to Mrs. Barker in the days of her maidenhood, and +was the sacred, impenetrable bower to which she retired when her daily +duties of waiting upon her father's guests were over. But the breath of +custom had passed through it since then, and but little remained of its +former maiden glories, except a few schoolgirl crayon drawings on +the wall and an unrecognizable portrait of herself in oil, done by a +wandering artist and still preserved as a receipt for his unpaid +bill. Of these facts Mrs. Horncastle knew nothing; she was evidently +preoccupied, and after she had removed her outer duster and entered the +room, she glanced at the clock on the mantel-shelf and threw herself +with an air of resigned abstraction in an armchair in the corner. Her +traveling-dress, although unostentatious, was tasteful and well-fitting; +a slight pallor from her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, from some +absorbing thought, made her beauty still more striking. She gave even an +air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the room, which it is +to be feared it never possessed in Miss Kitty's occupancy. Again she +glanced at the clock. There was a tap at the door. + +"Come in." + +The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of torn paper with +a name written on it in lieu of a card. + +Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name, and handed the paper back. + +"There must be some mistake," she said, "it do not know Mr. Steptoe." + +"No, but you know ME all the same," said a voice from the doorway as a +man entered, coolly took the Chinese servant by the elbows and thrust +him into the passage, closing the door upon him. "Steptoe and Horncastle +are the same man, only I prefer to call myself Steptoe HERE. And I see +YOU'RE down on the register as 'Horncastle.' Well, it's plucky of you, +and it's not a bad name to keep; you might be thankful that I have +always left it to you. And if I call myself Steptoe here it's a good +blind against any of your swell friends knowing you met your HUSBAND +here." + +In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she had given him when he +entered there was no doubt that she recognized him as the man she had +come to see. He had changed little in the five years that had elapsed +since he entered the three partners' cabin at Heavy Tree Hill. His short +hair and beard still clung to his head like curled moss or the crisp +flocculence of Astrakhan. He was dressed more pretentiously, but still +gave the same idea of vulgar strength. She listened to him without +emotion, but said, with even a deepening of scorn in her manner:-- + +"What new shame is this?" + +"Nothing NEW," he replied. "Only five years ago I was livin' over on the +Bar at Heavy Tree Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks here might +recognize me. I was here when your particular friend, Jim Stacy, +who only knew me as Steptoe, and doesn't know me as Horncastle, your +HUSBAND,--for all he's bound up my property for you,--made his big +strike with his two partners. I was in his cabin that very night, and +drank his whiskey. Oh, I'm all right there! I left everything all right +behind me--only it's just as well he doesn't know I'm Horncastle. And +as the boy happened to be there with me"--He stopped, and looked at her +significantly. + +The expression of her face changed. Eagerness, anxiety, and even fear +came into it in turn, but always mingling with some scorn that dominated +her. "The boy!" she said in a voice that had changed too; "well, what +about him? You promised to tell me all,--all!" + +"Where's the money?" he said. "Husband and wife are ONE, I know," +he went on with a coarse laugh, "but I don't trust MYSELF in these +matters." + +She took from a traveling-reticule that lay beside her a roll of notes +and a chamois leather bag of coin, and laid them on the table before +him. He examined both carefully. + +"All right," he said. "I see you've got the checks made out 'to bearer.' +Your head's level, Conny. Pity you and me can't agree." + +"I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrived," she said, with +contemptuous directness. "I told them I was going over to Hymettus and +might want money." + +He dropped into a chair before her with his broad heavy hands upon his +knees, and looked at her with an equal, though baser, contempt: for his +was mingled with a certain pride of mastery and possession. + +"And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut a splurge as you always +do. The beautiful Mrs. Horncastle! The helpless victim of a wretched, +dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So dreadfully sad, you know, +and so interesting! Could get a divorce from the brute if she wanted, +but won't, on account of her religious scruples. And so while the brute +is gambling, swindling, disgracing himself, and dodging a shot here +and a lynch committee there, two or three hundred miles away, you're +splurging round in first-class hotels and watering-places, doing the +injured and abused, and run after by a lot of men who are ready to take +my place, and, maybe, some of my reputation along with it." + +"Stop!" she said suddenly, in a voice that made the glass chandelier +ring. He had risen too, with a quick, uneasy glance towards the door. +But her outbreak passed as suddenly, and sinking back into her chair, +she said, with her previous scornful resignation, "Never mind. Go on. +You KNOW you're lying!" + +He sat down again and looked at her critically. "Yes, as far as you're +concerned I WAS lying! I know your style. But as you know, too, that +I'd kill you and the first man I suspected, and there ain't a judge or +a jury in all Californy that wouldn't let me go free for it, and even +consider, too, that it had wiped off the whole slate agin me--it's to my +credit!" + +"I know what you men call chivalry," she said coldly, "but I did not +come here to buy a knowledge of that. So now about the child?" she ended +abruptly, leaning forward again with the same look of eager solicitude +in her eyes. + +"Well, about the child--our child--though, perhaps, I prefer to say MY +child," he began, with a certain brutal frankness. "I'll tell you. But +first, I don't want you to talk about BUYING your information of me. +If I haven't told you anything before, it's because I didn't think you +oughter know. If I didn't trust the child to YOU, it's because I didn't +think you could go shashaying about with a child that was three years +old when I"--he stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of his +hand--"made an honest woman of you--I think that's what they call it." + +"But," she said eagerly, ignoring the insult, "I could have hidden it +where no one but myself would have known it. I could have sent it to +school and visited it as a relation." + +"Yes," he said curtly, "like all women, and then blurted it out some day +and made it worse." + +"But," she said desperately, "even THEN, suppose I had been willing to +take the shame of it! I have taken more!" + +"But I didn't intend that you should," he said roughly. + +"You are very careful of my reputation," she returned scornfully. + +"Not by a d----d sight," he burst out; "but I care for HIS! I'm not +goin' to let any man call him a bastard!" + +Callous as she had become even under this last cruel blow, she could not +but see something in his coarse eyes she had never seen before; could +not but hear something in his brutal voice she had never heard before! +Was it possible that somewhere in the depths of his sordid nature he had +his own contemptible sense of honor? A hysterical feeling came over her +hitherto passive disgust and scorn, but it disappeared with his next +sentence in a haze of anxiety. "No!" he said hoarsely, "he had enough +wrong done him already." + +"What do you mean?" she said imploringly. "Or are you again lying? You +said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;' that was your +excuse for keeping him from me. Or was that a lie, too?" + +His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for his companion, +but rather from some change in his own feelings. "Oh, that," he said, +with a rough laugh, "that was only a kind o' trouble any sassy kid like +him was likely to get into. You ain't got no call to hear that, for," he +added, with a momentary return to his previous manner, "the wrong that +was done him is MY lookout! You want to know what I did with him, how +he's been looked arter, and where he is? You want the worth of your +money. That's square enough. But first I want you to know, though you +mayn't believe it, that every red cent you've given me to-night goes to +HIM. And don't you forget it." + +For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had lied to her many times +before,--maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but never evasively; yet +there was again that something in his manner which told her he was now +telling the truth. + +"Well," he began, settling himself back in his chair, "I told you I +brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to trust +him to no school; he knew enough for me; but when I left those parts +where nobody knew you, and got a little nearer 'Frisco, where people +might have known us both, I thought it better not to travel round with a +kid o' that size as his FATHER. So I got a young fellow here to pass him +off as HIS little brother, and look after him and board him; and I paid +him a big price for it, too, you bet! You wouldn't think it was a man +who's now swelling around here, the top o' the pile, that ever took +money from a brute like me, and for such schoolmaster work, too; but he +did, and his name was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company." + +"Van Loo!" said the woman, with a movement of disgust; "THAT man!" + +"What's the matter with Van Loo?" he said, with a coarse laugh, enjoying +his wife's discomfiture. "He speaks French and Spanish, and you oughter +hear the kid roll off the lingo he's got from him. He's got style, and +knows how to dress, and you ought to see the kid bow and scrape, and how +he carries himself. Now, Van Loo wasn't exactly my style, and I reckon I +don't hanker after him much, but he served my purpose." + +"And this man knows"--she said, with a shudder. + +"He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't know Horncastle nor YOU. +Don't you be skeert. He's the last man in the world who would hanker to +see me or the kid again, or would dare to say that he ever had! Lord! +I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon him and +his high-toned mother and sister some arternoon." He threw himself back +and laughed a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from +being genial that it even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of +pain in others rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed +at her in the same way. + +"And where is he now?" she said, with a compressed lip. + +"At school. Where, I don't tell you. You know why. But he's looked after +by me, and d----d well looked after, too." + +She hesitated, composed her face with an effort, parted her lips, and +looked out of the window into the gathering darkness. Then after a +moment she said slowly, yet with a certain precision:-- + +"And his mother? Do you ever talk to him of HER? Does--does he ever +speak of ME?" + +"What do you think?" he said comfortably, changing his position in the +chair, and trying to read her face in the shadow. "Come, now. You don't +know, eh? Well--no! NO! You understand. No! He's MY friend--MINE! He's +stood by me through thick and thin. Run at my heels when everybody else +fled me. Dodged vigilance committees with me, laid out in the brush with +me with his hand in mine when the sheriff's deputies were huntin' me; +shut his jaw close when, if he squealed, he'd have been called another +victim of the brute Horncastle, and been as petted and canoodled as +you." + +It would have been difficult for any one but the woman who knew the man +before her to have separated his brutish delight in paining her from +another feeling she had never dreamt him capable of,--an intense +and fierce pride in his affection for his child. And it was the more +hopeless to her that it was not the mere sentiment of reciprocation, +but the material instinct of paternity in its most animal form. And it +seemed horrible to her that the only outcome of what had been her own +wild, youthful passion for this brute was this love for the flesh of her +flesh, for she was more and more conscious as he spoke that her +yearning for the boy was the yearning of an equally dumb and unreasoning +maternity. They had met again as animals--in fear, contempt, and anger +of each other; but the animal had triumphed in both. + +When she spoke again it was as the woman of the world,--the woman who +had laughed two years ago at the irrepressible Barker. "It's a new +thing," she said, languidly turning her rings on her fingers, "to see +you in the role of a doting father. And may I ask how long you have had +this amiable weakness, and how long it is to last?" + +To her surprise and the keen retaliating delight of her sex, a conscious +flush covered his face to the crisp edges of his black and matted beard. +For a moment she hoped that he had lied. But, to her greater surprise, +he stammered in equal frankness: "It's growed upon me for the last five +years--ever since I was alone with him." He stopped, cleared his throat, +and then, standing up before her, said in his former voice, but with a +more settled and intense deliberation: "You wanter know how long it +will last, do ye? Well, you know your special friend, Jim Stacy--the big +millionaire--the great Jim of the Stock Exchange--the man that pinches +the money market of Californy between his finger and thumb and makes it +squeal in New York--the man who shakes the stock market when he sneezes? +Well, it will go on until that man is a beggar; until he has to borrow +a dime for his breakfast, and slump out of his lunch with a cent's +worth of rat poison or a bullet in his head! It'll go on until his old +partner--that softy George Barker--comes to the bottom of his d----d +fool luck and is a penny-a-liner for the papers and a hanger-round at +free lunches, and his scatter-brained wife runs away with another man! +It'll go on until the high-toned Demorest, the last of those three +little tin gods of Heavy Tree Hill, will have to climb down, and will +know what I feel and what he's made me feel, and will wish himself in +hell before he ever made the big strike on Heavy Tree! That's me! You +hear me! I'm shoutin'! It'll last till then! It may be next week, next +month, next year. But it'll come. And when it does come you'll see me +and Eddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief seats in the synagogue! +And you'll have a free pass to the show!" + +Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful vision, or the shadows +of the room had deepened, but he did not see the quick flush that +had risen to his wife's face with this allusion to Barker, nor the +after-settling of her handsome features into a dogged determination +equal to his own. His blind fury against the three partners did not +touch her curiosity; she was only struck with the evident depth of his +emotion. He had never been a braggart; his hostility had always been +lazy and cynical. Remembering this, she had a faint stirring of respect +for the undoubted courage and consciousness of strength shown in +this wild but single-handed crusade against wealth and power; rather, +perhaps, it seemed to her to condone her own weakness in her youthful +and inexplicable passion for him. No wonder she had submitted. + +"Then you have nothing more to tell me?" she said after a pause, rising +and going towards the mantel. + +"You needn't light up for me," he returned, rising also. "I am going. +Unless," he added, with his coarse laugh, "you think it wouldn't look +well for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in the dark with--a +stranger!" He paused as she contemptuously put down the candlestick and +threw the unlit match into the grate. "No, I've nothing more to tell. +He's a fancy-looking pup. You'd take him for twenty-one, though he's +only sixteen--clean-limbed and perfect--but for one thing"--He stopped. +He met her quick look of interrogation, however, with a lowering silence +that, nevertheless, changed again as he surveyed her erect figure by +the faint light of the window with a sardonic smile. "He favors you, I +think, and in all but one thing, too." + +"And that?" she queried coldly, as he seemed to hesitate. + +"He ain't ashamed of ME," he returned, with a laugh. + +The door closed behind him; she heard his heavy step descend the +creaking stairs; he was gone. She went to the window and threw it +open, as if to get rid of the atmosphere charged with his presence,--a +presence still so potent that she now knew that for the last five +minutes she had been, to her horror, struggling against its magnetism. +She even recoiled now at the thought of her child, as if, in these new +confidences over it, it had revived the old intimacy in this link +of their common flesh. She looked down from her window on the square +shoulders, thick throat, and crisp matted hair of her husband as he +vanished in the darkness, and drew a breath of freedom,--a freedom not +so much from him as from her own weakness that he was bearing away with +him into the exonerating night. + +She shut the window and sank down in her chair again, but in the +encompassing and compassionate obscurity of the room. And this was the +man she had loved and for whom she had wrecked her young life! Or WAS +it love? and, if NOT, how was she better than he? Worse; for he was +more loyal to that passion that had brought them together and its +responsibilities than she was. She had suffered the perils and pangs of +maternity, and yet had only the mere animal yearning for her offspring, +while he had taken over the toil and duty, and even the devotion, of +parentage himself. But then she remembered also how he had fascinated +her--a simple schoolgirl--by his sheer domineering strength, and how the +objections of her parents to this coarse and common man had forced her +into a clandestine intimacy that ended in her complete subjection to +him. She remembered the birth of an infant whose concealment from her +parents and friends was compassed by his low cunning; she remembered the +late atonement of marriage preferred by the man she had already begun +to loathe and fear, and who she now believed was eager only for her +inheritance. She remembered her abject compliance through the greater +fear of the world, the stormy scenes that followed their ill-omened +union, her final abandonment of her husband, and the efforts of her +friends and family who had rescued the last of her property from him. +She was glad she remembered it; she dwelt upon it, upon his cruelty, his +coarseness and vulgarity, until she saw, as she honestly believed, the +hidden springs of his affection for their child. It was HIS child in +nature, however it might have favored her in looks; it was HIS own +brutal SELF he was worshiping in his brutal progeny. How else could it +have ignored HER--its own mother? She never doubted the truth of what +he had told her--she had seen it in his own triumphant eyes. And yet she +would have made a kind mother; she remembered with a smile and a slight +rising of color the affection of Barker's baby for her; she remembered +with a deepening of that color the thrill of satisfaction she had felt +in her husband's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, more than all, +she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of Barker himself a delicious +condonation of the strange feeling that had sprung up in her heart for +Barker's simple, straightforward nature. How could HE understand, +how could THEY understand (by the plural she meant Mrs. Barker and +Horncastle), a character so innately noble. In her strange attraction +towards him she had felt a charming sense of what she believed was a +superior and even matronly protection; in the utter isolation of her +life now--and with her husband's foolish abuse of him ringing in her +ears--it seemed a sacred duty. She had lost a son. Providence had sent +her an ideal friend to replace him. And this was quite consistent, too, +with a faint smile that began to play about her mouth as she recalled +some instances of Barker's delightful and irresistible youthfulness. + +There was a clatter of hoofs and the sound of many voices from the +street. Mrs. Horncastle knew it was the down coach changing horses; it +would be off again in a few moments, and, no doubt, bearing her husband +away with it. A new feeling of relief came over her as she at last heard +the warning "All aboard!" and the great vehicle clattered and rolled +into the darkness, trailing its burning lights across her walls and +ceiling. But now she heard steps on the staircase, a pause before her +room, a whisper of voices, the opening of the door, the rustle of a +skirt, and a little feminine cry of protest as a man apparently tried to +follow the figure into the room. "No, no! I tell you NO!" remonstrated +the woman's voice in a hurried whisper. "It won't do. Everybody knows +me here. You must not come in now. You must wait to be announced by the +servant. Hush! Go!" + +There was a slight struggle, the sound of a kiss, and the woman +succeeded in finally shutting the door. Then she walked slowly, but with +a certain familiarity towards the mantel, struck a match and lit the +candle. The light shone upon the bright eyes and slightly flushed face +of Mrs. Barker. But the motionless woman in the chair had recognized her +voice and the voice of her companion at once. And then their eyes met. + +Mrs. Barker drew back, but did not utter a cry. Mrs. Horncastle, with +eyes even brighter than her companion's, smiled. The red deepened in +Mrs. Barker's cheek. + +"This is my room!" she said indignantly, with a sweeping gesture around +the walls. + +"I should judge so," said Mrs. Horncastle, following the gesture; "but," +she added quietly, "they put ME into it. It appears, however, they did +not expect you." + +Mrs. Barker saw her mistake. "No, no," she said apologetically, "of +course not." Then she added, with nervous volubility, sitting down and +tugging at her gloves, "You see, I just ran down from Marysville to take +a look at my father's old house on my way to Hymettus. I hope I haven't +disturbed you. Perhaps," she said, with sudden eagerness, "you were +asleep when I came in!" + +"No," said Mrs. Horncastle, "I was not sleeping nor dreaming. I heard +you come in." + +"Some of these men are such idiots," said Mrs. Barker, with a +half-hysterical laugh. "They seem to think if a woman accepts the least +courtesy from them they've a right to be familiar. But I fancy that +fellow was a little astonished when I shut the door in his face." + +"I fancy he WAS," returned Mrs. Horncastle dryly. "But I shouldn't call +Mr. Van Loo an idiot. He has the reputation of being a cautious business +man." + +Mrs. Barker bit her lip. Her companion had been recognized. She rose +with a slight flirt of her skirt. "I suppose I must go and get a room; +there was nobody in the office when I came. Everything is badly managed +here since my father took away the best servants to Hymettus." She +moved with affected carelessness towards the door, when Mrs. Horncastle, +without rising from her seat, said:-- + +"Why not stay here?" + +Mrs. Barker brightened for a moment. "Oh," she said, with polite +deprecation, "I couldn't think of turning you out." + +"I don't intend you shall," said Mrs. Horncastle. "We will stay here +together until you go with me to Hymettus, or until Mr. Van Loo leaves +the hotel. He will hardly attempt to come in here again if I remain." + +Mrs. Barker, with a half-laugh, sat down irresolutely. Mrs. Horncastle +gazed at her curiously; she was evidently a novice in this sort of +thing. But, strange to say,--and I leave the ethics of this for the sex +to settle,--the fact did not soften Mrs. Horncastle's heart, nor in the +least qualify her attitude towards the younger woman. After an +awkward pause Mrs. Barker rose again. "Well, it's very good of you, +and--and---I'll just run out and wash my hands and get the dust off me, +and come back." + +"No, Mrs. Barker," said Mrs. Horncastle, rising and approaching her, +"you will first wash your hands of this Mr. Van Loo, and get some of the +dust of the rendezvous off you before you do anything else. You CAN do +it by simply telling him, SHOULD YOU MEET HIM IN THE HALL, that I was +sitting here when he came in, and heard EVERYTHING! Depend upon it, he +won't trouble you again." + +But Mrs. Barker, though inexperienced in love, was a good fighter. +The best of the sex are. She dropped into the rocking-chair, and began +rocking backwards and forwards while still tugging at her gloves, and +said, in a gradually warming voice, "I certainly shall not magnify Mr. +Van Loo's silliness to that importance. And I have yet to learn what you +mean by talking about a rendezvous! And I want to know," she continued, +suddenly stopping her rocking and tilting the rockers impertinently +behind her, as, with her elbows squared on the chair arms, she tilted +her own face defiantly up into Mrs. Horncastle's, "how a woman in your +position--who doesn't live with her husband--dares to talk to ME!" + +There was a lull before the storm. Mrs. Horncastle approached nearer, +and, laying her hand on the back of the chair, leaned over her, and, +with a white face and a metallic ring in her voice, said: "It is just +because I am a woman IN MY POSITION that I do! It is because I don't +live with my husband that I can tell you what it will be when you no +longer live with yours--which will be the inevitable result of what you +are now doing. It is because I WAS in this position that the very man +who is pursuing you, because he thinks you are discontented with YOUR +husband, once thought he could pursue me because I had left MINE. You +are here with him alone, without the knowledge of your husband; call it +folly, caprice, vanity, or what you like, it can have but one end--to +put you in my place at last, to be considered the fair game afterwards +for any man who may succeed him. You can test him and the truth of what +I say by telling him now that I heard all." + +"Suppose he doesn't care what you have heard," said Mrs. Barker sharply. +"Suppose he says nobody would believe you, if 'telling' is your game. +Suppose he is a friend of my husband and he thinks him a much better +guardian of my reputation than a woman like you. Suppose he should be +the first one to tell my husband of the foul slander invented by you!" + +For an instant Mrs. Horncastle was taken aback by the audacity of the +woman before her. She knew the simple confidence and boyish trust of +Barker in his wife in spite of their sometimes strained relations, and +she knew how difficult it would be to shake it. And she had no idea of +betraying Mrs. Barker's secret to him, though she had made this scene +in his interest. She had wished to save Mrs. Barker from a compromising +situation, even if there was a certain vindictiveness in her exposing +her to herself. Yet she knew it was quite possible now, if Mrs. Barker +had immediate access to her husband, that she would convince him of her +perfect innocence. Nevertheless, she had still great confidence in Van +Loo's fear of scandal and his utter unmanliness. She knew he was not +in love with Mrs. Barker, and this puzzled her when she considered the +evident risk he was running now. Her face, however, betrayed nothing. +She drew back from Mrs. Barker, and, with an indifferent and graceful +gesture towards the door, said, as she leaned against the mantel, "Go, +then, and see this much-abused gentleman, and then go together with him +and make peace with your husband--even on those terms. If I have saved +you from the consequences of your folly I shall be willing to bear even +HIS blame." + +"Whatever I do," said Mrs. Barker, rising hotly, "I shall not stay here +any longer to be insulted." She flounced out of the room and swept down +the staircase into the office. Here she found an overworked clerk, and +with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes wanted to know why in her own +father's hotel she had found her own sitting-room engaged, and had been +obliged to wait half an hour before she could be shown into a decent +apartment to remove her hat and cloak in; and how it was that even +the gentleman who had kindly escorted her had evidently been unable +to procure her any assistance. She said this in a somewhat high voice, +which might have reached the ears of that gentleman had he been in the +vicinity. But he was not, and she was forced to meet the somewhat dazed +apologies of the clerk alone, and to accompany the chambermaid to a room +only a few paces distant from the one she had quitted. Here she hastily +removed her outer duster and hat, washed her hands, and consulted her +excited face in the mirror, with the door ajar and an ear sensitively +attuned to any step in the corridor. But all this was effected so +rapidly that she was at last obliged to sit down in a chair near the +half-opened door, and wait. She waited five minutes--ten--but still no +footstep. Then she went out into the corridor and listened, and then, +smoothing her face, she slipped downstairs, past the door of that +hateful room, and reappeared before the clerk with a smiling but +somewhat pale and languid face. She had found the room very comfortable, +but it was doubtful whether she would stay over night or go on to +Hymettus. Had anybody been inquiring for her? She expected to meet +friends. No! And her escort--the gentleman who came with her--was +possibly in the billiard-room or the bar? + +"Oh no! He was gone," said the clerk. + +"Gone!" echoed Mrs. Barker. "Impossible! He was--he was here only a +moment ago." + +The clerk rang a bell sharply. The stableman appeared. + +"That tall, smooth-faced man, in a high hat, who came with the lady," +said the clerk severely and concisely,--"didn't you tell me he was +gone?" + +"Yes, sir," said the stableman. + +"Are you sure?" interrupted Mrs. Barker, with a dazzling smile that, +however, masked a sudden tightening round her heart. + +"Quite sure, miss," said the stableman, "for he was in the yard when +Steptoe came, after missing the coach. He wanted a buggy to take him +over to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over to the other stables, +and he didn't come back, so I reckon he's gone. I remember it, because +Steptoe came by a minute after he'd gone, in another buggy, and as he +was going to the Divide, too, I wondered why the gentleman hadn't gone +with him." + +"And he left no message for me? He said nothing?" asked Mrs. Barker, +quite breathless, but still smiling. + +"He said nothin' to me but 'Isn't that Steptoe over there?' when Steptoe +came in. And I remember he said it kinder suddent--as if he was reminded +o' suthin' he'd forgot; and then he asked for a buggy. Ye see, +miss," added the man, with a certain rough consideration for her +disappointment, "that's mebbe why he clean forgot to leave a message." + +Mrs. Barker turned away, and ascended the stairs. Selfishness is quick +to recognize selfishness, and she saw in a flash the reason of Van Loo's +abandonment of her. Some fear of discovery had alarmed him; perhaps +Steptoe knew her husband; perhaps he had heard of Mrs. Horncastle's +possession of the sitting-room; perhaps--for she had not seen him since +their playful struggle at the door--he had recognized the woman who was +there, and the selfish coward had run away. Yes; Mrs. Horncastle was +right: she had been only a miserable dupe. + +Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room she had just quitted, +and threw herself in a chair by the window. She bit her lip as she +remembered how for the last three months she had been slowly yielding +to Van Loo's cautious but insinuating solicitation, from a flirtation in +the San Francisco hotel to a clandestine meeting in the street; from a +ride in the suburbs to a supper in a fast restaurant after the theatre. +Other women did it who were fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed +out to her. Other fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had +their private broker in a "Charley" or a "Jack." Why should not Mrs. +Barker have business with a "Paul" Van Loo, particularly as this fast +craze permitted secret meetings?--for business of this kind could not be +conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at private +offices without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker's vanity, Mrs. +Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's snobbishness, were +flattered by the attentions of this polished gentleman with a foreign +name, which even had the flavor of nobility, who never picked up her fan +and handed it to her without bowing, and always rose when she entered +the room. Mrs. Barker's scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this +gentleman, who spoke French fluently, and delicately explained to her +the libretto of a risky opera bouffe. And now she had finally yielded +to a meeting out of San Francisco--and an ostensible visit--still as a +speculator--to one or two mining districts--with HER BROKER. This +was the boldest of her steps--an original idea of the fashionable Van +Loo--which, no doubt, in time would become a craze, too. But it was a +long step--and there was a streak of rustic decorum in Mrs. Barker's +nature--the instinct that made Kitty Carter keep a perfectly secluded +and distinct sitting-room in the days when she served her father's +guests--that now had impelled her to make it a proviso that the first +step of her journey should be from her old home in her father's hotel. +It was this instinct of the proprieties that had revived in her suddenly +at the door of the old sitting-room. + +Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her. It was hard for her +vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary and final. What if +that hateful woman had lured him away by some trick or artfully designed +message? She was capable of such meanness to insure the fulfillment of +her prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought, what if she had some hold on +his affections--she had said that he had pursued her; or, more infamous +still, there were some secret understanding between them, and that +she--Mrs. Barker--was the dupe of them both! What was she doing in the +hotel at such a moment? What was her story of going to Hymettus but a +lie as transparent as her own? The tortures of jealousy, which is as +often the incentive as it is the result of passion, began to rack her. +She had probably yet known no real passion for this man; but with the +thought of his abandoning her, and the conception of his faithlessness, +came the wish to hold and keep him that was dangerously near it. What +if he were even then in that room, the room where she had said she would +not stay to be insulted, and they, thus secured against her intrusion, +were laughing at her now? She half rose at the thought, but a sound of +a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard arrested her. She ran to the window +which gave upon it, and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly. The +clatter of hoofs ceased; the stableman was talking to some one; +suddenly she heard the stableman say, "Mrs. Barker is here." Her heart +leaped,--Van Loo had returned. + +But here the voice of the other man which she had not yet heard arose +for the first time clear and distinct. "Are you quite sure? I didn't +know she left San Francisco." + +The room reeled around her. The voice was George Barker's, her husband! +"Very well," he continued. "You needn't put up my horse for the night. I +may take her back a little later in the buggy." + +In another moment she had swept down the passage, and burst into the +other room. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting by the table with a book in her +hand. She started as the half-maddened woman closed the door, locked it +behind her, and cast herself on her knees at her feet. + +"My husband is here," she gasped. "What shall I do? In heaven's name +help me!" + +"Is Van Loo still here?" said Mrs. Horncastle quickly. + +"No; gone. He went when I came." + +Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked intently into her frightened +face. "Then what have you to fear from your husband?" she said abruptly. + +"You don't understand. He didn't know I was here. He thought me in San +Francisco." + +"Does he know it now?" + +"Yes. I heard the stableman tell him. Couldn't you say I came here with +you; that we were here together; that it was just a little freak of +ours? Oh, do!" + +Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment. "Yes," she said, "we'll see him here +together." + +"Oh no! no!" said Mrs. Barker suddenly, clinging to her dress and +looking fearfully towards the door. "I couldn't, COULDN'T see him now. +Say I'm sick, tired out, gone to my room." + +"But you'll have to see him later," said Mrs. Horncastle wonderingly. + +"Yes, but he may go first. I heard him tell them not to put up his +horse." + +"Good!" said Mrs. Horncastle suddenly. "Go to your room and lock the +door, and I'll come to you later. Stop! Would Mr. Barker be likely to +disturb you if I told him you would like to be alone?" + +"No, he never does. I often tell him that." + +Mrs. Horncastle smiled faintly. "Come, quick, then," she said, "for he +may come HERE first." + +Opening the door she passed into the half-dark and empty hall. "Now +run!" She heard the quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt die away in the +distance, the opening and shutting of a door--silence--and then turned +back into her own room. + +She was none too soon. Presently she heard Barker's voice saying, "Thank +you, I can find the way," his still buoyant step on the staircase, and +then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. The light streaming +through the open door of the sitting room into the half-lit hall had +partially dazzled him, and, already bewildered, he was still more +dazzled at the unexpected apparition of the smiling face and bright eyes +of Mrs. Horncastle standing in the doorway. + +"You have fairly caught us," she said, with charming composure; "but I +had half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a little longer. Come +in." Barker followed her in mechanically, and she closed the door. "Now, +sit down," she said gayly, "and tell me how you knew we were here, and +what you mean by surprising us at this hour." + +Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, for whom +he entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fear of her +worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhat blankly +around the room, at the familiar walls, at the chair from which Mrs. +Horncastle had just risen, and finally at his wife's glove, which Mrs. +Horncastle had a moment before ostentatiously thrown on the table. +Seeing which she pounced upon it with assumed archness, and pretended to +conceal it. + +"I had no idea my wife was here," he said at last, "and I was quite +surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to me about it." +As his face was brightening, she for the first time noticed that his +frank gray eyes had an abstracted look, and there was a faint line of +contraction on his youthful forehead. "Still less," he added, "did I +look for the pleasure of meeting you. For I only came here to inquire +about my old partner, Demorest, who arrived from Europe a few days ago, +and who should have reached Hymettus early this afternoon. But now I +hear he came all the way by coach instead of by rail, and got off at the +cross-road, and we must have passed each other on the different trails. +So my journey would have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have +the pleasure of going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovely drive +by moonlight." + +Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs. Horncastle to +launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty--but, I grieve to say, +entirely imaginative--account of her escapade with Mrs. Barker. How, +left alone at the San Francisco hotel while their gentlemen friends +were enjoying themselves at Hymettus, they resolved upon a little trip, +partly for the purpose of looking into some small investments of their +own, and partly for the fun of the thing. What funny experiences they +had! How, in particular, one horrid inquisitive, vulgar wretch had been +boring a European fellow passenger who was going to Hymettus, finally +asking him where he had come from last, and when he answered "Hymettus," +thought the man was insulting him-- + +"But," interrupted the laughing Barker, "that passenger may have been +Demorest, who has just come from Greece, and surely Kitty would have +recognized him." + +Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, and not only retrieved it, +but turned it to account. Ah, yes! but by that time poor Kitty, unused +to long journeys and the heat, was utterly fagged out, was asleep, and +perfectly unrecognizable in veils and dusters on the back seat of the +coach. And this brought her to the point--which was, that she was sorry +to say, on arriving, the poor child was nearly wild with a headache from +fatigue and had gone to bed, and she had promised not to disturb her. + +The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that had overspread +Barker's face during this lively recital might have pricked the +conscience of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason I fear it did not. +But it emboldened her to go on. "I said I promised her that I would see +she wasn't disturbed; but, of course, now that YOU, her HUSBAND, have +come, if"-- + +"Not for worlds," interrupted Barker earnestly. "I know poor Kitty's +headaches, and I never disturb her, poor child, except when I'm +thoughtless." And here one of the most thoughtful men in the world in +his sensitive consideration of others beamed at her with such frank +and wonderful eyes that the arch hypocrite before him with difficulty +suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh, and felt the conscious blood +flush her to the root of her hair. "You know," he went on, with a sigh, +half of relief and half of reminiscence, "that I often think I'm a great +bother to a clear-headed, sensible girl like Kitty. She knows people so +much better than I do. She's wonderfully equipped for the world, and, +you see, I'm only 'lucky,' as everybody says, and I dare say part of +my luck was to have got her. I'm very glad she's a friend of yours, you +know, for somehow I fancied always that you were not interested in her, +or that you didn't understand each other until now. It's odd that nice +women don't always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you; +I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it out. I +thought at first she might have got anxious about our little Sta, who +is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it was only a lark. I +shouldn't wonder," he added, with a laugh, "although she always declares +she isn't one of those 'doting, idiotic mothers,' that she found it a +little dull without the boy, for all she thought it was better for ME to +take him somewhere for a change of air." + +The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she +had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its first direct +appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish +desire to save the relations between husband and wife if she could. But +she had not calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their +effect upon herself. She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a +moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now +might be possible that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent +her husband and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole +truth? How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo +had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an +intrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe of this +woman as the husband before her? A new and double consciousness came +over her that for a moment prevented her from meeting his honest eyes. +She felt the shame of being an accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at +the idea of a climax that might separate him from his wife forever. + +Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief threw +himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls broke +into his youthful laugh. "Lord! how I remember this room in the old +days. It was Kitty's own private sitting-room, you know, and I used to +think it looked just as fresh and pretty as she. I used to think her +crayon drawing wonderful, and still more wonderful that she should have +that unnecessary talent when it was quite enough for her to be just +'Kitty.' You know, don't you, how you feel at those times when you're +quite happy in being inferior"--He stopped a moment with a sudden +recollection that Mrs. Horncastle's marriage had been notoriously +unhappy. "I mean," he went on with a shy little laugh and an innocent +attempt at gallantry which the very directness of his simple nature made +atrociously obvious,--"I mean what you've made lots of young fellows +feel. There used to be a picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in +full uniform, and signed by himself 'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I +was of it, for Kitty never took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even +was allowed in here, though she helped her father all over the +hotel. She was awfully strict in those days," he interpolated, with +a thoughtful look and a half-sigh; "but then she wasn't married. I +proposed to her in this very room! Lord! I remember how frightened I +was." He stopped for an instant, and then said with a certain timidity, +"Do you mind my telling you something about it?" + +Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous domestic +details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not suppress a +somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barker noticed it, but +to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and in a half-entreating +way said, "I hope I don't bore you, but it's something confidential. Do +you know that she first REFUSED me?" + +Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss of her head. +"I believe they all do when they are sure of a man." + +"No!" said Barker eagerly, "you don't understand. I proposed to her +because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I had +discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulous value. She +believed it, too, but because she thought I was now a rich man and she +only a poor girl--a mere servant to her father's guests--she refused me. +Refused me because she thought I might regret it in the future, because +she would not have it said that she had taken advantage of my proposal +only when I was rich enough to make it." + +"Well?" said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straight before her; +"and then?" + +"In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks were worthless, +that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest to return to her +and tell her, even though I had no hope. And then she pitied me, and +cried, and accepted me. I tell it to you as her friend." He drew a +little nearer and quite fraternally laid his hand upon her own. "I know +you won't betray me, though you may think it wrong for me to have told +it; but I wanted you to know how good she was and true." + +For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited, although she +saw, with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency between +the Kitty of those days and the Kitty now shamefully hiding from her +husband in the same hotel. No doubt Kitty had some good reason for her +chivalrous act. But she could see the unmistakable effect of that act +upon the more logically reasoning husband, and that it might lead him to +be more merciful to the later wrong. And there was a keener irony that +his first movement of unconscious kindliness towards her was the outcome +of his affection for his undeserving wife. + +"You said just now she was more practical than you," she said dryly. +"Apart from this evidence of it, what other reasons have you for +thinking so? Do you refer to her independence or her dealings in the +stock market?" she added, with a laugh. + +"No," said Barker seriously, "for I do not think her quite practical +there; indeed, I'm afraid she is about as bad as I am. But I'm glad you +have spoken, for I can now talk confidentially with you, and as you +and she are both in the same ventures, perhaps she will feel less +compunction in hearing from you--as your own opinion--what I have +to tell you than if I spoke to her myself. I am afraid she trusts +implicitly to Van Loo's judgment as her broker. I believe he is strictly +honorable, but the general opinion of his business insight is not high. +They--perhaps I ought to say HE--have been at least so unlucky that +they might have learned prudence. The loss of twenty thousand dollars in +three months"-- + +"Twenty thousand!" echoed Mrs. Horncastle. + +"Yes. Why, you knew that; it was in the mine you and she visited; or, +perhaps," he added hastily, as he flushed at his indiscretion, "she +didn't tell you that." + +But Mrs. Horncastle as hastily said, "Yes--yes--of course, only I had +forgotten the amount;" and he continued:-- + +"That loss would have frightened any man; but you women are more daring. +Only Van Loo ought to have withdrawn. Don't you think so? Of course I +couldn't say anything to him without seeming to condemn my own wife; I +couldn't say anything to HER because it's her own money." + +"I didn't know that Mrs. Barker had any money of her own," said Mrs. +Horncastle. + +"Well, I gave it to her," said Barker, with sublime simplicity, "and +that would make it all the worse for me to speak about it." + +Mrs. Horncastle was silent. A new theory flashed upon her which seemed +to reconcile all the previous inconsistencies of the situation. Van +Loo, under the guise of a lover, was really possessing himself of Mrs. +Barker's money. This accounted for the risks he was running in this +escapade, which were so incongruous to the rascal's nature. He was +calculating that the scandal of an intrigue would relieve him of +the perils of criminal defalcation. It was compatible with Kitty's +innocence, though it did not relieve her vanity of the part it played in +this despicable comedy of passion. All that Mrs. Horncastle thought of +now was the effect of its eventful revelation upon the man before +her. Of course, he would overlook his wife's trustfulness and business +ignorance--it would seem so like his own unselfish faith! That was the +fault of all unselfish goodness; it even took the color of adjacent +evil, without altering the nature of either. Mrs. Horncastle set her +teeth tightly together, but her beautiful mouth smiled upon Barker, +though her eyes were bent upon the tablecloth before her. + +"I shall do all I can to impress your views upon her," she said at last, +"though I fear they will have little weight if given as my own. And you +overrate my general influence with her." + +Her handsome head drooped in such a thoughtful humility that Barker +instinctively drew nearer to her. Besides, she had not lifted her dark +lashes for some moments, and he had the still youthful habit of looking +frankly into the eyes of those he addressed. + +"No," he said eagerly; "how could I? She could not help but love you +and do as you would wish. I can't tell you how glad and relieved I am +to find that you and she have become such friends. You know I always +thought you beautiful, I always thought you so clever--I was even a +little frightened of you; but I never until now knew you were so GOOD. +No, stop! Yes, I DID know it. Do you remember once in San Francisco, +when I found you with Sta in your lap in the drawing-room? I knew it +then. You tried to make me think it was a whim--the fancy of a bored +and worried woman. But I knew better. And I knew what you were thinking +then. Shall I tell you?" + +As her eyes were still cast down, although her mouth was still smiling, +in his endeavors to look into them his face was quite near hers. He +fancied that it bore the look she had worn once before. + +"You were thinking," he said in a voice which had grown suddenly quite +hesitating and tremulous,--he did not know why,--"that the poor little +baby was quite friendless and alone. You were pitying it--you know you +were--because there was no one to give it the loving care that was its +due, and because it was intrusted to that hired nurse in that great +hotel. You were thinking how you would love it if it were yours, and how +cruel it was that Love was sent without an object to waste itself upon. +You were: I saw it in your face." + +She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full into his with a look that +held and possessed him. For a moment his whole soul seemed to tremble +on the verge of their lustrous depths, and he drew back dizzy and +frightened. What he saw there he never clearly knew; but, whatever it +was, it seemed to suddenly change his relations to her, to the room, to +his wife, to the world without. It was a glimpse of a world of which +he knew nothing. He had looked frankly and admiringly into the eyes of +other pretty women; he had even gazed into her own before, but never +with this feeling. A sudden sense that what he had seen there he had +himself evoked, that it was an answer to some question he had scarcely +yet formulated, and that they were both now linked by an understanding +and consciousness that was irretrievable, came over him. He rose +awkwardly and went to the window. She rose also, but more leisurely and +easily, moved one of the books on the table, smoothed out her skirts, +and changed her seat to a little sofa. It is the woman who always comes +out of these crucial moments unruffled. + +"I suppose you will be glad to see your friend Mr. Demorest when you +go back," she said pleasantly; "for of course he will be at Hymettus +awaiting you." + +He turned eagerly, as he always did at the name. But even then he felt +that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He felt, too, +that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what to say. As he +hesitated she went on half playfully: "It seems hard that you had to +come all the way here on such a bootless errand. You haven't even seen +your wife yet." + +The mention of his wife recalled him to himself, oddly enough, when +Demorest's name had failed. But very differently. Out of his whirling +consciousness came the instinctive feeling that he could not see her +now. He turned, crossed the room, sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. +Horncastle, and without, however, looking at her, said, with his eyes on +the floor, "No; and I've been thinking that it's hardly worth while to +disturb her so early to-morrow as I should have to go. So I think it's +a good deal better to let her have a good night's rest, remain here +quietly with you to-morrow until the stage leaves, and that both of you +come over together. My horse is still saddled, and I will be back at +Hymettus before Demorest has gone to bed." + +He was obliged to look up at her as he rose. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting +erect, beautiful and dazzling as even he had never seen her before. +For his resolution had suddenly lifted a great weight from her +shoulders,--the dangerous meeting of husband and wife the next morning, +and its results, whatever they might be, had been quietly averted. She +felt, too, a half-frightened joy even in the constrained manner in which +he had imparted his determination. That frankness which even she had +sometimes found so crushing was gone. + +"I really think you are quite right," she said, rising also, "and, +besides, you see, it will give me a chance to talk to her as you +wished." + +"To talk to her as I wished?" echoed Barker abstractedly. + +"Yes, about Van Loo, you know," said Mrs. Horncastle, smiling. + +"Oh, certainly--about Van Loo, of course," he returned hurriedly. + +"And then," said Mrs. Horncastle brightly, "I'll tell her. Stay!" she +interrupted herself hurriedly. "Why need I say anything about your +having been here AT ALL? It might only annoy her, as you yourself +suggest." She stopped breathlessly with parted lips. + +"Why, indeed?" said Barker vaguely. Yet all this was so unlike his usual +truthfulness that he slightly hesitated. + +"Besides," continued Mrs. Horncastle, noticing it, "you know you can +always tell her later, if necessary." And she added with a charming +mischievousness, "As she didn't tell you she was coming, I really don't +see why you are bound to tell her that you were here." + +The sophistry pleased Barker, even though it put him into a certain +retaliating attitude towards his wife which he was not aware of feeling. +But, as Mrs. Horncastle put it, it was only a playful attitude. + +"Certainly," he said. "Don't say anything about it." + +He moved to the door with his soft, broad-brimmed hat swinging between +his fingers. She noticed for the first time that he looked taller in his +long black serape and riding-boots, and, oddly enough, much more like +the hero of an amorous tryst than Van Loo. "I know," she said brightly, +"you are eager to get back to your old friend, and it would be selfish +for me to try to keep you longer. You have had a stupid evening, but you +have made it pleasant to me by telling me what you thought of me. And +before you go I want you to believe that I shall try to keep that good +opinion." She spoke frankly in contrast to the slight worldly constraint +of Barker's manner; it seemed as if they had changed characters. And +then she extended her hand. + +With a low bow, and without looking up, he took it. Again their +pulses seemed to leap together with one accord and the same mysterious +understanding. He could not tell if he had unconsciously pressed her +hand or if she had returned the pressure. But when their hands unclasped +it seemed as if it were the division of one flesh and spirit. + +She remained standing by the open door until his footsteps passed down +the staircase. Then she suddenly closed and locked the door with an +instinct that Mrs. Barker might at once return now that he was gone, and +she wished to be a moment alone to recover herself. But she presently +opened it again and listened. There was a noise in the courtyard, but it +sounded like the rattle of wheels more than the clatter of a horseman. +Then she was overcome--a sudden sense of pity for the unfortunate +woman still hiding from her husband--and felt a momentary chivalrous +exaltation of spirit. Certainly she had done "good" to that wretched +"Kitty;" perhaps she had earned the epithet that Barker had applied to +her. Perhaps that was the meaning of all this happiness to her, and the +result was to be only the happiness and reconciliation of the wife and +husband. This was to be her reward. I grieve to say that the tears had +come into her beautiful eyes at this satisfactory conclusion, but she +dashed them away and ran out into the hall. It was quite dark, but there +was a faint glimmer on the opposite wall as if the door of Mrs. Barker's +bedroom were ajar to an eager listener. She flew towards the glimmer, +and pushed the door open: the room was empty. Empty of Mrs. Barker, +empty of her dressing-box, her reticule and shawl. She was gone. + +Still, Mrs. Horncastle lingered; the woman might have got frightened and +retreated to some further room at the opening of the door and the coming +out of her husband. She walked along the passage, calling her name +softly. She even penetrated the dreary, half-lit public parlor, +expecting to find her crouching there. Then a sudden wild idea took +possession of her: the miserable wife had repented of her act and of +her concealment, and had crept downstairs to await her husband in the +office. She had told him some new lie, had begged him to take her with +him, and Barker, of course, had assented. Yes, she now knew why she +had heard the rattling wheels instead of the clattering hoofs she had +listened for. They had gone together, as he first proposed, in the +buggy. + +She ran swiftly down the stairs and entered the office. The overworked +clerk was busy and querulously curt. These women were always asking such +idiotic questions. Yes, Mr. Barker had just gone. + +"With Mrs. Barker in the buggy?" asked Mrs. Horncastle. + +"No, as he came--on horseback. Mrs. Barker left HALF AN HOUR AGO." + +"Alone?" + +This was apparently too much for the long-suffering clerk. He lifted +his eyes to the ceiling, and then, with painful precision, and accenting +every word with his pencil on the desk before him, said deliberately, +"Mrs. George Barker--left--here--with her--escort--the--man +she--was--always--asking--for--in--the--buggy--at exactly--9.35." And he +plunged into his work again. + +Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, re-entered the +sitting-room, and slamming the door behind her, halted in the centre of +the room, panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. And she was alone in +this empty room--this deserted hotel. From this very room her husband +had left her with a brutality on his lips. From this room the fool +and liar she had tried to warn had gone to her ruin with a swindling +hypocrite. And from this room the only man in the world she ever cared +for had gone forth bewildered, wronged, and abused, and she knew now she +could have kept and comforted him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +When Philip Demorest left the stagecoach at the cross-roads he turned +into the only wayside house, the blacksmith's shop, and, declaring his +intention of walking over to Hymettus, asked permission to leave his +hand-bag and wraps until they could be sent after him. The blacksmith +was surprised that this "likely mannered," distinguished-looking "city +man" should WALK eight miles when he could ride, and tried to dissuade +him, offering his own buggy. But he was still more surprised when +Demorest, laying aside his duster, took off his coat, and, slinging it +on his arm, prepared to set forth with the good-humored assurance that +he would do the distance in a couple of hours and get in in time for +supper. "I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the blacksmith grimly, +"or even of getting a room. They're a stuck-up lot over there, and they +ain't goin' to hump themselves over a chap who comes traipsin' along +the road like any tramp, with nary baggage." But Demorest laughingly +accepted the risk, and taking his stout stick in one hand, pressed a +gold coin into the blacksmith's palm, which was, however, declined +with such reddening promptness that Demorest as promptly reddened and +apologized. The habits of European travel had been still strong on him, +and he felt a slight patriotic thrill as he said, with a grave smile, +"Thank you, then; and thank you still more for reminding me that I am +among my own 'people,'" and stepped lightly out into the road. + +The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer currents from the heated +pines began to alternate with the wind from the summit. He found himself +sometimes walking through a stratum of hot air which seemed to exhale +from the wood itself, while his head and breast were swept by the +mountain breeze. He felt the old intoxication of the balmy-scented +air again, and the five years of care and hopelessness laid upon his +shoulders since he had last breathed its fragrance slipped from them +like a burden. There had been but little change here; perhaps the road +was wider and the dust lay thicker, but the great pines still mounted +in serried ranks on the slopes as before, with no gaps in their unending +files. Here was the spot where the stagecoach had passed them that +eventful morning when they were coming out of their camp-life into the +world of civilization; a little further back, the spot where Jack Hamlin +had forced upon him that grim memento of the attempted robbery of +their cabin, which he had kept ever since. He half smiled again at the +superstitious interest that had made him keep it, with the intention of +some day returning to bury it, with all recollections of the deed, under +the site of the old cabin. As he went on in the vivifying influence of +the air and scene, new life seemed to course through his veins; his step +seemed to grow as elastic as in the old days of their bitter but hopeful +struggle for fortune, when he had gayly returned from his weekly tramp +to Boomville laden with the scant provision procured by their scant +earnings and dying credit. Those were the days when HER living image +still inspired his heart with faith and hope; when everything was yet +possible to youth and love, and before the irony of fate had given +him fortune with one hand only to withdraw HER with the other. It +was strange and cruel that coming back from his quest of rest and +forgetfulness he should find only these youthful and sanguine dreams +revive with his reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedly as if to +escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one or two carryalls and +char-a-bancs filled with gayly dressed pleasure parties--evidently +visitors to Hymettus--which passed him on the road. Here were the first +signs of change. He recalled the train of pack-mules of the old days, +the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the squaw with the papoose +strapped to her shoulder, or the wandering and foot-sore prospector, who +were the only wayfarers he used to meet. He contrasted their halts and +friendly greetings with the insolent curiosity or undisguised contempt +of the carriage folk, and smiled as he thought of the warning of the +blacksmith. But this did not long divert him; he found himself again +returning to his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a young girl in +one of the carriages had quite startled him with its resemblance to an +old memory of his lost love as he saw her,--her frail, pale elegance +encompassed in laces as she leaned back in her drive through Fifth +Avenue, with eyes that lit up and became transfigured only as he +passed. He tried to think of his useless quest in search of her last +resting-place abroad; how he had been baffled by the opposition of her +surviving relations, already incensed by the thought that her decline +had been the effect of her hopeless passion. He tried to recall the few +frigid lines that reconveyed to him the last letter he had sent her, +with the announcement of her death and the hope that "his persecutions" +would now cease. A wild idea had sometimes come to him out of the very +insufficiency of his knowledge of this climax, but he had always put +it aside as a precursor of that madness which might end his ceaseless +thought. And now it was returning to him, here, thousands of miles away +from where she was peacefully sleeping, and even filling him with the +vigor of youthful hope. + +The brief mountain twilight was giving way now to the radiance of the +rising moon. He endeavored to fix his thoughts upon his partners who +were to meet him at Hymettus after these long years of separation. + +Hymettus! He recalled now the odd coincidence that he had mischievously +used as a gag to his questioning fellow traveler; but now he had really +come from a villa near Athens to find his old house thus classically +rechristened after it, and thought of it with a gravity he had not felt +before. He wondered who had named it. There was no suggestion of the +soft, sensuous elegance of the land he had left in those great heroics +of nature before him. Those enormous trees were no woods for fauns or +dryads; they had their own godlike majesty of bulk and height, and as he +at last climbed the summit and saw the dark-helmeted head of Black Spur +before him, and beyond it the pallid, spiritual cloud of the Sierras, he +did not think of Olympus. Yet for a moment he was startled, as he turned +to the right, by the Doric-columned facade of a temple painted by the +moonbeams and framed in an opening of the dark woods before him. It +was not until he had reached it that he saw that it was the new wooden +post-office of Heavy Tree Hill. + +And now the buildings of the new settlement began to faintly appear. But +the obscurity of the shadow and the equally disturbing unreality of the +moonlight confused him in his attempts to recognize the old landmarks. +A broad and well-kept winding road had taken the place of the old +steep, but direct trail to his cabin. He had walked for some moments in +uncertainty, when a sudden sweep of the road brought the full crest +of the hill above and before him, crowned with a tiara of lights, +overtopping a long base of flashing windows. That was all that was left +of Heavy Tree Hill. The old foreground of buckeye and odorous ceanothus +was gone. Even the great grove of pines behind it had vanished. + +There was already a stir of life in the road, and he could see figures +moving slowly along a kind of sterile, formal terrace spread with a few +dreary marble vases and plaster statues which had replaced the natural +slope and the great quartz buttresses of outcrop that supported it. +Presently he entered a gate, and soon found himself in the carriage +drive leading to the hotel veranda. A number of fair promenaders were +facing the keen mountain night wind in wraps and furs. Demorest had +replaced his coat, but his boots were red with dust, and as he ascended +the steps he could see that he was eyed with some superciliousness by +the guests and with considerable suspicion by the servants. One of the +latter was approaching him with an insolent smile when a figure darted +from the vestibule, and, brushing the waiter aside, seized Demorest's +two hands in his and held him at arm's length. + +"Demorest, old man!" + +"Stacy, old chap!" + +"But where's your team? I've had all the spare hostlers and hall-boys +listening for you at the gate. And where's Barker? When he found you'd +given the dead-cut to the railroad--HIS railroad, you know--he loped +over to Boomville after you." + +Demorest briefly explained that he had walked by the old road and +probably missed him. But by this time the waiters, crushed by the +spectacle of this travel-worn stranger's affectionate reception by +the great financial magnate, were wildly applying their brushes and +handkerchiefs to his trousers and boots until Stacy again swept them +away. + +"Get off, all of you! Now, Phil, you come with me. The house is full, +but I've made the manager give you a lady's drawing-room suite. When you +telegraphed you'd meet us HERE there was no chance to get anything else. +It's really Mrs. Van Loo's family suite; but they were sent for to go to +Marysville yesterday, and so we'll run you in for the night." + +"But"--protested Demorest. + +"Nonsense!" said Stacy, dragging him away. "We'll pay for it; and I +reckon the old lady won't object to taking her share of the damage +either, or she isn't Van Loo's mother. Come." + +Demorest felt himself hurried forward by the energetic Stacy, preceded +by the obsequious manager, through a corridor to a handsomely furnished +suite, into whose bathroom Stacy incontinently thrust him. + +"There! Wash up; and by the time you're ready Barker ought to be back, +and we'll have supper. It's waiting for us in the other room." + +"But how about Barker, the dear boy?" persisted Demorest, holding open +the door. "Tell me, is he well and happy?" + +"About as well as we all are," said Stacy quickly, yet with a certain +dry significance. "Never mind now; wait until you see him." + +The door closed. When Demorest had finished washing, and wiped away the +last red stain of the mountain road, he found Stacy seated by the window +of the larger sitting-room. In the centre a table was spread for supper. +A bright fire of hickory logs burnt on a marble hearth between two +large windows that gave upon the distant outline of Black Spur. As Stacy +turned towards him, by the light of the shaded lamp and flickering fire, +Demorest had a good look at the face of his old friend and partner. It +was as keen and energetic as ever, with perhaps an even more hawk-like +activity visible in the eye and nostril; but it was more thoughtful and +reticent in the lines of the mouth under the closely clipped beard and +mustache, and when he looked up, at first there were two deep lines or +furrows across his low broad forehead. Demorest fancied, too, that +there was a little of the old fighting look in his eye, but it softened +quickly as his friend approached, and he burst out with his curt but +honest single-syllabled laugh. "Ha! You look a little less like a roving +Apache than you did when you came. I really thought the waiters were +going to chuck you. And you ARE tanned! Darned if you don't look like +the profile stamped on a Continental penny! But here's luck and a +welcome back, old man!" + +Demorest passed his arm around the neck of his seated partner, and +grasping his upraised hand said, looking down with a smile, "And now +about Barker." + +"Oh, Parker, d--n him! He's the same unshakable, unchangeable, +ungrow-upable Barker! With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing into +risks and waltzing out of 'em. With fads enough to put him in the insane +asylum if people did not prefer to keep him out of it to help +'em. Always believing in everybody, until they actually believe in +themselves, and shake him! And he's got a wife that's making a fool of +herself, and I shouldn't wonder in time--of him!" + +Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's mouth. "Come, Jim! You know +you never really liked that marriage, simply because you thought that +old man Carter made a good thing of it. And you never seem to have taken +into consideration the happiness Barker got out of it, for he DID love +the girl. And he still is happy, is he not?" he added quickly, as Stacy +uttered a grunt. + +"As happy as a man can be who has his child here with a nurse while his +wife is gallivanting in San Francisco, and throwing her money--and +Lord knows what else--away at the bidding of a smooth-tongued, shady +operator." + +"Does HE complain of it?" asked Demorest. + +"Not he; the fool trusts her!" said Stacy curtly. + +Demorest laughed. "That is happiness! Come, Jim! don't let us begrudge +him that. But I've heard that his affairs have again prospered." + +"He built this railroad and this hotel. The bank owns both now. He +didn't care to keep money in them after they were a success; said he +wasn't an engineer nor a hotel-keeper, and drew it out to find something +new. But here he comes," he added, as a horseman dashed into the drive +before the hotel. "Question him yourself. You know you and he always get +along best without me." + +In another moment Barker had burst into the room, and in his first +tempestuous greeting of Demorest the latter saw little change in his +younger partner as he held him at arm's length to look at him. "Why, +Barker boy, you haven't got a bit older since the day when--you +remember--you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds, and then came +back and burst upon us like this to tell us you were a beggar." + +"Yes," laughed Barker, "and all the while you fellows were holding four +aces up your sleeve in the shape of the big strike." + +"And you, Georgy, old boy," returned Demorest, swinging Barker's two +hands backwards and forwards, "were holding a royal flush up yours in +the shape of your engagement to Kitty." + +The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the frank laugh +was still on his mouth. He turned his face for a moment towards the +window, and a swift and almost involuntary glance passed between the +others. But he almost as quickly turned his glistening eyes back to +Demorest again, and said eagerly, "Yes, dear Kitty! You shall see her +and the baby to-morrow." + +Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past, and for +some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisily together, all at +the same time, with even the spirits of the Past. They recalled every +detail of their old life; eagerly and impetuously recounted the old +struggles, hopes, and disappointments, gave the strange importance of +schoolboys to unimportant events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth +of their own; roared over old jokes with a delight they had never since +given to new; reawakened idiotic nicknames and bywords with intense +enjoyment; grew grave, anxious, and agonized over forgotten names, +trifling dates, useless distances, ineffective records, and feeble +chronicles of their domestic economy. It was the thoughtful and +melancholy Demorest who remembered the exact color and price paid for +a certain shirt bought from a Greaser peddler amidst the envy of his +companions; it was the financial magnate, Stacy, who could inform them +what were the exact days they had saleratus bread and when flapjacks; +it was the thoughtless and mercurial Barker who recalled with unheard-of +accuracy, amidst the applause of the others, the full name of the +Indian squaw who assisted at their washing. Even then they were almost +feverishly loath to leave the subject, as if the Past, at least, was +secure to them still, and they were even doubtful of their own free and +full accord in the Present. Then they slipped rather reluctantly +into their later experiences, but with scarcely the same freedom or +spontaneity; and it was noticeable that these records were elicited from +Barker by Stacy or from Stacy by Barker for the information of Demorest, +often with chaffing and only under good-humored protest. "Tell Demorest +how you broke the 'Copper Ring,'" from the admiring Barker, or, "Tell +Demorest how your d----d foolishness in buying up the right and plant of +the Ditch Company got you control of the railroad," from the mischievous +Stacy, were challenges in point. Presently they left the table, and, to +the astonishment of the waiters who removed the cloth, common brier-wood +pipes, thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemoration of the Past, +were lit, and they ranged themselves in armchairs before the fire quite +unconsciously in their old attitudes. The two windows on either side of +the hearth gave them the same view that the open door of the old cabin +had made familiar to them, the league-long valley below the shadowy bulk +of the Black Spur rising in the distance, and, still more remote, the +pallid snow-line that soared even beyond its crest. + +As in the old time, they were for many moments silent; and then, as in +the old time, it was the irrepressible Barker who broke the silence. +"But Stacy does not tell you anything about his friend, the beautiful +Mrs. Horncastle. You know he's the guardian of one of the finest women +in California--a woman as noble and generous as she is handsome. And +think of it! He's protecting her from her brute of a husband, and +looking after her property. Isn't it good and chivalrous of him?" + +The irrepressible laughter of the two men brought only wonder and +reproachful indignation into the widely opened eyes of Barker. HE was +perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of Stacy's admiration for +Mrs. Horncastle in his ride from Boomville, and, strange to say, yet +characteristic of his nature, it was equally the natural outcome of his +interview with her and the singular effect she had upon him. That he +(Barker) thoroughly sympathized with her only convinced him that Stacy +must feel the same for her, and that, no doubt, she must respond to him +equally. And how noble it was in his old partner, with his advantages of +position in the world and his protecting relations to her, not to avail +himself of this influence upon her generous nature. If he himself--a +married man and the husband of Kitty--was so conscious of her charm, how +much greater it must be to the free and INEXPERIENCED Stacy. + +The italics were in Barker's thought; for in those matters he felt +that Stacy and even Demorest, occupied in other things, had not his +knowledge. There was no idea or consciousness of heroically sacrificing +himself or Mrs. Horncastle in this. I am afraid there was not even an +idea of a superior morality in himself in giving up the possibility +of loving her. Ever since Stacy had first seen her he had fancied that +Stacy liked her,--indeed, Kitty fancied it, too,--and it seemed almost +providential now that he should know how to assist his old partner to +happiness. For it was inconceivable that Stacy should not be able +to rescue this woman from her shameful bonds, or that she should not +consent to it through his (Barker's) arguments and entreaties. To a +"champion of dames" this seemed only right and proper. In his unfailing +optimism he translated Stacy's laugh as embarrassment and Demorest's as +only ignorance of the real question. But Demorest had noticed, if he had +not, that Stacy's laugh was a little nervously prolonged for a man of +his temperament, and that he had cast a very keen glance at Barker. A +messenger arriving with a telegram brought from Boomville called Stacy +momentarily away, and Barker was not slow to take advantage of his +absence. + +"I wish, Phil," he said, hitching his chair closer to Demorest, +"that you would think seriously of this matter, and try to persuade +Stacy--who, I believe, is more interested in Mrs. Horncastle than he +cares to show--to put a little of that determination in love that he has +shown in business. She's an awfully fine woman, and in every way suited +to him, and he is letting an absurd sense of pride and honor keep him +from influencing her to get rid of her impossible husband. There's no +reason," continued Barker in a burst of enthusiastic simplicity, "that +BECAUSE she has found some one she likes better, and who would treat +her better, that she should continue to stick to that beast whom all +California would gladly see her divorced from. I never could understand +that kind of argument, could you?" + +Demorest looked at his companion's glowing cheek and kindling eye with +a smile. "A good deal depends upon the side from which you argue. But, +frankly, Barker boy, though I think I know you in all your phases, I am +not prepared yet to accept you as a match-maker! However, I'll think it +over, and find out something more of this from your goddess, who seems +to have bewitched you both. But what does Mistress Kitty say to your +admiration?" + +Barker's face clouded, but instantly brightened. "Oh, they're the best +of friends; they're quite like us, you know, even to larks they have +together." He stopped and colored at his slip. But Demorest, who had +noticed his change of expression, was more concerned at the look of half +incredulity and half suspicion with which Stacy, who had re-entered +the room in time to hear Barker's speech, was regarding his unconscious +younger partner. + +"I didn't know that Mrs. Horncastle and Mrs. Barker were such friends," +he said dryly as he sat down again. But his face presently became so +abstracted that Demorest said gayly:-- + +"Well, Jim, I'm glad I'm not a Napoleon of Finance! I couldn't stand +it to have my privacy or my relaxation broken in upon at any moment, as +yours was just now. What confounded somersault in stocks has put that +face on you?" + +Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh. "I'm afraid you'd be none +the wiser if I told you. That was a pony express messenger from New +York. You remember how Barker, that night of the strike, when we were +sitting together here, or very near here, proposed that we ought to have +a password or a symbol to call us together in case of emergency, for +each other's help? Well, let us say I have two partners, one in Europe +and one in New York. That was my password." + +"And, I hope, no more serious than ours," added Demorest. + +Stacy laughed his short laugh. Nevertheless, the conversation dragged +again. The feverish gayety of the early part of the evening was gone, +and they seemed to be suffering from the reaction. They fell into their +old attitudes, looking from the firelight to the distant bulk of Black +Spur without a word. The occasional sound of the voices of promenaders +on the veranda at last ceased; there was the noise of the shutting of +heavy doors below, and Barker rose. + +"You'll excuse me, boys; but I must go and say good-night to little +Sta, and see that he's all right. I haven't seen him since I got back. +But"--to Demorest--"you'll see him to-morrow, when Kitty comes. It is as +much as my life is worth to show him before she certifies him as being +presentable." He paused, and then added: "Don't wait up, you fellows, +for me; sometimes the little chap won't let me go. It's as if he +thought, now Kitty's away, I was all he had. But I'll be up early in the +morning and see you. I dare say you and Stacy have a heap to say to each +other on business, and you won't miss me. So I'll say good-night." He +laughed lightly, pressed the hands of his partners in his usual hearty +fashion, and went out of the room, leaving the gloom a little deeper +than before. It was so unusual for Barker to be the first to leave +anybody or anything in trouble that they both noticed it. "But for +that," said Demorest, turning to Stacy as the door closed, "I should say +the dear fellow was absolutely unchanged. But he seemed a little anxious +to-night." + +"I shouldn't wonder. He's got two women on his mind,--as if one was not +enough." + +"I don't understand. You say his wife is foolish, and this other"-- + +"Never mind that now," interrupted Stacy, getting up and putting down +his pipe. "Let's talk a little business. That other stuff will keep." + +"By all means," said Demorest, with a smile, settling down into his +chair a little wearily, however. "I forgot business. And I forgot, my +dear Jim, to congratulate you. I've heard all about you, even in New +York. You're the man who, according to everybody, now holds the +finances of the Pacific Slope in his hands. And," he added, leaning +affectionately towards his old partner, "I don't know any one better +equipped in honesty, straightforwardness, and courage for such a +responsibility than you." + +"I only wish," said Stacy, looking thoughtfully at Demorest, "that I +didn't hold nearly a million of your money included in the finances of +the Pacific Slope." + +"Why," said the smiling Demorest, "as long as I am satisfied?" + +"Because I am not. If you're satisfied, I'm a wretched idiot and not +fit for my position. Now, look here, Phil. When you wrote me to sell +out your shares in the Wheat Trust I was a little staggered. I knew your +gait, my boy, and I knew, too, that, while you didn't know enough to +trust your own opinions or feeling, you knew too much to trust any one's +opinion that wasn't first-class. So I reckoned you had the straight tip; +but I didn't see it. Now, I ought not to have been staggered if I was +fit for your confidence, or, if I was staggered, I ought to have had +enough confidence in myself not to mind you. See?" + +"I admit your logic, old man," said Demorest, with an amused face, "but +I don't see your premises. WHEN did I tell you to sell out?" + +"Two days ago. You wrote just after you arrived." + +"I have never written to you since I arrived. I only telegraphed to you +to know where we should meet, and received your message to come here." + +"You never wrote me from San Francisco?" + +"Never." + +Stacy looked concernedly at his friend. Was he in his right mind? He had +heard of cases where melancholy brooding on a fixed idea had affected +the memory. He took from his pocket a letter-case, and selecting a +letter handed it to Demorest without speaking. + +Demorest glanced at it, turned it over, read its contents, and in +a grave voice said, "There is something wrong here. It is like my +handwriting, but I never wrote the letter, nor has it been in my hand +before." + +Stacy sprang to his side. "Then it's a forgery!" + +"Wait a moment." Demorest, who, although very grave, was the more +collected of the two, went to a writing-desk, selected a sheet of paper, +and took up a pen. "Now," he said, "dictate that letter to me." + +Stacy began, Demorest's pen rapidly following him:-- + +"DEAR JIM,--On receipt of this get rid of my Wheat Trust shares at +whatever figure you can. From the way things pointed in New York"-- + +"Stop!" interrupted Demorest. + +"Well?" said Stacy impatiently. + +"Now, my dear Jim," said Demorest plaintively, "when did you ever know +me to write such a sentence as 'the way things pointed'?" + +"Let me finish reading," said Stacy. This literary sensitiveness at such +a moment seemed little short of puerility to the man of business. + +"From the way things pointed in New York," continued Stacy, "and from +private advices received, this seems to be the only prudent course +before the feathers begin to fly. Longing to see you again and the dear +old stamping-ground at Heavy Tree. Love to Barker. Has the dear old boy +been at any fresh crank lately? + +"Yours, PHIL DEMOREST." + +The dictation and copy finished together. Demorest laid the freshly +written sheet beside the letter Stacy had produced. They were very much +alike and yet quite distinct from each other. Only the signature seemed +identical. + +"That's the invariable mistake with the forger," said Demorest; "he +always forgets that signatures ought to be identical with the text +rather than with each other." + +But Stacy did not seem to hear this or require further proof. His face +was quite gray and his lips compressed until lost in his closely set +beard as he gazed fixedly out of the window. For the first time, really +concerned and touched, Demorest laid his hand gently on his shoulder. + +"Tell me, Jim, how much does this mean to you apart from me? Don't think +of me." + +"I don't know yet," said Stacy slowly. "That's the trouble. And I won't +know until I know who's at the bottom of it. Does anybody know of your +affairs with me?" + +"No one." + +"No confidential friend, eh?" + +"None." + +"No one who has access to your secrets? No--no--woman? Excuse me, Phil," +he said, as a peculiar look passed over Demorest's face, "but this is +business." + +"No," he returned, with that gentleness that used to frighten them +in the old days, "it's ignorance. You fellows always say 'Cherchez la +femme' when you can't say anything else. Come now," he went on more +brightly, "look at the letter. Here's a man, commercially educated, +for he has used the usual business formulas, 'on receipt of this,' and +'advices received,' which I won't merely say I don't use, but which +few but commercial men use. Next, here's a man who uses slang, not only +ineptly, but artificially, to give the letter the easy, familiar turn +it hasn't from beginning to end. I need only say, my dear Stacy, that +I don't write slang to you, but that nobody who understands slang ever +writes it in that way. And then the knowledge of my opinion of Barker is +such as might be gained from the reading of my letters by a person who +couldn't comprehend my feelings. Now, let me play inquisitor for a few +moments. Has anybody access to my letters to YOU?" + +"No one. I keep them locked up in a cabinet. I only make memorandums of +your instructions, which I give to my clerks, but never your letters." + +"But your clerks sometimes see you make memorandums from them?" + +"Yes, but none of them have the ability to do this sort of thing, nor +the opportunity of profiting by it." + +"Has any woman--now this is not retaliation, my dear Jim, for I fancy I +detect a woman's cleverness and a woman's stupidity in this forgery--any +access to your secrets or my letters? A woman's villainy is always +effective for the moment, but always defective when probed." + +The look of scorn which passed over Stacy's face was quite as distinct +as Demorest's previous protest, as he said contemptuously, "I'm not such +a fool as to mix up petticoats with my business, whatever I do." + +"Well, one thing more. I have told you that in my opinion the forger has +a commercial education or style, that he doesn't know me nor Barker, and +don't understand slang. Now, I have to add what must have occurred +to you, Jim, that the forger is either a coward, or his object is not +altogether mercenary: for the same ability displayed in this letter +would on the signature alone--had it been on a check or draft--have +drawn from your bank twenty times the amount concerned. Now, what is the +actual loss by this forgery?" + +"Very little; for you've got a good price for your stocks, considering +the depreciation in realizing suddenly on so large an amount. I told my +broker to sell slowly and in small quantities to avoid a panic. But the +real loss is the control of the stock." + +"But the amount I had was not enough to affect that," said Demorest. + +"No, but I was carrying a large amount myself, and together we +controlled the market, and now I have unloaded, too." + +"You sold out! and with your doubts?" said Demorest. + +"That's just it," said Stacy, looking steadily at his companion's face, +"because I HAD doubts, and it won't do for me to have them. I ought +either to have disobeyed your letter and kept your stock and my own, or +have done just what I did. I might have hedged on my own stock, but +I don't believe in hedging. There is no middle course to a man in my +business if he wants to keep at the top. No great success, no great +power, was ever created by it." + +Demorest smiled. "Yet you accept the alternative also, which is ruin?" + +"Precisely," said Stacy. "When you returned the other day you were bound +to find me what I was or a beggar. But nothing between. However," he +added, "this has nothing to do with the forgery, or," he smiled grimly, +"everything to do with it. Hush! Barker is coming." + +There was a quick step along the corridor approaching the room. The +next moment the door flew open to the bounding step and laughing face +of Barker. Whatever of thoughtfulness or despondency he had carried from +the room with him was completely gone. With his amazing buoyancy and +power of reaction he was there again in his usual frank, cheerful +simplicity. + +"I thought I'd come in and say goodnight," he began, with a laugh. +"I got Sta asleep after some high jinks we had together, and then I +reckoned it wasn't the square thing to leave just you two together, the +first night you came. And I remembered I had some business to talk over, +too, so I thought I'd chip in again and take a hand. It's only the shank +of the evening yet," he continued gayly, "and we ought to sit up at +least long enough to see the old snow-line vanish, as we did in old +times. But I say," he added suddenly, as he glanced from the one to the +other, "you've been having it pretty strong already. Why, you both look +as you did that night the backwater of the South Fork came into our +cabin. What's up?" + +"Nothing," said Demorest hastily, as he caught a glance of Stacy's +impatient face. "Only all business is serious, Barker boy, though you +don't seem to feel it so." + +"I reckon you're right there," said Barker, with a chuckle. "People +always laugh, of course, when I talk business, so it might make it a +little livelier for you and more of a change if I chipped in now. Only I +don't know which you'll do. Hand me a pipe. Well," he continued, filling +the pipe Demorest shoved towards him, "you see, I was in Sacramento +yesterday, and I went into Van Loo's branch office, as I heard he was +there, and I wanted to find out something about Kitty's investments, +which I don't think he's managing exactly right. He wasn't there, +however, but as I was waiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in +the Wheat Trust, and that there was a lot of it put upon the market. +They seemed to think that something had happened, and it was going down +still further. Now I knew it was your pet scheme, and that Phil had a +lot of shares in it, too, so I just slipped out and went to a broker's +and told him to buy all he could of it. And, by Jove! I was a little +taken aback when I found what I was in for, for everybody seemed to have +unloaded, and I found I hadn't money enough to pay margins, but I knew +that Demorest was here, and I reckoned on his seeing me through." He +stopped and colored, but added hopefully, "I reckon I'm safe, anyway, +for just as the thing was over those same clerks of Van Loo's came +bounding into the office to buy up everything. And offered to take it +off my hands and pay the margins." + +"And you?" said both men eagerly, and in a breath. + +Barker stared at them, and reddened and paled by turns. "I held on," he +stammered. "You see, boys"-- + +Both men had caught him by the arms. "How much have you got?" they said, +shaking him as if to precipitate the answer. + +"It's a heap!" said Barker. "It's a ghastly lot now I think of it. I'm +afraid I'm in for fifty thousand, if a cent." + +To his infinite astonishment and delight he was alternately hugged and +tossed backwards and forwards between the two men quite in the fashion +of the old days. Breathless but laughing, he at length gasped out, "What +does it all mean?" + +"Tell him everything, Jim,--EVERYTHING," said Demorest quickly. + +Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, and then laid the letter +and its copy before him. But Barker only read the forgery. + +"How could YOU, Stacy--one of the three partners of Heavy Tree--be +deceived! Don't you see it's Phil's handwriting--but it isn't PHIL!" + +"But have you any idea WHO it is?" said Stacy. + +"Not me," said Barker, with widely opened eyes. "You see it must be +somebody whom we are familiar with. I can't imagine such a scoundrel." + +"How did YOU know that Demorest had stock?" asked Stacy. + +"He told me in one of his letters and advised me to go into it. But just +then Kitty wanted money, I think, and I didn't go in." + +"I remember it," struck in Demorest. "But surely it was no secret. My +name would be on the transfer books for any one to see." + +"Not so," said Stacy quickly. "You were one of the original +shareholders; there was no transfer, and the books as well as the shares +of the company were in my hands." + +"And your clerks?" added Demorest. + +Stacy was silent. After a pause he asked, "Did anybody ever see that +letter, Barker?" + +"No one but myself and Kitty." + +"And would she be likely to talk of it?" continued Stacy. + +"Of course not. Why should she? Whom could she talk to?" Yet he stopped +suddenly, and then with his characteristic reaction added, with a laugh, +"Why no, certainly not." + +"Of course, everybody knew that you had bought the shares at +Sacramento?" + +"Yes. Why, you know I told you the Van Loo clerks came to me and wanted +to take it off my hands." + +"Yes, I remember; the Van Loo clerks; they knew it, of course," said +Stacy with a grim smile. "Well, boys," he said, with sudden alacrity, +"I'm going to turn in, for by sun-up to-morrow I must be on my way to +catch the first train at the Divide for 'Frisco. We'll hunt this thing +down together, for I reckon we're all concerned in it," he added, +looking at the others, "and once more we're partners as in the old +times. Let us even say that I've given Barker's signal or password," he +added, with a laugh, "and we'll stick together. Barker boy," he went on, +grasping his younger partner's hand, "your instinct has saved us this +time; d----d if I don't sometimes think it better than any other man's +sabe; only," he dropped his voice slightly, "I wish you had it in other +things than FINANCE. Phil, I've a word to say to you alone before I go. +I may want you to follow me." + +"But what can I do?" said Barker eagerly. "You're not going to leave me +out." + +"You've done quite enough for us, old man," said Stacy, laying his hand +on Barker's shoulder. "And it may be for US to do something for YOU. +Trot off to bed now, like a good boy. I'll keep you posted when the time +comes." + +Shoving the protesting and leave-taking Barker with paternal familiarity +from the room, he closed the door and faced Demorest. + +"He's the best fellow in the world," said Stacy quietly, "and has saved +the situation; but we mustn't trust too much to him for the present--not +even seem to." + +"Nonsense, man!" said Demorest impatiently. "You're letting your +prejudices go too far. Do you mean to say that you suspect his wife." + +"D--n his wife!" said Stacy almost savagely. "Leave her out of this. +It's Van Loo that I suspect. It was Van Loo who I knew was behind it, +who expected to profit by it, and now we have lost him." + +"But how?" said Demorest, astonished. + +"How?" repeated Stacy impatiently. "You know what Barker said? Van Loo, +either through stupidity, fright, or the wish to get the lowest prices, +was too late to buy up the market. If he had, we might have openly +declared the forgery, and if it was known that he or his friends had +profited by it, even if we could not have proven his actual complicity, +we could at least have made it too hot for him in California. But," said +Stacy, looking intently at his friend, "do you know how the case stands +now?" + +"Well," said Demorest, a little uneasily under his friend's keen eyes, +"we've lost that chance, but we've kept control of the stock." + +"You think so? Well, let me tell you how the case stands and the price +we pay for it," said Stacy deliberately, as he folded his arms and gazed +at Demorest. "You and I, well known as old friends and former partners, +for no apparent reason--for we cannot prove the forgery now--have thrown +upon the market all our stock, with the usual effect of depreciating it. +Another old friend and former partner has bought it in and sent up the +price. A common trick, a vulgar trick, but not a trick worthy of James +Stacy or Stacy's Bank!" + +"But why not simply declare the forgery without making any specific +charge against Van Loo?" + +"Do you imagine, Phil, that any man would believe it, and the story of a +providentially appointed friend like Barker who saved us from loss? +Why, all California, from Cape Mendocino to Los Angeles, would roar +with laughter over it! No! We must swallow it and the reputation of +'jockeying' with the Wheat Trust, too. That Trust's as good as done for, +for the present! Now you know why I didn't want poor Barker to know it, +nor have much to do with our search for the forger." + +"It would break the dear fellow's heart if he knew it," said Demorest. + +"Well, it's to save him from having his heart broken further that I +intend to find out this forger," said Stacy grimly. "Good-night, Phil! +I'll telegraph to you when I want you, and then COME!" + +With another grip of the hand he left Demorest to his thoughts. In the +first excitement of meeting his old partners, and in the later discovery +of the forgery, Demorest had been diverted from his old sorrow, and for +the time had forgotten it in sympathetic interest with the present. +But, to his horror, when alone again, he found that interest growing as +remote and vapid as the stories they had laughed over at the table, and +even the excitement of the forged letter and its consequences began to +be as unreal, as impotent, as shadowy, as the memory of the attempted +robbery in the old cabin on that very spot. He was ashamed of that +selfishness which still made him cling to this past, so much his own, +that he knew it debarred him from the human sympathy of his comrades. +And even Barker, in whose courtship and marriage he had tried to +resuscitate his youthful emotions and condone his selfish errors--even +the suggestion of his unhappiness only touched him vaguely. He would no +longer be a slave to the Past, or the memory that had deluded him a few +hours ago. He walked to the window; alas, there was the same prospect +that had looked upon his dreams, had lent itself to his old visions. +There was the eternal outline of the hills; there rose the steadfast +pines; there was no change in THEM. It was this surrounding constancy +of nature that had affected him. He turned away and entered the bedroom. +Here he suddenly remembered that the mother of this vague enemy, Van +Loo,--for his feeling towards him was still vague, as few men really +hate the personality they don't know,--had only momentarily vacated +it, and to his distaste of his own intrusion was now added the profound +irony of his sleeping in the same bed lately occupied by the mother of +the man who was suspected of having forged his name. He smiled faintly +and looked around the apartment. It was handsomely furnished, and +although it still had much of the characterlessness of the hotel room, +it was distinctly flavored by its last occupant, and still brightened +by that mysterious instinct of the sex which is inevitable. Where a man +would have simply left his forgotten slippers or collars there was +a glass of still unfaded flowers; the cold marble top of the +dressing-table was littered with a few linen and silk toilet covers; and +on the mantel-shelf was a sheaf of photographs. He walked towards them +mechanically, glanced at them abstractedly, and then stopped suddenly +with a beating heart. Before him was the picture of his past, the +photograph of the one woman who had filled his life! + +He cast a hurried glance around the room as if he half expected to see +the original start up before him, and then eagerly seized it and hurried +with it to the light. Yes! yes! It was SHE,--she as she had lived in his +actual memory; she as she had lived in his dream. He saw her sweet eyes, +but the frightened, innocent trouble had passed from them; there was +the sensitive elegance of her graceful figure in evening dress; but the +figure was fuller and maturer. Could he be mistaken by some wonderful +resemblance acting upon his too willing brain? He turned the photograph +over. No; there on the other side, written in her own childlike hand, +endeared and familiar to his recollection, was her own name, and the +date! It was surely she! + +How did it come there? Did the Van Loos know her? It was taken in +Venice; there was the address of the photographers. The Van Loos were +foreigners, he remembered; they had traveled; perhaps had met her there +in 1858: that was the date in her handwriting; that was the date on the +photographer's address--1858. Suddenly he laid the photograph down, took +with trembling fingers a letter-case from his pocket, opened it, and +laid his last letter to her, indorsed with the cruel announcement of her +death, before him on the table. He passed his hand across his forehead +and opened the letter. It was dated 1856! The photograph must have been +taken two years AFTER her alleged death! + +He examined it again eagerly, fixedly, tremblingly. A wild impulse to +summon Barker or Stacy on the spot was restrained with difficulty and +only when he remembered that they could not help him. Then he began to +oscillate between a joy and a new fear, which now, for the first time, +began to dawn upon him. If the news of her death had been a fiendish +trick of her relations, why had SHE never sought him? It was not ill +health, restraint, nor fear; there was nothing but happiness and +the strength of youth and beauty in that face and figure. HE had not +disappeared from the world; he was known of men; more, his memorable +good fortune must have reached her ears. Had he wasted all these +miserable years to find himself abandoned, forgotten, perhaps even +a dupe? For the first time the sting of jealousy entered his soul. +Perhaps, unconsciously to himself, his strange and varying feelings that +afternoon had been the gathering climax of his mental condition; at all +events, in the sudden revulsion there was a shaking off of his apathetic +thought; there was activity, even if it was the activity of pain. Here +was a mystery to be solved, a secret to be discovered, a past wrong to +be exposed, an enemy or, perhaps, even a faithless love to be punished. +Perhaps he had even saved his reason at the expense of his love. He +quickly replaced the photograph on the mantel-shelf, returned the letter +carefully to his pocket-book,--no longer a souvenir of the past, but a +proof of treachery,--and began to mechanically undress himself. He was +quite calm now, and went to bed with a strange sense of relief, and +slept as he had not slept since he was a boy. + +The whole hotel had sunk to rest by this time, and then began the usual +slow, nightly invasion and investment of it by nature. For all its broad +verandas and glaring terraces, its long ranges of windows and glittering +crest of cupola and tower, it gradually succumbed to the more potent +influences around it, and became their sport and playground. The +mountain breezes from the distant summit swept down upon its flimsy +structure, shook the great glass windows as with a strong hand, and sent +the balm of bay and spruce through every chink and cranny. In the great +hall and corridors the carpets billowed with the intruding blast along +the floors; there was the murmur of the pines in the passages, and the +damp odor of leaves in the dining-room. There was the cry of night birds +in the creaking cupola, and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom +windows. Lissome shapes crept along the terraces between the stolid +wooden statues, or, bolder, scampered the whole length of the great +veranda. In the lulling of the wind the breath of the woods was +everywhere; even the aroma of swelling sap--as if the ghastly stumps +on the deforested slope behind the hotel were bleeding afresh in the +dewless night--stung the eyes and nostrils of the sleepers. + +It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that Barker was awakened +suddenly by the voice of the boy from the crib beside him, crying, +"Mamma! mamma!" Taking the child in his arms, he comforted him, saying +she would come that morning, and showed him the faint dawn already +veiling with color the ghostly pallor of the Sierras. As they looked at +it a great star shot forth from its brethren and fell. It did not fall +perpendicularly, but seemed for some seconds to slip along the slopes +of Black Spur, gleaming through the trees like a chariot of fire. It +pleased the child to say that it was the light of mamma's buggy that +was fetching her home, and it pleased the father to encourage the boy's +fancy. And talking thus in confidential whispers they fell asleep once +more, the father--himself a child in so many things--holding the smaller +and frailer hand in his. + +They did not know that on the other side of the Divide the wife and +mother, scared, doubting, and desperate, by the side of her scared, +doubting, and desperate accomplice, was flying down the slope on her +night-long road to ruin. Still less did they know that, with the early +singing birds, a careless horseman, emerging from the trail as the +dust-stained buggy dashed past him, glanced at it with a puzzled air, +uttered a quiet whistle of surprise, and then, wheeling his horse, gayly +cantered after it. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack Hamlin had sat up all +night in the magnolia saloon of the Divide, and as it was rather early +to go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, shaken off the sedentary +attitude and prepared himself for sleep by a fierce preliminary +gallop in the woods. Besides, he had been a large winner, and on those +occasions he generally isolated himself from his companions to avoid +foolish altercations with inexperienced players. Even in fighting +Jack was fastidious, and did not like to have his stomach for a real +difficulty distended and vitiated by small preliminary indulgences. + +He was just emerging from the wood into the highroad when a buggy dashed +past him, containing a man and a woman. The woman wore a thick veil; the +man was almost undistinguishable from dust. The glimpse was momentary, +but dislike has a keen eye, and in that glimpse Mr. Hamlin recognized +Van Loo. The situation was equally clear. The bent heads and averted +faces, the dust collected in the heedlessness of haste, the early +hour,--indicating a night-long flight,--all made it plain to him that +Van Loo was running away with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral +scruples, but he had the ethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van +Loo was not. Whether the woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress, +he was satisfied that Van Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin +also had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman was or was not +fair game, he knew that for HIS purposes Van Loo was. With the greatest +cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse and cantered after them. + +They were evidently making for the Divide and a fresh horse, or to +take the coach due an hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's present object +to circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in his way to return. +Incidentally, however, the superior speed of his horse gave him the +opportunity of frequently lunging towards them at a furious pace, which +had the effect of frantically increasing their own speed, when he would +pull up with a silent laugh before he was fairly discovered, and allow +the sound of his rapid horse's hoofs to die out. In this way he amused +himself until the straggling town of the Divide came in sight, when, +putting his spurs to his horse again, he managed, under pretense of +the animal becoming ungovernable, to twice "cross the bows" of the +fugitives, compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these +passages Van Loo apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his +whip, the lash caught slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr. +Hamlin instantly acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and speeded +on to the hotel, arriving at the steps and throwing himself from the +saddle exactly as the buggy drove up. With characteristic audacity, he +actually assisted the frightened and eager woman to alight and run into +the hotel. But in this action her veil was accidentally lifted. Mr. +Hamlin instantly recognized the pretty woman who had been pointed out +to him in San Francisco as Mrs. Barker, the wife of one of the partners +whose fortunes had interested him five years ago. It struck him that +this was an additional reason for his interference on Barker's account, +although personally he could not conceive why a man should ever try +to prevent a woman from running away from him. But then Mr. Hamlin's +personal experiences had been quite the other way. + +It was enough, however, to cause him to lay his hand lightly on Van +Loo's arm as the latter, leaping down, was about to follow Mrs. Barker +into the hotel. "You'll have time enough now," said Hamlin. + +"Time for what?" said Van Loo savagely. + +"Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip," said Jack +sweetly. "We don't want to quarrel before a woman." + +"I've no time for fooling!" said Van Loo, endeavoring to pass. + +But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's wrist, although he still +smiled cheerfully. "Ah! Then you DID mean it, and you propose to give me +satisfaction?" + +Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack's reputation as a duelist. But +he was desperate. "You see my position," he said hurriedly. "I'm in a +hurry; I have a lady with me. No man of honor"-- + +"You do me wrong," interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,--"you do, +indeed. You are in a hurry--well, I have plenty of time. If you cannot +attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany you and the lady +to the next station. Of course," he added, with a smile, "at a proper +distance, and without interfering with the lady, whom I am pleased +to recognize as the wife of an old friend. It would be more sociable, +perhaps, if we had some general conversation on the road; it would +prevent her being alarmed. I might even be of some use to YOU. If we are +overtaken by her husband on the road, for instance, I should certainly +claim the right to have the first shot at you. Boy!" he called to the +hostler, "just sponge out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be ready when the +buggy goes?" And, loosening his grip of Van Loo's wrist, he turned away +as the other quickly entered the hotel. + +But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He had already +some experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility on the drive, and +had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an impediment to +his flight from the country. And another idea had come to him. He +had already effected his purpose of compromising her with him in that +flight, but it was still known only to few. If he left her behind for +the foolish, doting husband, would not that devoted man take her back +to avoid a scandal, and even forbear to pursue HIM for his financial +irregularities? What were twenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker's money +to the scandal of Mrs. Barker's elopement? Again, the failure to realize +the forgery had left him safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with +the bank and Demorest to hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only +obstacle to his flight; but even he would scarcely pursue HIM if Mrs. +Barker were left behind. And it would be easier to elude him if he did. + +In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered the +bar-room, but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; a glass +of spirits would revive him. As he drank it he saw that the room was +full of rough men, apparently miners or packers--some of them Mexican, +with here and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two men more ostentatiously +clad, though apparently on equal terms with the others, were standing in +the corner with their backs towards him. From the general silence as he +entered he imagined that he had been the subject of conversation, and +that his altercation with Hamlin had been overheard. Suddenly one of the +two men turned and approached him. To his consternation he recognized +Steptoe,--Steptoe, whom he had not seen for five years until last night, +when he had avoided him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. His +first instinct was to retreat, but it was too late. And the spirits had +warmed him into temporary recklessness. + +"You ain't goin' to be backed down by a short-card gambler, are yer?" +said Steptoe, with coarse familiarity. + +"I have a lady with me, and am pressed for time," said Van Loo quickly. +"He knows it, otherwise he would not have dared"-- + +"Well, look here," said Steptoe roughly. "I ain't particularly sweet on +you, as you know; but I and these gentlemen," he added, glancing around +the room, "ain't particularly sweet on Mr. Jack Hamlin neither, and we +kalkilate to stand by you if you say so. Now, I reckon you want to +get away with the woman, and the quicker the better, as you're afraid +there'll be somebody after you afore long. That's the way it pans out, +don't it? Well, when you're ready to go, and you just tip us the wink, +we'll get in a circle round Jack and cover him, and if he starts after +you we'll send him on a little longer journey!--eh, boys?" + +The men muttered their approval, and one or two drew their revolvers +from their belts. Van Loo's heart, which had leaped at first at this +proposal of help, sank at this failure of his little plan of abandoning +Mrs. Barker. He hesitated, and then stammered, "Thank you! Haste is +everything with us now; but I shouldn't mind leaving the lady among +CHIVALROUS GENTLEMEN like yourselves for a few hours only, until I +could communicate with my friends and return to properly chastise this +scoundrel." + +Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight whistle, and gazed at Van Loo. +He instantly understood him. But the plea did not suit Steptoe, who, +for purposes of his own, wished to put Mrs. Barker beyond her husband's +possible reach. He smiled grimly. "I think you'd better take the woman +with you," he said. "I don't think," he added in a lower voice, "that +the boys would like your leaving her. They're very high-toned, they +are!" he concluded ironically. + +"Then," said Van Loo, with another desperate idea, "could you not let us +have saddle-horses instead of the buggy? We could travel faster, and in +the event of pursuit and anything happening to ME," he added loftily, +"SHE at least could escape her pursuer's vengeance." + +This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as the guilty couple fled +TOGETHER, and in the presence of witnesses. But he was not deceived by +Van Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice. "Quite right," he said +sarcastically, "it shall be done, and I've no doubt ONE of you will +escape. I'll send the horses round to the back door and keep the buggy +in front. That will keep Jack there, TOO,--with the boys handy." + +But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo's methods +and of his OWN standing with Steptoe's gang of roughs as Mr. Steptoe +himself. More than that, he also had a hold on a smaller but more +devoted and loyal following than Steptoe's. The employees and hostlers +of the hotel worshiped him. A single word of inquiry revealed to him +the fact that the buggy was NOT going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and +Mrs. Barker WERE--on two horses, a temporary side-saddle having been +constructed out of a mule's pack-tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, with his +usual audacity, walked into the bar-room, and going to the bar leaned +carelessly against it. Then turning to the lowering faces around him, he +said, with a flash of his white teeth, "Well, boys, I'm calculating to +leave the Divide in a few minutes to follow some friends in the buggy, +and it seems to me only the square thing to stand the liquor for the +crowd, without prejudice to any feeling or roughness there may be +against me. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm generally there when +the band plays, and I'm pretty sure to turn up for THAT sort of thing. +So you'll just consider that I've had a good game on the Divide, and +I'm reckoning it's only fair to leave a little of it behind me here, +to 'sweeten the pot' until I call again. I only ask you, gentlemen, to +drink success to my friends in the buggy as early and as often as you +can." He flung two gold pieces on the counter and paused, smiling. + +He was right in his conjecture. Even the men who would have willingly +"held him up" a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, saw no reason +for declining a free drink "without prejudice." And it was a part of +the irony of the situation that Steptoe and Van Loo were also obliged +to participate to keep in with their partisans. It was, however, an +opportune diversion to Van Loo, who managed to get nearer the door +leading to the back entrance of the hotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who +was watching him, as the men closed up to the bar. + +The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another and yet +another. Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, were both +wondering if Hamlin's intention were to intoxicate and incapacitate the +crowd at the crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled grimly over his superior +knowledge of their alcoholic capacity. But suddenly there was the +greater diversion of a shout from the road, the on-coming of a cloud of +red dust, and the halt of another vehicle before the door. This time it +was no jaded single horse and dust-stained buggy, but a double team +of four spirited trotters, whose coats were scarcely turned with foam, +before a light station wagon containing a single man. But that man +was instantly recognized by every one of the outside loungers and +stable-boys as well as the staring crowd within the saloon. It was James +Stacy, the millionaire and banker. No one but himself knew that he had +covered half the distance of a night-long ride from Boomville in two +hours. But before they could voice their astonishment Stacy had thrown +a letter to the obsequious landlord, and then gathering up the reins had +sped away to the railroad station half a mile distant. + +"Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a hurry," said one of the eager +gazers in the doorway. "Somebody goin' to get smashed, sure." + +"More like as if he was just humpin' himself to keep from getting +smashed," said Steptoe. "The bank hasn't got over the effect of their +smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything they had in their hands +tumbled yesterday in Sacramento. Men like me and you ain't goin' to +trust their money to be 'jockeyed' with in that style. Nobody but a man +with a swelled head like Stacy would have even dared to try it on. And +now, by G-d! he's got to pay for it." + +The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker showed that he had quite +forgotten Van Loo and Hamlin in his superior hatred of the millionaire, +and both men noticed it. Van Loo edged still nearer to the door, as +Steptoe continued, "Ever since he made that big strike on Heavy Tree +five years ago, the country hasn't been big enough to hold him. But mark +my words, gentlemen, the time ain't far off when he'll find a two-foot +ditch again and a pick and grub wages room enough and to spare for him +and his kind of cattle." + +"You're not drinking," said Jack Hamlin cheerfully. + +Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then started. "Where's Van Loo?" he +demanded of Jack sharply. + +Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Gone to hurry up his girl, I +reckon. I calculate he ain't got much time to fool away here." + +Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at the same moment they +were all startled--even Jack himself--at the apparition of Mrs. Barker +passing hurriedly along the veranda before the windows in the direction +of the still waiting buggy. "D--n it!" said Steptoe in a fierce whisper +to the man next him. "Tell her not THERE--at the back door!" But before +the messenger reached the door there was a sudden rattle of wheels, and +with one accord all except Hamlin rushed to the veranda, only to see +Mrs. Barker driving rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into the +room, but Jack also had disappeared. + +For in the confusion created at the sight of Mrs. Barker, he had slipped +to the back door and found, as he suspected, only one horse, and that +with a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right. Van Loo, when he +disappeared from the saloon, had instantly fled, taking the other horse +and abandoning the woman to her fate. Jack as instantly leaped upon the +remaining saddle and dashed after him. Presently he caught a glimpse of +the fugitive in the distance, heard the half-angry, half-ironical shouts +of the crowd at the back door, and as he reached the hilltop saw, with a +mingling of satisfaction and perplexity, Mrs. Barker on the other road, +still driving frantically in the direction of the railroad station. At +which Mr. Hamlin halted, threw away his encumbering saddle, and, +good rider that he was, remounted the horse, barebacked but for his +blanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose girths, again dashed +forwards,--with such good results that, as Van Loo galloped up to the +stagecoach office, at the next station, and was about to enter the +waiting coach for Marysville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlin was laid on +his shoulder. + +"I told you," said Jack blandly, "that I had plenty of time. I would +have been here BEFORE and even overtaken you, only you had the better +horse and the only saddle." + +Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate and reckless. Beckoning Jack +out of earshot of the other passengers, he said with tightened lips, +"Why do you follow me? What is your purpose in coming here?" + +"I thought," said Hamlin dryly, "that I was to have the pleasure of +getting satisfaction from you for the insult you gave me." + +"Well, and if I apologize for it, what then?" he said quickly. + +Hamlin looked at him quietly. "Well, I think I also said something about +the lady being the wife of a friend of mine." + +"And I have left her BEHIND. Her husband can take her back without +disgrace, for no one knows of her flight but you and me. Do you think +your shooting me will save her? It will spread the scandal far and wide. +For I warn you, that as I have apologized for what you choose to call my +personal insult, unless you murder me in cold blood without witness, I +shall let them know the REASON of your quarrel. And I can tell you more: +if you only succeed in STOPPING me here, and make me lose my chance of +getting away, the scandal to your friend will be greater still." + +Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. There was a certain amount +of conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind of creature +before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition of his character. +He amused and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin was also a man of the +world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might be good. He put his hands +in his pockets, and said gravely, "What IS your little game?" + +Van Loo had been seized with another inspiration of desperation. Steptoe +had been partly responsible for this situation. Van Loo knew that Jack +and Steptoe were not friends. He had certain secrets of Steptoe's that +might be of importance to Jack. Why should he not try to make friends +with this powerful free-lance and half-outlaw? + +"It's a game," he said significantly, "that might be of interest to your +friends to hear." + +Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, turned on his heel, and said, +"Come with me." + +"But I must go by that coach now," said Van Loo desperately, "or--I've +told you what would happen." + +"Come with me," said Jack coolly. "If I'm satisfied with what you tell +me, I'll put you down at the next station an hour before that coach gets +there." + +"You swear it?" said Van Loo hesitatingly. + +"I've SAID it," returned Jack. "Come!" and Van Loo followed Mr. Hamlin +into the station hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and the strange lady and +gentleman visitor was scarcely noticed by the other guests of the Divide +House, and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, who were a +distinct party and strangers to the town, there was no excitement. +Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded them together, and, +perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his belief that their identity had +not been suspected. Nor were Steptoe's followers very much concerned in +an episode in which they had taken part only at the suggestion of their +leader, and which had terminated so tamely. That they would have liked +a "row," in which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to +disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference +was asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van +Loo was equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and outspoken +criticism of his methods. + +This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guest for +whom Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting. He was a short, stout +man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little more carefully than when +he was first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, the drunkard of Heavy Tree +Hill. His dress, too, exhibited a marked improvement in quality and +style, although still characterized in the waist and chest by the +unbuttoned freedom of portly and slovenly middle age. Civilization had +restricted his potations or limited them to certain festivals known as +"sprees," and his face was less puffy and sodden. But with the accession +of sobriety he had lost his good humor, and had the irritability and +intolerance of virtuous restraint. + +"Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me," he said +querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of the party +through the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. "I want to keep my +head level till our business is over, and I reckon it wouldn't hurt you +and your gang to do the same. They're less likely to blab; and there are +few doors that whiskey won't unlock," he added, as Steptoe turned the +key in the door after the party had entered. + +The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors or political +caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and whittled armchairs +and a single long deal table, on which were ink and pens. The men sat +down around it with a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of +formality, their bent brows and isolated looks showing little community +of sentiment and scarcely an attempt to veil that individual selfishness +that was prominent. Still less was there any essay of companionship or +sympathy in the manner of Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table +with his knuckles. + +"Gentlemen," he said, with a certain deliberation of utterance, as if +he enjoyed his own coarse directness, "I reckon you all have a sort of +general idea what you were picked up for, or you wouldn't be here. +But you may or may not know that for the present you are honest, +hard-working miners,--the backbone of the State of Californy,--and that +you have formed yourselves into a company called the 'Blue Jay,' +and you've settled yourselves on the Bar below Heavy Tree Hill, on a +deserted claim of the Marshall Brothers, not half a mile from where +the big strike was made five years ago. That's what you ARE, gentlemen; +that's what you'll continue TO BE until the job's finished; and," he +added, with a sudden dominance that they all felt, "the man who forgets +it will have to reckon with me. Now," he continued, resuming his +former ironical manner, "now, what are the cold facts of the case? The +Marshalls worked this claim ever since '49, and never got anything out +of it; then they dropped off or died out, leaving only one brother, Tom +Marshall, to work what was left of it. Well, a few days ago HE found +indications of a big lead in the rock, and instead of rushin' out and +yellin' like an honest man, and callin' in the boys to drink, he sneaks +off to 'Frisco, and goes to the bank to get 'em to take a hand in it. +Well, you know, when Jim Stacy takes a hand in anything, IT'S BOTH +HANDS, and the bank wouldn't see it until he promised to guarantee +possession of the whole abandoned claim,--'dips, spurs, and +angles,'--and let them work the whole thing, which the d----d fool DID, +and the bank agreed to send an expert down there to-morrow to report. +But while he was away some one on our side, who was an expert also, got +wind of it, and made an examination all by himself, and found it was a +vein sure enough and a big thing, and some one else on our side found +out, too, all that Marshall had promised the bank and what the bank +had promised him. Now, gentlemen, when the bank sends down that expert +to-morrow I expect that he will find YOU IN POSSESSION of every part of +the deserted claim except the spot where Tom is still working." + +"And what good is that to us?" asked one of the men contemptuously. + +"Good?" repeated Steptoe harshly. "Well, if you're not as d----d a fool +as Marshall, you'll see that if he has struck a lead or vein it's bound +to run across OUR CLAIMS, and what's to keep us from sinking for it as +long as Marshall hasn't worked the other claims for years nor pre-empted +them for this lead?" + +"What'll keep him from preempting now?" + +"Our possession." + +"But if he can prove that the brothers left their claims to him to keep, +he'll just send the sheriff and his posse down upon us," persisted the +first speaker. + +"It will take him three months to do that by law, and the sheriff and +his posse can't do it before as long as we're in peaceable possession of +it. And by the time that expert and Marshall return they'll find us in +peaceful possession, unless we're such blasted fools as to stay talking +about it here!" + +"But what's to prevent Marshall from getting a gang of his own to drive +us off?" + +"Now your talkin' and not yelpin'," said Steptoe, with slow insolence. +"D----d if I didn't begin to think you kalkilated I was goin' to employ +you as lawyers! Nothing is to prevent him from gettin' up HIS gang, +and we hope he'll do it, for you see it puts us both on the same level +before the law, for we're both BREAKIN' IT. And we kalkilate that we're +as good as any roughs they can pick up at Heavy Tree." + +"I reckon!" "Ye can count us in!" said half a dozen voices eagerly. + +"But what's the job goin' to pay us?" persisted a Sydney man. "An' arter +we've beat off this other gang, are we going to scrub along on grub +wages until we're yanked out by process-sarvers three months later? If +that's the ticket I'm not in it. I aren't no b--y quartz miner." + +"We ain't going to do no more MINING there than the bank," said Steptoe +fiercely. "And the bank ain't going to wait no three months for the end +of the lawsuit. They'll float the stock of that mine for a couple of +millions, and get out of it with a million before a month. And they'll +have to buy us off to do that. What they'll pay will depend upon the +lead; but we don't move off those claims for less than five thousand +dollars, which will be two hundred and fifty dollars to each man. But," +said Steptoe in a lower but perfectly distinct voice, "if there should +be a row,--and they BEGIN it,--and in the scuffle Tom Marshall, their +only witness, should happen to get in the way of a revolver or have his +head caved in, there might be some difficulty in their holdin' ANY OF +THE MINE against honest, hardworking miners in possession. You hear me?" + +There was a breathless silence for the moment, and a slight movement +of the men in their chairs, but never in fear or protest. Every one had +heard the speaker distinctly, and every man distinctly understood him. +Some of them were criminals, one or two had already the stain of blood +on their hands; but even the most timid, who at other times might have +shrunk from suggested assassination, saw in the speaker's words only the +fair removal of a natural enemy. + +"All right, boys. I'm ready to wade in at once. Why ain't we on the road +now? We might have been but for foolin' our time away on that man Van +Loo." + +"Van Loo!" repeated Hall eagerly,--"Van Loo! Was he here?" + +"Yes," said Steptoe shortly, administering a kick under the table to +Hall, as he had no wish to revive the previous irritability of his +comrades. "He's gone, but," turning to the others, "you'd have had to +wait for Mr. Hall's arrival, anyhow. And now you've got your order you +can start. Go in two parties by different roads, and meet on the other +side of the hotel at Hymettus. I'll be there before you. Pick up some +shovels and drills as you go; remember you're honest miners, but don't +forget your shootin'-irons for all that. Now scatter." + +It was well that they did, vacating the room more cheerfully and +sympathetically than they had entered it, or Hall's manifest disturbance +over Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When the last man had +disappeared Hall turned quickly to Steptoe. "Well, what did he say? +Where has he gone?" + +"Don't know," said Steptoe, with uneasy curtness. "He was running away +with a woman--well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know," he added, with +rising anger, "the wife of one of those cursed partners. Jack Hamlin was +here, and was jockeying to stop him, and interfered. But what the devil +has that job to do with our job?" He was losing his temper; everything +seemed to turn upon this infernal Van Loo! + +"He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker," gasped Hall,--"it was with +her MONEY! and the fear of being connected with the Wheat Trust swindle +which he organized, and with our money which I lent him for the same +purpose. And he knows all about that job, for I wanted to get him to go +into it with us. Your name and mine ain't any too sweet-smelling for +the bank, and we ought to have a middleman who knows business to arrange +with them. The bank daren't object to him, for they've employed him in +even shadier transactions than this when THEY didn't wish to appear. I +knew he was in difficulties along with Mrs. Barker's speculations, but +I never thought him up to this. And," he added, with sudden desperation, +"YOU trusted him, too." + +In an instant Steptoe caught the frightened man by the shoulders and was +bearing him down on the table. "Are you a traitor, a liar, or a besotted +fool?" he said hoarsely. "Speak. WHEN and WHERE did I trust him?" + +"You said in your note--I was--to--help him," gasped Hall. + +"My note," repeated Steptoe, releasing Hall with astonished eyes. + +"Yes," said Hall, tremblingly searching in his vest pocket. "I brought +it with me. It isn't much of a note, but there's your signature plain +enough." + +He handed Steptoe a torn piece of paper folded in a three-cornered +shape. Steptoe opened it. He instantly recognized the paper on which +he had written his name and sent up to his wife at the Boomville Hotel. +But, added to it, in apparently the same hand, in smaller characters, +were the words, "Help Van Loo all you can." + +The blood rushed into his face. But he quickly collected himself, and +said hurriedly, "All right, I had forgotten it. Let the d----d sneak go. +We've got what's a thousand times better in this claim at Marshall's, +and it's well that he isn't in it to scoop the lion's share. Only we +must not waste time getting there now. You go there first, and at once, +and set those rascals to work. I'll follow you before Marshall comes up. +Get; I'll settle up here." + +His face darkened once more as Hall hurried away, leaving him alone. He +drew out the piece of paper from his pocket and stared at it again. Yes; +it was the one he had sent to his wife. How did Van Loo get hold of +it? Was he at the hotel that night? Had he picked it up in the hall or +passage when the servant dropped it? When Hall handed him the paper and +he first recognized it a fiendish thought, followed by a spasm of more +fiendish rage, had sent the blood to his face. But his crude common +sense quickly dismissed that suggestion of his wife's complicity with +Van Loo. But had she seen him passing through the hotel that night, and +had sought to draw from him some knowledge of his early intercourse with +the child, and confessed everything, and even produced the paper with +his signature as a proof of identity? Women had been known to do such +desperate things. Perhaps she disbelieved her son's aversion to her, and +was trying to sound Van Loo. As for the forged words by Van Loo, and the +use he had put them to, he cared little. He believed the man was capable +of forgery; indeed, he suddenly remembered that in the old days his +son had spoken innocently, but admiringly, of Van Loo's wonderful +chirographical powers and his faculty of imitating the writings of +others, and how he had even offered to teach him. A new and exasperating +thought came into his feverish consciousness. What if Van Loo, in +teaching the boy, had even made use of him as an innocent accomplice to +cover up his own tricks! The suggestion was no question of moral ethics +to Steptoe, nor of his son's possible contamination, although since the +night of the big strike he had held different views; it was simply a +fierce, selfish jealousy that ANOTHER might have profited by the lad's +helplessness and inexperience. He had been tormented by this jealousy +before in his son's liking for Van Loo. He had at first encouraged his +admiration and imitative regard for this smooth swindler's graces and +accomplishments, which, though he scorned them himself, he was, after +the common parental infatuation, willing that the boy should profit by. +Incapable, through his own consciousness, of distinguishing between Van +Loo's superficial polish and the true breeding of a gentleman, he +had only looked upon it as an equipment for his son which might be +serviceable to himself. He had told his wife the truth when he informed +her of Van Loo's fears of being reminded of their former intimacy; but +he had not told her how its discontinuance after they had left Heavy +Tree Hill had affected her son, and how he still cherished his old +admiration for that specious rascal. Nor had he told her how this had +stung him, through his own selfish greed of the boy's affection. Yet now +that it was possible that she had met Van Loo that evening, she might +have become aware of Van Loo's power over her child. How she would +exult, for all her pretended hatred of Van Loo! How, perhaps, they had +plotted together! How Van Loo might have become aware of the place where +his son was kept, and have been bribed by the mother to tell her! He +stopped in a whirl of giddy fancies. His strong common sense in all +other things had been hitherto proof against such idle dreams or +suggestions; but the very strength of his parental love and jealousy had +awakened in him at last the terrors of imagination. + +His first impulse had been to seek his wife, regardless of discovery or +consequences, at Hymettus, where she had said she was going. It was on +his way to the rendezvous at Marshall's claim. But this he as instantly +set aside, it was his SON he must find; SHE might not confess, or might +deceive him--the boy would not; and if his fears were correct, she could +be arraigned afterwards. It was possible for him to reach the little +Mission church and school, secluded in a remote valley by the old +Franciscan fathers, where he had placed the boy for the last few years +unknown to his wife. It would be a long ride, but he could still reach +Heavy Tree Hill afterwards before Marshall and the expert arrived. And +he had a feeling he had never felt before on the eve of a desperate +adventure,--that he must see the boy first. He remembered how the child +had often accompanied him in his flight, and how he had gained strength, +and, it seemed to him, a kind of luck, from the touch of that small hand +in his. Surely it was necessary now that at least his mind should be at +rest regarding HIM on the eve of an affair of this moment. Perhaps he +might never see him again. At any other time, and under the influence of +any other emotion, he would have scorned such a sentimentalism--he who +had never troubled himself either with preparation for the future or +consideration for the past. But at that moment he felt both. He drew +a long breath. He could catch the next train to the Three Boulders and +ride thence to San Felipe. He hurriedly left the room, settled with the +landlord, and galloped to the station. By the irony of circumstances the +only horse available for that purpose was Mr. Hamlin's own. + +By two o'clock he was at the Three Boulders, where he got a fast horse +and galloped into San Felipe by four. As he descended the last slope +through the fastnesses of pines towards the little valley overlooked +in its remoteness and purely pastoral simplicity by the gold-seeking +immigrants,--its seclusion as one of the furthest northern Californian +missions still preserved through its insignificance and the efforts of +the remaining Brotherhood, who used it as an infirmary and a school for +the few remaining Spanish families,--he remembered how he once blundered +upon it with the boy while hotly pursued by a hue and cry from one of +the larger towns, and how he found sanctuary there. He remembered how, +when the pursuit was over, he had placed the boy there under the padre's +charge. He had lied to his wife regarding the whereabouts of her son, +but he had spoken truly regarding his free expenditure for the boy's +maintenance, and the good fathers had accepted, equally for the child's +sake as for the Church's sake, the generous "restitution" which this +coarse, powerful, ruffianly looking father was apparently seeking to +make. He was quite aware of it at the time, and had equally accepted it +with grim cynicism; but it now came back to him with a new and smarting +significance. Might THEY, too, not succeed in weaning the boy's +affection from him, or if the mother had interfered, would they not side +with her in claiming an equal right? He had sometimes laughed to himself +over the security of this hiding-place, so unknown and so unlikely to be +discovered by her, yet within easy reach of her friends and his enemies; +he now ground his teeth over the mistake which his doting desire to keep +his son accessible to him had caused him to make. He put spurs to his +horse, dashed down the little, narrow, ill-paved street, through +the deserted plaza, and pulled up in a cloud of dust before the only +remaining tower, with its cracked belfry, of the half-ruined Mission +church. A new dormitory and school-building had been extended from its +walls, but in a subdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual +glaring white-pine glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to +himself bitterly. Some of his money had gone in it. + +He seized the horsehair rope dangling from a bell by the wall and rang +it sharply. A soft-footed priest appeared,--Father Dominico. "Eddy +Horncastle? Ah! yes. Eddy, dear child, is gone." + +"Gone!" shouted Steptoe in a voice that startled the padre. "Where? +When? With whom?" + +"Pardon, senor, but for a time--only a pasear to the next village. It is +his saint's day--he has half-holiday. He is a good boy. It is a little +pleasure for him and for us." + +"Oh!" said Steptoe, softened into a rough apology. "I forgot. All right. +Has he had any visitors lately--lady, for instance?" + +Father Dominico cast a look half of fright, half of reproval upon his +guest. + +"A lady HERE!" + +In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. "Of course; you see +I forgot that, too. I was thinking of one of his woman folks, you +know--relatives--aunts. Was there any other visitor?" + +"Only one. Ah! we know the senor's rules regarding his son." + +"One?" repeated Steptoe. "Who was it?" + +"Oh, quite an hidalgo--an old friend of the child's--most polite, +most accomplished, fluent in Spanish, perfect in deportment. The Senor +Horncastle surely could find nothing to object to. Father Pedro was +charmed with him. A man of affairs, and yet a good Catholic, too. It +was a Senor Van Loo--Don Paul the boy called him, and they talked of the +boy's studies in the old days as if--indeed, but for the stranger being +a caballero and man of the world--as if he had been his teacher." + +It was a proof of the intensity of the father's feelings that they had +passed beyond the power of his usual coarse, brutal expression, and he +only stared at the priest with a dull red face in which the blood seemed +to have stagnated. Presently he said thickly, "When did he come?" + +"A few days ago." + +"Which way did Eddy go?" + +"To Brown's Mills, scarcely a league away. He will be here--even now--on +the instant. But the senor will come into the refectory and take some +of the old Mission wine from the Catalan grape, planted one hundred and +fifty years ago, until the dear child returns. He will be so happy." + +"No! I'm in a hurry. I will go on and meet him." He took off his hat, +mopped his crisp, wet hair with his handkerchief, and in a thick, slow, +impeded voice, more suggestive than the outburst he restrained, said, +"And as long as my son remains here that man, Van Loo, must not pass +this gate, speak to him, or even see him. You hear me? See to it, you +and all the others. See to it, I say, or"--He stopped abruptly, clapped +his hat on the swollen veins of his forehead, turned quickly, passed out +without another word through the archway into the road, and before the +good priest could cross himself or recover from his astonishment the +thud of his horse's hoofs came from the dusty road. + +It was ten minutes before his face resumed its usual color. But in that +ten minutes, as if some of the struggle of his rider had passed into +him, his horse was sweating with exhaustion and fear. For in that ten +minutes, in this new imagination with which he was cursed, he had killed +both Van Loo and his son, and burned the refectory over the heads of the +treacherous priests. Then, quite himself again, a voice came to him from +the rocky trail above the road with the hail of "Father!" He started +quickly as a lad of fifteen or sixteen came bounding down the hillside, +and ran towards him. + +"You passed me and I called to you, but you did not seem to hear," +said the boy breathlessly. "Then I ran after you. Have you been to the +Mission?" + +Steptoe looked at him quite as breathlessly, but from a deeper emotion. +He was, even at first sight, a handsome lad, glowing with youth and the +excitement of his run, and, as the father looked at him, he could +see the likeness to his mother in his clear-cut features, and even a +resemblance to himself in his square, compact chest and shoulders and +crisp, black curls. A thrill of purely animal paternity passed over him, +the fierce joy of his flesh over his own flesh! His own son, by God! +They could not take THAT from him; they might plot, swindle, fawn, +cheat, lie, and steal away his affections, but there he was, plain to +all eyes, his own son, his very son! + +"Come here," he said in a singular, half-weary and half-protesting +voice, which the boy instantly recognized as his father's accents of +affection. + +The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of the road and pointed with +mingled mischief and fastidiousness to the depths of impalpable red +dust that lay between him and the horseman. Steptoe saw that he was very +smartly attired in holiday guise, with white duck trousers and patent +leather shoes, and, after the Spanish fashion, wore black kid gloves. He +certainly was a bit of a dandy, as he had said. The father's whole face +changed as he wheeled and came before the lad, who lifted up his arms +expectantly. They had often ridden together on the same horse. + +"No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy," he said in the same voice. "But +I'll get down and we'll go and sit somewhere under a tree and have some +talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurrying me, and I can't waste +time." + +"Not one of your old jobs, father? I thought you had quite given that +up?" + +The boy spoke more carelessly than reproachfully, or even wonderingly; +yet, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, Steptoe answered +evasively, "It's a big thing, sonny; maybe we'll make our eternal +fortune, and then we'll light out from this hole and have a gay time +elsewhere. Come along." + +He took the boy's gloved right hand in his own powerful grasp, and +together they clambered up the steep hillside to a rocky ledge on which +a fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself in twain, and then +left its withered crown to hang half down the slope, while the other +half rested on the ledge. On this they sat, looking down upon the road +and the tethered horse. A gentle breeze moved the treetops above their +heads, and the westering sun played hide-and-seek with the shifting +shadows. The boy's face was quick and alert with all that moved round +him, but without thought the father's face was heavy, except for the +eyes that were fixed upon his son. + +"Van Loo came to the Mission," he said suddenly. + +The boy's eyes glittered quickly, like a steel that pierced the father's +heart. "Oh," he said simply, "then it was the padre told you?" + +"How did he know you were here?" asked Steptoe. + +"I don't know," said the boy quietly. "I think he said something, but +I've forgotten it. But it was mighty good of him to come, for I thought, +you know, that he did not care to see me after Heavy Tree, and that he'd +gone back on us." + +"What did he tell you?" continued Steptoe. "Did he talk of me or of your +mother?" + +"No," said the boy, but without any show of interest or sympathy; "we +talked mostly about old times." + +"Tell ME about those old times, Eddy. You never told me anything about +them." + +The boy, momentarily arrested more by something in the tone of his +father's voice--a weakness he had never noticed before--than by any +suggestion of his words, said with a laugh, "Oh, only about what we +used to do when I was very little and used to call myself his 'little +brother,'--don't you remember, long before the big strike on Heavy Tree? +They were gay times we had then." + +"And how he used to teach you to imitate other people's handwriting?" +said Steptoe. + +"What made you think of that, pop?" said the boy, with a slight wonder +in his eyes. "Why, that's the very thing we DID talk about." + +"But you didn't do it again; you ain't done it since," said Steptoe +quickly. + +"Lord! no," said the boy contemptuously. "There ain't no chance now, and +there wouldn't be any fun in it. It isn't like the old times when him +and me were all alone, and we used to write letters as coming from other +people to all the boys round Heavy Tree and the Bar, and sometimes as +far as Boomville, to get them to do things, and they'd think the letters +were real, and they'd do 'em. And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, +and nobody ever knew who did it." + +Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief, half in +frightened admiration. Sitting astride the log, his elbows on his knees +and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, the boy's handsome +face became illuminated with an impish devilry which the father had +never seen before. With dancing eyes he went on. "It was one of those +very games we played so long ago that he wanted to see me about and +wanted me to keep mum about, for some of the folks that he played it on +were around here now. It was a game we got off on one of the big strike +partners long before the strike. I'll tell YOU, dad, for you know +what happened afterwards, and you'll be glad. Well, that +partner--Demorest--was a kind of silly, you remember--a sort of Miss +Nancyish fellow--always gloomy and lovesick after his girl in the +States. Well, we'd written lots of letters to girls from their chaps +before, and got lots of fun out of it; but we had even a better show +for a game here, for it happened that Van Loo knew all about the +girl--things that even the man's own partners didn't, for Van Loo's +mother was a sort of a friend of the girl's family, and traveled about +with her, and knew that the girl was spoony over this Demorest, and that +they corresponded. So, knowing that Van Loo was employed at Heavy Tree, +she wrote to him to find out all about Demorest and how to stop their +foolish nonsense, for the girl's parents didn't want her to marry a +broken-down miner like him. So we thought we'd do it our own way, and +write a letter to her as if it was from him, don't you see? I wanted to +make him call her awful names, and say that he hated her, that he was a +murderer and a horse-thief, and that he had killed a policeman, and that +he was thinking of becoming a Digger Injin, and having a Digger squaw +for a wife, which he liked better than her. Lord! dad, you ought to have +seen what stuff I made up." The boy burst into a shrill, half-feminine +laugh, and Steptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly in his own +coarse, brutal fashion. + +For some moments they sat there looking in each other's faces, shaking +with sympathetic emotion, the father forgetting the purpose of his +coming there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and even the rendezvous +to which his horse in the road below was waiting to bring him; the son +forgetting their retreat from Heavy Tree Hill and his shameful vagabond +wanderings with that father in the years that followed. The sinking sun +stared blankly in their faces; the protecting pines above them moved by +a stronger gust shook a few cones upon them; an enormous crow mockingly +repeated the father's coarse laugh, and a squirrel scampered away from +the strangely assorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and forehead +with his pocket-handkerchief, said:-- + +"And did you send it?" + +"Oh! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said that those sort of love-sick +fools made more fuss over little things than they did over big things, +and he sort of toned it down, and fixed it up himself. But it told. For +there were never any more letters in the post-office in her handwriting, +and there wasn't any posted to her in his." + +They both laughed again, and then Steptoe rose. "I must be getting +along," he said, looking curiously at the boy. "I've got to catch a +train at Three Boulders Station." + +"Three Boulders!" repeated the boy. "I'm going there, too, on Friday, to +meet Father Cipriano." + +"I reckon my work will be all done by Friday," said Steptoe musingly. +Standing thus, holding his boy's hand, he was thinking that the real +fight at Marshall's would not take place at once, for it might take a +day or two for Marshall to gather forces. But he only pressed his son's +hand gently. + +"I wish you would sometimes take me with you as you used to," said the +boy curiously. "I'm bigger now, and wouldn't be in your way." + +Steptoe looked at the boy with a choking sense of satisfaction and +pride. But he said, "No;" and then suddenly with simulated humor, "Don't +you be taken in by any letters from ME, such as you and Van Loo used to +write. You hear?" + +The boy laughed. + +"And," continued Steptoe, "if anybody says I sent for you, don't you +believe them." + +"No," said the boy, smiling. + +"And don't you even believe I'm dead till you see me so. You understand. +By the way, Father Pedro has some money of mine kept for you. Now hurry +back to school and say you met me, but that I was in a great hurry. I +reckon I may have been rather rough to the priests." + +They had reached the lower road again, and Steptoe silently unhitched +his horse. "Good-by," he said, as he laid his hand on the boy's arm. + +"Good-by, dad." + +He mounted his horse slowly. "Well," he said smilingly, looking down the +road, "you ain't got anything more to say to me, have you?" + +"No, dad." + +"Nothin' you want?" + +"Nothin', dad." + +"All right. Good-by." + +He put spurs to his horse and cantered down the road without looking +back. The boy watched him with idle curiosity until he disappeared from +sight, and then went on his way, whistling and striking off the heads of +the wayside weeds with his walking-stick. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after the +meeting of the three partners that it was small wonder that Barker's +impressionable nature quickly responded to it, and, without awakening +the still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly, and was the first +to greet it in the keen air of the slope behind the hotel. To his +pantheistic spirit it had always seemed as natural for him to early +welcome his returning brothers of the woods and hills as to say +good-morning to his fellow mortals. And, in the joy of seeing Black Spur +rising again to his level in the distance before him, he doffed his hat +to it with a return of his old boyish habit, laid his arm caressingly +around the great girth of the nearest pine, clapped his hands to the +scampering squirrels in his path, and whistled to the dipping jays. +In this way he quite forgot the more serious affairs of the preceding +night, or, rather, saw them only in the gilding of the morning, until, +looking up, he perceived the tall figure of Demorest approaching him; +and then it struck him with his first glance at his old partner's face +that his usual suave, gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a critical +cynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of accent. Barker's loyal +heart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest had been hard hit +by the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern in it, and had +doubtless passed a restless night, while he (Barker) had forgotten all +about it. "I thought of knocking at your door, as I passed," he said, +with sympathetic apology, "but I was afraid I might disturb you. Isn't +it glorious here? Quite like the old hill. Look at that lizard; he +hasn't moved since he first saw me. Do you remember the one who used to +steal our sugar, and then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of the +bowl until he looked like an ornamental handle to it?" he continued, +rebounding again into spirits. + +"Barker," said Demorest abruptly, "what sort of woman is this Mrs. Van +Loo, whose rooms I occupy?" + +"Oh," said Barker, with optimistic innocence, "a most proper woman, old +chap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreign accent and a +still more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't suppose we'd"-- + +"But what is she like?" said Demorest impatiently. + +"Well," said Barker thoughtfully, "she's the kind of woman who might be +Van Loo's mother, I suppose." + +"You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?" asked Demorest +sharply. + +"There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers," said Barker gravely, +"in the way you mean. It's only those poor devils," he said, pointing, +nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a circling sparrow-hawk above +him, "who have inherited instincts. What I mean is that she might be Van +Loo's mother, because he didn't SELECT her." + +"Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?" asked +Demorest. + +"She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just after you left. +Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company, sent for her +and her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll see her to-day or +to-morrow probably, when she returns. I'll introduce you; she'll be +rather glad to meet some one from abroad, and all the more if he happens +to be rich and distinguished, and eligible for her daughter." He stopped +suddenly in his smile, remembering Demorest's lifelong secret. But to +his surprise his companion's face, instead of darkening as it was +wont to do at any such allusion, brightened suddenly with a singular +excitement as he answered dryly, "Ah well, if the girl is pretty, who +knows!" + +Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strange vivacity +as they walked back to the hotel, and he asked many other questions +regarding Mrs. Van Loo and her daughter, and particularly if the +daughter had also been abroad. When they reached the veranda they found +a few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramento papers, which had just +arrived, or, in little knots, discussing the news. Indeed, they would +probably have stopped Barker and his companion had not Barker, anxious +to relieve his friend's curiosity, hurried with him at once to the +manager's office. + +"Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo to return?" asked +Barker quickly. + +The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaper which +he, too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiar smile, "Well +no! she WAS to return to-day, but if you're wanting to keep her rooms, +I should say there wouldn't be any trouble about it, as she'll hardly be +coming back here NOW. She's rather high and mighty in style, I know, and +a determined sort of critter, but I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't +care much to be waltzing round in public after what has happened." + +"I don't understand you," said Demorest impatiently. "WHAT has +happened?" + +"Haven't you heard the news?" said the manager in surprise. "It's in +all the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter--has hypothecated +everything he had and skedaddled." + +Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife's +money--only of HER disappointment and mortification over it. Poor girl! +Perhaps she was also worrying over his resentment,--as if she did not +know him! He would go to her at once at Boomville. Then he remembered +that she was coming with Mrs. Horncastle, and might be already on +her way here by rail or coach, and he would miss her. Demorest in the +meantime had seized a paper, and was intently reading it. + +"There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner," said the +manager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. "There has been a +drop out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybody is unloading. +Two firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that were carrying things for the +bank, and have thrown everything back on it. There was an awful panic +last night, and they say none of the big speculators know where they +stand. Three of our best customers in the hotel rushed off to the bay +this morning, but Stacy himself started before daylight, and got the +through night express to stop for him on the Divide on signal. Shall I +send any telegrams that may come to your room?" + +Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interested in the +bank, and understood the purport of the question. He answered, with calm +surprise, that he was expecting no telegrams, and added, "But if Mrs. +Van Loo returns I beg you to at once let me know," and taking Barker's +arm he went in to breakfast. Seated by themselves, Demorest looked at +his companion. "I'm afraid, Barker boy, that this thing is more serious +to Jim than we expected last night, or than he cared to tell us. And +you, old man, I fear are hurt a little by Van Loo's flight. He had some +money of your wife's, hadn't he?" + +Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's fortune was in Stacy's +hands, was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought, and answered +with equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by the fear of Mrs. +Barker's disappointment. "Why, Lord! Phil, whether she's lost or saved +her money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her to do what she liked with +it, but I'm afraid she'll be worrying over what I think of it,--as if +she did not know me! And I'm half a mind, if it were not for missing +her, to go over to Boomville, where she's stopping." + +"I thought you said she was in San Francisco?" said Demorest +abstractedly. + +Barker colored. "Yes," he answered quickly. "But I've heard since that +she stopped at Boomville on the way." + +"Then don't let ME keep you here," returned Demorest. "For if Jim +telegraphs to me I shall start for San Francisco at once, and I rather +think he will. I did not like to say so before those panic-mongers +outside who are stampeding everything; so run along, Barker boy, and +ease your mind about the wife. We may have other things to think about +soon." + +Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast and slipped +away. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wife must have heard +the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, if so, would be on her +way with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might be waiting for him--knowing, too, +that he had heard the news--in fear and trembling. For it was Barker's +custom to endow all those he cared for with his own sensitiveness, and +it was not like him to reflect that the woman who had so recklessly +speculated against his opinion would scarcely fear his reproaches in her +defeat. In the fullness of his heart he telegraphed to her in case she +had not yet left Boomville: "All right. Have heard news. Understand +perfectly. Don't worry. Come to me." Then he left the hotel by the +stable entrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated on +the veranda, and made his way to a little wooded crest which he knew +commanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here he determined to +wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel. He knew that many +of the guests were aware of his wife's speculations with Van Loo, and +that he was her broker. He wished to spare her running the gauntlet +of their curious stares and comments as she drove up alone. As he was +climbing the slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past him on the +road below, but he knew that it had changed horses at Boomville at four +o'clock, and that his tired wife would not have availed herself of it at +that hour, particularly as she could not have yet received the fateful +news. He threw himself under a large pine, and watched the stagecoach +disappear as it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel. + +He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forks +of the red road that diverged below him, but which appeared to become +whiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance. There was +nothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dust which eventually +revealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud out of which a solitary +mule, one of a pack-train of six or eight, would momentarily emerge and +be lost again. Then he suddenly heard his name called, and, looking up, +saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had halted a few paces from him between two +columns of the long-drawn aisle of pines. + +In that mysterious half-light she seemed such a beautiful and +goddess-like figure that his consciousness at first was unable to grasp +anything else. She was always wonderfully well dressed, but the warmth +and seclusion of this mountain morning had enabled her to wear a light +gown of some delicate fabric which set off the grace of her figure, +and even pardoned the rural coquetry of a silken sash around her still +slender waist. An open white parasol thrown over her shoulder made +a nimbus for her charming head and the thick coils of hair under her +lace-edged hat. He had never seen her look so beautiful before. And that +thought was so plainly in his frank face and eyes as he sprang to his +feet that it brought a slight rise of color to her own cheek. + +"I saw you climbing up here as I passed in the coach a few minutes ago," +she said, with a smile, "and as soon as I had shaken the dust off I +followed you." + +"Where's Kitty?" he stammered. + +The color faded from her face as it had come, and a shade of something +like reproach crept into her dark eyes. And whatever it had been her +purpose to say, or however carefully she might have prepared herself for +this interview, she was evidently taken aback by the sudden directness +of the inquiry. Barker saw this as quickly, and as quickly referred it +to his own rudeness. His whole soul rushed in apology to his face as he +said, "Oh, forgive me! I was anxious about Kitty; indeed, I had thought +of coming again to Boomville, for you've heard the news, of course? Van +Loo is a defaulter, and has run away with the poor child's money." + +Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the hotel. She paused a moment to +collect herself, and then said slowly and tentatively, with a watchful +intensity in her eyes, "Mrs. Barker went, I think, to the Divide"-- + +But she was instantly interrupted by the eager Barker. "I see. I thought +of that at once. She went directly to the company's offices to see if +she could save anything from the wreck before she saw me. It was like +her, poor girl! And you--you," he went on eagerly, his whole face +beaming with gratitude,--"you, out of your goodness, came here to tell +me." He held out both hands and took hers in his. + +For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless and vacillating. She had +often noticed before that it was part of the irony of the creation of +such a simple nature as Barker's that he was not only open to deceit, +but absolutely seemed to invite it. Instead of making others franker, +people were inclined to rebuke his credulity by restraint and +equivocation on their own part. But the evasion thus offered to her, +although only temporary, was a temptation she could not resist. And it +prolonged an interview that a ruthless revelation of the truth might +have shortened. + +"She did not tell me she was going there," she replied still evasively; +"and, indeed," she added, with a burst of candor still more dangerous, +"I only learned it from the hotel clerk after she was gone. But I want +to talk to you about her relations to Van Loo," she said, with a return +of her former intensity of gaze, "and I thought we would be less subject +to interruption here than at the hotel. Only I suppose everybody knows +this place, and any of those flirting couples are likely to come here. +Besides," she added, with a little half-hysterical laugh and a slight +shiver, as she looked up at the high interlacing boughs above her head, +"it's as public as the aisles of a church, and really one feels as if +one were 'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a little +more secluded, where we could sit down," she went on, as she poked her +parasol into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth which mingled +with the carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, "and not get all +sticky and dirty?" + +Barker's eyes sparkled. "I know every foot of this hill, Mrs. +Horncastle," he said, "and if you will follow me I'll take you to one of +the loveliest nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian spring now +forgotten, and I think known only to me and the birds. It's not more +than ten minutes from here; only"--he hesitated as he caught sight +of the smart French bronze buckled shoe and silken ankle which +Mrs. Horncastle's gathering up of her dainty skirts around her had +disclosed--"it may be a little rough and dusty going to your feet." + +But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had already irretrievably +ruined her shoes and stockings in climbing up to him,--although Barker +could really distinguish no diminution of their freshness,--and that +she might as well go on. Whereat they both passed down the long aisle of +slope to a little hollow of manzanita, which again opened to a view of +Black Spur, but left the hotel hidden. + +"What time did Kitty go?" began Barker eagerly, when they were half down +the slope. + +But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine-needles, +and not only stopped an answer, but obliged Barker to give all his +attention to keep his companion from falling again until they reached +the open. Then came the plunge through the manzanita thicket, then a +cool wade through waist-deep ferns, and then they emerged, holding each +other's hand, breathless and panting before the spring. + +It did not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangular hollow, +niched in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a point from which +the overflow of the spring percolated through a fringe of alder, to +fall in what seemed from the valley to be a green furrow down the whole +length of the mountain-side. Overhung by pines above, which met and +mingled with the willows that everywhere fringed it, it made the one +cooling shade in the whole basking expanse of the mountain, and yet was +penetrated throughout by the intoxicating spice of the heated pines. +Flowering reeds and long lush grasses drew a magic circle round an open +bowl-like pool in the centre, that was always replenished to the slow +murmur of an unseen rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavern +in the mountain-side like a vein opened in its flank. Shadows of timid +wings crossed it, quick rustlings disturbed the reeds, but nothing more. +It was silent, but breathing; it was hidden to everything but the sky +and the illimitable distance. + +They threaded their way around it on the spongy carpet, covered by +delicate lace-like vines that seemed to caress rather than trammel their +moving feet, until they reached an open space before the pool. It was +cushioned and matted with disintegrated pine bark, and here they sat +down. Mrs. Horncastle furled her parasol and laid it aside; raised +both hands to the back of her head and took two hat-pins out, which she +placed in her smiling mouth; removed her hat, stuck the hat-pins in it, +and handed it to Barker, who gently placed it on the top of a tall reed, +where during the rest of that momentous meeting it swung and drooped +like a flower; removed her gloves slowly; drank still smilingly and +gratefully nearly a wineglassful of the water which Barker brought +her in the green twisted chalice of a lily leaf; looked the picture of +happiness, and then burst into tears. + +Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror-stricken. Mrs. Horncastle +crying! Mrs. Horncastle, the imperious, the collected, the coldly +critical, the cynical, smiling woman of the world, actually crying! +Other women might cry--Kitty had cried often--but Mrs. Horncastle! +Yet, there she was, sobbing; actually sobbing like a schoolgirl, +her beautiful shoulders rising and falling with her grief; crying +unmistakably through her long white fingers, through a lace +pocket-handkerchief which she had hurriedly produced and shaken from +behind her like a conjurer's trick; her beautiful eyes a thousand times +more lustrous for the sparkling beads that brimmed her lashes and welled +over like the pool before her. + +"Don't mind me," she murmured behind her handkerchief. "It's very +foolish, I know. I was nervous--worried, I suppose; I'll be better in a +moment. Don't notice me, please." + +But Barker had drawn beside her and was trying, after the fashion of his +sex, to take her handkerchief away in apparently the firm belief that +this action would stop her tears. "But tell me what it is. Do Mrs. +Horncastle, please," he pleaded in his boyish fashion. "Is it anything I +can do? Only say the word; only tell me SOMETHING!" + +But he had succeeded in partially removing the handkerchief, and so +caught a glimpse of her wet eyes, in which a faint smile struggled out +like sunshine through rain. But they clouded again, although she didn't +cry, and her breath came and went with the action of a sob, and her +hands still remained against her flushed face. + +"I was only going to talk to you of Kitty" (sob)--"but I suppose I'm +weak" (sob)--"and such a fool" (sob) "and I got to thinking of myself +and my own sorrows when I ought to be thinking only of you and Kitty." + +"Never mind Kitty," said Barker impulsively. "Tell me about +yourself--your own sorrows. I am a brute to have bothered you about her +at such a moment; and now until you have told me what is paining you so +I shall not let you speak of her." He was perfectly sincere. What +were Kitty's possible and easy tears over the loss of her money to the +unknown agony that could wrench a sob from a woman like this? "Dear Mrs. +Horncastle," he went on as breathlessly, "think of me now not as Kitty's +husband, but as your true friend. Yes, as your BEST and TRUEST friend, +and speak to me as you would speak to him." + +"You will be my friend?" she said suddenly and passionately, +grasping his hand, "my best and truest friend? and if I tell you +all,--everything, you will not cast me from you and hate me?" + +Barker felt the same thrill from her warm hand slowly possess his whole +being as it had the evening before, but this time he was prepared and +answered the grasp and her eyes together as he said breathlessly, "I +will be--I AM your friend." + +She withdrew her hand and passed it over her eyes. After a moment she +caught his hand again, and, holding it tightly as if she feared he might +fly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, without looking at him, +said, "I lied to you about myself and Kitty that night; I did not come +with her. I came alone and secretly to Boomville to see--to see the man +who is my husband." + +"Your husband!" said Barker in surprise. He had believed, with the rest +of the world, that there had been no communication between them for +years. Yet so intense was his interest in her that he did not notice +that this revelation was leaving now no excuse for his wife's presence +at Boomville. + +Mrs. Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, "Yes, my husband. I went +to him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child. Yes, MY child," she +said frantically, tightening her hold upon his hand, "for I lied to you +when I once told you I had none. I had a child, and, more than that, a +child who at his birth I did not dare to openly claim." + +She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her former intensity +as if she would pluck the thought that followed from his brain. But +he only moved closer to her, passed his arm over her shoulders with a +movement so natural and protecting that it had a certain dignity in it, +and, looking down upon her bent head with eyes brimming with sympathy, +whispered, "Poor, poor child!" + +Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears. And then, with her head +half drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,--all that had passed +between her and her husband,--even all that they had then but hinted at. +It was as if she felt she could now, for the first time, voice all these +terrible memories of the past which had come back to her last night when +her husband had left her. She concealed nothing, she veiled nothing; +there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel +hardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner took +their place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter +satisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him. "I never had a +friend," she whispered; "there were women who persecuted me with their +jealous sneers; there were men who persecuted me with their selfish +affections. When I first saw YOU, you seemed something so apart and +different from all other men that, although I scarcely knew you, I +wanted to tell you, even then, all that I have told you now. I wanted +you to be my friend; something told me that you could,--that you could +separate me from my past; that you could tell me what to do; that you +could make me think as you thought, see life as YOU saw it, and trust +always to some goodness in people as YOU did. And in this faith I +thought that you would understand me now, and even forgive me all." + +She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and, possibly, +to look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively were bent upon her +downcast head. But he only held her the more tightly until her cheek +was close against his breast. "What could I do?" she murmured. "A man +in sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for sympathy and support and the +world will not gainsay or misunderstand him. But a woman--weaker, more +helpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving for light--must not in her +agony go to a man for succor and sympathy." + +"Why should she not?" burst out Barker passionately, releasing her in +his attempt to gaze into her face. "What man dare refuse her?" + +"Not THAT," she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, "but because +the world would say she LOVED him." + +"And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands aside +and lets her suffer? Why should she heed its wretched babble?" he went +on in flashing indignation. + +"Because," she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and parted +lips towards him,--"because it would be TRUE!" + +There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to withhold +its song as their eyes and lips met. When the spring recommenced its +murmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee above them and the +rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, with her face against his +breast: "You did not think it strange that I should follow you--that I +should risk everything to tell you what I have told you before I told +you anything else? You will never hate me for it, George?" + +There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked again +into the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, "I have ALWAYS +loved you. I know now I loved you from the first, from the day when I +leaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and saw your tenderness +for him in your eyes. I could have kissed you THEN, dearest, as I do +now." + +"And," she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, "you +will always remember, George, that you told me this BEFORE I told you +anything of her." + +"HER? Of whom, dearest?" he asked, leaning over her tenderly. + +"Of Kitty--of your wife," she said impatiently, as she drew back shyly +with her former intense gaze. + +He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, "Let us not +talk of her NOW. Later we shall have MUCH to say of her. For," he added +quietly, "you know I must tell her all." + +The color faded from her cheek. "Tell her all!" she repeated vacantly; +then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, "But what if she is +gone?" + +"Gone?" he repeated. + +"Yes; gone. What if she has run away with Van Loo? What if she has +disgraced you and her child?" + +"What do you mean?" he said, seizing both her hands and gazing at her +fixedly. + +"I mean," she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, "that she has +already gone with Van Loo. George! George!" she burst out suddenly and +passionately, falling upon her knees before him, "do you think that I +would have followed you here and told you what I did if I thought that +she had now the slightest claim upon your love or honor? Don't you +understand me? I came to tell you of her flight to Boomville with that +man; how I accidentally intercepted them there; how I tried to save her +from him, and even lied to you to try to save her from your indignation; +but how she deceived me as she has you, and even escaped and joined her +lover while you were with me. I came to tell you that and nothing more, +George, I swear it. But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I was +mad--wild! I wanted to win you first out of your own love. I wanted you +to respond to MINE before you knew your wife was faithless. Yet I would +have saved her if I could. Listen, George! A moment more before you +speak!" + +Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife's dishonor, +from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her later appeal +for concealment from her husband's unexpected presence, to the use she +made of that concealment to fly with her lover. She spared no detail, +and even repeated the insult Mrs. Barker had cast upon her with the +triumphant reproach that her husband would not believe her. "Perhaps," +she added bitterly, "you may not believe me now. I could even stand that +from you, George, if it could make you happier; but you would still have +to believe it from others. The people at the Boomville Hotel saw them +leave it together." + +"I do believe you," he said slowly, but with downcast eyes, "and if I +did not love you before you told me this I could love you now for the +part you have taken; but"--He stopped. + +"You love her still," she burst out, "and I might have known it. +Perhaps," she went on distractedly, "you love her the more that you have +lost her. It is the way of men--and women." + +"If I had loved her truly," said Barker, lifting his frank eyes to hers, +"I could not have touched YOUR lips. I could not even have wished to--as +I did three years ago--as I did last night. Then I feared it was my +weakness, now I know it was my love. I have thought of it ever since, +even while waiting my wife's return here, knowing that I did not and +never could have loved her. But for that very reason I must try to save +her for her own sake, if I cannot save her for mine; and if I fail, +dearest, it shall not be said that we climbed to happiness over her +back bent with the burden of her shame. If I loved you and told you so, +thinking her still guiltless and innocent, how could I profit now by her +fault?" + +Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. "Then you would take her +back?" she said frenziedly. + +"To my home--which is hers--yes. To my heart--no. She never was there." + +"And I," said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering lip,--"where do I +go when you have settled this? Back to my past again? Back to my +husbandless, childless life?" + +She was turning away, but Barker caught her in his arms again. "No!" +he said, his whole face suddenly radiating with hope and youthful +enthusiasm. "No! Kitty will help us; we will tell her all. You do not +know her, dearest, as I do--how good and kind she is, in spite of all. +We will appeal to her; she will devise some means by which, without the +scandal of a divorce, she and I may be separated. She will take dear +little Sta with her--it is only right, poor girl; but she will let me +come and see him. She will be a sister to us, dearest. Courage! All will +come right yet. Trust to me." + +An hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's lips and then stopped. +For as she looked up at him in his supreme hopefulness, his divine +confidence in himself and others--at his handsome face beaming with +love and happiness, and his clear gray eyes glittering with an almost +spiritual prescience--she, woman of the world and bitter experience, +and perfectly cognizant of her own and Kitty's possibilities, was, +nevertheless, completely carried away by her lover's optimism. For of +all optimism that of love is the most convincing. Dear boy!--for he was +but a boy in experience--only his love for her could work this magic. So +she gave him kiss for kiss, largely believing, largely hoping, that Mrs. +Barker was in love with Van Loo and would NOT return. And in this hope +an invincible belief in the folly of her own sex soothed and sustained +her. + +"We must go now, dearest," said Barker, pointing to the sun already near +the meridian. Three hours had fled, they knew not how. "I will bring +you back to the hill again, but there we had better separate, you taking +your way alone to the hotel as you came, and I will go a little way on +the road to the Divide and return later. Keep your own counsel about +Kitty for her sake and ours; perhaps no one else may know the truth +yet." With a farewell kiss they plunged again hand in hand through the +cool bracken and again through the hot manzanita bushes, and so parted +on the hilltop, as they had never parted before, leaving their whole +world behind them. + +Barker walked slowly along the road under the flickering shade of +wayside sycamore, his sensitive face also alternating with his thought +in lights and shadows. Presently there crept towards him out of the +distance a halting, vacillating, deviating buggy, trailing a cloud of +dust after it like a broken wing. As it came nearer he could see that +the horse was spent and exhausted, and that the buggy's sole occupant--a +woman--was equally exhausted in her monotonous attempt to urge it +forward with whip and reins that rose and fell at intervals with feeble +reiteration. Then he stepped out of the shadow and stood in the middle +of the sunlit road to await it. For he recognized his wife. + +The buggy came nearer. And then the most exquisite pang he had ever felt +before at his wife's hands shot through him. For as she recognized +him she made a wild but impotent attempt to dash past him, and then as +suddenly pulled up in the ditch. + +He went up to her. She was dirty, she was disheveled, she was haggard, +she was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear-swept eyes and +smudges of dust-dried perspiration over her fair cheek. He thought of +the beauty, freshness, and elegance of the woman he had just left, and +an infinite pity swept the soul of this weak-minded gentleman. He ran +towards her, and tenderly lifting her in her shame-stained garments from +the buggy, said hurriedly, "I know it all, poor Kitty! You heard the +news of Van Loo's flight, and you ran over to the Divide to try and save +some of your money. Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?" + +There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuine pity and +tenderness of his action; but the woman saw before her only the familiar +dupe of her life, and felt an infinite relief mingled with a certain +contempt for his weakness and anger at her previous fears of him. + +"You might have driven over, then, yourself," she said in a high, +querulous voice, "if you knew it so well, and have spared ME this +horrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved +anything--there! And I have had all this disgusting bother!" + +For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to her face, but +he checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coat from her shoulders +and shook it out, wiped the dust from her face and eyes with his own +handkerchief, held her hat and blew the dust from it with a vivid memory +of performing the same service for Mrs. Horncastle only an hour before, +while she arranged her hair; and then, lifting her again into the buggy, +said quietly, as he took his seat beside her and grasped the reins:-- + +"I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and you can go +at once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired, you are +nervous and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anything now until you +feel quite yourself again." + +He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at the reins, +lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes they were at the +hotel. + +As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the great dining-room, a little +pale and abstracted, she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidently into the +room, fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing toilette. With a swift +glance of conscious power towards the other guests she walked towards +Mrs. Horncastle. "Ah, here you are, dear," she said in a voice that +could easily reach all ears, "and you've arrived only a little before +me, after all. And I've had such an AWFUL drive to the Divide! And only +think! poor George telegraphed to me at Boomville not to worry, and his +dispatch has only just come back here." + +And with a glance of complacency she laid Barker's gentle and forgiving +dispatch before the astonished Mrs. Horncastle. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +As the day advanced the excitement over the financial crisis increased +at Hymettus, until, in spite of its remote and peaceful isolation, +it seemed to throb through all its verandas and corridors with some +pulsation from the outer world. Besides the letters and dispatches +brought by hurried messengers and by coach from the Divide, there was +a crowd of guests and servants around the branch telegraph at the new +Heavy Tree post-office which was constantly augmenting. Added to the +natural anxiety of the deeply interested was the stimulated fever of the +few who wished to be "in the fashion." It was early rumored that a heavy +operator, a guest of the hotel, who was also a director in the telegraph +company, had bought up the wires for his sole use, that the dispatches +were doctored in his interests as a "bear," and there was wild talk +of lynching by the indignant mob. Passengers from Sacramento, San +Francisco, and Marysville brought incredible news and the wildest +sensations. Firm after firm had failed in the great cities. Old +established houses that dated back to the "spring of '49," and had +weathered the fires and inundations of their perilous Californian +infancy, collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, impalpable +breath of panic. Companies rooted in respectability and sneered at for +old-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelessly speculated with +trusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the church was found dead in +his room with a bullet in his heart and a damning confession on the desk +before him! Foreign bankers were sending their gold out of the country; +government would be appealed to to open the vaults of the Mint; there +would be an embargo on all bullion shipment! Nothing was too wild or +preposterous to be repeated or credited. + +And with this fever of sordid passion the summer temperature had +increased. For the last two weeks the thermometer had stood abnormally +high during the day-long sunshine; and the metallic dust in the roads +over mineral ranges pricked the skin like red-hot needles. In the +deepest woods the aromatic sap stood in beads on felled logs and +splintered tree-shafts; even the mountain night breeze failed to cool +these baked and heated fastnesses. There were ominous clouds of smoke by +day that were pillars of fire by night along the distant valleys. Some +of the nearer crests were etched against the midnight sky by dull red +creeping lines like a dying firework. The great hotel itself creaked +and crackled and warped though all its painted, blistered, and veneered +expanse, and was filled with the stifling breath of desiccation. The +stucco cracked and crumbled away from the cornices; there were yawning +gaps in the boarded floors beneath the Turkey carpets. Plate-glass +windows became hopelessly fixed in their warped and twisted sashes, +and added to the heat; there was a warm incense of pine sap in the +dining-room that flavored all the cuisine. And yet the babble of stocks +and shares went on, and people pricked their ears over their soup to +catch the gossip of the last arrival. + +Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found bitterness, was nevertheless +impatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting a telegram from +Stacy; Barker had disappeared since luncheon. Suddenly there was +a commotion on the veranda as a carriage drove up with a handsome, +gray-haired woman. In the buzzing of voices around him Demorest heard +the name of Mrs. Van Loo. In further comments, made in more smothered +accents, he heard that Van Loo had been stopped at Canyon Station, but +that no warrant had yet been issued against him; that it was generally +believed that the bank dared not hold him; that others openly averred +that he had been used as a scapegoat to avert suspicion from higher +guilt. And certainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, confident air seemed to +corroborate these assertions. + +He was still wondering if the strange coincidence which had brought both +mother and son into his own life was not merely a fancy, as far as SHE +was concerned, when a waiter brought a message from Mrs. Van Loo that +she would be glad to see him for a few moments in her room. Last +night he could scarcely have restrained his eagerness to meet her and +elucidate the mystery of the photograph; now he was conscious of an +equally strong revulsion of feeling, and a dull premonition of evil. +However, it was no doubt possible that the man had told her of his +previous inquiries, and she had merely acknowledged them by that +message. + +Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private sitting-room where he and his +old partners had supped on the preceding night. She received him with +unmistakable courtesy and even a certain dignity that might or might +not have been assumed. He had no difficulty in recognizing the son's +mechanical politeness in the first, but he was puzzled at the second. + +"The manager of this hotel," she began, with a foreigner's precision of +English, "has just told me that you were at present occupying my rooms +at his invitation, but that you wished to see me at once on my return, +and I believe that I was not wrong in apprehending that you preferred +to hear my wishes from my own lips rather than from an innkeeper. I had +intended to keep these rooms for some weeks, but, unfortunately for me, +though fortunately for you, the present terrible financial crisis, which +has most unjustly brought my son into such scandalous prominence, will +oblige me to return to San Francisco until his reputation is fully +cleared of these foul aspersions. I shall only ask you to allow me the +undisturbed possession of these rooms for a couple of hours until I can +pack my trunks and gather up a few souvenirs that I almost always keep +with me." + +"Pray, consider that your wishes are my own in respect to that, my +dear madam," returned Demorest gravely, "and that, indeed, I protested +against even this temporary intrusion upon your apartments; but I +confess that now that you have spoken of your souvenirs I have the +greatest curiosity about one of them, and that even my object in seeking +this interview was to gratify it. It is in regard to a photograph which +I saw on the chimney-piece in your bedroom, which I think I recognized +as that of some one whom I formerly knew." + +There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hard aggressiveness +that quite changed the lady's face as he mentioned the word "souvenir," +but it quickly changed to a smile as she put up her fan with a gesture +of arch deprecation, and said: + +"Ah! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph." + +The reply irritated Demorest. More than that, he felt a sudden sense of +the absolute sentimentality of his request, and the consciousness +that he was about to invite the familiar confidence of this strange +woman--whose son had forged his name--in regard to HER! + +"It was a Venetian picture," he began, and stopped, a singular disgust +keeping him from voicing the name. + +But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. "Oh, you mean my dearest friend--a +lovely picture, and you know her? Why, yes, surely. You are THE Mr. +Demorest who--Of course, that old love-affair. Well, you are a marvel! +Five years ago, at least, and you have not forgotten! I really must +write and tell her." + +"Write and tell her!" Then it was all a lie about her death! He felt +not only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but even his +self-control. With an effort he said.-- + +"I think you have already satisfied my curiosity. I was told five years +ago that she was dead. It was because of the date of the photograph--two +years later--that I ventured to intrude upon you. I was anxious only to +know the truth." + +"She certainly was very much living and of the world when I saw her +last, two years ago," said Mrs. Van Loo, with an easy smile. "I dare say +that was a ruse of her relatives--a very stupid one--to break off the +affair, for I think they had other plans. But, dear me! now I remember, +was there not some little quarrel between you before? Some letter from +you that was not very kind? My impression is that there was something +of the sort, and that the young lady was indignant. But only for a time, +you know. She very soon forgot it. I dare say if you wrote something +very charming to her it might not be too late. We women are very +forgiving, Mr. Demorest, and although she is very much sought after, as +are all young American girls whose fathers can give them a comfortable +'dot', her parents might be persuaded to throw over a poor prince for +a rich countryman in the end. Of course, you know, to you Republicans +there is always something fascinating in titles and blood, and our dear +friend is like other girls. Still, it is worth the risk. And five years +of waiting and devotion really ought to tell. It's quite a romance! +Shall I write to her and tell her I have seen you, looking well and +prosperous? Nothing more. Do let me! I should be delighted." + +"I think it hardly worth while for you to give yourself that trouble," +said Demorest quietly, looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smiling eyes, "now that +I know the story of the young lady's death was a forgery. And I will not +intrude further on your time. Pray give yourself no needless hurry over +your packing. I may go to San Francisco this afternoon, and not even +require the rooms to-night." + +"At least, let me make you a present of the souvenir as an +acknowledgment of your courtesy," said Mrs. Van Loo, passing into her +bedroom and returning with the photograph. "I feel that with your five +years of constancy it is more yours than mine." As a gentleman Demorest +knew he could not refuse, and taking the photograph from her with a low +bow, with another final salutation he withdrew. + +Alone by himself in a corner of the veranda he was surprised that +the interview had made so little impression on him, and had so little +altered his conviction. His discovery that the announcement of his +betrothed's death was a fiction did not affect the fact that though +living she was yet dead to him, and apparently by her own consent. +The contrast between her life and his during those five years had been +covertly accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whether intentionally or not, and +he saw again as last night the full extent of his sentimental folly. He +could not even condole with himself that he was the victim of miserable +falsehoods that others had invented. SHE had accepted them, and had even +excused her desertion of him by that last deceit of the letter. + +He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as a +lover. Had she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Was the +spirituality and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely his own idiotic +fancy? Had she always been like this? Yes. There was the girl who could +weakly strive, weakly revenge herself, and weakly forget. There was the +figure that he had expected to find carved upon the tomb which he had +long sought that he might weep over. He laughed aloud. + +It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What was Barker +doing, and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And what were those +people in the courtyard doing? Were they discussing news of further +disaster and ruin? Perhaps he was even now a beggar. Well, his fortune +might go with his faith. + +But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, and he +now saw that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard, and was +conscious of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped down from the +veranda among the mingled guests and servants, and saw that the smoke +was only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, that the chimney had +been on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and that +when the startled servants had knocked at the locked door she had told +them that she was only burning some old letters and newspapers, the +refuse of her trunks. There was naturally some indignation that the +hotel had been so foolishly endangered, in such scorching weather, and +the manager had had a scene with her which resulted in her leaving the +hotel indignantly with her half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke +had died away and the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth, +there was an acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upper +floors of the hotel all that afternoon. + +When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to the +rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still littered +with charred ashes of burnt paper. "My belief is," said the manager +darkly, "that the old hag came here just to burn up a lot of +incriminating papers that her son had intrusted to her keeping. It looks +mighty suspicious. You see she got up an awful lot of side when I told +her I didn't reckon to run a smelting furnace in a wooden hotel with the +thermometer at one hundred in the office, and I reckon it was just an +excuse for getting off in a hurry." + +But the continued delay in Stacy's promised telegram had begun to +work upon Demorest's usual equanimity, and he scarcely listened in his +anxiety for his old partner. He knew that Stacy should have arrived in +San Francisco by noon. He had almost determined to take the next train +from the Divide when two horsemen dashed into the courtyard. There +was the usual stir on the veranda and rush for news, but the two new +arrivals turned out to be Barker, on a horse covered with foam, and a +dashing, elegantly dressed stranger on a mustang as carefully groomed +and as spotless as himself. Demorest instantly recognized Jack Hamlin. + +He had not seen Hamlin since that day, five years before, when the +latter had accompanied the three partners with their treasure to +Boomville, and had handed him the mysterious packet. As the two men +dismounted hurriedly and moved towards him, he felt a premonition of +something as fateful and important as then. In obedience to a sign from +Barker he led them to a more secluded angle of the veranda. He could not +help noticing that his younger partner's face was mobile as ever, but +more thoughtful and older; yet his voice rang with the old freemasonry +of the camp, as he said, with a laugh, "The signal has been given, and +it's boot and saddle and away." + +"But I have had no dispatch from Stacy," said Demorest in surprise. "He +was to telegraph to me from San Francisco in any emergency." + +"He never got there at all," said Barker. "Jack ran slap into Van Loo at +the Divide, and sent a dispatch to Jim, which stopped him halfway until +Jack could reach him, which he nearly broke his neck to do; and then +Jack finished up by bringing a message from Stacy to us that we should +all meet together on the slope of Heavy Tree, near the Bar. I met Jack +just as I was riding into the Divide, and came back with him. He will +tell you the rest, and you can swear by what Jack says, for he's white +all through," he added, laying his hand affectionately on Hamlin's +shoulder. + +Hamlin winced slightly. For he had NOT told Barker that his wife was +with Van Loo, nor his first reason for interfering. But he related how +he had finally overtaken Van Loo at Canyon Station, and how the fugitive +had disclosed the conspiracy of Steptoe and Hall against the bank and +Marshall as the price of his own release. On this news, remembering that +Stacy had passed the Divide on his way to the station, he had first sent +a dispatch to him, and then met him at the first station on the road. +"I reckon, gentlemen," said Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in his +voice, "that he'd not only got my telegram, but ALL THE NEWS that had +been flying around this morning, for he looked like a man to whom it +was just a 'toss-up' whether he took his own life then and there or was +willing to have somebody else take it for him, for he said, 'I'll go +myself,' and telegraphed to have the surveyor stopped from coming. Then +he told me to tell you fellows, and ask you to come too." Jack paused, +and added half mischievously, "He sort of asked ME what I would take +to stand by him in the row, if there was one, and I told him I'd +take--whiskey! You see, boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, and +I wouldn't mind for the sake of old times to finish the game with old +Steptoe that I began a matter of five years ago." + +"All right," said Demorest, with a kindling eye; "I suppose we'd better +start at once. One moment," he added. "Barker boy, will you excuse me if +I speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and walked to the rails of +the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, "You and I," he said hurriedly, +"are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be no +child's play." + +But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions which +Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, he surmised +that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He answered a little +more seriously than his wont, "I don't think as regards HIS WIFE that +would make much difference to him or her how stiff the work was." + +Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed only +this confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself had +seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his return, to shake +his last remaining faith. "We'll all go together, then," he said, with +a laugh, "as in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that we have no +woman in our confidence." + +An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel, scarcely +noticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious of their absence +during the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered from her fatiguing +ride, was in high spirits and the most beautiful and spotless of summer +gowns, and was considered quite a heroine by the other ladies as she +dwelt upon the terrible heat of her return journey. "Only I knew Mr. +Barker would be worried--and the poor man actually walked a mile down +the Divide road to meet me--I believe I should have stayed there all +day." She glanced round the other groups for Mrs. Horncastle, but that +lady had retired early. Possibly she alone had noticed the absence of +the two partners. + +The guests sat up until quite late, for the heat seemed to grow still +more oppressive, and the strange smell of burning wood revived the +gossip about Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in setting fire to her +chimney. Some averred that it would be days before the smell could be +got out of the house; others referred it to the fires in the woods, +which were now dangerously near. One spoke of the isolated position +of the hotel as affording the greatest security, but was met by the +assertion of a famous mountaineer that the forest fires were wont to +leap from crest to crest mysteriously, without any apparent continuous +contact. This led to more or less light-hearted conjecture of present +danger and some amusing stories of hotel fires and their ludicrous +revelations. There were also some entertaining speculations as to what +they would do and what they would try to save in such an emergency. + +"For myself," said Mrs. Barker audaciously, "I should certainly let Mr. +Barker look after Sta and confine myself entirely to getting away with +my diamonds. I know the wretch would never think of them." + +It was still later when, exhausted by the heat and some reaction from +the excitement of the day, they at last deserted the veranda for their +rooms, and for a while the shadowy bulk of the whole building was picked +out with regularly spaced lights from its open windows, until now these +finally faded and went out one by one. An hour later the whole building +had sunk to rest. It was said that it was only four in the morning when +a yawning porter, having put out the light in a dark, upper corridor, +was amazed by a dull glow from the top of the wall, and awoke to the +fact that a red fire, as yet smokeless and flameless, was creeping along +the cornice. He ran to the office and gave the alarm; but on returning +with assistance was stopped in the corridor by an impenetrable wall of +smoke veined with murky flashes. The alarm was given in all the lower +floors, and the occupants rushed from their beds half dressed to the +courtyard, only to see, as they afterwards averred, the flames burst +like cannon discharges from the upper windows and unite above the +crackling roof. So sudden and complete was the catastrophe, although +slowly prepared by a leak in the overheated chimney between the floors, +that even the excitement of fear and exertion was spared the survivors. +There was bewilderment and stupor, but neither uproar nor confusion. +People found themselves wandering in the woods, half awake and half +dressed, having descended from the balconies and leaped from the +windows,--they knew not how. Others on the upper floor neither awoke nor +moved from their beds, but were suffocated without a cry. From the first +an instinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating the conflagration +possessed them all; to a blind, automatic feeling to flee the building +was added the slow mechanism of the somnambulist; delicate women walked +speechlessly, but securely, along ledges and roofs from which they +would have fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. There was no +crowding or impeding haste in their dumb exodus. It was only when Mrs. +Barker awoke disheveled in the courtyard, and with an hysterical outcry +rushed back into the hotel, that there was any sign of panic. + +Mrs. Horncastle, who was standing near, fully dressed as from some +night-long vigil, quickly followed her. The half-frantic woman was +making directly for her own apartments, whose windows those in +the courtyard could see were already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs. +Horncastle stopped with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It had +just flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told her only a few hours +before that Sta had been removed with the nurse to the UPPER FLOOR! It +was not the forgotten child that Mrs. Barker was returning for, but her +diamonds! Mrs. Horncastle called her; she did not reply. The smoke was +already pouring down the staircase. Mrs. Horncastle hesitated for a +moment only, and then, drawing a long breath, dashed up the stairs. On +the first landing she stumbled over something--the prostrate figure of +the nurse. But this saved her, for she found that near the floor she +could breathe more freely. Before her appeared to be an open door. She +crept along towards it on her hands and knees. The frightened cry of +a child, awakened from its sleep in the dark, gave her nerve to rise, +enter the room, and dash open the window. By the flashing light she +could see a little figure rising from a bed. It was Sta. There was not +a moment to be lost, for the open window was beginning to draw the smoke +from the passage. Luckily, the boy, by some childish instinct, threw +his arms round her neck and left her hands free. Whispering him to +hold tight, she clambered out of the window. A narrow ledge of cornice +scarcely wide enough for her feet ran along the house to a distant +balcony. With her back to the house she zigzagged her feet along the +cornice to get away from the smoke, which now poured directly from the +window. Then she grew dizzy; the weight of the child on her bosom seemed +to be toppling her forward towards the abyss below. She closed her eyes, +frantically grasping the child with crossed arms on her breast as she +stood on the ledge, until, as seen from below through the twisting +smoke, they might have seemed a figure of the Madonna and Child niched +in the wall. Then a voice from above called to her, "Courage!" and she +felt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an upper window against +her face. She grasped it eagerly; it held firmly. Then she heard a cry +from below, saw them carrying a ladder, and at last was lifted with her +burden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then only did she raise her +eyes to the upper window whence had come her help. Smoke and flame were +pouring from it. The unknown hero who had sacrificed his only chance of +escape to her remained forever unknown. + +***** + +Only four miles away that night a group of men were waiting for the dawn +in the shadow of a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the sky glowed redly +over the crest between them and Hymettus, Hamlin said:-- + +"Another one of those forest fires. It's this side of Black Spur, and a +big one, I reckon." + +"Do you know," said Barker thoughtfully, "I was thinking of the time +the old cabin burnt up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about in the same +place." + +"Hush!" said Stacy sharply. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +An abandoned tunnel--an irregular orifice in the mountain flank which +looked like a dried-up sewer that had disgorged through its opening the +refuse of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and a peculiar clay known +as "cement," in a foul streak down its side; a narrow ledge on either +side, broken up by heaps of quartz, tailings, and rock, and half +hidden in scrub, oak, and myrtle; a decaying cabin of logs, bark, and +cobblestones--these made up the exterior of the Marshall claim. To this +defacement of the mountain, the rude clearing of thicket and underbrush +by fire or blasting, the lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitation +of saplings, might be added the debris and ruins of half-civilized +occupancy. The ground before the cabin was covered with broken boxes, +tin cans, the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the cast-off rags +of blankets and clothing. The whole claim in its unsavory, unpicturesque +details, and its vulgar story of sordid, reckless, and selfish occupancy +and abandonment, was a foul blot on the landscape, which the first rosy +dawn only made the more offending. Surely the last spot in the world +that men should quarrel and fight for! + +So thought George Barker, as with his companions they moved in single +file slowly towards it. The little party consisted only of himself, +Demorest, and Stacy; Marshall and Hamlin--according to a prearranged +plan--were still in ambush to join them at the first appearance of +Steptoe and his gang. The claim was yet unoccupied; they had secured +their first success. Steptoe's followers, unaware that his design had +been discovered, and confident that they could easily reach the claim +before Marshall and the surveyor, had lingered. Some of them had held +a drunken carouse at their rendezvous at Heavy Tree. Others were still +engaged in procuring shovels and picks and pans for their mock equipment +as miners, and this, again, gave Marshall's adherents the advantage. +THEY knew that their opponents would probably first approach the +empty claim encumbered only with their peaceful implements, while they +themselves had brought their rifles with them. + +Stacy, who by tacit consent led the party, on reaching the claim at +once posted Demorest and Barker each behind a separate heap of quartz +tailings on the ledge, which afforded them a capital breastwork, and +stationed himself at the mouth of the tunnel which was nearest the +trail. It had already been arranged what each man was to do. They were +in possession. For the rest they must wait. What they thought at +that moment no one knew. Their characteristic appearance had slightly +changed. The melancholy and philosophic Demorest was alert and bitter. +Barker's changeful face had become fixed and steadfast. Stacy alone wore +his "fighting look," which the others had remembered. + +They had not long to wait. The sounds of rude laughter, coarse +skylarking, and voices more or less still confused with half-spent +liquor came from the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared with part +of his straggling followers, who were celebrating their easy invasion +by clattering their picks and shovels and beating loudly upon their tins +and prospecting-pans. The three partners quickly recognized the stamp +of the strangers, in spite of their peaceful implements. They were +the waifs and strays of San Francisco wharves, of Sacramento dens, of +dissolute mountain towns; and there was not, probably, a single actual +miner among them. A raging scorn and contempt took possession of Barker +and Demorest, but Stacy knew their exact value. As Steptoe passed before +the opening of the tunnel he heard the cry of "Halt!" + +He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards before him with his rifle +at half-cock. He saw Barker and Demorest, fully armed, rise from behind +their breastworks of rock along the ledge and thus fully occupy the +claim. But he saw more. He saw that his plot was known. Outlaw and +desperado as he was, he saw that he had lost his moral power in this +actual possession, and that from that moment he must be the aggressor. +He saw he was fighting no irresponsible hirelings like his own, but men +of position and importance, whose loss would make a stir. Against their +rifles the few revolvers that his men chanced to have slung to them +were of little avail. But he was not cowed, although his few followers +stumbled together at this momentary check, half angrily, half timorously +like wolves without a leader. "Bring up the other men and their guns," +he whispered fiercely to the nearest. Then he faced Stacy. + +"Who are YOU to stop peaceful miners going to work on their own claim?" +he said coarsely. "I'll tell you WHO, boys," he added, suddenly turning +to his men with a hoarse laugh. "It ain't even the bank! It's only Jim +Stacy, that the bank kicked out yesterday to save itself,--Jim Stacy +and his broken-down pals. And what's the thief doing here--in Marshall's +tunnel--the only spot that Marshall can claim? We ain't no particular +friends o' Marshall's, though we're neighbors on the same claim; but we +ain't going to see Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys?" + +"No, by G-d!" said his followers, dropping the pans and seizing their +picks and revolvers. They understood the appeal to arms if not to their +reason. For an instant the fight seemed imminent. Then a voice from +behind them said:-- + +"You needn't trouble yourselves about that! I'M Marshall! I sent these +gentlemen to occupy the claim until I came here with the surveyor," and +two men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in the rear of Steptoe and +his followers. The speaker, Marshall, was a thin, slight, overworked, +over-aged man; his companion, the surveyor, was equally slight, +but red-bearded, spectacled, and professional-looking, with a long +traveling-duster that made him appear even clerical. They were scarcely +a physical addition to Stacy's party, whatever might have been their +moral and legal support. + +But it was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in his +designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor was +really the only disinterested witness between the two parties. If +Steptoe could confuse his mind before the actual fighting--from which he +would, of course, escape as a non-combatant--it would go far afterwards +to rehabilitate Steptoe's party. "Very well, then," he said to Marshall, +"I shall call this gentleman to witness that we have been attacked +here in peaceable possession of our part of the claim by these armed +strangers, and whether they are acting on your order or not, their blood +will be on your head." + +"Then I reckon," said the surveyor, as he tore away his beard, wig, +spectacles, and mustache, and revealed the figure of Jack Hamlin, "that +I'm about the last witness that Mr. Steptoe-Horncastle ought to call, +and about the last witness that he ever WILL call!" + +But he had not calculated upon the desperation of Steptoe over the +failure of this last hope. For there sprang up in the outlaw's brain the +same hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at the Divide. With +a hoarse cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxe into the brain of +Marshall, who stood near him, and sprang forward. Three or four shots +were exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bullet from Stacy's rifle pierced +Steptoe's leg, and he dropped forward on one knee. He heard the steps +of his reinforcements with their weapons coming close behind him, and +rolled aside on the sloping ledge to let them pass. But he rolled too +far. He felt himself slipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shoot +of the tunnel. He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but the +treacherous drift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he were +part of its refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, but +otherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundred feet +below. + +When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above him had +ceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by a +circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could only +reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend to +the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growth +of hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, and dragged himself on his +hands and knees laboriously to the outcrop. He did not look up; since +his pick had crashed into Marshall's brain he had but one blind thought +before him--to escape at once! That his revenge and compensation would +come later he never doubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, from +bush to bush through the sloping thickets, until he saw the red road a +few feet below him. + +If he only had a horse he could put miles between him and any present +pursuit! Why should he not have one? The road was frequented by solitary +horsemen--miners and Mexicans. He had his revolver with him; what +mattered the life of another man if he escaped from the consequences of +the one he had just taken? He heard the clatter of hoofs; two priests on +mules rode slowly by; he ground his teeth with disappointment. But they +had scarcely passed before another and more rapid clatter came from +their rear. It was a lad on horseback. He started. It was his own son! + +He remembered in a flash how the boy had said he was coming to meet the +padre at the station on that day. His first impulse was to hide himself, +his wound, and his defeat from the lad, but the blind idea of escape +was still paramount. He leaned over the bank and called to him. The +astonished lad cantered eagerly to his side. + +"Give me your horse, Eddy," said the father; "I'm in bad luck, and must +get." + +The boy glanced at his father's face, at his tattered garments and +bandaged leg, and read the whole story. It was a familiar page to him. +He paled first and then flushed, and then, with an odd glitter in his +eyes, said, "Take me with you, father. Do! You always did before. I'll +bring you luck." + +Desperation is superstitious. Why not take him? They had been lucky +before, and the two together might confound any description of their +identity to the pursuers. "Help me up, Eddy, and then get up before me." + +"BEHIND, you mean," said the boy, with a laugh, as he helped his father +into the saddle. + +"No," said Steptoe harshly. "BEFORE me,--do you hear? And if anything +happens BEHIND you, don't look! If I drop off, don't stop! Don't get +down, but go on and leave me. Do you understand?" he repeated almost +savagely. + +"Yes," said the boy tremulously. + +"All right," said the father, with a softer voice, as he passed his one +arm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. "Hold tight when we come +to the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, for old luck's sake, +to the Mission." + +They were the last words exchanged between them, for as they wheeled +rapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin and Demorest swung +as quickly out of another road to the right immediately behind them. +Jack's challenge to "Halt!" was only answered by Steptoe's horse +springing forward under the sharp lash of the riata. + +"Hold up!" said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the rifle which +Demorest had lifted to his shoulder. "He's carrying some one,--a wounded +comrade, I reckon. We don't want HIM. Swing out and go for the horse; +well forward, in the neck or shoulder." + +Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised his rifle. As +it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacle +ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, for his head went +down with his fore feet under him, and he turned a half-somersault on +the road, flinging his two riders a dozen feet away. + +Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other figure +never moved. "Hands up!" said Jack, sighting his own weapon. The reports +seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had pierced Steptoe's brain even +before the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air. + +The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to the +prostrate figure that had never moved. + +"By God! it's a boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the +shoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neck broken and dead as +his pal." Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, began +hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand. + +"What are you doing?" demanded Demorest in creeping horror. + +"Look!" said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. The first two +fingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hidden in the padded +glove. + +"Good God! Van Loo's brother!" said Demorest, recoiling. + +"No!" said Jack, with a grim face, "it's what I have long +suspected,--it's Steptoe's son!" + +"His son?" repeated Demorest. + +"Yes," said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies with +a long-drawn whistle of concern, "and I wouldn't, if I were you, say +anything of this to Barker." + +"Why?" said Demorest. + +"Well," returned Jack, "when our scrimmage was over down there, and they +brought the news to Barker that his wife and her diamonds were burnt up +at the hotel, you remember that they said that Mrs. Horncastle had saved +his boy." + +"Yes," said Demorest; "but what has that to do with it?" + +"Nothing, I reckon," said Jack, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, +"only Mrs. Horncastle was the mother of the boy that's lying there." + +***** + +Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat before the fire in the old +cabin on Marshall's claim--now legally their own--they looked from the +door beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to the pallid snow-line of the +Sierras, still as remote and unchanged to them as when they had +gazed upon it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for the matter of that, they +themselves seemed to have been left so unchanged that even now, as +in the old days, it was Barker's voice as he greeted them from the +darkening trail that alone broke their reverie. + +"Well," said Demorest cheerfully, "your usual luck, Barker boy!" for +they already saw in his face the happy light they had once seen there on +an eventful night seven years ago. + +"I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next month," he said breathlessly, +"and little Sta loves her already as if she was his own mother. Wish me +joy." + +A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face; but his hand was the first to +grasp Barker's, and his voice the first to say "Amen!" + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Partners, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE PARTNERS *** + +***** This file should be named 2560.txt or 2560.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/2560/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +THE THREE PARTNERS + +by Bret Harte + + + + +PROLOGUE. + + +The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it +had kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, +showing through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the +interstices of broken boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly +out again like sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept +down the whole mountain side, and began its usual struggle with the +shadows upclimbing from the valley, only to lose itself in the end +and be absorbed in the all-conquering darkness. Yet for some time +the pines on the long slope of Heavy Tree Hill murmured and +protested with swaying arms; but as the shadows stole upwards, and +cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel were swallowed up, a +complete silence followed. Only the sky remained visible--a vast +concave mirror of dull steel, in which the stars did not seem to be +set, but only reflected. + +A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy Tree Hill had remained +open to the wind and darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an +invisible figure, afterwards revealed by the embers of the fire it +was stirring. At first only this figure brooding over the hearth +was shown, but as the flames leaped up, two other figures could be +seen sitting motionless before it. When the door was shut, they +acknowledged that interruption by slightly changing their position; +the one who had risen to shut the door sank back into an invisible +seat, but the attitude of each man was one of profound reflection +or reserve, and apparently upon some common subject which made them +respect each other's silence. However, this was at last broken by +a laugh. It was a boyish laugh, and came from the youngest of the +party. The two others turned their profiles and glanced inquiringly +towards him, but did not speak. + +"I was thinking," he began in apologetic explanation, "how mighty +queer it was that while we were working like niggers on grub wages, +without the ghost of a chance of making a strike, how we used to +sit here, night after night, and flapdoodle and speculate about +what we'd do if we ever DID make one; and now, Great Scott! that we +HAVE made it, and are just wallowing in gold, here we are sitting +as glum and silent as if we'd had a washout! Why, Lord! I remember +one night--not so long ago, either--that you two quarreled over the +swell hotel you were going to stop at in 'Frisco, and whether you +wouldn't strike straight out for London and Rome and Paris, or go +away to Japan and China and round by India and the Red Sea." + +"No, we didn't QUARREL over it," said one of the figures gently; +"there was only a little discussion." + +"Yes, but you did, though," returned the young fellow mischievously, +"and you told Stacy, there, that we'd better learn something of the +world before we tried to buy it or even hire it, and that it was +just as well to get the hayseed out of our hair and the slumgullion +off our boots before we mixed in polite society." + +"Well, I don't see what's the matter with that sentiment now," +returned the second speaker good-humoredly; "only," he added +gravely, "we didn't quarrel--God forbid!" + +There was something in the speaker's tone which seemed to touch a +common chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with +sudden and almost pathetic earnestness. "I tell you what, boys, we +ought to swear here to-night to always stand by each other--in luck +and out of it! We ought to hold ourselves always at each other's +call. We ought to have a kind of password or signal, you know, by +which we could summon each other at any time from any quarter of +the globe!" + +"Come off the roof, Barker," murmured Stacy, without lifting his +eyes from the fire. But Demorest smiled and glanced tolerantly at +the younger man. + +"Yes, but look here, Stacy," continued Barker, "comrades like us, +in the old days, used to do that in times of trouble and adventures. +Why shouldn't we do it in our luck?" + +"There's a good deal in that, Barker boy," said Demorest, "though, +as a general thing, passwords butter no parsnips, and the ordinary, +every-day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole pack together +for business about as quick as a password. But you cling to that +sentiment, and put it away with your gold-dust in your belt." + +"What I like about Barker is his commodiousness," said Stacy. +"Here he is, the only man among us that has his future fixed and +his preemption lines laid out and registered. He's already got a +girl that he's going to marry and settle down with on the strength +of his luck. And I'd like to know what Kitty Carter, when she's +Mrs. Barker, would say to her husband being signaled for from Asia +or Africa. I don't seem to see her tumbling to any password. And +when he and she go into a new partnership, I reckon she'll let the +old one slide." + +"That's just where you're wrong!" said Barker, with quickly rising +color. "She's the sweetest girl in the world, and she'd be sure to +understand our feelings. Why, she thinks everything of you two; +she was just eager for you to get this claim, which has put us +where we are, when I held back, and if it hadn't been for her, by +Jove! we wouldn't have had it." + +"That was only because she cared for YOU," returned Stacy, with a +half-yawn; "and now that you've got YOUR share she isn't going to +take a breathless interest in US. And, by the way, I'd rather +YOU'D remind us that we owe our luck to her than that SHE should +ever remind YOU of it." + +"What do you mean?" said Barker quickly. But Demorest here rose +lazily, and, throwing a gigantic shadow on the wall, stood between +the two with his back to the fire. "He means," he said slowly, +"that you're talking rot, and so is he. However, as yours comes +from the heart and his from the head, I prefer yours. But you're +both making me tired. Let's have a fresh deal." + +Nobody ever dreamed of contradicting Demorest. Nevertheless, +Barker persisted eagerly: "But isn't it better for us to look at +this cheerfully and happily all round? There's nothing criminal in +our having made a strike! It seems to me, boys, that of all ways +of making money it's the squarest and most level; nobody is the +poorer for it; our luck brings no misfortune to others. The gold +was put there ages ago for anybody to find; we found it. It hasn't +been tarnished by man's touch before. I don't know how it strikes +you, boys, but it seems to me that of all gifts that are going it +is the straightest. For whether we deserve it or not, it comes to +us first-hand--from God!" + +The two men glanced quickly at the speaker, whose face flushed and +then smiled embarrassedly as if ashamed of the enthusiasm into +which he had been betrayed. But Demorest did not smile, and +Stacy's eyes shone in the firelight as he said languidly, "I never +heard that prospecting was a religious occupation before. But I +shouldn't wonder if you're right, Barker boy. So let's liquor up." + +Nevertheless he did not move, nor did the others. The fire leaped +higher, bringing out the rude rafters and sternly economic details +of the rough cabin, and making the occupants in their seats before +the fire look gigantic by contrast. + +"Who shut the door?" said Demorest after a pause. + +"I did," said Barker. "I reckoned it was getting cold." + +"Better open it again, now that the fire's blazing. It will light +the way if any of the men from below want to drop in this evening." + +Stacy stared at his companion. "I thought that it was understood +that we were giving them that dinner at Boomville tomorrow night, +so that we might have the last evening here by ourselves in peace +and quietness?" + +"Yes, but if any one DID want to come it would seem churlish to +shut him out," said Demorest. + +"I reckon you're feeling very much as I am," said Stacy, "that this +good fortune is rather crowding to us three alone. For myself, I +know," he continued, with a backward glance towards a blanketed, +covered pile in the corner of the cabin, "that I feel rather +oppressed by--by its specific gravity, I calculate--and sort of +crampy and twitchy in the legs, as if I ought to 'lite' out and do +something, and yet it holds me here. All the same, I doubt if +anybody will come up--except from curiosity. Our luck has made +them rather sore down the hill, for all they're coming to the +dinner to-morrow." + +"That's only human nature," said Demorest. + +"But," said Barker eagerly, "what does it mean? Why, only this +afternoon, when I was passing the 'Old Kentuck' tunnel, where those +Marshalls have been grubbing along for four years without making a +single strike, I felt ashamed to look at them, and as they barely +nodded to me I slinked by as if I had done them an injury. I don't +understand it." + +"It somehow does not seem to square with this 'gift of God' idea of +yours, does it?" said Stacy. "But we'll open the door and give +them a show." + +As he did so it seemed as if the night were their only guest, and +had been waiting on the threshold to now enter bodily and pervade +all things with its presence. With that cool, fragrant inflow of +air they breathed freely. The red edge had gone from Black Spur, +but it was even more clearly defined against the sky in its +towering blackness. The sky itself had grown lighter, although the +stars still seemed mere reflections of the solitary pin-points of +light scattered along the concave valley below. Mingling with the +cooler, restful air of the summit, yet penetratingly distinct from +it, arose the stimulating breath of the pines below, still hot and +panting from the day-long sun. The silence was intense. The far- +off barking of a dog on the invisible river-bar nearly a mile +beneath them came to them like a sound in a dream. They had risen, +and, standing in the doorway, by common consent turned their faces +to the east. It was the frequent attitude of the home-remembering +miner, and it gave him the crowning glory of the view. For, beyond +the pine-hearsed summits, rarely seen except against the evening +sky, lay a thin, white cloud like a dropped portion of the Milky +Way. Faint with an indescribable pallor, remote yet distinct +enough to assert itself above and beyond all surrounding objects, +it was always there. It was the snow-line of the Sierras. + +They turned away and silently reseated themselves, the same thought +in the minds of each. Here was something they could not take away, +something to be left forever and irretrievably behind,--left with +the healthy life they had been leading, the cheerful endeavor, the +undying hopefulness which it had fostered and blessed. Was what +they WERE taking away worth it? And oddly enough, frank and +outspoken as they had always been to each other, that common +thought remained unuttered. Even Barker was silent; perhaps he was +also thinking of Kitty. + +Suddenly two figures appeared in the very doorway of the cabin. +The effect was startling upon the partners, who had only just +reseated themselves, and for a moment they had forgotten that the +narrow band of light which shot forth from the open door rendered +the darkness on either side of it more impenetrable, and that out +of this darkness, although themselves guided by the light, the +figures had just emerged. Yet one was familiar enough. It was the +Hill drunkard, Dick Hall, or, as he was called, "Whiskey Dick," or, +indicated still more succinctly by the Hill humorists, "Alky Hall." + +Everybody had seen that sodden, puffy, but good-humored face; +everybody had felt the fiery exhalations of that enormous red +beard, which always seemed to be kept in a state of moist, unkempt +luxuriance by liquor; everybody knew the absurd dignity of manner +and attempted precision of statement with which he was wont to +disguise his frequent excesses. Very few, however, knew, or cared +to know, the pathetic weariness and chilling horror that sometimes +looked out of those bloodshot eyes. + +He was evidently equally unprepared for the three silent seated +figures before the door, and for a moment looked at them blankly +with the doubts of a frequently deceived perception. Was he sure +that they were quite real? He had not dared to look at his +companion for verification, but smiled vaguely. + +"Good-evening," said Demorest pleasantly. + +Whiskey Dick's face brightened. "Good-evenin', good-evenin' +yourselves, boys--and see how you like it! Lemme interdrush my ole +frien' William J. Steptoe, of Red Gulch. Stepsho--Steptoe--is +shtay--ish stay--" He stopped, hiccupped, waved his hand gravely, +and with an air of reproachful dignity concluded, "sojourning for +the present on the Bar. We wish to offer our congrashulashen and +felish--felish--" He paused again, and, leaning against the door- +post, added severely, "--itations." + +His companion, however, laughed coarsely, and, pushing past Dick, +entered the cabin. He was a short, powerful man, with a closely +cropped crust of beard and hair that seemed to adhere to his round +head like moss or lichen. He cast a glance--furtive rather than +curious around the cabin, and said, with a familiarity that had not +even good humor to excuse it, "So you're the gay galoots who've +made the big strike? Thought I'd meander up the Hill with this old +bloat Alky, and drop in to see the show. And here you are, feeling +your oats, eh? and not caring any particular G-d d--n if school +keeps or not." + +"Show Mr. Steptoe--the whiskey," said Demorest to Stacy. Then +quietly addressing Dick, but ignoring Steptoe as completely as +Steptoe had ignored his unfortunate companion, he said, "You quite +startled us at first. We did not see you come up the trail." + +"No. We came up the back trail to please Steptoe, who wanted to +see round the cabin," said Dick, glancing nervously yet with a +forced indifference towards the whiskey which Stacy was offering to +the stranger. + +"What yer gettin' off there?" said Steptoe, facing Dick almost +brutally. "YOU know your tangled legs wouldn't take you straight +up the trail, and you had to make a circumbendibus. Gosh! if you +hadn't scented this licker at the top you'd have never found it." + +"No matter! I'm glad you DID find it, Dick," said Demorest, "and I +hope you'll find the liquor good enough to pay you for the trouble." + +Barker stared at Demorest. This extraordinary tolerance of the +drunkard was something new in his partner. But at a glance from +Demorest he led Dick to the demijohn and tin cup which stood on a +table in the corner. And in another moment Dick had forgotten his +companion's rudeness. + +Demorest remained by the door, looking out into the darkness. + +"Well," said Steptoe, putting down his emptied cup, "trot out your +strike. I reckon our eyes are strong enough to bear it now." +Stacy drew the blanket from the vague pile that stood in the +corner, and discovered a deep tin prospecting-pan. It was heaped +with several large fragments of quartz. At first the marble +whiteness of the quartz and the glittering crystals of mica in its +veins were the most noticeable, but as they drew closer they could +see the dull yellow of gold filling the decomposed and honeycombed +portion of the rock as if still liquid and molten. The eyes of the +party sparkled like the mica--even those of Barker and Stacy, who +were already familiar with the treasure. + +"Which is the richest chunk?" asked Steptoe in a thickening voice. + +Stacy pointed it out. + +"Why, it's smaller than the others." + +"Heft it in your hand," said Barker, with boyish enthusiasm. + +The short, thick fingers of Steptoe grasped it with a certain +aquiline suggestion; his whole arm strained over it until his face +grew purple, but he could not lift it. + +"Thar useter be a little game in the 'Frisco Mint," said Dick, +restored to fluency by his liquor, "when thar war ladies visiting +it, and that was to offer to give 'em any of those little boxes of +gold coin, that contained five thousand dollars, ef they would +kindly lift it from the counter and take it away! It wasn't no +bigger than one of these chunks; but Jiminy! you oughter have seed +them gals grip and heave on it, and then hev to give it up! You +see they didn't know anything about the paci--(hic) the speshif--" +He stopped with great dignity, and added with painful precision, +"the specific gravity of gold." + +"Dry up!" said Steptoe roughly. Then turning to Stacy he said +abruptly, "But where's the rest of it? You've got more than that." + +"We sent it to Boomville this morning. You see we've sold out our +claim to a company who take it up to-morrow, and put up a mill and +stamps. In fact, it's under their charge now. They've got a gang +of men on the claim already." + +"And what mout ye hev got for it, if it's a fair question?" said +Steptoe, with a forced smile. + +Stacy smiled also. "I don't know that it's a business question," +he said. + +"Five hundred thousand dollars," said Demorest abruptly from the +doorway, "and a treble interest." + +The eyes of the two men met. There was no mistaking the dull fire +of envy in Steptoe's glance, but Demorest received it with a +certain cold curiosity, and turned away as the sound of arriving +voices came from without. + +"Five hundred thousand's a big figger," said Steptoe, with a coarse +laugh, "and I don't wonder it makes you feel so d----d sassy. But +it WAS a fair question." + +Unfortunately it here occurred to the whiskey-stimulated brain of +Dick that the friend he had introduced was being treated with scant +courtesy, and he forgot his own treatment by Steptoe. Leaning +against the wall he waved a dignified rebuke. "I'm sashified my +ole frien' is akshuated by only businesh principles." He paused, +recollected himself, and added with great precision: "When I say he +himself has a valuable claim in Red Gulch, and to my shertain +knowledge has received offers--I have said enough." + +The laugh that broke from Stacy and Barker, to whom the infelicitous +reputation of Red Gulch was notorious, did not allay Steptoe's +irritation. He darted a vindictive glance at the unfortunate Dick, +but joined in the laugh. "And what was ye goin' to do with that?" +he said, pointing to the treasure. + +"Oh, we're taking that with us. There's a chunk for each of us as +a memento. We cast lots for the choice, and Demorest won,--that +one which you couldn't lift with one hand, you know," said Stacy. + +"Oh, couldn't I? I reckon you ain't goin' to give me the same +chance that they did at the Mint, eh?" + +Although the remark was accompanied with his usual coarse, familiar +laugh, there was a look in his eye so inconsequent in its +significance that Stacy would have made some reply, but at this +moment Demorest re-entered the cabin, ushering in a half dozen +miners from the Bar below. They were, although youngish men, some +of the older locators in the vicinity, yet, through years of +seclusion and uneventful labors, they had acquired a certain +childish simplicity of thought and manner that was alternately +amusing and pathetic. They had never intruded upon the reserve of +the three partners of Heavy Tree Hill before; nothing but an +infantine curiosity, a shy recognition of the partners' courtesy in +inviting them with the whole population of Heavy Tree to the dinner +the next day, and the never-to-be-resisted temptation of an evening +of "free liquor" and forgetfulness of the past had brought them +there now. Among them, and yet not of them, was a young man who, +although speaking English without accent, was distinctly of a +different nationality and race. This, with a certain neatness of +dress and artificial suavity of address, had gained him the +nickname of "the Count" and "Frenchy," although he was really of +Flemish extraction. He was the Union Ditch Company's agent on the +Bar, by virtue of his knowledge of languages. + +Barker uttered an exclamation of pleasure when he saw him. Himself +the incarnation of naturalness, he had always secretly admired this +young foreigner, with his lacquered smoothness, although a vague +consciousness that neither Stacy nor Demorest shared his feelings +had restricted their acquaintance. Nevertheless, he was proud now +to see the bow with which Paul Van Loo entered the cabin as if it +were a drawing-room, and perhaps did not reflect upon that want of +real feeling in an act which made the others uncomfortable. + +The slight awkwardness their entrance produced, however, was +quickly forgotten when the blanket was again lifted from the pan of +treasure. Singularly enough, too, the same feverish light came +into the eyes of each as they all gathered around this yellow +shrine. Even the polite Paul rudely elbowed his way between the +others, though his artificial "Pardon" seemed to Barker to condone +this act of brutal instinct. But it was more instructive to +observe the manner in which the older locators received this +confirmation of the fickle Fortune that had overlooked their weary +labors and years of waiting to lavish her favors on the new and +inexperienced amateurs. Yet as they turned their dazzled eyes upon +the three partners there was no envy or malice in their depths, no +reproach on their lips, no insincerity in their wondering +satisfaction. Rather there was a touching, almost childlike +resumption of hope as they gazed at this conclusive evidence of +Nature's bounty. The gold had been there--THEY had only missed it! +And if there, more could be found! Was it not a proof of the +richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this reflected on +their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with the +thoughtful countenances of the real owners, would have thought them +the lucky ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled +Stacy, it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active +contempt. Whiskey Dick alone remained stolid and impassive in a +desperate attempt to pull himself once more together. Eventually +he succeeded, even to the ambitious achievement of mounting a chair +and lifting his tin cup with a dangerously unsteady hand, which did +not, however, affect his precision of utterance, and said:-- + +"Order, gentlemen! We'll drink success to--to"-- + +"The next strike!" said Barker, leaping impetuously on another +chair and beaming upon the old locators--"and may it come to those +who have so long deserved it!" + +His sincere and generous enthusiasm seemed to break the spell of +silence that had fallen upon them. Other toasts quickly followed. +In the general good feeling Barker attached himself to Van Loo with +his usual boyish effusion, and in a burst of confidence imparted +the secret of his engagement to Kitty Carter. Van Loo listened +with polite attention, formal congratulations, but inscrutable +eyes, that occasionally wandered to Stacy and again to the +treasure. A slight chill of disappointment came over Barker's +quick sensitiveness. Perhaps his enthusiasm had bored this +superior man of the world. Perhaps his confidences were in bad +taste! With a new sense of his inexperience he turned sadly away. +Van Loo took that opportunity to approach Stacy. + +"What's all this I hear of Barker being engaged to Miss Carter?" he +said, with a faintly superior smile. "Is it really true?" + +"Yes. Why shouldn't it be?" returned Stacy bluntly. + +Van Loo was instantly deprecating and smiling. "Why not, of +course? But isn't it sudden?" + +"They have known each other ever since he's been on Heavy Tree +Hill," responded Stacy. + +"Ah, yes! True," said Van Loo. "But now"-- + +"Well--he's got money enough to marry, and he's going to marry." + +"Rather young, isn't he?" said Van Loo, still deprecatingly. "And +she's got nothing. Used to wait on the table at her father's hotel +in Boomville, didn't she?" + +"Yes. What of that? We all know it." + +"Of course. It's an excellent thing for her--and her father. +He'll have a rich son-in-law. About two hundred thousand is his +share, isn't it? I suppose old Carter is delighted?" + +Stacy had thought this before, but did not care to have it +corroborated by this superfine young foreigner. "And I don't +reckon that Barker is offended if he is," he said curtly as he +turned away. Nevertheless, he felt irritated that one of the three +superior partners of Heavy Tree Hill should be thought a dupe. + +Suddenly the conversation dropped, the laughter ceased. Every one +turned round, and, by a common instinct, looked towards the door. +From the obscurity of the hill slope below came a wonderful tenor +voice, modulated by distance and spiritualized by the darkness:-- + + + "When at some future day + I shall be far away, + Thou wilt be weeping, + Thy lone watch keeping." + + +The men looked at one another. "That's Jack Hamlin," they said. +"What's he doing here?" + +"The wolves are gathering around fresh meat," said Steptoe, with +his coarse laugh and a glance at the treasure. "Didn't ye know he +came over from Red Dog yesterday?" + +"Well, give Jack a fair show and his own game," said one of the old +locators, "and he'd clean out that pile afore sunrise." + +"And lose it next day," added another. + +"But never turn a hair or change a muscle in either case," said a +third. "Lord! I've heard him sing away just like that when he's +been leaving the board with five thousand dollars in his pocket, or +going away stripped of his last red cent." + +Van Loo, who had been listening with a peculiar smile, here said in +his most deprecating manner, "Yes, but did you never consider the +influence that such a man has on the hard-working tunnelmen, who +are ready to gamble their whole week's earnings to him? Perhaps +not. But I know the difficulties of getting the Ditch rates from +these men when he has been in camp." + +He glanced around him with some importance, but only a laugh +followed his speech. "Come, Frenchy," said an old locator, "you +only say that because your little brother wanted to play with Jack +like a grown man, and when Jack ordered him off the board and he +became sassy, Jack scooted him outer the saloon." + +Van Loo's face reddened with an anger that had the apparent effect +of removing every trace of his former polished repose, and leaving +only a hard outline beneath. At which Demorest interfered:-- + +"I can't say that I see much difference in gambling by putting +money into a hole in the ground and expecting to take more from it +than by putting it on a card for the same purpose." + +Here the ravishing tenor voice, which had been approaching, ceased, +and was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodious +whistling to finish the bar of the singer's song. And the next +moment Jack Hamlin appeared in the doorway. + +Whatever was his present financial condition, in perfect self- +possession and charming sang-froid he fully bore out his previous +description. He was as clean and refreshing looking as a madrono- +tree in the dust-blown forest. An odor of scented soap and freshly +ironed linen was wafted from him; there was scarcely a crease in +his white waistcoat, nor a speck upon his varnished shoes. He +might have been an auditor of the previous conversation, so quickly +and completely did he seem to take in the whole situation at a +glance. Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his black-ribboned +Panama hat, and a certain dancing devilry in his brown eyes--which +might also have been an answer to adverse criticism. + +"When I, his truth to prove, would trifle with my love," he warbled +in general continuance from the doorway. Then dropping cheerfully +into speech, he added, "Well, boys, I am here to welcome the little +stranger, and to trust that the family are doing as well as can be +expected. Ah! there it is! Bless it!" he went on, walking +leisurely to the treasure. "Triplets, too!--and plump at that. +Have you had 'em weighed?" + +Frankness was an essential quality of Heavy Tree Hill. "We were +just saying, Jack," said an old locator, "that, giving you a fair +show and your own game, you could manage to get away with that pile +before daybreak." + +"And I'm just thinking," said Jack cheerfully, "that there were +some of you here that could do that without any such useless +preliminary." His brown eyes rested for a moment on Steptoe, but +turning quite abruptly to Van Loo, he held out his hand. Startled +and embarrassed before the others, the young man at last advanced +his, when Jack coolly put his own, as if forgetfully, in his +pocket. "I thought you might like to know what that little brother +of yours is doing," he said to Van Loo, yet looking at Steptoe. "I +found him wandering about the Hill here quite drunk." + +"I have repeatedly warned him"--began Van Loo, reddening. + +"Against bad company--I know," suggested Jack gayly; "yet in spite +of all that, I think he owes some of his liquor to Steptoe yonder." + +"I never supposed the fool would get drunk over a glass of whiskey +offered in fun," said Steptoe harshly, yet evidently quite as much +disconcerted as angry. + +"The trouble with Steptoe," said Hamlin, thoughtfully spanning his +slim waist with both hands as he looked down at his polished shoes, +"is that he has such a soft-hearted liking for all weaknesses. +Always wanting to protect chaps that can't look after themselves, +whether it's Whiskey Dick there when he has a pull on, or some +nigger when he's made a little strike, or that straying lamb of Van +Loo's when he's puppy drunk. But you're wrong about me, boys. You +can't draw me in any game to-night. This is one of my nights off, +which I devote exclusively to contemplation and song. But," he +added, suddenly turning to his three hosts with a bewildering and +fascinating change of expression, "I couldn't resist coming up here +to see you and your pile, even if I never saw the one or the other +before, and am not likely to see either again. I believe in luck! +And it comes a mighty sight oftener than a fellow thinks it does. +But it doesn't come to stay. So I'd advise you to keep your eyes +skinned, and hang on to it while it's with you, like grim death. +So long!" + +Resisting all attempts of his hosts--who had apparently fallen as +suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner--to detain +him longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presently rising +again in melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at all +remarkable that the others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable +magnetism, were impelled to follow him, naturally joining their +voices with his, leaving Steptoe and Van Loo so markedly behind +them alone that they were compelled at last in sheer embarrassment +to close up the rear of the procession. In another moment the +cabin and the three partners again relapsed into the peace and +quiet of the night. With the dying away of the last voices on the +hillside the old solitude reasserted itself. + +But since the irruption of the strangers they had lost their former +sluggish contemplation, and now busied themselves in preparation +for their early departure from the cabin the next morning. They +had arranged to spend the following day and night at Boomville and +Carter's Hotel, where they were to give their farewell dinner to +Heavy Tree Hill. They talked but little together: since the rebuff +his enthusiastic confidences had received from Van Loo, Barker had +been grave and thoughtful, and Stacy, with the irritating +recollection of Van Loo's criticisms in his mind, had refrained +from his usual rallying of Barker. Oddly enough, they spoke +chiefly of Jack Hamlin,--till then personally a stranger to them, +on account of his infelix reputation,--and even the critical +Demorest expressed a wish they had known him before. "But you +never know the real value of anything until you're quitting it or +it's quitting you," he added sententiously. + +Barker and Stacy both stared at their companion. It was unlike +Demorest to regret anything--particularly a mere social diversion. + +"They say," remarked Stacy, "that if you had known Jack Hamlin +earlier and professionally, a great deal of real value would have +quitted you before he did." + +"Don't repeat that rot flung out by men who have played Jack's game +and lost," returned Demorest derisively. "I'd rather trust him +than"-- He stopped, glanced at the meditative Barker, and then +concluded abruptly, "the whole caboodle of his critics." + +They were silent for a few moments, and then seemed to have fallen +into their former dreamy mood as they relapsed into their old seats +again. At last Stacy drew a long breath. "I wish we had sent +those nuggets off with the others this morning." + +"Why?" said Demorest suddenly. + +"Why? Well, d--n it all! they kind of oppress me, don't you see. +I seem to feel 'em here, on my chest--all the three," returned +Stacy only half jocularly. "It's their d----d specific gravity, I +suppose. I don't like the idea of sleeping in the same room with +'em. They're altogether too much for us three men to be left alone +with." + +"You don't mean that you think that anybody would attempt"--said +Demorest. + +Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. "No; I don't +think THAT--I rather wish I did. It's the blessed chunks of solid +gold that seem to have got US fast, don't you know, and are going +to stick to us for good or ill. A sort of Frankenstein monster +that we've picked out of a hole from below." + +"I know just what Stacy means," said Barker breathlessly, rounding +his gray eyes. "I've felt it, too. Couldn't we make a sort of +cache of it--bury it just outside the cabin for to-night? It would +be sort of putting it back into its old place, you know, for the +time being. IT might like it." + +The other two laughed. "Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy," +said Stacy, "handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon! Besides, +what's to keep any prospector from coming along and making a strike +of it? You know that's mining law--if you haven't preempted the +spot as a claim." + +But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to make any +reply, and Demorest arose. "And I feel that you'd both better be +turning in, as we've got to get up early." He went to the corner +of the cabin, and threw the blanket back over the pan and its +treasure. "There that'll keep the chunks from getting up to ride +astride of you like a nightmare." He shut the door and gave a +momentary glance at its cheap hinges and the absence of bolt or +bar. Stacy caught his eye. "We'll miss this security in San +Francisco--perhaps even in Boomville," he sighed. + +It was scarcely ten o'clock, but Stacy and Barker had begun to +undress themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk, +Barker continuing an amusing story, with one stocking off and his +trousers hanging on his arm, until at last both men were snugly +curled up in their respective bunks. Presently Stacy's voice came +from under the blankets:-- + +"Hallo! aren't you going to turn in too?" + +"Not yet," said Demorest from his chair before the fire. "You see +it's the last night in the old shanty, and I reckon I'll see the +rest of it out." + +"That's so," said the impulsive Barker, struggling violently with +his blankets. "I tell you what, boys: we just ought to make a +watch-night of it--a regular vigil, you know--until twelve at +least. Hold on! I'll get up, too!" But here Demorest arose, +caught his youthful partner's bare foot which went searching +painfully for the ground in one hand, tucked it back under the +blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, patted the bulk with +an authoritative, paternal air. + +"You'll just say your prayers and go to sleep, sonny. You'll want +to be fresh as a daisy to appear before Miss Kitty to-morrow early, +and you can keep your vigils for to-morrow night, after dinner, in +the back drawing-room. I said 'Good-night,' and I mean it!" + +Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a nestling shiver and +a sudden silence. Demorest walked back to his chair. A prolonged +snore came from Stacy's bunk; then everything was quiet. Demorest +stirred up the fire, cast a huge root upon it, and, leaning back in +his chair, sat with half-closed eyes and dreamed. + +It was an old dream that for the past three years had come to him +daily, sometimes even overtaking him under the shade of a buckeye +in his noontide rest on his claim,--a dream that had never yet +failed to wait for him at night by the fireside when his partners +were at rest; a dream of the past, but so real that it always made +the present seem the dream through which he was moving towards some +sure awakening. + +It was not strange that it should come to him to-night, as it had +often come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurity as +the vision of a fair young girl seated in one of the empty chairs +before him. Always the same pretty, childlike face, fraught with a +half-frightened, half-wondering trouble; always the same slender, +graceful figure, but always glimmering in diamonds and satin, or +spiritual in lace and pearls, against his own rude and sordid +surroundings; always silent with parted lips, until the night wind +smote some chord of recollection, and then mingled a remembered +voice with his own. For at those times he seemed to speak also, +albeit with closed lips, and an utterance inaudible to all but her. + +"Well?" he said sadly. + +"Well?" the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with his +own. + +"You know it all now," he went on. "You know that it has come at +last,--all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have +made us happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come at +last, and all too late!" + +"Too late!" echoed the voice with his. + +"You remember," he went on, "the last day we were together. You +remember your friends and family would have you give me up--a +penniless man. You remember when they reproached you with my +poverty, and told you that it was only your wealth that I was +seeking, that I then determined to go away and never to return to +claim you until that reproach could be removed. You remember, +dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay with you, even fly +with you, but not to leave you alone with them. You wore the same +dress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering childlike +fear and trouble in them; your jewels glittered on you as you +trembled, and I refused. In my pride, or rather in my weakness and +cowardice, I refused. I came away and broke my heart among these +rocks and ledges, yet grew strong; and you, my love, YOU, sheltered +and guarded by those you loved, YOU"-- He stopped and buried his +face in his hands. The night wind breathed down the chimney, and +from the stirred ashes on the hearth came the soft whisper, "I +died." + +"And then," he went on, "I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heart +awoke for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love +for a girl that even in her humble station was far beyond his +hopes, and I pitied myself in him. Home, fortune, friends, I no +longer cared for--all were forgotten. And now they are returning +to me--only that I may see the hollowness and vanity of them, and +taste the bitterness for which I have sacrificed you. And here, on +this last night of my exile, I am confronted with only the +jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and selfishness that is to come. +Too late! Too late!" + +The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared +to clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind +moaning in the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: "Too late, +beloved, for ME, but not for you. I died, but Love still lives. +Be happy, Philip. And in your happiness I too may live again"? + +He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. The +wind that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a +sound like the passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill in +the air and a smell like that of opened earth. A nervous shiver +passed over him. Then he sat upright. There was no mistake; it +was no superstitious fancy, but a faint, damp current of air was +actually flowing across his feet towards the fireplace. He was +about to rise when he stopped suddenly and became motionless. + +He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected +him even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was a gentle +brushing of some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom +on sand, or the sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned +to every woodland sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or +squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. +Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations of his sleeping +companions were distinct from that monotonous sound. He could not +even tell if it were IN the cabin or without. Suddenly his eye +fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket that covered the +treasure was actually moving! + +He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing. +For this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of +riches had disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred +treasure. The movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing +sound recommenced. He drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot- +leg, and in three noiseless strides was beside the pile. There he +saw what he fully expected to see,--a narrow, horizontal gap +between the log walls of the cabin and the adobe floor, slowly +widening and deepening by the burrowing of unseen hands from +without. The cold outer air which he had felt before was now +plainly flowing into the heated cabin through the opening. The +swishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of +a hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the +bottom log and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the +bowie-knife of Demorest descended like a flash of lightning. There +was no outcry. Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of +admiration for the stoicism of the unseen trespasser. But the +maimed hand was quickly withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushed +to the door and dashed into the outer darkness. + +For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change. +But the next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure running +before him, and threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell, +but even in that contact Demorest felt the tangled beard and +alcoholic fumes of Whiskey Dick, and felt also that the hands which +were thrown up against his breast, the palms turned outward with +the instinctive movement of a timid, defenseless man, were +unstained with soil or blood. With an oath he threw the drunkard +from him and dashed to the rear of the cabin. But too late! +There, indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened burrow as +it had been excavated apparently by that mutilated hand--but +nothing else! + +He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, although +still retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered +his feet in a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of +injury. What did Demorest mean by attacking "innoshent" gentlemen +on the trail outside his cabin? Yes! OUTSIDE his cabin, he would +swear it! + +"What were you doing here at midnight?" demanded Demorest. + +What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasn't any +molly-coddle to go to bed at ten o'clock! What was he doing? +Well--he'd been with men who didn't shut their doors and turn the +boys out just in the shank of the evening. He wasn't any Barker to +be wet-nursed by Demorest. + +"Some one else was here!" said Demorest sternly, with his eyes +fixed on Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil the +outer world from the drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly with such a +look of direct horror that Demorest was fain to turn away his own. +But the veil mercifully returned, and with it Dick's worked-up +sense of injury. Nobody was there--not "a shole." Did Demorest +think if there had been any of his friends there they would have +stood by like "dogsh" and seen him insulted? + +Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurched +heavily forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitement +over, a sickening repugnance to the whole incident took the place +of Demorest's resentment and indignation. There had been a +cowardly attempt to rob them of their miserable treasure. He had +met it and frustrated it in almost as brutal a fashion: the gold +was already tarnished with blood. To his surprise, yet relief, he +found his partners unconscious of the outrage, still sleeping with +the physical immobility of over-excited and tired men. Should he +awaken them? No! He should have to awaken also their suspicions +and desire for revenge. There was no danger of a further attack; +there was no fear that the culprit would disclose himself, and to- +morrow they would be far away. Let oblivion rest upon that night's +stain on the honor of Heavy Tree Hill. + +He rolled a small barrel before the opening, smoothed the dislodged +earth, replaced the pan with its treasure, and trusted that in the +bustle of the early morning departure his partners might not notice +any change. Stopping before the bunk of Stacy he glanced at the +sleeping man. He was lying on his back, but breathing heavily, and +his hands were moving towards his chest as if, indeed, his strange +fancy of the golden incubus were being realized. Demorest would +have wakened him, but presently, with a sigh of relief, the sleeper +turned over on his side. It was pleasanter to look at Barker, +whose damp curls were matted over his smooth, boyish forehead, and +whose lips were parted in a smile under the silken wings of his +brown mustache. He, too, seemed to be trying to speak, and +remembering some previous revelations which had amused them, +Demorest leaned over him fraternally with an answering smile, +waiting for the beloved one's name to pass the young man's lips. +But he only murmured, "Three--hundred--thousand dollars!" The +elder man turned away with a grave face. The influence of the +treasure was paramount. + +When he had placed one of the chairs against the unprotected door +at an angle which would prevent any easy or noiseless intrusion, +Demorest threw himself on his bunk without undressing, and turned +his face towards the single window of the cabin that looked towards +the east. He did not apprehend another covert attempt against the +gold. He did not fear a robbery with force and arms, although he +was satisfied that there was more than one concerned in it, but +this he attributed only to the encumbering weight of their expected +booty. He simply waited for the dawn. It was some time before his +eyes were greeted with the vague opaline brightness of the +firmament which meant the vanishing of the pallid snow-line before +the coming day. A bird twittered on the roof. The air was chill; +he drew his blanket around him. Then he closed his eyes, he +fancied only for a moment, but when he opened them the door was +standing open in the strong daylight. He sprang to his feet, but +the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who had passed out, and +was returning fully dressed, bringing water from the spring to fill +the kettle. But Stacy's face was so grave that, recalling his +disturbed sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if he had been +haunted by the treasure. But to his surprise Stacy put down the +kettle, and, with a hurried glance at the still sleeping Barker, +said in a low voice:-- + +"I want you to do something for me without asking why. Later I +will tell you." + +Demorest looked at him fixedly. "What is it?" he said. + +"The pack-mules will be here in a few moments. Don't wait to close +up or put away anything here, but clap that gold in the saddle- +bags, and take Barker with you and 'lite' out for Boomville AT +ONCE. I will overtake you later." + +"Is there no time to discuss this?" asked Demorest. + +"No," said Stacy bluntly. "Call me a crank, say I'm in a blue +funk"--his compressed lips and sharp black eyes did not lend +themselves much to that hypothesis--"only get out of this with that +stuff, and take Barker with you! I'm not responsible for myself +while it's here." + +Demorest knew Stacy to be combative, but practical. If he had not +been assured of his partner's last night slumbers he might have +thought he knew of the attempt. Or if he had discovered the +turned-up ground in the rear of the cabin his curiosity would have +demanded an explanation. Demorest paused only for a moment, and +said, "Very well, I will go." + +"Good! I'll rouse out Barker, but not a word to him--except that +he must go. + +The rousing out of Barker consisted of Stacy's lifting that young +gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright in the open +doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan process, and +after a moment's balancing with closed lids like an unwrapped +mummy, he sat down in the doorway and began to dress. He at first +demurred to their departure except all together--it was so +unfraternal; but eventually he allowed himself to be persuaded out +of it and into his clothes. For Barker had also had HIS visions in +the night, one of which was that they should build a beautiful +villa on the site of the old cabin and solemnly agree to come every +year and pass a week in it together. "I thought at first," he +said, sliding along the floor in search of different articles of +his dress, or stopping gravely to catch them as they were thrown to +him by his partners, "that we'd have it at Boomville, as being +handier to get there; but I've concluded we'd better have it here, +a little higher up the hill, where it could be seen over the whole +Black Spur Range. When we weren't here we could use it as a Hut of +Refuge for broken-down or washed-out miners or weary travelers, +like those hospices in the Alps, you know, and have somebody to +keep it for us. You see I've thought even of THAT, and Van Loo is +the very man to take charge of it for us. You see he's got such +good manners and speaks two languages. Lord! if a German or +Frenchman came along, poor and distressed, Van Loo would just chip +in his own language. See? You've got to think of all these +details, you see, boys. And we might call it 'The Rest of the +Three Partners,' or 'Three Partners' Rest.'" + +"And you might begin by giving us one," said Stacy. "Dry up and +drink your coffee." + +"I'll draw out the plans. I've got it all in my head," continued +the enthusiastic Barker, unheeding the interruption. "I'll just +run out and take a look at the site, it's only right back of the +cabin." But here Stacy caught him by his dangling belt as he was +flying out of the door with one boot on, and thrust him down in a +chair with a tin cup of coffee in his hand. + +"Keep the plans in your head, Barker boy," said Demorest, "for here +are the pack mules and packer." This was quite enough to divert +the impressionable young man, who speedily finished his dressing, +as a mule bearing a large pack-saddle and two enormous saddle-bags +or pouches drove up before the door, led by a muleteer on a small +horse. The transfer of the treasure to the saddle-bags was quickly +made by their united efforts, as the first rays of the sun were +beginning to paint the hillside. Shading his keen eyes with his +hand, Stacy stood in the doorway and handed Demorest the two +rifles. Demorest hesitated. "Hadn't YOU better keep one?" he +said, looking in his partner's eyes with his first challenge of +curiosity. The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle into Stacy's +glance as he returned, "Not much! And you'd better take my +revolver with you, too. I'm feeling a little better now," he said, +looking at the saddlebags, "but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with +carnal weapons. When the other mule comes and is packed I'll +overtake you on the horse." + +A little more satisfied, although still wondering and perplexed, +Demorest shouldered one rifle, and with Barker, who was carrying +the other, followed the muleteer and his equipage down the trail. +For a while he was a little ashamed of his part in this unusual +spectacle of two armed men convoying a laden mule in broad +daylight, but, luckily, it was too early for the Bar miners to be +going to work, and as the tunnelmen were now at breakfast the trail +was free of wayfarers. At the point where it crossed the main road +Demorest, however, saw Steptoe and Whiskey Dick emerge from the +thicket, apparently in earnest conversation. Demorest felt his +repugnance and half-restrained suspicions suddenly return. Yet he +did not wish to betray them before Barker, nor was he willing, in +case of an emergency, to allow the young man to be entirely +unprepared. Calling him to follow, he ran quickly ahead of the +laden mule, and was relieved to find that, looking back, his +companion had brought his rifle to a "ready," through some +instinctive feeling of defense. As Steptoe and Whiskey Dick, a +moment later discovering them, were evidently surprised, there +seemed, however, to be no reason for fearing an outbreak. +Suddenly, at a whisper from Steptoe, he and Whiskey Dick both +threw up their hands, and stood still on the trail a few yards +from them in a burlesque of the usual recognized attitude of +helplessness, while a hoarse laugh broke from Steptoe. + +"D----d if we didn't think you were road-agents! But we see you're +only guarding your treasure. Rather fancy style for Heavy Tree +Hill, ain't it? Things must be gettin' rough up thar to hev to +take out your guns like that!" + +Demorest had looked keenly at the four hands thus exhibited, and +was more concerned that they bore no trace of wounds or mutilation +than at the insult of the speech, particularly as he had a distinct +impression that the action was intended to show him the futility of +his suspicions. + +"I am glad to see that if you haven't any arms in your hands you're +not incapable of handling them," said Demorest coolly, as he passed +by them and again fell into the rear of the muleteer. + +But Barker had thought the incident very funny, and laughed +effusively at Whiskey Dick. "I didn't know that Steptoe was up to +that kind of fun," he said, "and I suppose we DID look rather rough +with these guns as we ran on ahead of the mule. But then you know +that when you called to me I really thought you were in for a +shindy. All the same, Whiskey Dick did that 'hands up' to +perfection: how he managed it I don't know, but his knees seemed to +knock together as if he was in a real funk." + +Demorest had thought so too, but he made no reply. How far that +miserable drunkard was a forced or willing accomplice of the events +of last night was part of a question that had become more and more +repugnant to him as he was leaving the scene of it forever. It had +come upon him, desecrating the dream he had dreamt that last night +and turning its hopeful climax to bitterness. Small wonder that +Barker, walking by his side, had his quick sympathies aroused, and +as he saw that shadow, which they were all familiar with, but had +never sought to penetrate, fall upon his companion's handsome face, +even his youthful spirits yielded to it. They were both relieved +when the clatter of hoofs behind them, as they reached the valley, +announced the approach of Stacy. "I started with the second mule +and the last load soon after you left," he explained, "and have +just passed them. I thought it better to join you and let the +other load follow. Nobody will interfere with THAT." + +"Then you are satisfied?" said Demorest, regarding him steadfastly. + +"You bet! Look!" + +He turned in his saddle and pointed to the crest of the hill they +had just descended. Above the pines circling the lower slope above +the bare ledges of rock and outcrop, a column of thick black smoke +was rising straight as a spire in the windless air. + +"That's the old shanty passing away," said Stacy complacently. "I +reckon there won't be much left of it before we get to Boomville." + +Demorest and Barker stared. "You fired it?" said Barker, trembling +with excitement. + +"Yes," said Stacy. "I couldn't bear to leave the old rookery for +coyotes and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before I +left." + +"But"--said Barker. + +"But," repeated Stacy composedly. "Hallo! what's the matter with +that new plan of 'The Rest' that you're going to build, eh? You +don't want them BOTH." + +"And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin to +strangers?" said Barker, with kindling eyes. "Stacy, I didn't +think you had that poetry in you!" + +"There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don't know, and I don't +exactly sabe myself." + +"Only," continued the young fellow eagerly, "we ought to have ALL +been there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,-- +a kind of sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of libation on +the ground!" + +"I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I think," returned +Stacy, "just to help things along. But if you want to see her +flaming, Barker, you just run back to that last corner on the road +beyond the big red wood. That's the spot for a view." + +As Barker--always devoted to a spectacle--swiftly disappeared the +two men faced each other. "Well, what does it all mean?" said +Demorest gravely. + +"It means, old man," said Stacy suddenly, "that if we hadn't had +nigger luck, the same blind luck that sent us that strike, you and +I and that Barker over there would have been swirling in that smoke +up to the sky about two hours ago!" He stopped and added in a +lower, but earnest voice, "Look here, Phil! When I went out to +fetch water this morning I smelt something queer. I went round to +the back of the cabin and found a hole dug under the floor, and +piled against the corner wall a lot of brush-wood and a can of +kerosene. Some of the kerosene had been already poured on the +brush. Everything was ready to light, and only my coming out an +hour earlier had frightened the devils away. The idea was to set +the place on fire, suffocate us in the smoke of the kerosene poured +into the hole, and then to rush in and grab the treasure. It was a +systematic plan!" + +"No!" said Demorest quietly. + +"No?" repeated Stacy. "I told you I saw the whole thing and took +away the kerosene, which I hid, and after you had gone used it to +fire the cabin with, to see if the ones I suspected would gather to +watch their work." + +"It was no part of their FIRST plan"' said Demorest, "which was +only robbery. Listen!" He hurriedly recounted his experience of +the preceding night to the astonished Stacy. "No, the fire was an +afterthought and revenge," he added sternly. + +"But you say you cut the robber in the hand; there would be no +difficulty in identifying him by that." + +"I wounded only a HAND," said Demorest. "But there was a HEAD in +that attempt that I never saw." He then revealed his own half- +suspicions, but how they were apparently refuted by the bravado of +Steptoe and Whiskey Dick. + +"Then that was the reason THEY didn't gather at the fire," said +Stacy quickly. + +"Ah!" said Demorest, "then YOU too suspected them?" + +Stacy hesitated, and then said abruptly, "Yes." + +Demorest was silent for a moment. + +"Why didn't you tell me this this morning?" he said gently. + +Stacy pointed to the distant Barker. "I didn't want you to tell +him. I thought it better for one partner to keep a secret from two +than for the two to keep it from one. Why didn't you tell me of +your experience last night?" + +"I am afraid it was for the same reason," said Demorest, with a +faint smile. "And it sometimes seems to me, Jim, that we ought to +imitate Barker's frankness. In our dread of tainting him with our +own knowledge of evil we are sending him out into the world very +poorly equipped, for all his three hundred thousand dollars." + +"I reckon you're right," said Stacy briefly, extending his hand. +"Shake on that!" + +The two men grasped each other's hands. + +"And he's no fool, either," continued Demorest. "When we met +Steptoe on the road, without a word from me, he closed up +alongside, with his hand on the lock of his rifle. And I hadn't +the heart to praise him or laugh it off." + +Nevertheless they were both silent as the object of their criticism +bounded down the trail towards them. He had seen the funeral pyre. +It was awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but there was something +grand in it! Who could have thought Stacy could be so poetic? But +he wanted to tell them something else that was mighty pretty. + +"What was it?" said Demorest. + +"Well," said Barker, "don't laugh! But you know that Jack Hamlin? +Well, boys, he's been hovering around us on his mustang, keeping us +and that pack-mule in sight ever since we left. Sometimes he's on +a side trail off to the right, sometimes off to the left, but +always at the same distance. I didn't like to tell you, boys, for +I thought you'd laugh at me; but I think, you know, he's taken a +sort of shine to us since he dropped in last night. And I fancy, +you see, he's sort of hanging round to see that we get along all +right. I'd have pointed him out before only I reckoned you and +Stacy would say he was making up to us for our money." + +"And we'd have been wrong, Barker boy," said Stacy, with a +heartiness that surprised Demorest, "for I reckon your instinct's +the right one." + +"There he is now," said the gratified Barker, "just abreast of us +on the cut-off. He started just after we did, and he's got a horse +that could have brought him into Boomville hours ago. It's just +his kindness." + +He pointed to a distant fringe of buckeye from which Jack Hamlin +had just emerged. Although evidently holding in a powerful +mustang, nothing could be more unconscious and utterly indifferent +than his attitude. He did not seem to know of the proximity of any +other traveler, and to care less. His handsome head was slightly +thrown back, as if he was caroling after his usual fashion, but the +distance was too great to make his melody audible to them, or to +allow Barker's shout of invitation to reach him. Suddenly he +lowered his tightened rein, the mustang sprang forward, and with a +flash of silver spurs and bridle fripperies he had disappeared. +But as the trail he was pursuing crossed theirs a mile beyond, it +seemed quite possible that they should again meet him. + +They were now fairly into the Boomville valley, and were entering a +narrow arroyo bordered with dusky willows which effectually +excluded the view on either side. It was the bed of a mountain +torrent that in winter descended the hillside over the trail by +which they had just come, but was now sunk into the thirsty plain +between banks that varied from two to five feet in height. The +muleteer had advanced into the narrow channel when he suddenly cast +a hurried glance behind him, uttered a "Madre de Dios!" and backed +his mule and his precious freight against the bank. The sound of +hoofs on the trail in their rear had caught his quicker ear, and as +the three partners turned they beheld three horsemen thundering +down the hill towards them. They were apparently Mexican vaqueros +of the usual common swarthy type, their faces made still darker by +the black silk handkerchief tied round their heads under their +stiff sombreros. Either they were unable or unwilling to restrain +their horses in their headlong speed, and a collision in that +narrow passage was imminent, but suddenly, before reaching its +entrance, they diverged with a volley of oaths, and dashing along +the left bank of the arroyo, disappeared in the intervening +willows. Divided between relief at their escape and indignation at +what seemed to be a drunken, feast-day freak of these roystering +vaqueros, the little party re-formed, when a cry from Barker +arrested them. He had just perceived a horseman motionless in the +arroyo who, although unnoticed by them, had evidently been seen by +the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped into it from the bank, and +had halted as if to witness this singular incident. As the clatter +of the vaqueros' hoofs died away he lightly leaped the bank again +and disappeared. But in that single glimpse of him they recognized +Jack Hamlin. When they reached the spot where he had halted, they +could see that he must have approached it from the trail where they +had previously seen him, but which they now found crossed it at +right angles. Barker was right. He had really kept them at easy +distance the whole length of the journey. + +But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at last from +the arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great +stage-road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach were just +panting along the last half mile of the steep upgrade as they +approached. They halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed +and creaked by them. In their ordinary working dress, sunburnt +with exposure, covered with dust, and carrying their rifles still +in their hands, they, perhaps, presented a sufficiently +characteristic appearance to draw a few faces--some of them pretty +and intelligent--to the windows of the coach as it passed. The +sensitive Barker was quickest to feel that resentment with which +the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed criticism of the Eastern +tourist or "greenhorn," and reddened under the bold scrutiny of a +pair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. That annoyance +was communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the bearded +Demorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that great +world in which they were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed of +their appearance, and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt a +secret satisfaction when Barker said, "They'd open their eyes wider +if they knew what was in that pack-saddle," and yet they corrected +him for what they were pleased to call his "snobbishness." They +hurried a little faster as the road became more frequented, as if +eager to shorten their distance to clean clothes and civilization. + +Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with the +stagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past. +He felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look back +upon the dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it had +returned so often, and wondered if he had left it there forever, +and it were now slowly exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke of +their burning cabin. + +His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him at some +distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the +thick dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlin's gauntlet +on his shoulder. The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grime +and sweat, but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh as ever. +With a delightful affectation of embarrassment and timidity he +began flicking the side buttons of his velvet vaquero trousers with +the thong of his riata. "I reckoned to sling a word along with you +before you went," he said, looking down, "but I'm so shy that I +couldn't do it in company. So I thought I'd get it off on you +while you were alone." + +"We've seen you once or twice before, this morning," said Demorest +pleasantly, "and we were sorry you didn't join us." + +"I reckon I might have," said Jack gayly, "if my horse had only +made up his mind whether he was a bird or a squirrel, and hadn't +been so various and promiscuous about whether he wanted to climb a +tree or fly. He's not a bad horse for a Mexican plug, only when he +thinks there is any devilment around he wants to wade in and take a +hand. However, I reckoned to see the last of you and your pile +into Boomville. And I DID. When I meet three fellows like you +that are clean white all through I sort of cotton to 'em, even if +I'M a little of a brunette myself. And I've got something to give +you." + +He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small parcel neatly +folded in white paper as fresh and spotless as himself. Holding it +in his fingers, he went on: "I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hill +early this morning before sun-up. In the darkness I struck your +cabin, and I reckon--I struck somebody else! At first I thought it +was one of you chaps down on your knees praying at the rear of the +cabin, but the way the fellow lit out when he smelt me coming made +me think it wasn't entirely fasting and prayer. However, I went to +the rear of the cabin, and then I reckoned some kind friend had +been bringing you kindlings and firewood for your early breakfast. +But that didn't satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had knelt, and +then I saw--well, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw JUST WHAT YOU HAVE +SEEN! But even then I wasn't quite satisfied, for that man had +been grubbing round as if searching for something. So I searched +too--and I found IT. I've got it here. I'm going to give it to +you, for it may some day come in handy, and you won't find anything +like it among the folks where you're going. It's something unique, +as those fine-art-collecting sharps in 'Frisco say--something quite +matchless, unless you try to match it one day yourself! Don't open +the paper until I run on and say 'So long' to your partners. Good- +by." + +He grasped Demorest's hand and then dropped the little packet into +his palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the +packet in his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest +watched the gambler give Stacy's hand a hearty farewell shake and a +supplementary slap on the back to the delighted Barker, and then +vanish in a flash of red sash and silver buttons. At which +Demorest, walking slowly towards his partners, opened the packet, +and stood suddenly still. It contained the dried and bloodless +second finger of a human hand cut off at the first joint! + +For an instant he held it at arm's length, as if about to cast it +away. Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in +his pocket, and silently walked after his companions. + + +CHAPTER I + + +A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of +Stacy's Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between +the regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed +clerks and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking- +house had long since received the epithet of "palatial" from an +enthusiastic local press fresh from the "opening" luncheon in its +richly decorated directors' rooms, and it was said that once a +homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its +magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, and +mumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with his +greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in the +dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there was something of this +feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in the +hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who entered the bank +that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the important +negro messenger. + +The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across +heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. +James Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid before +him. He was not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and +studied expectancy, stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. +Stacy was evidently writing a memorandum. The stranger glanced +furtively at the card with a curiosity hardly in keeping with his +suggested good breeding; but Stacy did not look at it until he had +finished his memorandum. + +"There," he said, with business decision, "you can tell your people +that if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect +a larger margin. Ditches are not what they were three years ago +when miners were willing to waste their money over your rates. +They don't gamble THAT WAY any more, and your company ought to know +it, and not gamble themselves over that prospect." He handed the +paper to the stranger, who bowed over it with studied politeness, +and backed towards the door. Stacy took up the waiting card, read +it, said to the messenger, "Show him in," and in the same breath +turned to his guest: "I say, Van Loo, it's George Barker! You know +him." + +"Yes," said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted at the +door. "He was--I think--er--in your employ at Heavy Tree Hill." + +"Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him since +at Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stock--through +you--at 110, which were worth about 80! SOMEBODY must have made +money enough by it to remember him." + +"I was only speaking of him socially," said Van Loo, with a +deprecating smile. "You know he married a young woman--the hotel- +keeper's daughter, who used to wait at the table--and after my +mother and sister came out to keep house for me at Boomville it was +quite impossible for me to see much of him, for he seldom went out +without his wife, you know." + +"Yes," said Stacy dryly, "I think you didn't like his marriage. +But I'm glad your disinclination to see him isn't on account of +that deal in stocks." + +"Oh no," said Van Loo. "Good-by." + +But, unfortunately, in the next passage he came upon Barker, who +with a cry of unfeigned pleasure, none the less sincere that he was +feeling a little alien in these impressive surroundings, recognized +him. Nothing could exceed Van Loo's protest of delight at the +meeting; nothing his equal desolation at the fact that he was +hastening to another engagement. "But your old partner," he added, +with a smile, "is waiting for you; he has just received your card, +and I should be only keeping you from him. So glad to see you; +you're looking so well. Good-by! Good-by!" + +Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his old +impetuousness into his former partner's room. Stacy, already +deeply absorbed in other business, was sitting with his back +towards him, and Barker's arms were actually encircling his neck +before the astonished and half-angry man looked up. But when his +eyes met the laughing gray ones of Barker above him he gently +disengaged himself with a quick return of the caress, rose, shut +the door of an inner office, and returning pushed Barker into an +armchair in quite the old suppressive fashion of former days. Yes; +it was the same Stacy that Barker looked at, albeit his brown beard +was now closely cropped around his determined mouth and jaw in a +kind of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs already attuned to +the rigor of clothes of fashionable cut and still more rigorous +sombreness of color. + +"Barker boy," he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keen eyes +which the younger partner remembered, "I don't encourage stag +dancing among my young men during bank hours, and you'll please to +remember that we are not on Heavy Tree Hill"-- + +"Where," broke in Barker enthusiastically, "we were only overlooked +by the Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; where the +nearest voice that came to you was quarter of a mile away as the +crow flies and nearly a mile by the trail." + +"And was generally an oath!" said Stacy. "But you're in San +Francisco NOW. Where are you stopping?" He took up a pencil and +held it over a memorandum pad awaitingly. + +"At the Brook House. It's"-- + +"Hold on! 'Brook House,'" Stacy repeated as he jotted it down. +"And for how long?" + +"Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty"-- + +Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and +then wrote down, "'Day or two.' Wife with you?" + +"Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah!" he went on, with a laugh, +knocking aside the remonstrating pencil, "you must listen! He's +just the sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do you know what +we're going to christen him? Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker. +Good names, aren't they? And then it perpetuates the dear old +friendship." + +Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote "Wife and child S. D. B.," +and leaned back in his chair. "Now, Barker," he said briefly, "I'm +coming to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. THEN we'll talk +Heavy Tree Hill, wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here I'm all for +business. Have you any with me?" + +Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment +out of Stacy's memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look +of eager confidence and said, "Certainly; that's just what it is-- +business. Lord! Stacy, I'm ALL business now. I'm in everything. +And I bank with you, though perhaps you don't know it; it's in your +Branch at Marysville. I didn't want to say anything about it to you +before. But Lord! you don't suppose that I'd bank anywhere else +while you are in the business--checks, dividends, and all that; but +in this matter I felt you knew, old chap. I didn't want to talk to +a banker nor to a bank, but to Jim Stacy, my old partner." + +"Barker," said Stacy curtly, "how much money are you short of?" + +At this direct question Barker's always quick color rose, but, with +an equally quick smile, he said, "I don't know yet that I'm short +at all." + +"But I do!" + +"Look here, Jim: why, I'm just overloaded with shares and stocks," +said Barker, smiling. + +"Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice. Barker, +three years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars put to your +account at San Francisco." + +"Yes," said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh. "I remember I +wanted to draw it out in one check to see how it would look." + +"And you've drawn out all in three years, and it looks d----d bad." + +"How did you know it?" asked Barker, his face beaming only with +admiration of his companion's omniscience. + +"How did I know it?" retorted Stacy. "I know YOU, and I know the +kind of people who have unloaded to you." + +"Come, Stacy," said Barker, "I've only invested in shares and +stocks like everybody else, and then only on the best advice I +could get: like Van Loo's, for instance,--that man who was here +just now, the new manager of the Empire Ditch Company; and +Carter's, my own Kitty's father. And when I was offered fifty +thousand Wide West Extensions, and was hesitating over it, he told +me YOU were in it too--and that was enough for me to buy it." + +"Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures." + +"No," said Barker, with an eager smile, "but you SOLD at his +figures, for I knew that when I found that YOU, my old partner, was +in it; don't you see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, and +did at 110. Of course, you wouldn't have sold it at that figure if +it wasn't worth it then, and neither I nor you are to blame if it +dropped the next week to 60, don't you see?" + +Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into his +former partner's bright gray ones, but there was no trace of irony +in Barker's. On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came over +them. "No," he said reflectively, "I don't think I've ever been +foolish or followed out my OWN ideas, except once, and that was +extravagant, I admit. That was my idea of building a kind of +refuge, you know, on the site of our old cabin, where poor miners +and played-out prospectors waiting for a strike could stay without +paying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand dollars in that, and +might have lost more, only Carter--Kitty's father--persuaded me-- +he's an awful clever old fellow--into turning it into a kind of +branch hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to take poor +chaps who couldn't pay, at half prices, or quarter prices, +PRIVATELY, don't you see, so as to spare their pride,--awfully +pretty, wasn't it?--and make the hotel profit by it." + +"Well?" said Stacy as Barker paused. + +"They didn't come," said Barker. + +"But," he added eagerly, "it shows that things were better than I +had imagined. Only the others did not come, either." + +"And you lost your twenty thousand dollars," said Stacy curtly. + +"FIFTY thousand," said Barker, "for of course it had to be a larger +hotel than the other. And I think that Carter wouldn't have gone +into it except to save me from losing money." + +"And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead of twenty. For I +don't suppose HE advanced anything." + +"He gave his time and experience," said Barker simply. + +"I don't think it worth thirty thousand dollars," said Stacy dryly. +"But all this doesn't tell me what your business is with me to-day." + +"No," said Barker, brightening up, "but it is business, you know. +Something in the old style--as between partner and partner--and +that's why I came to YOU, and not to the 'banker.' And it all +comes out of something that Demorest once told us; so you see it's +all us three again! Well, you know, of course, that the Excelsior +Ditch Company have abandoned the Bar and Heavy Tree Hill. It +didn't pay." + +"Yes; nor does the company pay any dividends now. You ought to +know, with fifty thousand of their stock on your hands." + +Barker laughed. "But listen. I found that I could buy up their +whole plant and all the ditching along the Black Spur Range for ten +thousand dollars." + +"And Great Scott! you don't think of taking up their business?" +said Stacy, aghast. + +Barker laughed more heartily. "No. Not their business. But I +remember that once Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that it +cost nearly as much to make a water ditch as a railroad, in the way +of surveying and engineering and levels, you know. And here's the +plant for a railroad. Don't you see?" + +"But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy Tree Hill--what's the good +of that?" + +"Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the new Divide Railroad +they're trying to get a bill for in the legislature." + +"An infamous piece of wildcat jobbing that will never pass," said +Stacy decisively. + +"They said BECAUSE it was that, it would pass," said Barker simply. +"They say that Watson's Bank is in it, and is bound to get it +through. And as that is a rival bank of yours, don't you see, I +thought that if WE could get something real good or valuable out of +it,--something that would do the Black Spur good,--it would be all +right." + +"And was your business to consult me about it?" said Stacy bluntly. + +"No," said Barker, "it's too late to consult you now, though I wish +I had. I've given my word to take it, and I can't back out. But I +haven't the ten thousand dollars, and I came to you." + +Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair, and put both hands +in his pockets. "Not a cent, Barker, not a cent." + +"I'm not asking it of the BANK," said Barker, with a smile, "for I +could have gone to the bank for it. But as this was something +between us, I am asking you, Stacy, as my old partner." + +"And I am answering you, Barker, as your old partner, but also as +the partner of a hundred other men, who have even a greater right +to ask me. And my answer is, not a cent!" + +Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished face and slightly +parted lips. Stacy rose, thrust his hands deeper in his pockets, +and standing before him went on:-- + +"Now look here! It's time you should understand me and yourself. +Three years ago, when our partnership was dissolved by accident, or +mutual consent, we will say, we started afresh, each on our own +hook. Through foolishness and bad advice you have in those three +years hopelessly involved yourself as you never would have done had +we been partners, and yet in your difficulty you ask me and my new +partners to help you out of a difficulty in which they have no +concern." + +"Your NEW partners?" stammered Barker. + +"Yes, my new partners; for every man who has a share, or a deposit, +or an interest, or a dollar in this bank is my PARTNER--even you, +with your securities at the Branch, are one; and you may say that +in THIS I am protecting you against yourself." + +"But you have money--you have private means." + +"None to speculate with as you wish me to--on account of my +position; none to give away foolishly as you expect me to--on +account of precedent and example. I am a soulless machine taking +care of capital intrusted to me and my brains, but decidedly NOT to +my heart nor my sentiment. So my answer is, not a cent!" + +Barker's face had changed; his color had come back, but with an +older expression. Presently, however, his beaming smile returned, +with the additional suggestion of an affectionate toleration which +puzzled Stacy. + +"I believe you're right, old chap," he said, extending his hand to +the banker, "and I wish I had talked to you before. But it's too +late now, and I've given my word." + +"Your WORD!" said Stacy. "Have you no written agreement?" + +"No. My word was accepted." He blushed slightly as if conscious +of a great weakness. + +"But that isn't legal nor business. And you couldn't even hold the +Ditch Company to it if THEY chose to back out." + +"But I don't think they will," said Barker simply. "And you see my +word wasn't given entirely to THEM. I bought the thing through my +wife's cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he makes something by +it, from the company, on commission. And I can't go back on HIM. +What did you say?" + +Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. "Nothing," he said +briefly, "except that I'm coming, as I said before, to dine with +you to-night; but no more BUSINESS. I've enough of that with +others, and there are some waiting for me in the outer office now." + +Barker rose at once, but with the same affectionate smile and +tender gravity of countenance, and laid his hand caressingly on +Stacy's shoulder. "It's like you to give up so much of your time +to me and my foolishness and be so frank with me. And I know it's +mighty rough on you to have to be a mere machine instead of Jim +Stacy. Don't you bother about me. I'll sell some of my Wide West +Extension and pull the thing through myself. It's all right, but +I'm sorry for you, old chap." He glanced around the room at the +walls and rich paneling, and added, "I suppose that's what you have +to pay for all this sort of thing?" + +Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor was announced for the +second time, and Barker, with another hand-shake and a reassuring +smile to his old partner, passed into the hall, as if the onus of +any infelicity in the interview was upon himself alone. But Stacy +did not seem to be in a particularly accessible mood to the new +caller, who in his turn appeared to be slightly irritated by having +been kept waiting over some irksome business. "You don't seem to +follow me," he said to Stacy after reciting his business perplexity. +"Can't you suggest something?" + +"Well, why don't you get hold of one of your board of directors?" +said Stacy abstractedly. "There's Captain Drummond; you and he are +old friends. You were comrades in the Mexican War, weren't you?" + +"That be d----d!" said his visitor bitterly. "All his interests +are the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, +that a man would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose that +he'd let up on a sure thing that he's got just because he and I +fought side by side at Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us? +You're the last man I ever expected to hear that kind of flapdoodle +from. If it's because your bank has got some other interest and +you can't advise me, why don't you say so?" Nevertheless, in spite +of Stacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few minutes later, half +convinced that Stacy's lukewarmness was due to some adverse +influence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and +at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone. + +But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. After a few moments +of purely mechanical memoranda-making, he rose abruptly and opened +a small drawer in a cabinet, from which he took a letter still in +its envelope. It bore a foreign postmark. Glancing over it +hastily, his eyes at last became fixed on a concluding paragraph. +"I hope," wrote his correspondent, "that even in the rush of your +big business you will sometimes look after Barker. Not that I +think the dear old chap will ever go wrong--indeed, I often wish I +was as certain of myself as of him and his insight; but I am afraid +we were more inclined to be merely amused and tolerant of his +wonderful trust and simplicity than to really understand it for his +own good and ours. I know you did not like his marriage, and were +inclined to believe he was the victim of a rather unscrupulous +father and a foolish, unequal girl; but are you satisfied that he +would have been the happier without it, or lived his perfect life +under other and what you may think wiser conditions? If he WROTE +the poetry that he LIVES everybody would think him wonderful; for +being what he is we never give him sufficient credit." Stacy +smiled grimly, and penciled on his memorandum, "He wants it to the +amount of ten thousand dollars." "Anyhow," continued the writer, +"look after him, Jim, for his sake, your sake, and the sake of-- +PHIL DEMOREST." + +Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and tossing it grimly +aside went on with his calculations. Presently he stopped, +restored the letter to his cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. +"Send Mr. North here," he said to the negro messenger. In a few +moments his chief book-keeper appeared in the doorway. + +"Turn to the Branch ledger and bring me a statement of Mr. George +Barker's account." + +"He was here a moment ago," said North, essaying a confidential +look towards his chief. + +"I know it," said Stacy coolly, without looking up. + +"He's been running a good deal on wildcat lately," suggested North. + +"I asked for his account, and not your opinion of it," said Stacy +shortly. + +The subordinate withdrew somewhat abashed but still curious, and +returned presently with a ledger which he laid before his chief. +Stacy ran his eyes over the list of Barker's securities; it seemed +to him that all the wildest schemes of the past year stared him in +the face. His finger, however, stopped on the Wide West Extension. +"Mr. Barker will be wanting to sell some of this stock. What is it +quoted at now?" + +"Sixty." + +"But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should not offer in the open +market at present. Give him seventy for it--private sale; that +will be ten thousand dollars paid to his credit. Advise the Branch +of this at once, and to keep the transaction quiet." + +"Yes, sir," responded the clerk as he moved towards the door. But +he hesitated, and with another essay at confidence said insinuatingly, +"I always thought, sir, that Wide West would recover." + +Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what had evidently passed in +his subordinate's mind, looked at him and said dryly, "Then I would +advise you also to keep that opinion to yourself." But, clever as +he was, he had not anticipated the result. Mr. North, though a +trusted employee, was human. On arriving in the outer office he +beckoned to one of the lounging brokers, and in a low voice said, +"I'll take two shares of Wide West, if you can get it cheap." + +The broker's face became alert and eager. "Yes, but I say, is +anything up?" + +"I'm not here to give the business of the bank away," retorted +North severely; "take the order or leave it." + +The man hurried away. Having thus vindicated his humanity by also +passing the snub he had received from Stacy to an inferior, he +turned away to carry out his master's instructions, yet secure in +the belief that he had profited by his superior discernment of the +real reason of that master's singular conduct. But when he +returned to the private room, in hopes of further revelations, Mr. +Stacy was closeted with another financial magnate, and had +apparently divested his mind of the whole affair. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +When George Barker returned to the outer ward of the financial +stronghold he had penetrated, with its curving sweep of counters, +brass railings, and wirework screens defended by the spruce clerks +behind them, he was again impressed with the position of the man he +had just quitted, and for a moment hesitated, with an inclination +to go back. It was with no idea of making a further appeal to his +old comrade, but--what would have been odd in any other nature but +his--he was affected by a sense that HE might have been unfair and +selfish in his manner to the man panoplied by these defenses, and +who was in a measure forced to be a part of them. He would like to +have returned and condoled with him. The clerks, who were +heartlessly familiar with the anxious bearing of the men who sought +interviews with their chief, both before and after, smiled with the +whispered conviction that the fresh and ingenuous young stranger +had been "chucked" like others until they met his kindly, tolerant, +and even superior eyes, and were puzzled. Meanwhile Barker, who +had that sublime, natural quality of abstraction over small +impertinences which is more exasperating than studied indifference, +after his brief hesitation passed out unconcernedly through the +swinging mahogany doors into the blowy street. Here the wind and +rain revived him; the bank and its curt refusal were forgotten; he +walked onward with only a smiling memory of his partner as in the +old days. He remembered how Stacy had burned down their old cabin +rather than have it fall into sordid or unworthy hands--this Stacy +who was now condemned to sink his impulses and become a mere +machine. He had never known Stacy's real motive for that act,-- +both Demorest and Stacy had kept their knowledge of the attempted +robbery from their younger partner,--it always seemed to him to be +a precious revelation of Stacy's inner nature. Facing the wind and +rain, he recalled how Stacy, though never so enthusiastic about his +marriage as Demorest, had taken up Van Loo sharply for some foolish +sneer about his own youthfulness. He was affectionately tolerant +of even Stacy's dislike to his wife's relations, for Stacy did not +know them as he did. Indeed, Barker, whose own father and mother +had died in his infancy, had accepted his wife's relations with a +loving trust and confidence that was supreme, from the fact that he +had never known any other. + +At last he reached his hotel. It was a new one, the latest +creation of a feverish progress in hotel-building which had covered +five years and as many squares with large showy erections, utterly +beyond the needs of the community, yet each superior in size and +adornment to its predecessor. It struck him as being the one +evidence of an abiding faith in the future of the metropolis that +he had seen in nothing else. As he entered its frescoed hall that +afternoon he was suddenly reminded, by its challenging opulency, of +the bank he had just quitted, without knowing that the bank had +really furnished its capital and its original design. The gilded +bar-rooms, flashing with mirrors and cut glass; the saloons, with +their desert expanse of Turkey carpet and oasis of clustered divans +and gilded tables; the great dining-room, with porphyry columns, +and walls and ceilings shining with allegory--all these things +which had attracted his youthful wonder without distracting his +correct simplicity of taste he now began to comprehend. It was the +bank's money "at work." In the clatter of dishes in the dining- +room he even seemed to hear again the chinking of coin. + +It was a short cut to his apartments to pass through a smaller +public sitting-room popularly known as "Flirtation Camp," where +eight or ten couples generally found refuge on chairs and settees +by the windows, half concealed by heavy curtains. But the +occupants were by no means youthful spinsters or bachelors; they +were generally married women, guests of the hotel, receiving other +people's husbands whose wives were "in the States," or responsible +middle-aged leaders of the town. In the elaborate toilettes of the +women, as compared with the less formal business suits of the men, +there was an odd mingling of the social attitude with perhaps more +mysterious confidences. The idle gossip about them had never +affected Barker; rather he had that innate respect for the secrets +of others which is as inseparable from simplicity as it is from +high breeding, and he scarcely glanced at the different couples in +his progress through the room. He did not even notice a rather +striking and handsome woman, who, surrounded by two or three +admirers, yet looked up at Barker as he passed with self-conscious +lids as if seeking a return of her glance. But he moved on +abstractedly, and only stopped when he suddenly saw the familiar +skirt of his wife at a further window, and halted before it. + +"Oh, it's YOU," said Mrs. Barker, with a half-nervous, half- +impatient laugh. "Why, I thought you'd certainly stay half the +afternoon with your old partner, considering that you haven't met +for three years." + +There was no doubt she HAD thought so; there was equally no doubt +that the conversation she was carrying on with her companion--a +good-looking, portly business man--was effectually interrupted. +But Barker did not notice it. "Captain Heath, my husband," she +went on, carelessly rising and smoothing her skirts. The captain, +who had risen too, bowed vaguely at the introduction, but Barker +extended his hand frankly. "I found Stacy busy," he said in answer +to his wife, "but he is coming to dine with us to-night." + +"If you mean Jim Stacy, the banker," said Captain Heath, brightening +into greater ease, "he's the busiest man in California. I've seen +men standing in a queue outside his door as in the old days at the +post-office. And he only gives you five minutes and no extension. +So you and he were partners once?" he said, looking curiously at the +still youthful Barker. + +But it was Mrs. Barker who answered, "Oh yes! and always such good +friends. I was awfully jealous of him." Nevertheless, she did not +respond to the affectionate protest in Barker's eyes nor to the +laugh of Captain Heath, but glanced indifferently around the room +as if to leave further conversation to the two men. It was +possible that she was beginning to feel that Captain Heath was as +de trop now as her husband had been a moment before. Standing +there, however, between them both, idly tracing a pattern on the +carpet with the toe of her slipper, she looked prettier than she +had ever looked as Kitty Carter. Her slight figure was more fully +developed. That artificial severity covering a natural virgin +coyness with which she used to wait at table in her father's hotel +at Boomville had gone, and was replaced by a satisfied consciousness +of her power to please. Her glance was freer, but not as frank as +in those days. Her dress was undoubtedly richer and more stylish; +yet Barker's loyal heart often reverted fondly to the chintz gown, +coquettishly frilled apron, and spotless cuffs and collar in which +she had handed him his coffee with a faint color that left his own +face crimson. + +Captain Heath's tact being equal to her indifference, he had +excused himself, although he was becoming interested in this +youthful husband. But Mrs. Barker, after having asserted her +husband's distinction as the equal friend of the millionaire, was +by no means willing that the captain should be further interested +in Barker for himself alone, and did not urge him to stay. As he +departed she turned to her husband, and, indicating the group he +had passed the moment before, said:-- + +"That horrid woman has been staring at us all the time. I don't +see what you see in her to admire." + +Poor Barker's admiration had been limited to a few words of +civility in the enforced contact of that huge caravansary and in +his quiet, youthful recognition of her striking personality. But +he was just then too preoccupied with his interview with Stacy to +reply, and perhaps he did not quite understand his wife. It was +odd how many things he did not quite understand now about Kitty, +but that he knew must be HIS fault. But Mrs. Barker apparently did +not require, after the fashion of her sex, a reply. For the next +moment, as they moved towards their rooms, she said impatiently, +"Well, you don't tell what Stacy said. Did you get the money?" + +I grieve to say that this soul of truth and frankness lied--only to +his wife. Perhaps he considered it only lying to HIMSELF, a thing +of which he was at times miserably conscious. "It wasn't +necessary, dear," he said; "he advised me to sell my securities in +the bank; and if you only knew how dreadfully busy he is." + +Mrs. Barker curled her pretty lip. "It doesn't take very long to +lend ten thousand dollars!" she said. "But that's what I always +tell you. You have about made me sick by singing the praises of +those wonderful partners of yours, and here you ask a favor of one +of them and he tells you to sell your securities! And you know, +and he knows, they're worth next to nothing." + +"You don't understand, dear"--began Barker. + +"I understand that you've given your word to poor Harry," said Mrs. +Barker in pretty indignation, "who's responsible for the Ditch +purchase." + +"And I shall keep it. I always do," said Barker very quietly, but +with that same singular expression of face that had puzzled Stacy. +But Mrs. Barker, who, perhaps, knew her husband better, said in an +altered voice:-- + +"But HOW can you, dear?" + +"If I'm short a thousand or two I'll ask your father." + +Mrs. Barker was silent. "Father's so very much harried now, George. +Why don't you simply throw the whole thing up?" + +"But I've given my word to your cousin Henry." + +"Yes, but only your WORD. There was no written agreement. And you +couldn't even hold him to it." + +Barker opened his frank eyes in astonishment. Her own cousin, too! +And they were Stacy's very words! + +"Besides," added Mrs. Barker audaciously, "he could get rid of it +elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best. +So don't be silly." + +By this time they had reached their rooms. Barker, apparently +dismissing the subject from his mind with characteristic buoyancy, +turned into the bedroom and walked smilingly towards a small crib +which stood in the corner. "Why, he's gone!" he said in some +dismay. + +"Well," said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, "you didn't expect +me to take him into the public parlor, where I was seeing visitors, +did you? I sent him out with the nurse into the lower hall to play +with the other children." + +A shade momentarily passed over Barker's face. He always looked +forward to meeting the child when he came back. He had a belief, +based on no grounds whatever, that the little creature understood +him. And he had a father's doubt of the wholesomeness of other +people's children who were born into the world indiscriminately and +not under the exceptional conditions of his own. "I'll go and +fetch him," he said. + +"You haven't told me anything about your interview; what you did +and what your good friend Stacy said," said Mrs. Barker, dropping +languidly into a chair. "And really if you are simply running away +again after that child, I might just as well have asked Captain +Heath to stay longer." + +"Oh, as to Stacy," said Barker, dropping beside her and taking her +hand; "well, dear, he was awfully busy, you know, and shut up in +the innermost office like the agate in one of the Japanese nests of +boxes. But," he continued, brightening up, "just the same dear old +Jim Stacy of Heavy Tree Hill, when I first knew you. Lord! dear, +how it all came back to me! That day I proposed to you in the +belief that I was unexpectedly rich and even bought a claim for the +boys on the strength of it, and how I came back to them to find +that they had made a big strike on the very claim. Lord! I +remember how I was so afraid to tell them about you--and how they +guessed it--that dear old Stacy one of the first." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Barker, "and I hope your friend Stacy remembered +that but for ME, when you found out that you were not rich, you'd +have given up the claim, but that I really deceived my own father +to make you keep it. I've often worried over that, George," she +said pensively, turning a diamond bracelet around her pretty wrist, +"although I never said anything about it." + +"But, Kitty darling," said Barker, grasping his wife's hand, "I +gave my note for it; you know you said that was bargain enough, and +I had better wait until the note was due, and until I found I +couldn't pay, before I gave up the claim. It was very clever of +you, and the boys all said so, too. But you never deceived your +father, dear," he said, looking at her gravely, "for I should have +told him everything." + +"Of course, if you look at it in that way," said his wife +languidly, "it's nothing; only I think it ought to be remembered +when people go about saying papa ruined you with his hotel schemes." + +"Who dares say that?" said Barker indignantly. + +"Well, if they don't SAY it they look it," said Mrs. Barker, with a +toss of her pretty head, "and I believe that's at the bottom of +Stacy's refusal." + +"But he never said a word, Kitty," said Barker, flushing. + +"There, don't excite yourself, George," said Mrs. Barker resignedly, +"but go for the baby. I know you're dying to go, and I suppose it's +time Norah brought it upstairs." + +At any other time Barker would have lingered with explanations, but +just then a deeper sense than usual of some misunderstanding made +him anxious to shorten this domestic colloquy. He rose, pressed +his wife's hand, and went out. But yet he was not entirely +satisfied with himself for leaving her. "I suppose it isn't right +my going off as soon as I come in," he murmured reproachfully to +himself, "but I think she wants the baby back as much as I; only, +womanlike, she didn't care to let me know it." + +He reached the lower hall, which he knew was a favorite promenade +for the nurses who were gathered at the farther end, where a large +window looked upon Montgomery Street. But Norah, the Irish nurse, +was not among them; he passed through several corridors in his +search, but in vain. At last, worried and a little anxious, he +turned to regain his rooms through the long saloon where he had +found his wife previously. It was deserted now; the last caller +had left--even frivolity had its prescribed limits. He was +consequently startled by a gentle murmur from one of the heavily +curtained window recesses. It was a woman's voice--low, sweet, +caressing, and filled with an almost pathetic tenderness. And it +was followed by a distinct gurgling satisfied crow. + +Barker turned instantly in that direction. A step brought him to +the curtain, where a singular spectacle presented itself. + +Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and possessed by her +treasure, was the "horrid woman" whom his wife had indicated only a +little while ago, holding a baby--Kitty's sacred baby--in her +wanton lap! The child was feebly grasping the end of the slender +jeweled necklace which the woman held temptingly dangling from a +thin white jeweled finger above it. But its eyes were beaming with +an intense delight, as if trying to respond to the deep, +concentrated love in the handsome face that was bent above it. + +At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked up. There was a faint +rise in her color, but no loss of sell-possession. + +"Please don't scold the nurse," she said, "nor say anything to Mrs. +Barker. It is all my fault. I thought that both the nurse and +child looked dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed the +little fellow for a while to try and amuse him. At least I haven't +made him cry, have I, dear?" The last epithet, it is needless to +say, was addressed to the little creature in her lap, but in its +tender modulation it touched the father's quick sympathies as if he +had shared it with the child. "You see," she said softly, +disengaging the baby fingers from her necklace, "that OUR sex is +not the only one tempted by jewelry and glitter." + +Barker hesitated; the Madonna-like devotion of a moment ago was +gone; it was only the woman of the world who laughingly looked up +at him. Nevertheless he was touched. "Have you--ever--had a +child, Mrs. Horncastle?" he asked gently and hesitatingly. He had +a vague recollection that she passed for a widow, and in his simple +eyes all women were virgins or married saints. + +"No," she said abruptly. Then she added with a laugh, "Or perhaps +I should not admire them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling +bachelors have for other people's wives. But I know you're dying +to take that boy from me. Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to +carry him yourself just because I'm here; you know you would +delight to do it if I weren't." + +Barker bent over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably +nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. +Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent +laugh. Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but +that sagacious infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and +in a paroxysm of objection caught his father's curls with one fist, +while with the other he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and +brought their heads into contact. Upon which humorous situation +Norah, the nurse, entered. + +"It's all right, Norah," said Mrs. Horncastle, laughing, as she +disengaged herself from the linking child. "Mr. Barker has claimed +the baby, and has agreed to forgive you and me and say nothing to +Mrs. Barker." Norah, with the inscrutable criticism of her sex on +her sex, thought it extremely probable, and halted with +exasperating discretion. "There," continued Mrs. Horncastle, +playfully evading the child's further advances, "go with papa, +that's a dear. Mr. Barker prefers to carry him back, Norah." + +"But," said the ingenuous and persistent Barker, still lingering in +hopes of recalling the woman's previous expression, "you DO love +children, and you think him a bright little chap for his age?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her loosened braid, "so +round and fat and soft. And such a discriminating eye for jewelry. +Really you ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. Barker--it +would please both, you know." She moved slowly away, the united +efforts of Norah and Barker scarcely sufficing to restrain the +struggling child from leaping after her as she turned at the door +and blew him a kiss. + +When Barker regained his room he found that Mrs. Barker had +dismissed Stacy from her mind except so far as to invoke Norah's +aid in laying out her smartest gown for dinner. "But why take all +this trouble, dear?" said her simple-minded husband; "we are going +to dine in a private room so that we can talk over old times all by +ourselves, and any dress would suit him. And, Lord, dear!" he +added, with a quick brightening at the fancy, "if you could only +just rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown you used to wear at +Boomville--it would be too killing, and just like old times. I put +it away myself in one of our trunks--I couldn't bear to leave it +behind; I know just where it is. I'll"-- But Mrs. Barker's +restraining scorn withheld him. + +"George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw away and +utterly WASTE Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private room with closed +doors--and I dare say you'd like to sit in your dressing-gown and +slippers--you are entirely mistaken. I know what is due, not to +your old partner, but to the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I +know what is due FROM HIM TO US! No! We dine in the great dining- +room, publicly, and, if possible, at the very next table to those +stuck-up Peterburys and their Eastern friends, including that +horrid woman, which, I'm sure, ought to satisfy you. Then you can +talk as much as you like, and as loud as you like, about old +times,--and the louder and the more the better,--but I don't think +HE'LL like it." + +"But the baby!" expostulated Barker. "Stacy's just wild to see +him--and we can't bring him down to the table--though we MIGHT," he +added, momentarily brightening. + +"After dinner," said Mrs. Barker severely, "we will walk through +the big drawing-rooms, and THEN Mr. Stacy may come upstairs and see +him in his crib; but not before. And now, George, I do wish that +to-night, FOR ONCE, you would not wear a turn-down collar, and that +you would go to the barber's and have him cut your hair and smooth +out the curls. And, for Heaven's sake! let him put some wax or gum +or SOMETHING on your mustache and twist it up on your cheek like +Captain Heath's, for it positively droops over your mouth like a +girl's ringlet. It's quite enough for me to hear people talk of +your inexperience, but really I don't want you to look as if I had +run away with a pretty schoolboy. And, considering the size of +that child, it's positively disgraceful. And, one thing more, +George. When I'm talking to anybody, please don't sit opposite to +me, beaming with delight, and your mouth open. And don't roar if +by chance I say something funny. And--whatever you do--don't make +eyes at me in company whenever I happen to allude to you, as I did +before Captain Heath. It is positively too ridiculous." + +Nothing could exceed the laughing good humor with which her husband +received these cautions, nor the evident sincerity with which he +promised amendment. Equally sincere was he, though a little more +thoughtful, in his severe self-examination of his deficiencies, +when, later, he seated himself at the window with one hand softly +encompassing his child's chubby fist in the crib beside him, and, +in the instinctive fashion of all loneliness, looked out of the +window. The southern trades were whipping the waves of the distant +bay and harbor into yeasty crests. Sheets of rain swept the +sidewalks with the regularity of a fusillade, against which a few +pedestrians struggled with flapping waterproofs and slanting +umbrellas. He could look along the deserted length of Montgomery +Street to the heights of Telegraph Hill and its long-disused +semaphore. It seemed lonelier to him than the mile-long sweep of +Heavy Tree Hill, writhing against the mountain wind and its aeolian +song. He had never felt so lonely THERE. In his rigid self- +examination he thought Kitty right in protesting against the effect +of his youthfulness and optimism. Yet he was also right in being +himself. There is an egoism in the highest simplicity; and Barker, +while willing to believe in others' methods, never abandoned his +own aims. He was right in loving Kitty as he did; he knew that she +was better and more lovable than she could believe herself to be; +but he was willing to believe it pained and discomposed her if he +showed it before company. He would not have her change even this +peculiarity--it was part of herself--no more than he would have +changed himself. And behind what he had conceived was her clear, +practical common sense, all this time had been her belief that she +had deceived her father! Poor dear, dear Kitty! And she had +suffered because stupid people had conceived that her father had +led him away in selfish speculations. As if he--Barker--would not +have first discovered it, and as if anybody--even dear Kitty +herself--was responsible for HIS convictions and actions but +himself. Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, +and when the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and +vacant eyes pushed his caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than +before. It was with a slight sense of humiliation, too, that he +saw it stretch its hands to the mere hireling, Norah, who had never +given it the love that he had seen even in the frivolous Mrs. +Horncastle's eyes. Later, when his wife came in, looking very +pretty in her elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same +conflicting emotions. He knew that they had already passed that +phase of their married life when she no longer dressed to please +him, and that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of another +woman she held superior to his tastes; yet he did not blame her. +But he was a little surprised to see that her dress was copied from +one of Mrs. Horncastle's most striking ones, and that it did not +suit her. That which adorned the maturer woman did not agree with +the demure and slightly austere prettiness of the young wife. + +But Barker forgot all this when Stacy--reserved and somewhat +severe-looking in evening dress--arrived with business punctuality. +He fancied that his old partner received the announcement that they +would dine in the public room with something of surprise, and he +saw him glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he had +suspected it was her choice, and understood her motives. Indeed, +the young husband had found himself somewhat nervous in regard to +Stacy's estimate of Kitty; he was conscious that she was not +looking and acting like the old Kitty that Stacy had known; it did +not enter his honest heart that Stacy had, perhaps, not appreciated +her then, and that her present quality might accord more with his +worldly tastes and experience. It was, therefore, with a kind of +timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her mood, and +with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he seemed to +sympathize not only with her, but with her half-rallying, half- +serious attitude towards his (Barker's) inexperience and +simplicity. He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, even +in this way. Stacy would understand, as he did, her pretty +willfulness at last; she would understand what a true friend Stacy +was to him. It was with unfeigned satisfaction that he followed +them in to dinner as she leaned upon his guest's arm, chatting +confidentially. He was only uneasy because her manner had a slight +ostentation. + +The entrance of the little party produced a quick sensation +throughout the dining-room. Whispers passed from table to table; +all heads were turned towards the great financier as towards a +magnet; a few guests even shamelessly faced round in their chairs +as he passed. Mrs. Barker was pink, pretty, and voluble with +excitement; Stacy had a slight mask of reserve; Barker was the only +one natural and unconscious. + +As the dinner progressed Barker found that there was little chance +for him to invoke his old partner's memories of the past. He +found, however, that Stacy had received a letter from Demorest, and +that he was coming home from Europe. His letters were still sad; +they both agreed upon that. And then for the first time that day +Stacy looked intently at Barker with the look that he had often +worn on Heavy Tree Hill. + +"Then you think it is the same old trouble that worries him?" said +Barker in an awed and sympathetic voice. + +"I believe it is," said Stacy, with an equal feeling. Mrs. Barker +pricked up her pretty ears; her husband's ready sympathy was +familiar enough; but that this cold, practical Stacy should be +moved at anything piqued her curiosity. + +"And you believe that he has never got over it?" continued Barker. + +"He had one chance, but he threw it away," said Stacy energetically. +"If, instead of going off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he +had joined me in business, he'd have been another man." + +"But not Demorest," said Barker quickly. + +"What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?" said Mrs. Barker +petulantly. "Is he ill?" + +Both men were silent by their old common instinct. But it was +Stacy who said "No" in a way that put any further questioning at an +end, and Barker was grateful and for the moment disloyal to his +Kitty. + +It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention of +the next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle +had glanced from time to time at Stacy. But she was not prepared +for the evident equal effect that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon +Stacy. His cold face warmed, his critical eye softened; he asked +her name. Mrs. Barker was voluble, prejudiced, and, it seemed, +misinformed. + +"I know it all," said Stacy, with didactic emphasis. "Her husband +was as bad as they make them. When her life had become intolerable +WITH HIM, he tried to make it shameful WITHOUT HIM by abandoning +her. She could get a divorce a dozen times over, but she won't." + +"I suppose that's what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen," +said Mrs. Barker ironically. + +"I have never seen her before," continued Stacy, with business +precision, "although I and two other men are guardians of her +property, and have saved it from the clutches of her husband. They +told me she was handsome--and so she is." + +Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at +his wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously another way, +and the young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification, fell +upon Mrs. Horncastle's. She looked away with a bright color. +Whereupon the sanguine Barker--perfectly convinced that she +returned Stacy's admiration--was seized with one of his old boyish +dreams of the future, and saw Stacy happily united to her, and was +only recalled to the dinner before him by its end. Then Stacy duly +promenaded the great saloon with Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited +the baby in her apartments, and took an easy leave. But he grasped +Barker's hand before parting in quite his old fashion, and said, +"Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll talk of Phil +Demorest," and left Barker as happy as if the appointment were to +confer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, who +had overheard, was more dubious. + +"You don't suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and +his stupid secret, do you?" she said scornfully. + +"Perhaps not only about that," said Barker, glad that she had not +demanded the secret. + +"Well," returned Mrs. Barker as she turned away, "he might just as +well lunch here and talk about HER--and see her, too." + +Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squares +distant. His appearance created the same interest that it had +produced at the hotel, but with less reserve among his fellow +members. + +"Have you heard the news?" said a dozen voices. Stacy had not; he +had been dining out. + +"That infernal swindle of a Divide Railroad has passed the +legislature." + +Stacy instantly remembered Barker's absurd belief in it and his +reasons. He smiled and said carelessly, "Are you quite sure it's a +swindle?" + +There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had been +most outspoken against it. + +"But," said a voice hesitatingly, "you know it goes nowhere and to +no purpose." + +"But that does not prevent it, now that it's a fact, from going +anywhere and to some purpose," said Stacy, turning away. He passed +into the reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and quickly +descended by another staircase into the hall, hurriedly put on his +overcoat, and slipping out was a moment later re-entering the +hotel. Here he hastily summoned Barker, who came down, flushed and +excited. Laying his hand on Barker's arm in his old dominant way, +he said:-- + +"Don't delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for that +Ditch property." + +Barker smiled. "But I have. Got it this afternoon." + +"Then you know?" ejaculated Stacy in surprise. + +"I only know," said Barker, coloring, "that you said I could back +out of it if it wasn't signed, and that's what Kitty said, too. +And I thought it looked awfully mean for me to hold a man to that +kind of a bargain. And so--you won't be mad, old fellow, will +you?--I thought I'd put it beyond any question of my own good faith +by having it in black and white." He stopped, laughing and +blushing, but still earnest and sincere. "You don't think me a +fool, do you?" he said pathetically. + +Stacy smiled grimly. "I think, Barker boy, that if you go to the +Branch you'll have no difficulty in paying for the Ditch property. +Good-night." + +In a few moments he was back at the club again before any one knew +he had even left the building. As he again re-entered the smoking- +room he found the members still in eager discussion about the new +railroad. One was saying, "If they could get an extension, and +carry the road through Heavy Tree Hill to Boomville they'd be all +right." + +"I quite agree with you," said Stacy. + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The swaying, creaking, Boomville coach had at last reached the +level ridge, and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh of +relief and the slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung in +clouds around it. The whole coach, inside and out, was covered +with this impalpable powder; it had poured into the windows that +gaped widely in the insufferable heat; it lay thick upon the novel +read by the passenger who had for the third or fourth time during +the ascent made a gutter of the half-opened book and blown the dust +away in a single puff, like the smoke from a pistol. It lay in +folds and creases over the yellow silk duster of the handsome woman +on the back seat, and when she endeavored to shake it off enveloped +her in a reddish nimbus. It grimed the handkerchiefs of others, +and left sanguinary streaks on their mopped foreheads. But as the +coach had slowly climbed the summit the sun was also sinking behind +the Black Spur Range, and with its ultimate disappearance a +delicious coolness spread itself like a wave across the ridge. The +passengers drew a long breath, the reader closed his book, the lady +lifted the edge of her veil and delicately wiped her forehead, over +which a few damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even a +distinguished-looking man who had sat as impenetrable and remote as +a statue in one of the front seats moved and turned his abstracted +face to the window. His deeply tanned cheek and clearly cut +features harmonized with the red dust that lay in the curves of his +brown linen dust-cloak, and completed his resemblance to a bronze +figure. Yet it was Demorest, changed only in coloring. Now, as +five years ago, his abstraction had a certain quality which the +most familiar stranger shrank from disturbing. But in the general +relaxation of relief the novel-reader addressed him. + +"Well, we ain't far from Boomville now, and it's all down-grade the +rest of the way. I reckon you'll be as glad to get a 'wash up' and +a 'shake' as the rest of us." + +"I am afraid I won't have so early an opportunity," said Demorest, +with a faint, grave smile, "for I get off at the cross-road to +Heavy Tree Hill." + +"Heavy Tree Hill!" repeated the other in surprise. "You ain't +goin' to Heavy Tree Hill? Why, you might have gone there direct by +railroad, and have been there four hours ago. You know there's a +branch from the Divide Railroad goes there straight to the hotel at +Hymettus." + +"Where?" said Demorest, with a puzzled smile. + +"Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've given to the watering- +place on the slope. But I reckon you're a stranger here?" + +"For five years," said Demorest. "I fancy I've heard of the +railroad, although I prefer to go to Heavy Tree this way. But I +never heard of a watering-place there before." + +"Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks that are tired of +the fogs of 'Frisco and the heat of Sacramento all go there. It's +four thousand feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing, and a +band plays every night. And it all sprang out of the Divide +Railroad and a crank named George Barker, who bought up some old +Ditch property and ran a branch line along its levels, and made a +junction with the Divide. You can come all the way from 'Frisco or +Sacramento by rail. It's a mighty big thing!" + +"Yet," said Demorest, with some animation, "you call the man who +originated this success a crank. I should say he was a genius." + +The other passenger shook his head. "All sheer nigger luck. He +bought the Ditch plant afore there was a ghost of a chance for the +Divide Railroad, just out o' pure d----d foolishness. He expected +so little from it that he hadn't even got the agreement done in +writin', and hadn't paid for it, when the Divide Railroad passed +the legislature, as it never oughter done! For, you see, the +blamedest cur'ous thing about the whole affair was that this +'straw' road of a Divide, all pure wildcat, was only gotten up to +frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into buying it up. And the +road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a rail of it laid +was pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant had been +bought up, for they thought there was a big thing behind it. Even +the hotel was, at first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house that +this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners!" + +"Nevertheless," continued Demorest, smiling, "you admit that it is +a great success?" + +"Yes," said the other, a little irritated by some complacency in +Demorest's smile, "but the success isn't HIS'N. Fools has ideas, +and wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's +bank behind it, and is even a kind of country branch of the Brook +House in 'Frisco. Barker's out of it, I reckon. Anyhow, HE +couldn't run a hotel, for all that his wife--she that's one of the +big 'Frisco swells now--used to help serve in her father's. No, +sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' the first taste and leavin' +the rest to others." + +"I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck," returned Demorest, +with persistent gravity; "and I suppose he's satisfied with it." +But so heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, +especially as he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat +appeared to be interested in the conversation, and even sympathetic +with Demorest. The man was in the main a good-natured fellow and +loyal to his friends; but this did not preclude any virulent +criticism of others, and for a moment he hated this bronze-faced +stranger, and even saw blemishes in the handsome woman's beauty. +"That may be YOUR idea of an Eastern man," he said bluntly, "but I +kin tell ye that Californy ain't run on those lines. No, sir." +Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of his ill humor, and as +the coach at last pulled up at the cross-road for Demorest to +descend he smiled affably at his departing companion. + +"You allowed just now that you'd bin five years away. Whar mout ye +have bin?" + +"In Europe," said Demorest pleasantly. + +"I reckoned ez much," returned his interrogator, smiling +significantly at the other passengers. "But in what place?" + +"Oh, many," said Demorest, smiling also. + +"But what place war ye last livin' at?" + +"Well," said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for a +moment with his hand on the door of the coach, "oddly enough, now +you remind me of it--at Hymettus!" + +He closed the door, and the coach rolled on. The passenger +reddened, glanced indignantly after the departing figure of +Demorest and suspiciously at the others. The lady was looking from +the window with a faint smile on her face. + +"He might hev given me a civil answer," muttered the passenger, and +resumed his novel. + +When the coach drew up before Carter's Hotel the lady got down, and +the curiosity of her susceptible companions was gratified to the +extent of learning from the register that her name was Horncastle. + +She was shown to a private sitting-room, which chanced to be the +one which had belonged to Mrs. Barker in the days of her +maidenhood, and was the sacred, impenetrable bower to which she +retired when her daily duties of waiting upon her father's guests +were over. But the breath of custom had passed through it since +then, and but little remained of its former maiden glories, except +a few schoolgirl crayon drawings on the wall and an unrecognizable +portrait of herself in oil, done by a wandering artist and still +preserved as a receipt for his unpaid bill. Of these facts Mrs. +Horncastle knew nothing; she was evidently preoccupied, and after +she had removed her outer duster and entered the room, she glanced +at the clock on the mantel-shelf and threw herself with an air of +resigned abstraction in an armchair in the corner. Her traveling- +dress, although unostentatious, was tasteful and well-fitting; a +slight pallor from her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, from some +absorbing thought, made her beauty still more striking. She gave +even an air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the room, +which it is to be feared it never possessed in Miss Kitty's +occupancy. Again she glanced at the clock. There was a tap at the +door. + +"Come in." + +The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of torn paper +with a name written on it in lieu of a card. + +Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name, and handed the paper +back. + +"There must be some mistake," she said. "it do not know Mr. +Steptoe." + +"No, but you know ME all the same," said a voice from the doorway +as a man entered, coolly took the Chinese servant by the elbows and +thrust him into the passage, closing the door upon him. "Steptoe +and Horncastle are the same man, only I prefer to call myself +Steptoe HERE. And I see YOU'RE down on the register as 'Horncastle.' +Well, it's plucky of you, and it's not a bad name to keep; you might +be thankful that I have always left it to you. And if I call myself +Steptoe here it's a good blind against any of your swell friends +knowing you met your HUSBAND here." + +In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she had given him when he +entered there was no doubt that she recognized him as the man she +had come to see. He had changed little in the five years that had +elapsed since he entered the three partners' cabin at Heavy Tree +Hill. His short hair and beard still clung to his head like curled +moss or the crisp flocculence of Astrakhan. He was dressed more +pretentiously, but still gave the same idea of vulgar strength. +She listened to him without emotion, but said, with even a +deepening of scorn in her manner:-- + +"What new shame is this?" + +"Nothing NEW," he replied. "Only five years ago I was livin' over +on the Bar at Heavy Tree Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks +here might recognize me. I was here when your particular friend, +Jim Stacy, who only knew me as Steptoe, and doesn't know me as +Horncastle, your HUSBAND,--for all he's bound up my property for +you,--made his big strike with his two partners. I was in his +cabin that very night, and drank his whiskey. Oh, I'm all right +there! I left everything all right behind me--only it's just as +well he doesn't know I'm Horncastle. And as the boy happened to be +there with me"-- He stopped, and looked at her significantly. + +The expression of her face changed. Eagerness, anxiety, and even +fear came into it in turn, but always mingling with some scorn that +dominated her. "The boy!" she said in a voice that had changed +too; "well, what about him? You promised to tell me all,--all!" + +"Where's the money?" he said. "Husband and wife are ONE, I know," +he went on with a coarse laugh, "but I don't trust MYSELF in these +matters." + +She took from a traveling-reticule that lay beside her a roll of +notes and a chamois leather bag of coin, and laid them on the table +before him. He examined both carefully. + +"All right," he said. "I see you've got the checks made out 'to +bearer.' Your head's level, Conny. Pity you and me can't agree." + +"I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrived," she said, +with contemptuous directness. "I told them I was going over to +Hymettus and might want money." + +He dropped into a chair before her with his broad heavy hands upon +his knees, and looked at her with an equal, though baser, contempt: +for his was mingled with a certain pride of mastery and possession. + +"And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut a splurge as you +always do. The beautiful Mrs. Horncastle! The helpless victim of +a wretched, dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So dreadfully +sad, you know, and so interesting! Could get a divorce from the +brute if she wanted, but won't, on account of her religious +scruples. And so while the brute is gambling, swindling, +disgracing himself, and dodging a shot here and a lynch committee +there, two or three hundred miles away, you're splurging round in +first-class hotels and watering-places, doing the injured and +abused, and run after by a lot of men who are ready to take my +place, and, maybe, some of my reputation along with it." + +"Stop!" she said suddenly, in a voice that made the glass +chandelier ring. He had risen too, with a quick, uneasy glance +towards the door. But her outbreak passed as suddenly, and sinking +back into her chair, she said, with her previous scornful +resignation, "Never mind. Go on. You KNOW you're lying!" + +He sat down again and looked at her critically. "Yes, as far as +you're concerned I WAS lying! I know your style. But as you know, +too, that I'd kill you and the first man I suspected, and there +ain't a judge or a jury in all Californy that wouldn't let me go +free for it, and even consider, too, that it had wiped off the +whole slate agin me--it's to my credit!" + +"I know what you men call chivalry," she said coldly, "but I did +not come here to buy a knowledge of that. So now about the child?" +she ended abruptly, leaning forward again with the same look of +eager solicitude in her eyes. + +"Well, about the child--our child--though, perhaps, I prefer to say +MY child," he began, with a certain brutal frankness. "I'll tell +you. But first, I don't want you to talk about BUYING your +information of me. If I haven't told you anything before, it's +because I didn't think you oughter know. If I didn't trust the +child to YOU, it's because I didn't think you could go shashaying +about with a child that was three years old when I"--he stopped and +wiped his mouth with the back of his hand--"made an honest woman of +you--I think that's what they call it." + +"But," she said eagerly, ignoring the insult, "I could have hidden +it where no one but myself would have known it. I could have sent +it to school and visited it as a relation." + +"Yes," he said curtly, "like all women, and then blurted it out +some day and made it worse." + +"But," she said desperately, "even THEN, suppose I had been willing +to take the shame of it! I have taken more!" + +"But I didn't intend that you should," he said roughly. + +"You are very careful of my reputation," she returned scornfully. + +"Not by a d----d sight," he burst out; "but I care for HIS! I'm +not goin' to let any man call him a bastard!" + +Callous as she had become even under this last cruel blow, she +could not but see something in his coarse eyes she had never seen +before; could not but hear something in his brutal voice she had +never heard before! Was it possible that somewhere in the depths +of his sordid nature he had his own contemptible sense of honor? A +hysterical feeling came over her hitherto passive disgust and +scorn, but it disappeared with his next sentence in a haze of +anxiety. "No!" he said hoarsely, "he had enough wrong done him +already." + +"What do you mean?" she said imploringly. "Or are you again lying? +You said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;' that was +your excuse for keeping him from me. Or was that a lie, too?" + +His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for his +companion, but rather from some change in his own feelings. "Oh, +that," he said, with a rough laugh, "that was only a kind o' +trouble any sassy kid like him was likely to get into. You ain't +got no call to hear that, for," he added, with a momentary return +to his previous manner, "the wrong that was done him is MY lookout! +You want to know what I did with him, how he's been looked arter, +and where he is? You want the worth of your money. That's square +enough. But first I want you to know, though you mayn't believe +it, that every red cent you've given me to-night goes to HIM. And +don't you forget it." + +For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had lied to her many times +before,--maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but never evasively; +yet there was again that something in his manner which told her he +was now telling the truth. + +"Well," he began, settling himself back in his chair, "I told you I +brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to +trust him to no school; he knew enough for me; but when I left +those parts where nobody knew you, and got a little nearer 'Frisco, +where people might have known us both, I thought it better not to +travel round with a kid o' that size as his FATHER. So I got a +young fellow here to pass him off as HIS little brother, and look +after him and board him; and I paid him a big price for it, too, +you bet! You wouldn't think it was a man who's now swelling around +here, the top o' the pile, that ever took money from a brute like +me, and for such schoolmaster work, too; but he did, and his name +was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company." + +"Van Loo!" said the woman, with a movement of disgust; "THAT man!" + +"What's the matter with Van Loo?" he said, with a coarse laugh, +enjoying his wife's discomfiture. "He speaks French and Spanish, +and you oughter hear the kid roll off the lingo he's got from him. +He's got style, and knows how to dress, and you ought to see the +kid bow and scrape, and how he carries himself. Now, Van Loo +wasn't exactly my style, and I reckon I don't hanker after him +much, but he served my purpose." + +"And this man knows"--she said, with a shudder. + +"He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't know Horncastle nor +YOU. Don't you be skeert. He's the last man in the world who +would hanker to see me or the kid again, or would dare to say that +he ever had! Lord! I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me and +Eddy walked in upon him and his high-toned mother and sister some +arternoon." He threw himself back and laughed a derisive, +spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from being genial that +it even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of pain in others +rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed at her in +the same way. + +"And where is he now?" she said, with a compressed lip. + +"At school. Where, I don't tell you. You know why. But he's +looked after by me, and d----d well looked after, too." + +She hesitated, composed her face with an effort, parted her lips, +and looked out of the window into the gathering darkness. Then +after a moment she said slowly, yet with a certain precision:-- + +"And his mother? Do you ever talk to him of HER? Does--does he +ever speak of ME?" + +"What do you think?" he said comfortably, changing his position in +the chair, and trying to read her face in the shadow. "Come, now. +You don't know, eh? Well--no! NO! You understand. No! He's MY +friend--MINE! He's stood by me through thick and thin. Run at my +heels when everybody else fled me. Dodged vigilance committees +with me, laid out in the brush with me with his hand in mine when +the sheriff's deputies were huntin' me; shut his jaw close when, if +he squealed, he'd have been called another victim of the brute +Horncastle, and been as petted and canoodled as you." + +It would have been difficult for any one but the woman who knew the +man before her to have separated his brutish delight in paining her +from another feeling she had never dreamt him capable of,--an +intense and fierce pride in his affection for his child. And it +was the more hopeless to her that it was not the mere sentiment of +reciprocation, but the material instinct of paternity in its most +animal form. And it seemed horrible to her that the only outcome +of what had been her own wild, youthful passion for this brute was +this love for the flesh of her flesh, for she was more and more +conscious as he spoke that her yearning for the boy was the +yearning of an equally dumb and unreasoning maternity. They had +met again as animals--in fear, contempt, and anger of each other; +but the animal had triumphed in both. + +When she spoke again it was as the woman of the world,--the woman +who had laughed two years ago at the irrepressible Barker. "It's a +new thing," she said, languidly turning her rings on her fingers, +"to see you in the role of a doting father. And may I ask how long +you have had this amiable weakness, and how long it is to last?" + +To her surprise and the keen retaliating delight of her sex, a +conscious flush covered his face to the crisp edges of his black +and matted beard. For a moment she hoped that he had lied. But, +to her greater surprise, he stammered in equal frankness: "It's +growed upon me for the last five years--ever since I was alone with +him." He stopped, cleared his throat, and then, standing up before +her, said in his former voice, but with a more settled and intense +deliberation: "You wanter know how long it will last, do ye? Well, +you know your special friend, Jim Stacy--the big millionaire--the +great Jim of the Stock Exchange--the man that pinches the money +market of Californy between his finger and thumb and makes it +squeal in New York--the man who shakes the stock market when he +sneezes? Well, it will go on until that man is a beggar; until he +has to borrow a dime for his breakfast, and slump out of his lunch +with a cent's worth of rat poison or a bullet in his head! It'll +go on until his old partner--that softy George Barker--comes to the +bottom of his d----d fool luck and is a penny-a-liner for the +papers and a hanger-round at free lunches, and his scatter-brained +wife runs away with another man! It'll go on until the high-toned +Demorest, the last of those three little tin gods of Heavy Tree +Hill, will have to climb down, and will know what I feel and what +he's made me feel, and will wish himself in hell before he ever +made the big strike on Heavy Tree! That's me! You hear me! I'm +shoutin'! It'll last till then! It may be next week, next month, +next year. But it'll come. And when it does come you'll see me +and Eddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief seats in the +synagogue! And you'll have a free pass to the show!" + +Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful vision, or the +shadows of the room had deepened, but he did not see the quick +flush that had risen to his wife's face with this allusion to +Barker, nor the after-settling of her handsome features into a +dogged determination equal to his own. His blind fury against the +three partners did not touch her curiosity; she was only struck +with the evident depth of his emotion. He had never been a +braggart; his hostility had always been lazy and cynical. +Remembering this, she had a faint stirring of respect for the +undoubted courage and consciousness of strength shown in this wild +but single-handed crusade against wealth and power; rather, +perhaps, it seemed to her to condone her own weakness in her +youthful and inexplicable passion for him. No wonder she had +submitted. + +"Then you have nothing more to tell me?" she said after a pause, +rising and going towards the mantel. + +"You needn't light up for me," he returned, rising also. "I am +going. Unless," he added, with his coarse laugh, "you think it +wouldn't look well for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in the +dark with--a stranger!" He paused as she contemptuously put down +the candlestick and threw the unlit match into the grate. "No, +I've nothing more to tell. He's a fancy-looking pup. You'd take +him for twenty-one, though he's only sixteen--clean-limbed and +perfect--but for one thing"-- He stopped. He met her quick look +of interrogation, however, with a lowering silence that, +nevertheless, changed again as he surveyed her erect figure by the +faint light of the window with a sardonic smile. "He favors you, I +think, and in all but one thing, too." + +"And that?" she queried coldly, as he seemed to hesitate. + +"He ain't ashamed of ME," he returned, with a laugh. + +The door closed behind him; she heard his heavy step descend the +creaking stairs; he was gone. She went to the window and threw it +open, as if to get rid of the atmosphere charged with his +presence,--a presence still so potent that she now knew that for +the last five minutes she had been, to her horror, struggling +against its magnetism. She even recoiled now at the thought of her +child, as if, in these new confidences over it, it had revived the +old intimacy in this link of their common flesh. She looked down +from her window on the square shoulders, thick throat, and crisp +matted hair of her husband as he vanished in the darkness, and drew +a breath of freedom,--a freedom not so much from him as from her +own weakness that he was bearing away with him into the exonerating +night. + +She shut the window and sank down in her chair again, but in the +encompassing and compassionate obscurity of the room. And this was +the man she had loved and for whom she had wrecked her young life! +Or WAS it love? and, if NOT, how was she better than he? Worse; +for he was more loyal to that passion that had brought them +together and its responsibilities than she was. She had suffered +the perils and pangs of maternity, and yet had only the mere animal +yearning for her offspring, while he had taken over the toil and +duty, and even the devotion, of parentage himself. But then she +remembered also how he had fascinated her--a simple schoolgirl--by +his sheer domineering strength, and how the objections of her +parents to this coarse and common man had forced her into a +clandestine intimacy that ended in her complete subjection to him. +She remembered the birth of an infant whose concealment from her +parents and friends was compassed by his low cunning; she +remembered the late atonement of marriage preferred by the man she +had already begun to loathe and fear, and who she now believed was +eager only for her inheritance. She remembered her abject +compliance through the greater fear of the world, the stormy scenes +that followed their ill-omened union, her final abandonment of her +husband, and the efforts of her friends and family who had rescued +the last of her property from him. She was glad she remembered it; +she dwelt upon it, upon his cruelty, his coarseness and vulgarity, +until she saw, as she honestly believed, the hidden springs of his +affection for their child. It was HIS child in nature, however it +might have favored her in looks; it was HIS own brutal SELF he was +worshiping in his brutal progeny. How else could it have ignored +HER--its own mother? She never doubted the truth of what he had +told her--she had seen it in his own triumphant eyes. And yet she +would have made a kind mother; she remembered with a smile and a +slight rising of color the affection of Barker's baby for her; she +remembered with a deepening of that color the thrill of satisfaction +she had felt in her husband's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, +more than all, she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of Barker +himself a delicious condonation of the strange feeling that had +sprung up in her heart for Barker's simple, straightforward nature. +How could HE understand, how could THEY understand (by the plural +she meant Mrs. Barker and Horncastle), a character so innately +noble. In her strange attraction towards him she had felt a +charming sense of what she believed was a superior and even matronly +protection; in the utter isolation of her life now--and with her +husband's foolish abuse of him ringing in her ears--it seemed a +sacred duty. She had lost a son. Providence had sent her an ideal +friend to replace him. And this was quite consistent, too, with a +faint smile that began to play about her mouth as she recalled some +instances of Barker's delightful and irresistible youthfulness. + +There was a clatter of hoofs and the sound of many voices from the +street. Mrs. Horncastle knew it was the down coach changing +horses; it would be off again in a few moments, and, no doubt, +bearing her husband away with it. A new feeling of relief came +over her as she at last heard the warning "All aboard!" and the +great vehicle clattered and rolled into the darkness, trailing its +burning lights across her walls and ceiling. But now she heard +steps on the staircase, a pause before her room, a whisper of +voices, the opening of the door, the rustle of a skirt, and a +little feminine cry of protest as a man apparently tried to follow +the figure into the room. "No, no! I tell you NO!" remonstrated +the woman's voice in a hurried whisper. "It won't do. Everybody +knows me here. You must not come in now. You must wait to be +announced by the servant. Hush! Go!" + +There was a slight struggle, the sound of a kiss, and the woman +succeeded in finally shutting the door. Then she walked slowly, +but with a certain familiarity towards the mantel, struck a match +and lit the candle. The light shone upon the bright eyes and +slightly flushed face of Mrs. Barker. But the motionless woman in +the chair had recognized her voice and the voice of her companion +at once. And then their eyes met. + +Mrs. Barker drew back, but did not utter a cry. Mrs. Horncastle, +with eyes even brighter than her companion's, smiled. The red +deepened in Mrs. Barker's cheek. + +"This is my room!" she said indignantly, with a sweeping gesture +around the walls. + +"I should judge so," said Mrs. Horncastle, following the gesture; +"but," she added quietly, "they put ME into it. It appears, +however, they did not expect you." + +Mrs. Barker saw her mistake. "No, no," she said apologetically, +"of course not." Then she added, with nervous volubility, sitting +down and tugging at her gloves, "You see, I just ran down from +Marysville to take a look at my father's old house on my way to +Hymettus. I hope I haven't disturbed you. Perhaps," she said, +with sudden eagerness, "you were asleep when I came in!" + +"No," said Mrs. Horncastle, "I was not sleeping nor dreaming. I +heard you come in." + +"Some of these men are such idiots," said Mrs. Barker, with a half- +hysterical laugh. "They seem to think if a woman accepts the least +courtesy from them they've a right to be familiar. But I fancy +that fellow was a little astonished when I shut the door in his +face." + +"I fancy he WAS," returned Mrs. Horncastle dryly. "But I shouldn't +call Mr. Van Loo an idiot. He has the reputation of being a +cautious business man." + +Mrs. Barker bit her lip. Her companion had been recognized. She +rose with a slight flirt of her skirt. "I suppose I must go and +get a room; there was nobody in the office when I came. Everything +is badly managed here since my father took away the best servants +to Hymettus." She moved with affected carelessness towards the +door, when Mrs. Horncastle, without rising from her seat, said:-- + +"Why not stay here?" + +Mrs. Barker brightened for a moment. "Oh," she said, with polite +deprecation, "I couldn't think of turning you out." + +"I don't intend you shall," said Mrs. Horncastle. "We will stay +here together until you go with me to Hymettus, or until Mr. Van +Loo leaves the hotel. He will hardly attempt to come in here again +if I remain." + +Mrs. Barker, with a half-laugh, sat down irresolutely. Mrs. +Horncastle gazed at her curiously; she was evidently a novice in +this sort of thing. But, strange to say,--and I leave the ethics +of this for the sex to settle,--the fact did not soften Mrs. +Horncastle's heart, nor in the least qualify her attitude towards +the younger woman. After an awkward pause Mrs. Barker rose again. +"Well, it's very good of you, and--and---I'll just run out and wash +my hands and get the dust off me, and come back." + +"No, Mrs. Barker," said Mrs. Horncastle, rising and approaching +her, "you will first wash your hands of this Mr. Van Loo, and get +some of the dust of the rendezvous off you before you do anything +else. You CAN do it by simply telling him, SHOULD YOU MEET HIM IN +THE HALL, that I was sitting here when he came in, and heard +EVERYTHING! Depend upon it, he won't trouble you again." + +But Mrs. Barker, though inexperienced in love, was a good fighter. +The best of the sex are. She dropped into the rocking-chair, and +began rocking backwards and forwards while still tugging at her +gloves, and said, in a gradually warming voice, "I certainly shall +not magnify Mr. Van Loo's silliness to that importance. And I have +yet to learn what you mean by talking about a rendezvous! And I +want to know," she continued, suddenly stopping her rocking and +tilting the rockers impertinently behind her, as, with her elbows +squared on the chair arms, she tilted her own face defiantly up +into Mrs. Horncastle's, "how a woman in your position--who doesn't +live with her husband--dares to talk to ME!" + +There was a lull before the storm. Mrs. Horncastle approached +nearer, and, laying her hand on the back of the chair, leaned over +her, and, with a white face and a metallic ring in her voice, said: +"It is just because I am a woman IN MY POSITION that I do! It is +because I don't live with my husband that I can tell you what it +will be when you no longer live with yours--which will be the +inevitable result of what you are now doing. It is because I WAS +in this position that the very man who is pursuing you, because he +thinks you are discontented with YOUR husband, once thought he +could pursue me because I had left MINE. You are here with him +alone, without the knowledge of your husband; call it folly, +caprice, vanity, or what you like, it can have but one end--to put +you in my place at last, to be considered the fair game afterwards +for any man who may succeed him. You can test him and the truth of +what I say by telling him now that I heard all." + +"Suppose he doesn't care what you have heard," said Mrs. Barker +sharply. "Suppose he says nobody would believe you, if 'telling' +is your game. Suppose he is a friend of my husband and he thinks +him a much better guardian of my reputation than a woman like you. +Suppose he should be the first one to tell my husband of the foul +slander invented by you!" + +For an instant Mrs. Horncastle was taken aback by the audacity of +the woman before her. She knew the simple confidence and boyish +trust of Barker in his wife in spite of their sometimes strained +relations, and she knew how difficult it would be to shake it. And +she had no idea of betraying Mrs. Barker's secret to him, though +she had made this scene in his interest. She had wished to save +Mrs. Barker from a compromising situation, even if there was a +certain vindictiveness in her exposing her to herself. Yet she +knew it was quite possible now, if Mrs. Barker had immediate access +to her husband, that she would convince him of her perfect +innocence. Nevertheless, she had still great confidence in Van +Loo's fear of scandal and his utter unmanliness. She knew he was +not in love with Mrs. Barker, and this puzzled her when she +considered the evident risk he was running now. Her face, however, +betrayed nothing. She drew back from Mrs. Barker, and, with an +indifferent and graceful gesture towards the door, said, as she +leaned against the mantel, "Go, then, and see this much-abused +gentleman, and then go together with him and make peace with your +husband--even on those terms. If I have saved you from the +consequences of your folly I shall be willing to bear even HIS +blame." + +"Whatever I do," said Mrs. Barker, rising hotly, "I shall not stay +here any longer to be insulted." She flounced out of the room and +swept down the staircase into the office. Here she found an +overworked clerk, and with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes wanted +to know why in her own father's hotel she had found her own +sitting-room engaged, and had been obliged to wait half an hour +before she could be shown into a decent apartment to remove her hat +and cloak in; and how it was that even the gentleman who had kindly +escorted her had evidently been unable to procure her any +assistance. She said this in a somewhat high voice, which might +have reached the ears of that gentleman had he been in the +vicinity. But he was not, and she was forced to meet the somewhat +dazed apologies of the clerk alone, and to accompany the +chambermaid to a room only a few paces distant from the one she had +quitted. Here she hastily removed her outer duster and hat, washed +her hands, and consulted her excited face in the mirror, with the +door ajar and an ear sensitively attuned to any step in the +corridor. But all this was effected so rapidly that she was at +last obliged to sit down in a chair near the half-opened door, and +wait. She waited five minutes--ten--but still no footstep. Then +she went out into the corridor and listened, and then, smoothing +her face, she slipped downstairs, past the door of that hateful +room, and reappeared before the clerk with a smiling but somewhat +pale and languid face. She had found the room very comfortable, +but it was doubtful whether she would stay over night or go on to +Hymettus. Had anybody been inquiring for her? She expected to +meet friends. No! And her escort--the gentleman who came with +her--was possibly in the billiard-room or the bar? + +"Oh no! He was gone," said the clerk. + +"Gone!" echoed Mrs. Barker. "Impossible! He was--he was here only +a moment ago." + +The clerk rang a bell sharply. The stableman appeared. + +"That tall, smooth-faced man, in a high hat, who came with the +lady," said the clerk severely and concisely,--"didn't you tell me +he was gone?" + +"Yes, sir," said the stableman. + +"Are you sure?" interrupted Mrs. Barker, with a dazzling smile +that, however, masked a sudden tightening round her heart. + +"Quite sure, miss," said the stableman, "for he was in the yard +when Steptoe came, after missing the coach. He wanted a buggy to +take him over to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over to the +other stables, and he didn't come back, so I reckon he's gone. I +remember it, because Steptoe came by a minute after he'd gone, in +another buggy, and as he was going to the Divide, too, I wondered +why the gentleman hadn't gone with him." + +"And he left no message for me? He said nothing?" asked Mrs. +Barker, quite breathless, but still smiling. + +"He said nothin' to me but 'Isn't that Steptoe over there?' when +Steptoe came in. And I remember he said it kinder suddent--as if +he was reminded o' suthin' he'd forgot; and then he asked for a +buggy. Ye see, miss," added the man, with a certain rough +consideration for her disappointment, "that's mebbe why he clean +forgot to leave a message." + +Mrs. Barker turned away, and ascended the stairs. Selfishness is +quick to recognize selfishness, and she saw in a flash the reason +of Van Loo's abandonment of her. Some fear of discovery had +alarmed him; perhaps Steptoe knew her husband; perhaps he had heard +of Mrs. Horncastle's possession of the sitting-room; perhaps--for +she had not seen him since their playful struggle at the door--he +had recognized the woman who was there, and the selfish coward had +run away. Yes; Mrs. Horncastle was right: she had been only a +miserable dupe. + +Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room she had just quitted, and +threw herself in a chair by the window. She bit her lip as she +remembered how for the last three months she had been slowly +yielding to Van Loo's cautious but insinuating solicitation, from a +flirtation in the San Francisco hotel to a clandestine meeting in +the street; from a ride in the suburbs to a supper in a fast +restaurant after the theatre. Other women did it who were +fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed out to her. Other +fashionable women also gambled in stocks, and had their private +broker in a "Charley" or a "Jack." Why should not Mrs. Barker have +business with a "Paul" Van Loo, particularly as this fast craze +permitted secret meetings?--for business of this kind could not be +conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler to call at +private offices without fear and without reproach. Mrs. Barker's +vanity, Mrs. Barker's love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's +snobbishness, were flattered by the attentions of this polished +gentleman with a foreign name, which even had the flavor of +nobility, who never picked up her fan and handed it to her without +bowing, and always rose when she entered the room. Mrs. Barker's +scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this gentleman, who spoke +French fluently, and delicately explained to her the libretto of a +risky opera bouffe. And now she had finally yielded to a meeting +out of San Francisco--and an ostensible visit--still as a +speculator--to one or two mining districts--with HER BROKER. This +was the boldest of her steps--an original idea of the fashionable +Van Loo--which, no doubt, in time would become a craze, too. But +it was a long step--and there was a streak of rustic decorum in +Mrs. Barker's nature--the instinct that made Kitty Carter keep a +perfectly secluded and distinct sitting-room in the days when she +served her father's guests--that now had impelled her to make it a +proviso that the first step of her journey should be from her old +home in her father's hotel. It was this instinct of the proprieties +that had revived in her suddenly at the door of the old sitting-room. + +Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her. It was hard +for her vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary and +final. What if that hateful woman had lured him away by some trick +or artfully designed message? She was capable of such meanness to +insure the fulfillment of her prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought, +what if she had some hold on his affections--she had said that he +had pursued her; or, more infamous still, there were some secret +understanding between them, and that she--Mrs. Barker--was the dupe +of them both! What was she doing in the hotel at such a moment? +What was her story of going to Hymettus but a lie as transparent as +her own? The tortures of jealousy, which is as often the incentive +as it is the result of passion, began to rack her. She had +probably yet known no real passion for this man; but with the +thought of his abandoning her, and the conception of his +faithlessness, came the wish to hold and keep him that was +dangerously near it. What if he were even then in that room, the +room where she had said she would not stay to be insulted, and +they, thus secured against her intrusion, were laughing at her now? +She half rose at the thought, but a sound of a horse's hoofs in the +stable-yard arrested her. She ran to the window which gave upon +it, and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly. The clatter +of hoofs ceased; the stableman was talking to some one; suddenly +she heard the stableman say, "Mrs. Barker is here." Her heart +leaped,--Van Loo had returned. + +But here the voice of the other man which she had not yet heard +arose for the first time clear and distinct. "Are you quite sure? +I didn't know she left San Francisco." + +The room reeled around her. The voice was George Barker's, her +husband! "Very well," he continued. "You needn't put up my horse +for the night. I may take her back a little later in the buggy." + +In another moment she had swept down the passage, and burst into +the other room. Mrs. Horncastle was sitting by the table with a +book in her hand. She started as the half-maddened woman closed +the door, locked it behind her, and cast herself on her knees at +her feet. + +"My husband is here," she gasped. "What shall I do? In heaven's +name help me!" + +"Is Van Loo still here?" said Mrs. Horncastle quickly. + +"No; gone. He went when I came." + +Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked intently into her +frightened face. "Then what have you to fear from your husband?" +she said abruptly. + +"You don't understand. He didn't know I was here. He thought me +in San Francisco." + +"Does he know it now?" + +"Yes. I heard the stableman tell him. Couldn't you say I came +here with you; that we were here together; that it was just a +little freak of ours? Oh, do!" + +Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment. "Yes," she said, "we'll see him +here together." + +"Oh no! no!" said Mrs. Barker suddenly, clinging to her dress and +looking fearfully towards the door. "I couldn't, COULDN'T see him +now. Say I'm sick, tired out, gone to my room." + +"But you'll have to see him later," said Mrs. Horncastle wonderingly. + +"Yes, but he may go first. I heard him tell them not to put up his +horse." + +"Good!" said Mrs. Horncastle suddenly. "Go to your room and lock +the door, and I'll come to you later. Stop! Would Mr. Barker be +likely to disturb you if I told him you would like to be alone?" + +"No, he never does. I often tell him that." + +Mrs. Horncastle smiled faintly. "Come, quick, then," she said, +"for he may come HERE first." + +Opening the door she passed into the half-dark and empty hall. +"Now run!" She heard the quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt die +away in the distance, the opening and shutting of a door--silence-- +and then turned back into her own room. + +She was none too soon. Presently she heard Barker's voice saying, +"Thank you, I can find the way," his still buoyant step on the +staircase, and then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. +The light streaming through the open door of the sitting room into +the half-lit hall had partially dazzled him, and, already +bewildered, he was still more dazzled at the unexpected apparition +of the smiling face and bright eyes of Mrs. Horncastle standing in +the doorway. + +"You have fairly caught us," she said, with charming composure; +"but I had half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a little +longer. Come in." Barker followed her in mechanically, and she +closed the door. "Now, sit down," she said gayly, "and tell me how +you knew we were here, and what you mean by surprising us at this +hour." + +Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, for +whom he entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fear +of her worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhat +blankly around the room, at the familiar walls, at the chair from +which Mrs. Horncastle had just risen, and finally at his wife's +glove, which Mrs. Horncastle had a moment before ostentatiously +thrown on the table. Seeing which she pounced upon it with assumed +archness, and pretended to conceal it. + +"I had no idea my wife was here," he said at last, "and I was quite +surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to me about +it." As his face was brightening, she for the first time noticed +that his frank gray eyes had an abstracted look, and there was a +faint line of contraction on his youthful forehead. "Still less," +he added, "did I look for the pleasure of meeting you. For I only +came here to inquire about my old partner, Demorest, who arrived +from Europe a few days ago, and who should have reached Hymettus +early this afternoon. But now I hear he came all the way by coach +instead of by rail, and got off at the cross-road, and we must have +passed each other on the different trails. So my journey would +have gone for nothing, only that I now shall have the pleasure of +going back with you and Kitty. It will be a lovely drive by +moonlight." + +Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work for Mrs. Horncastle +to launch out into a playful, tantalizing, witty--but, I grieve to +say, entirely imaginative--account of her escapade with Mrs. +Barker. How, left alone at the San Francisco hotel while their +gentlemen friends were enjoying themselves at Hymettus, they +resolved upon a little trip, partly for the purpose of looking into +some small investments of their own, and partly for the fun of the +thing. What funny experiences they had! How, in particular, one +horrid inquisitive, vulgar wretch had been boring a European fellow +passenger who was going to Hymettus, finally asking him where he +had come from last, and when he answered "Hymettus," thought the +man was insulting him-- + +"But," interrupted the laughing Barker, "that passenger may have +been Demorest, who has just come from Greece, and surely Kitty +would have recognized him." + +Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, and not only retrieved +it, but turned it to account. Ah, yes! but by that time poor +Kitty, unused to long journeys and the heat, was utterly fagged +out, was asleep, and perfectly unrecognizable in veils and dusters +on the back seat of the coach. And this brought her to the point-- +which was, that she was sorry to say, on arriving, the poor child +was nearly wild with a headache from fatigue and had gone to bed, +and she had promised not to disturb her. + +The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that had overspread +Barker's face during this lively recital might have pricked the +conscience of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason I fear it did +not. But it emboldened her to go on. "I said I promised her that +I would see she wasn't disturbed; but, of course, now that YOU, her +HUSBAND, have come, if"-- + +"Not for worlds," interrupted Barker earnestly. "I know poor +Kitty's headaches, and I never disturb her, poor child, except when +I'm thoughtless." And here one of the most thoughtful men in the +world in his sensitive consideration of others beamed at her with +such frank and wonderful eyes that the arch hypocrite before him +with difficulty suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh, and felt +the conscious blood flush her to the root of her hair. "You know," +he went on, with a sigh, half of relief and half of reminiscence, +"that I often think I'm a great bother to a clear-headed, sensible +girl like Kitty. She knows people so much better than I do. She's +wonderfully equipped for the world, and, you see, I'm only 'lucky,' +as everybody says, and I dare say part of my luck was to have got +her. I'm very glad she's a friend of yours, you know, for somehow +I fancied always that you were not interested in her, or that you +didn't understand each other until now. It's odd that nice women +don't always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you; +I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it +out. I thought at first she might have got anxious about our +little Sta, who is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad +it was only a lark. I shouldn't wonder," he added, with a laugh, +"although she always declares she isn't one of those 'doting, +idiotic mothers,' that she found it a little dull without the boy, +for all she thought it was better for ME to take him somewhere for +a change of air." + +The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than +she had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its +first direct appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she +believed, an unselfish desire to save the relations between husband +and wife if she could. But she had not calculated upon his +unconscious revelations, nor upon their effect upon herself. She +had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a moment of folly, lent +herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now might be possible +that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent her husband +and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole truth? +How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo had +deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an +intrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe +of this woman as the husband before her? A new and double +consciousness came over her that for a moment prevented her from +meeting his honest eyes. She felt the shame of being an accomplice +mingled with a fierce joy at the idea of a climax that might +separate him from his wife forever. + +Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief +threw himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the +walls broke into his youthful laugh. "Lord! how I remember this +room in the old days. It was Kitty's own private sitting-room, you +know, and I used to think it looked just as fresh and pretty as +she. I used to think her crayon drawing wonderful, and still more +wonderful that she should have that unnecessary talent when it was +quite enough for her to be just 'Kitty.' You know, don't you, how +you feel at those times when you're quite happy in being inferior"-- +He stopped a moment with a sudden recollection that Mrs. Horncastle's +marriage had been notoriously unhappy. "I mean," he went on with a +shy little laugh and an innocent attempt at gallantry which the very +directness of his simple nature made atrociously obvious,--"I mean +what you've made lots of young fellows feel. There used to be a +picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in full uniform, and +signed by himself 'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I was of it, +for Kitty never took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even was +allowed in here, though she helped her father all over the hotel. +She was awfully strict in those days," he interpolated, with a +thoughtful look and a half-sigh; "but then she wasn't married. I +proposed to her in this very room! Lord! I remember how frightened +I was." He stopped for an instant, and then said with a certain +timidity, "Do you mind my telling you something about it?" + +Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous +domestic details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not +suppress a somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barker +noticed it, but to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and +in a half-entreating way said, "I hope I don't bore you, but it's +something confidential. Do you know that she first REFUSED me?" + +Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss of her +head. "I believe they all do when they are sure of a man." + +"No!" said Barker eagerly, "you don't understand. I proposed to +her because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I +had discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulous +value. She believed it, too, but because she thought I was now a +rich man and she only a poor girl--a mere servant to her father's +guests--she refused me. Refused me because she thought I might +regret it in the future, because she would not have it said that +she had taken advantage of my proposal only when I was rich enough +to make it." + +"Well?" said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straight before +her; "and then?" + +"In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks were +worthless, that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest +to return to her and tell her, even though I had no hope. And then +she pitied me, and cried, and accepted me. I tell it to you as her +friend." He drew a little nearer and quite fraternally laid his +hand upon her own. "I know you won't betray me, though you may +think it wrong for me to have told it; but I wanted you to know how +good she was and true." + +For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited, although +she saw, with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency +between the Kitty of those days and the Kitty now shamefully hiding +from her husband in the same hotel. No doubt Kitty had some good +reason for her chivalrous act. But she could see the unmistakable +effect of that act upon the more logically reasoning husband, and +that it might lead him to be more merciful to the later wrong. And +there was a keener irony that his first movement of unconscious +kindliness towards her was the outcome of his affection for his +undeserving wife. + +"You said just now she was more practical than you," she said +dryly. "Apart from this evidence of it, what other reasons have +you for thinking so? Do you refer to her independence or her +dealings in the stock market?" she added, with a laugh. + +"No," said Barker seriously, "for I do not think her quite +practical there; indeed, I'm afraid she is about as bad as I am. +But I'm glad you have spoken, for I can now talk confidentially +with you, and as you and she are both in the same ventures, perhaps +she will feel less compunction in hearing from you--as your own +opinion--what I have to tell you than if I spoke to her myself. I +am afraid she trusts implicitly to Van Loo's judgment as her +broker. I believe he is strictly honorable, but the general +opinion of his business insight is not high. They--perhaps I ought +to say HE--have been at least so unlucky that they might have +learned prudence. The loss of twenty thousand dollars in three +months"-- + +"Twenty thousand!" echoed Mrs. Horncastle. + +"Yes. Why, you knew that; it was in the mine you and she visited; +or, perhaps," he added hastily, as he flushed at his indiscretion, +"she didn't tell you that." + +But Mrs. Horncastle as hastily said, "Yes--yes--of course, only I +had forgotten the amount;" and he continued:-- + +"That loss would have frightened any man; but you women are more +daring. Only Van Loo ought to have withdrawn. Don't you think so? +Of course I couldn't say anything to him without seeming to condemn +my own wife; I couldn't say anything to HER because it's her own +money." + +"I didn't know that Mrs. Barker had any money of her own," said +Mrs. Horncastle. + +"Well, I gave it to her," said Barker, with sublime simplicity, +"and that would make it all the worse for me to speak about it." + +Mrs. Horncastle was silent. A new theory flashed upon her which +seemed to reconcile all the previous inconsistencies of the +situation. Van Loo, under the guise of a lover, was really +possessing himself of Mrs. Barker's money. This accounted for the +risks he was running in this escapade, which were so incongruous to +the rascal's nature. He was calculating that the scandal of an +intrigue would relieve him of the perils of criminal defalcation. +It was compatible with Kitty's innocence, though it did not relieve +her vanity of the part it played in this despicable comedy of +passion. All that Mrs. Horncastle thought of now was the effect of +its eventful revelation upon the man before her. Of course, he +would overlook his wife's trustfulness and business ignorance--it +would seem so like his own unselfish faith! That was the fault of +all unselfish goodness; it even took the color of adjacent evil, +without altering the nature of either. Mrs. Horncastle set her +teeth tightly together, but her beautiful mouth smiled upon Barker, +though her eyes were bent upon the tablecloth before her. + +"I shall do all I can to impress your views upon her," she said at +last, "though I fear they will have little weight if given as my +own. And you overrate my general influence with her." + +Her handsome head drooped in such a thoughtful humility that Barker +instinctively drew nearer to her. Besides, she had not lifted her +dark lashes for some moments, and he had the still youthful habit +of looking frankly into the eyes of those he addressed. + +"No," he said eagerly; "how could I? She could not help but love +you and do as you would wish. I can't tell you how glad and +relieved I am to find that you and she have become such friends. +You know I always thought you beautiful, I always thought you so +clever--I was even a little frightened of you; but I never until +now knew you were so GOOD. No, stop! Yes, I DID know it. Do you +remember once in San Francisco, when I found you with Sta in your +lap in the drawing-room? I knew it then. You tried to make me +think it was a whim--the fancy of a bored and worried woman. But I +knew better. And I knew what you were thinking then. Shall I tell +you?" + +As her eyes were still cast down, although her mouth was still +smiling, in his endeavors to look into them his face was quite near +hers. He fancied that it bore the look she had worn once before. + +"You were thinking," he said in a voice which had grown suddenly +quite hesitating and tremulous,--he did not know why,--"that the +poor little baby was quite friendless and alone. You were pitying +it--you know you were--because there was no one to give it the +loving care that was its due, and because it was intrusted to that +hired nurse in that great hotel. You were thinking how you would +love it if it were yours, and how cruel it was that Love was sent +without an object to waste itself upon. You were: I saw it in your +face." + +She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full into his with a look +that held and possessed him. For a moment his whole soul seemed to +tremble on the verge of their lustrous depths, and he drew back +dizzy and frightened. What he saw there he never clearly knew; +but, whatever it was, it seemed to suddenly change his relations to +her, to the room, to his wife, to the world without. It was a +glimpse of a world of which he knew nothing. He had looked frankly +and admiringly into the eyes of other pretty women; he had even +gazed into her own before, but never with this feeling. A sudden +sense that what he had seen there he had himself evoked, that it +was an answer to some question he had scarcely yet formulated, and +that they were both now linked by an understanding and consciousness +that was irretrievable, came over him. He rose awkwardly and went +to the window. She rose also, but more leisurely and easily, moved +one of the books on the table, smoothed out her skirts, and changed +her seat to a little sofa. It is the woman who always comes out of +these crucial moments unruffled. + +"I suppose you will be glad to see your friend Mr. Demorest when +you go back," she said pleasantly; "for of course he will be at +Hymettus awaiting you." + +He turned eagerly, as he always did at the name. But even then he +felt that Demorest was no longer of such importance to him. He +felt, too, that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or even what +to say. As he hesitated she went on half playfully: "It seems hard +that you had to come all the way here on such a bootless errand. +You haven't even seen your wife yet." + +The mention of his wife recalled him to himself, oddly enough, when +Demorest's name had failed. But very differently. Out of his +whirling consciousness came the instinctive feeling that he could +not see her now. He turned, crossed the room, sat down on the sofa +beside Mrs. Horncastle, and without, however, looking at her, said, +with his eyes on the floor, "No; and I've been thinking that it's +hardly worth while to disturb her so early to-morrow as I should +have to go. So I think it's a good deal better to let her have a +good night's rest, remain here quietly with you to-morrow until the +stage leaves, and that both of you come over together. My horse is +still saddled, and I will be back at Hymettus before Demorest has +gone to bed." + +He was obliged to look up at her as he rose. Mrs. Horncastle was +sitting erect, beautiful and dazzling as even he had never seen her +before. For his resolution had suddenly lifted a great weight from +her shoulders,--the dangerous meeting of husband and wife the next +morning, and its results, whatever they might be, had been quietly +averted. She felt, too, a half-frightened joy even in the +constrained manner in which he had imparted his determination. +That frankness which even she had sometimes found so crushing was +gone. + +"I really think you are quite right," she said, rising also, "and, +besides, you see, it will give me a chance to talk to her as you +wished." + +"To talk to her as I wished?" echoed Barker abstractedly. + +"Yes, about Van Loo, you know," said Mrs. Horncastle, smiling. + +"Oh, certainly--about Van Loo, of course," he returned hurriedly. + +"And then," said Mrs. Horncastle brightly, "I'll tell her. Stay!" +she interrupted herself hurriedly. "Why need I say anything about +your having been here AT ALL? It might only annoy her, as you +yourself suggest." She stopped breathlessly with parted lips. + +"Why, indeed?" said Barker vaguely. Yet all this was so unlike his +usual truthfulness that he slightly hesitated. + +"Besides," continued Mrs. Horncastle, noticing it, "you know you +can always tell her later, if necessary." And she added with a +charming mischievousness, "As she didn't tell you she was coming, I +really don't see why you are bound to tell her that you were here." + +The sophistry pleased Barker, even though it put him into a certain +retaliating attitude towards his wife which he was not aware of +feeling. But, as Mrs. Horncastle put it, it was only a playful +attitude. + +"Certainly," he said. "Don't say anything about it." + +He moved to the door with his soft, broad-brimmed hat swinging +between his fingers. She noticed for the first time that he looked +taller in his long black serape and riding-boots, and, oddly +enough, much more like the hero of an amorous tryst than Van Loo. +"I know," she said brightly, "you are eager to get back to your old +friend, and it would be selfish for me to try to keep you longer. +You have had a stupid evening, but you have made it pleasant to me +by telling me what you thought of me. And before you go I want you +to believe that I shall try to keep that good opinion." She spoke +frankly in contrast to the slight worldly constraint of Barker's +manner; it seemed as if they had changed characters. And then she +extended her hand. + +With a low bow, and without looking up, he took it. Again their +pulses seemed to leap together with one accord and the same +mysterious understanding. He could not tell if he had unconsciously +pressed her hand or if she had returned the pressure. But when their +hands unclasped it seemed as if it were the division of one flesh +and spirit. + +She remained standing by the open door until his footsteps passed +down the staircase. Then she suddenly closed and locked the door +with an instinct that Mrs. Barker might at once return now that he +was gone, and she wished to be a moment alone to recover herself. +But she presently opened it again and listened. There was a noise +in the courtyard, but it sounded like the rattle of wheels more +than the clatter of a horseman. Then she was overcome--a sudden +sense of pity for the unfortunate woman still hiding from her +husband--and felt a momentary chivalrous exaltation of spirit. +Certainly she had done "good" to that wretched "Kitty;" perhaps she +had earned the epithet that Barker had applied to her. Perhaps +that was the meaning of all this happiness to her, and the result +was to be only the happiness and reconciliation of the wife and +husband. This was to be her reward. I grieve to say that the +tears had come into her beautiful eyes at this satisfactory +conclusion, but she dashed them away and ran out into the hall. It +was quite dark, but there was a faint glimmer on the opposite wall +as if the door of Mrs. Barker's bedroom were ajar to an eager +listener. She flew towards the glimmer, and pushed the door open: +the room was empty. Empty of Mrs. Barker, empty of her dressing- +box, her reticule and shawl. She was gone. + +Still, Mrs. Horncastle lingered; the woman might have got frightened +and retreated to some further room at the opening of the door and +the coming out of her husband. She walked along the passage, +calling her name softly. She even penetrated the dreary, half-lit +public parlor, expecting to find her crouching there. Then a sudden +wild idea took possession of her: the miserable wife had repented of +her act and of her concealment, and had crept downstairs to await +her husband in the office. She had told him some new lie, had +begged him to take her with him, and Barker, of course, had +assented. Yes, she now knew why she had heard the rattling wheels +instead of the clattering hoofs she had listened for. They had gone +together, as he first proposed, in the buggy. + +She ran swiftly down the stairs and entered the office. The +overworked clerk was busy and querulously curt. These women were +always asking such idiotic questions. Yes, Mr. Barker had just +gone. + +"With Mrs. Barker in the buggy?" asked Mrs. Horncastle. + +"No, as he came--on horseback. Mrs. Barker left HALF AN HOUR AGO." + +"Alone?" + +This was apparently too much for the long-suffering clerk. He +lifted his eyes to the ceiling, and then, with painful precision, +and accenting every word with his pencil on the desk before him, +said deliberately, "Mrs. George Barker--left--here--with her-- +escort--the--man she--was--always--asking--for--in--the--buggy--at +exactly--9.35." And he plunged into his work again. + +Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, re-entered the +sitting-room, and slamming the door behind her, halted in the +centre of the room, panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. And +she was alone in this empty room--this deserted hotel. From this +very room her husband had left her with a brutality on his lips. +From this room the fool and liar she had tried to warn had gone to +her ruin with a swindling hypocrite. And from this room the only +man in the world she ever cared for had gone forth bewildered, +wronged, and abused, and she knew now she could have kept and +comforted him. + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +When Philip Demorest left the stagecoach at the cross-roads he +turned into the only wayside house, the blacksmith's shop, and, +declaring his intention of walking over to Hymettus, asked +permission to leave his hand-bag and wraps until they could be sent +after him. The blacksmith was surprised that this "likely +mannered," distinguished-looking "city man" should WALK eight miles +when he could ride, and tried to dissuade him, offering his own +buggy. But he was still more surprised when Demorest, laying aside +his duster, took off his coat, and, slinging it on his arm, +prepared to set forth with the good-humored assurance that he would +do the distance in a couple of hours and get in in time for supper. +"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the blacksmith grimly, "or +even of getting a room. They're a stuck-up lot over there, and +they ain't goin' to hump themselves over a chap who comes traipsin' +along the road like any tramp, with nary baggage." But Demorest +laughingly accepted the risk, and taking his stout stick in one +hand, pressed a gold coin into the blacksmith's palm, which was, +however, declined with such reddening promptness that Demorest as +promptly reddened and apologized. The habits of European travel +had been still strong on him, and he felt a slight patriotic thrill +as he said, with a grave smile, "Thank you, then; and thank you +still more for reminding me that I am among my own 'people,'" and +stepped lightly out into the road. + +The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer currents from the +heated pines began to alternate with the wind from the summit. He +found himself sometimes walking through a stratum of hot air which +seemed to exhale from the wood itself, while his head and breast +were swept by the mountain breeze. He felt the old intoxication of +the balmy-scented air again, and the five years of care and +hopelessness laid upon his shoulders since he had last breathed its +fragrance slipped from them like a burden. There had been but +little change here; perhaps the road was wider and the dust lay +thicker, but the great pines still mounted in serried ranks on the +slopes as before, with no gaps in their unending files. Here was +the spot where the stagecoach had passed them that eventful morning +when they were coming out of their camp-life into the world of +civilization; a little further back, the spot where Jack Hamlin had +forced upon him that grim memento of the attempted robbery of their +cabin, which he had kept ever since. He half smiled again at the +superstitious interest that had made him keep it, with the +intention of some day returning to bury it, with all recollections +of the deed, under the site of the old cabin. As he went on in the +vivifying influence of the air and scene, new life seemed to course +through his veins; his step seemed to grow as elastic as in the old +days of their bitter but hopeful struggle for fortune, when he had +gayly returned from his weekly tramp to Boomville laden with the +scant provision procured by their scant earnings and dying credit. +Those were the days when HER living image still inspired his heart +with faith and hope; when everything was yet possible to youth and +love, and before the irony of fate had given him fortune with one +hand only to withdraw HER with the other. It was strange and cruel +that coming back from his quest of rest and forgetfulness he should +find only these youthful and sanguine dreams revive with his +reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedly as if to escape them, +and was glad to be diverted by one or two carryalls and char-a- +bancs filled with gayly dressed pleasure parties--evidently +visitors to Hymettus--which passed him on the road. Here were the +first signs of change. He recalled the train of pack-mules of the +old days, the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the squaw +with the papoose strapped to her shoulder, or the wandering and +foot-sore prospector, who were the only wayfarers he used to meet. +He contrasted their halts and friendly greetings with the insolent +curiosity or undisguised contempt of the carriage folk, and smiled +as he thought of the warning of the blacksmith. But this did not +long divert him; he found himself again returning to his previous +thought. Indeed, the face of a young girl in one of the carriages +had quite startled him with its resemblance to an old memory of his +lost love as he saw her,--her frail, pale elegance encompassed in +laces as she leaned back in her drive through Fifth Avenue, with +eyes that lit up and became transfigured only as he passed. He +tried to think of his useless quest in search of her last resting- +place abroad; how he had been baffled by the opposition of her +surviving relations, already incensed by the thought that her +decline had been the effect of her hopeless passion. He tried to +recall the few frigid lines that reconveyed to him the last letter +he had sent her, with the announcement of her death and the hope +that "his persecutions" would now cease. A wild idea had sometimes +come to him out of the very insufficiency of his knowledge of this +climax, but he had always put it aside as a precursor of that +madness which might end his ceaseless thought. And now it was +returning to him, here, thousands of miles away from where she was +peacefully sleeping, and even filling him with the vigor of +youthful hope. + +The brief mountain twilight was giving way now to the radiance of +the rising moon. He endeavored to fix his thoughts upon his +partners who were to meet him at Hymettus after these long years of +separation. + +Hymettus! He recalled now the odd coincidence that he had +mischievously used as a gag to his questioning fellow traveler; but +now he had really come from a villa near Athens to find his old +house thus classically rechristened after it, and thought of it +with a gravity he had not felt before. He wondered who had named +it. There was no suggestion of the soft, sensuous elegance of the +land he had left in those great heroics of nature before him. +Those enormous trees were no woods for fauns or dryads; they had +their own godlike majesty of bulk and height, and as he at last +climbed the summit and saw the dark-helmeted head of Black Spur +before him, and beyond it the pallid, spiritual cloud of the +Sierras, he did not think of Olympus. Yet for a moment he was +startled, as he turned to the right, by the Doric-columned facade +of a temple painted by the moonbeams and framed in an opening of +the dark woods before him. It was not until he had reached it that +he saw that it was the new wooden post-office of Heavy Tree Hill. + +And now the buildings of the new settlement began to faintly +appear. But the obscurity of the shadow and the equally disturbing +unreality of the moonlight confused him in his attempts to +recognize the old landmarks. A broad and well-kept winding road +had taken the place of the old steep, but direct trail to his +cabin. He had walked for some moments in uncertainty, when a +sudden sweep of the road brought the full crest of the hill above +and before him, crowned with a tiara of lights, overtopping a long +base of flashing windows. That was all that was left of Heavy Tree +Hill. The old foreground of buckeye and odorous ceanothus was +gone. Even the great grove of pines behind it had vanished. + +There was already a stir of life in the road, and he could see +figures moving slowly along a kind of sterile, formal terrace +spread with a few dreary marble vases and plaster statues which had +replaced the natural slope and the great quartz buttresses of +outcrop that supported it. Presently he entered a gate, and soon +found himself in the carriage drive leading to the hotel veranda. +A number of fair promenaders were facing the keen mountain night +wind in wraps and furs. Demorest had replaced his coat, but his +boots were red with dust, and as he ascended the steps he could see +that he was eyed with some superciliousness by the guests and with +considerable suspicion by the servants. One of the latter was +approaching him with an insolent smile when a figure darted from +the vestibule, and, brushing the waiter aside, seized Demorest's +two hands in his and held him at arm's length. + +"Demorest, old man!" + +"Stacy, old chap!" + +"But where's your team? I've had all the spare hostlers and hall- +boys listening for you at the gate. And where's Barker? When he +found you'd given the dead-cut to the railroad--HIS railroad, you +know--he loped over to Boomville after you." + +Demorest briefly explained that he had walked by the old road and +probably missed him. But by this time the waiters, crushed by the +spectacle of this travel-worn stranger's affectionate reception by +the great financial magnate, were wildly applying their brushes and +handkerchiefs to his trousers and boots until Stacy again swept +them away. + +"Get off, all of you! Now, Phil, you come with me. The house is +full, but I've made the manager give you a lady's drawing-room +suite. When you telegraphed you'd meet us HERE there was no chance +to get anything else. It's really Mrs. Van Loo's family suite; but +they were sent for to go to Marysville yesterday, and so we'll run +you in for the night." + +"But"--protested Demorest. + +"Nonsense!" said Stacy, dragging him away. "We'll pay for it; and +I reckon the old lady won't object to taking her share of the +damage either, or she isn't Van Loo's mother. Come." + +Demorest felt himself hurried forward by the energetic Stacy, +preceded by the obsequious manager, through a corridor to a +handsomely furnished suite, into whose bathroom Stacy incontinently +thrust him. + +"There! Wash up; and by the time you're ready Barker ought to be +back, and we'll have supper. It's waiting for us in the other +room." + +"But how about Barker, the dear boy?" persisted Demorest, holding +open the door. "Tell me, is he well and happy?" + +"About as well as we all are," said Stacy quickly, yet with a +certain dry significance. "Never mind now; wait until you see +him." + +The door closed. When Demorest had finished washing, and wiped +away the last red stain of the mountain road, he found Stacy seated +by the window of the larger sitting-room. In the centre a table +was spread for supper. A bright fire of hickory logs burnt on a +marble hearth between two large windows that gave upon the distant +outline of Black Spur. As Stacy turned towards him, by the light +of the shaded lamp and flickering fire, Demorest had a good look at +the face of his old friend and partner. It was as keen and +energetic as ever, with perhaps an even more hawk-like activity +visible in the eye and nostril; but it was more thoughtful and +reticent in the lines of the mouth under the closely clipped beard +and mustache, and when he looked up, at first there were two deep +lines or furrows across his low broad forehead. Demorest fancied, +too, that there was a little of the old fighting look in his eye, +but it softened quickly as his friend approached, and he burst out +with his curt but honest single-syllabled laugh. "Ha! You look a +little less like a roving Apache than you did when you came. I +really thought the waiters were going to chuck you. And you ARE +tanned! Darned if you don't look like the profile stamped on a +Continental penny! But here's luck and a welcome back, old man!" + +Demorest passed his arm around the neck of his seated partner, and +grasping his upraised hand said, looking down with a smile, "And +now about Barker." + +"Oh, Parker, d--n him! He's the same unshakable, unchangeable, +ungrow-upable Barker! With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing +into risks and waltzing out of 'em. With fads enough to put him in +the insane asylum if people did not prefer to keep him out of it to +help 'em. Always believing in everybody, until they actually +believe in themselves, and shake him! And he's got a wife that's +making a fool of herself, and I shouldn't wonder in time--of him!" + +Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's mouth. "Come, Jim! +You know you never really liked that marriage, simply because you +thought that old man Carter made a good thing of it. And you never +seem to have taken into consideration the happiness Barker got out +of it, for he DID love the girl. And he still is happy, is he +not?" he added quickly, as Stacy uttered a grunt. + +"As happy as a man can be who has his child here with a nurse while +his wife is gallivanting in San Francisco, and throwing her money-- +and Lord knows what else--away at the bidding of a smooth-tongued, +shady operator." + +"Does HE complain of it?" asked Demorest. + +"Not he; the fool trusts her!" said Stacy curtly. + +Demorest laughed. "That is happiness! Come, Jim! don't let us +begrudge him that. But I've heard that his affairs have again +prospered." + +"He built this railroad and this hotel. The bank owns both now. +He didn't care to keep money in them after they were a success; +said he wasn't an engineer nor a hotel-keeper, and drew it out to +find something new. But here he comes," he added, as a horseman +dashed into the drive before the hotel. "Question him yourself. +You know you and he always get along best without me." + +In another moment Barker had burst into the room, and in his first +tempestuous greeting of Demorest the latter saw little change in +his younger partner as he held him at arm's length to look at him. +"Why, Barker boy, you haven't got a bit older since the day when-- +you remember--you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds, and +then came back and burst upon us like this to tell us you were a +beggar." + +"Yes," laughed Barker, "and all the while you fellows were holding +four aces up your sleeve in the shape of the big strike." + +"And you, Georgy, old boy," returned Demorest, swinging Barker's +two hands backwards and forwards, "were holding a royal flush up +yours in the shape of your engagement to Kitty." + +The fresh color died out of Barker's cheek even while the frank +laugh was still on his mouth. He turned his face for a moment +towards the window, and a swift and almost involuntary glance +passed between the others. But he almost as quickly turned his +glistening eyes back to Demorest again, and said eagerly, "Yes, +dear Kitty! You shall see her and the baby to-morrow." + +Then they fell upon the supper with the appetites of the Past, and +for some moments they all talked eagerly and even noisily together, +all at the same time, with even the spirits of the Past. They +recalled every detail of their old life; eagerly and impetuously +recounted the old struggles, hopes, and disappointments, gave the +strange importance of schoolboys to unimportant events, and a +mystic meaning to a shibboleth of their own; roared over old jokes +with a delight they had never since given to new; reawakened +idiotic nicknames and bywords with intense enjoyment; grew grave, +anxious, and agonized over forgotten names, trifling dates, useless +distances, ineffective records, and feeble chronicles of their +domestic economy. It was the thoughtful and melancholy Demorest +who remembered the exact color and price paid for a certain shirt +bought from a Greaser peddler amidst the envy of his companions; it +was the financial magnate, Stacy, who could inform them what were +the exact days they had saleratus bread and when flapjacks; it was +the thoughtless and mercurial Barker who recalled with unheard-of +accuracy, amidst the applause of the others, the full name of the +Indian squaw who assisted at their washing. Even then they were +almost feverishly loath to leave the subject, as if the Past, at +least, was secure to them still, and they were even doubtful of +their own free and full accord in the Present. Then they slipped +rather reluctantly into their later experiences, but with scarcely +the same freedom or spontaneity; and it was noticeable that these +records were elicited from Barker by Stacy or from Stacy by Barker +for the information of Demorest, often with chaffing and only under +good-humored protest. "Tell Demorest how you broke the 'Copper +Ring,'" from the admiring Barker, or, "Tell Demorest how your d----d +foolishness in buying up the right and plant of the Ditch Company +got you control of the railroad," from the mischievous Stacy, were +challenges in point. Presently they left the table, and, to the +astonishment of the waiters who removed the cloth, common brier- +wood pipes, thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemoration of the +Past, were lit, and they ranged themselves in armchairs before the +fire quite unconsciously in their old attitudes. The two windows +on either side of the hearth gave them the same view that the open +door of the old cabin had made familiar to them, the league-long +valley below the shadowy bulk of the Black Spur rising in the +distance, and, still more remote, the pallid snow-line that soared +even beyond its crest. + +As in the old time, they were for many moments silent; and then, as +in the old time, it was the irrepressible Barker who broke the +silence. "But Stacy does not tell you anything about his friend, +the beautiful Mrs. Horncastle. You know he's the guardian of one +of the finest women in California--a woman as noble and generous as +she is handsome. And think of it! He's protecting her from her +brute of a husband, and looking after her property. Isn't it good +and chivalrous of him?" + +The irrepressible laughter of the two men brought only wonder and +reproachful indignation into the widely opened eyes of Barker. HE +was perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of Stacy's admiration +for Mrs. Horncastle in his ride from Boomville, and, strange to +say, yet characteristic of his nature, it was equally the natural +outcome of his interview with her and the singular effect she had +upon him. That he (Barker) thoroughly sympathized with her only +convinced him that Stacy must feel the same for her, and that, no +doubt, she must respond to him equally. And how noble it was in +his old partner, with his advantages of position in the world and +his protecting relations to her, not to avail himself of this +influence upon her generous nature. If he himself--a married man +and the husband of Kitty--was so conscious of her charm, how much +greater it must be to the free and INEXPERIENCED Stacy. + +The italics were in Barker's thought; for in those matters he felt +that Stacy and even Demorest, occupied in other things, had not his +knowledge. There was no idea or consciousness of heroically +sacrificing himself or Mrs. Horncastle in this. I am afraid there +was not even an idea of a superior morality in himself in giving up +the possibility of loving her. Ever since Stacy had first seen her +he had fancied that Stacy liked her,--indeed, Kitty fancied it, +too,--and it seemed almost providential now that he should know how +to assist his old partner to happiness. For it was inconceivable +that Stacy should not be able to rescue this woman from her +shameful bonds, or that she should not consent to it through his +(Barker's) arguments and entreaties. To a "champion of dames" this +seemed only right and proper. In his unfailing optimism he +translated Stacy's laugh as embarrassment and Demorest's as only +ignorance of the real question. But Demorest had noticed, if he +had not, that Stacy's laugh was a little nervously prolonged for a +man of his temperament, and that he had cast a very keen glance at +Barker. A messenger arriving with a telegram brought from +Boomville called Stacy momentarily away, and Barker was not slow to +take advantage of his absence. + +"I wish, Phil," he said, hitching his chair closer to Demorest, +"that you would think seriously of this matter, and try to persuade +Stacy--who, I believe, is more interested in Mrs. Horncastle than +he cares to show--to put a little of that determination in love +that he has shown in business. She's an awfully fine woman, and in +every way suited to him, and he is letting an absurd sense of pride +and honor keep him from influencing her to get rid of her +impossible husband. There's no reason," continued Barker in a +burst of enthusiastic simplicity, "that BECAUSE she has found some +one she likes better, and who would treat her better, that she +should continue to stick to that beast whom all California would +gladly see her divorced from. I never could understand that kind +of argument, could you?" + +Demorest looked at his companion's glowing cheek and kindling eye +with a smile. "A good deal depends upon the side from which you +argue. But, frankly, Barker boy, though I think I know you in all +your phases, I am not prepared yet to accept you as a match-maker! +However, I'll think it over, and find out something more of this +from your goddess, who seems to have bewitched you both. But what +does Mistress Kitty say to your admiration?" + +Barker's face clouded, but instantly brightened. "Oh, they're the +best of friends; they're quite like us, you know, even to larks +they have together." He stopped and colored at his slip. But +Demorest, who had noticed his change of expression, was more +concerned at the look of half incredulity and half suspicion with +which Stacy, who had re-entered the room in time to hear Barker's +speech, was regarding his unconscious younger partner. + +"I didn't know that Mrs. Horncastle and Mrs. Barker were such +friends," he said dryly as he sat down again. But his face +presently became so abstracted that Demorest said gayly:-- + +"Well, Jim, I'm glad I'm not a Napoleon of Finance! I couldn't +stand it to have my privacy or my relaxation broken in upon at any +moment, as yours was just now. What confounded somersault in +stocks has put that face on you?" + +Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh. "I'm afraid you'd be +none the wiser if I told you. That was a pony express messenger +from New York. You remember how Barker, that night of the strike, +when we were sitting together here, or very near here, proposed +that we ought to have a password or a symbol to call us together in +case of emergency, for each other's help? Well, let us say I have +two partners, one in Europe and one in New York. That was my +password." + +"And, I hope, no more serious than ours," added Demorest. + +Stacy laughed his short laugh. Nevertheless, the conversation +dragged again. The feverish gayety of the early part of the +evening was gone, and they seemed to be suffering from the +reaction. They fell into their old attitudes, looking from the +firelight to the distant bulk of Black Spur without a word. The +occasional sound of the voices of promenaders on the veranda at +last ceased; there was the noise of the shutting of heavy doors +below, and Barker rose. + +"You'll excuse me, boys; but I must go and say good-night to little +Sta, and see that he's all right. I haven't seen him since I got +back. But"--to Demorest--"you'll see him to-morrow, when Kitty +comes. It is as much as my life is worth to show him before she +certifies him as being presentable." He paused, and then added: +"Don't wait up, you fellows, for me; sometimes the little chap +won't let me go. It's as if he thought, now Kitty's away, I was +all he had. But I'll be up early in the morning and see you. I +dare say you and Stacy have a heap to say to each other on +business, and you won't miss me. So I'll say good-night." He +laughed lightly, pressed the hands of his partners in his usual +hearty fashion, and went out of the room, leaving the gloom a +little deeper than before. It was so unusual for Barker to be the +first to leave anybody or anything in trouble that they both +noticed it. "But for that," said Demorest, turning to Stacy as the +door closed, "I should say the dear fellow was absolutely +unchanged. But he seemed a little anxious to-night." + +"I shouldn't wonder. He's got two women on his mind,--as if one +was not enough." + +"I don't understand. You say his wife is foolish, and this other"-- + +"Never mind that now," interrupted Stacy, getting up and putting +down his pipe. "Let's talk a little business. That other stuff +will keep." + +"By all means," said Demorest, with a smile, settling down into his +chair a little wearily, however. "I forgot business. And I +forgot, my dear Jim, to congratulate you. I've heard all about +you, even in New York. You're the man who, according to everybody, +now holds the finances of the Pacific Slope in his hands. And," he +added, leaning affectionately towards his old partner, "I don't +know any one better equipped in honesty, straightforwardness, and +courage for such a responsibility than you." + +"I only wish," said Stacy, looking thoughtfully at Demorest, "that +I didn't hold nearly a million of your money included in the +finances of the Pacific Slope." + +"Why," said the smiling Demorest, "as long as I am satisfied?" + +"Because I am not. If you're satisfied, I'm a wretched idiot and +not fit for my position. Now, look here, Phil. When you wrote me +to sell out your shares in the Wheat Trust I was a little +staggered. I knew your gait, my boy, and I knew, too, that, while +you didn't know enough to trust your own opinions or feeling, you +knew too much to trust any one's opinion that wasn't first-class. +So I reckoned you had the straight tip; but I didn't see it. Now, +I ought not to have been staggered if I was fit for your confidence, +or, if I was staggered, I ought to have had enough confidence in +myself not to mind you. See?" + +"I admit your logic, old man," said Demorest, with an amused face, +"but I don't see your premises. WHEN did I tell you to sell out?" + +"Two days ago. You wrote just after you arrived." + +"I have never written to you since I arrived. I only telegraphed +to you to know where we should meet, and received your message to +come here." + +"You never wrote me from San Francisco?" + +"Never." + +Stacy looked concernedly at his friend. Was he in his right mind? +He had heard of cases where melancholy brooding on a fixed idea had +affected the memory. He took from his pocket a letter-case, and +selecting a letter handed it to Demorest without speaking. + +Demorest glanced at it, turned it over, read its contents, and in a +grave voice said, "There is something wrong here. It is like my +handwriting, but I never wrote the letter, nor has it been in my +hand before." + +Stacy sprang to his side. "Then it's a forgery!" + +"Wait a moment." Demorest, who, although very grave, was the more +collected of the two, went to a writing-desk, selected a sheet of +paper, and took up a pen. "Now," he said, "dictate that letter to +me." + +Stacy began, Demorest's pen rapidly following him:-- + +"DEAR JIM,--On receipt of this get rid of my Wheat Trust shares at +whatever figure you can. From the way things pointed in New York"-- + +"Stop!" interrupted Demorest. + +"Well?" said Stacy impatiently. + +"Now, my dear Jim," said Demorest plaintively, "when did you ever +know me to write such a sentence as 'the way things pointed'?" + +"Let me finish reading," said Stacy. This literary sensitiveness +at such a moment seemed little short of puerility to the man of +business. + +"From the way things pointed in New York," continued Stacy, "and +from private advices received, this seems to be the only prudent +course before the feathers begin to fly. Longing to see you again +and the dear old stamping-ground at Heavy Tree. Love to Barker. +Has the dear old boy been at any fresh crank lately? + +"Yours, PHIL DEMOREST." + +The dictation and copy finished together. Demorest laid the +freshly written sheet beside the letter Stacy had produced. They +were very much alike and yet quite distinct from each other. Only +the signature seemed identical. + +"That's the invariable mistake with the forger," said Demorest; "he +always forgets that signatures ought to be identical with the text +rather than with each other." + +But Stacy did not seem to hear this or require further proof. His +face was quite gray and his lips compressed until lost in his +closely set beard as he gazed fixedly out of the window. For the +first time, really concerned and touched, Demorest laid his hand +gently on his shoulder. + +"Tell me, Jim, how much does this mean to you apart from me? Don't +think of me." + +"I don't know yet," said Stacy slowly. "That's the trouble. And I +won't know until I know who's at the bottom of it. Does anybody +know of your affairs with me?" + +"No one." + +"No confidential friend, eh?" + +"None." + +"No one who has access to your secrets? No--no--woman? Excuse me, +Phil," he said, as a peculiar look passed over Demorest's face, +"but this is business." + +"No," he returned, with that gentleness that used to frighten them +in the old days, "it's ignorance. You fellows always say 'Cherchez +la femme' when you can't say anything else. Come now," he went on +more brightly, "look at the letter. Here's a man, commercially +educated, for he has used the usual business formulas, 'on receipt +of this,' and 'advices received,' which I won't merely say I don't +use, but which few but commercial men use. Next, here's a man who +uses slang, not only ineptly, but artificially, to give the letter +the easy, familiar turn it hasn't from beginning to end. I need +only say, my dear Stacy, that I don't write slang to you, but that +nobody who understands slang ever writes it in that way. And then +the knowledge of my opinion of Barker is such as might be gained +from the reading of my letters by a person who couldn't comprehend +my feelings. Now, let me play inquisitor for a few moments. Has +anybody access to my letters to YOU?" + +"No one. I keep them locked up in a cabinet. I only make +memorandums of your instructions, which I give to my clerks, but +never your letters." + +"But your clerks sometimes see you make memorandums from them?" + +"Yes, but none of them have the ability to do this sort of thing, +nor the opportunity of profiting by it." + +"Has any woman--now this is not retaliation, my dear Jim, for I +fancy I detect a woman's cleverness and a woman's stupidity in this +forgery--any access to your secrets or my letters? A woman's +villainy is always effective for the moment, but always defective +when probed." + +The look of scorn which passed over Stacy's face was quite as +distinct as Demorest's previous protest, as he said contemptuously, +"I'm not such a fool as to mix up petticoats with my business, +whatever I do." + +"Well, one thing more. I have told you that in my opinion the +forger has a commercial education or style, that he doesn't know me +nor Barker, and don't understand slang. Now, I have to add what +must have occurred to you, Jim, that the forger is either a coward, +or his object is not altogether mercenary: for the same ability +displayed in this letter would on the signature alone--had it been +on a check or draft--have drawn from your bank twenty times the +amount concerned. Now, what is the actual loss by this forgery?" + +"Very little; for you've got a good price for your stocks, +considering the depreciation in realizing suddenly on so large an +amount. I told my broker to sell slowly and in small quantities to +avoid a panic. But the real loss is the control of the stock." + +"But the amount I had was not enough to affect that," said Demorest. + +"No, but I was carrying a large amount myself, and together we +controlled the market, and now I have unloaded, too." + +"You sold out! and with your doubts?" said Demorest. + +"That's just it," said Stacy, looking steadily at his companion's +face, "because I HAD doubts, and it won't do for me to have them. +I ought either to have disobeyed your letter and kept your stock +and my own, or have done just what I did. I might have hedged on +my own stock, but I don't believe in hedging. There is no middle +course to a man in my business if he wants to keep at the top. No +great success, no great power, was ever created by it." + +Demorest smiled. "Yet you accept the alternative also, which is +ruin?" + +"Precisely," said Stacy. "When you returned the other day you were +bound to find me what I was or a beggar. But nothing between. +However," he added, "this has nothing to do with the forgery, or," +he smiled grimly, "everything to do with it. Hush! Barker is +coming." + +There was a quick step along the corridor approaching the room. +The next moment the door flew open to the bounding step and +laughing face of Barker. Whatever of thoughtfulness or despondency +he had carried from the room with him was completely gone. With +his amazing buoyancy and power of reaction he was there again in +his usual frank, cheerful simplicity. + +"I thought I'd come in and say goodnight," he began, with a laugh. +"I got Sta asleep after some high jinks we had together, and then I +reckoned it wasn't the square thing to leave just you two together, +the first night you came. And I remembered I had some business to +talk over, too, so I thought I'd chip in again and take a hand. +It's only the shank of the evening yet," he continued gayly, "and +we ought to sit up at least long enough to see the old snow-line +vanish, as we did in old times. But I say," he added suddenly, as +he glanced from the one to the other, "you've been having it pretty +strong already. Why, you both look as you did that night the +backwater of the South Fork came into our cabin. What's up?" + +"Nothing," said Demorest hastily, as he caught a glance of Stacy's +impatient face. "Only all business is serious, Barker boy, though +you don't seem to feel it so." + +"I reckon you're right there," said Barker, with a chuckle. +"People always laugh, of course, when I talk business, so it might +make it a little livelier for you and more of a change if I chipped +in now. Only I don't know which you'll do. Hand me a pipe. +Well," he continued, filling the pipe Demorest shoved towards him, +"you see, I was in Sacramento yesterday, and I went into Van Loo's +branch office, as I heard he was there, and I wanted to find out +something about Kitty's investments, which I don't think he's +managing exactly right. He wasn't there, however, but as I was +waiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in the Wheat Trust, +and that there was a lot of it put upon the market. They seemed to +think that something had happened, and it was going down still +further. Now I knew it was your pet scheme, and that Phil had a +lot of shares in it, too, so I just slipped out and went to a +broker's and told him to buy all he could of it. And, by Jove! I +was a little taken aback when I found what I was in for, for +everybody seemed to have unloaded, and I found I hadn't money +enough to pay margins, but I knew that Demorest was here, and I +reckoned on his seeing me through." He stopped and colored, but +added hopefully, "I reckon I'm safe, anyway, for just as the thing +was over those same clerks of Van Loo's came bounding into the +office to buy up everything. And offered to take it off my hands +and pay the margins." + +"And you?" said both men eagerly, and in a breath. + +Barker stared at them, and reddened and paled by turns. "I held +on," he stammered. "You see, boys"-- + +Both men had caught him by the arms. "How much have you got?" they +said, shaking him as if to precipitate the answer. + +"It's a heap!" said Barker. "It's a ghastly lot now I think of it. +I'm afraid I'm in for fifty thousand, if a cent." + +To his infinite astonishment and delight he was alternately hugged +and tossed backwards and forwards between the two men quite in the +fashion of the old days. Breathless but laughing, he at length +gasped out, "What does it all mean?" + +"Tell him everything, Jim,--EVERYTHING," said Demorest quickly. + +Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, and then laid the +letter and its copy before him. But Barker only read the forgery. + +"How could YOU, Stacy--one of the three partners of Heavy Tree--be +deceived! Don't you see it's Phil's handwriting--but it isn't +PHIL!" + +"But have you any idea WHO it is?" said Stacy. + +"Not me," said Barker, with widely opened eyes. "You see it must +be somebody whom we are familiar with. I can't imagine such a +scoundrel." + +"How did YOU know that Demorest had stock?" asked Stacy. + +"He told me in one of his letters and advised me to go into it. +But just then Kitty wanted money, I think, and I didn't go in." + +"I remember it," struck in Demorest. "But surely it was no secret. +My name would be on the transfer books for any one to see." + +"Not so," said Stacy quickly. "You were one of the original +shareholders; there was no transfer, and the books as well as the +shares of the company were in my hands." + +"And your clerks?" added Demorest. + +Stacy was silent. After a pause he asked, "Did anybody ever see +that letter, Barker?" + +"No one but myself and Kitty." + +"And would she be likely to talk of it?" continued Stacy. + +"Of course not. Why should she? Whom could she talk to?" Yet he +stopped suddenly, and then with his characteristic reaction added, +with a laugh, "Why no, certainly not." + +"Of course, everybody knew that you had bought the shares at +Sacramento?" + +"Yes. Why, you know I told you the Van Loo clerks came to me and +wanted to take it off my hands." + +"Yes, I remember; the Van Loo clerks; they knew it, of course," +said Stacy with a grim smile. "Well, boys," he said, with sudden +alacrity, "I'm going to turn in, for by sun-up to-morrow I must be +on my way to catch the first train at the Divide for 'Frisco. +We'll hunt this thing down together, for I reckon we're all +concerned in it," he added, looking at the others, "and once more +we're partners as in the old times. Let us even say that I've +given Barker's signal or password," he added, with a laugh, "and +we'll stick together. Barker boy," he went on, grasping his +younger partner's hand, "your instinct has saved us this time; +d----d if I don't sometimes think it better than any other man's +sabe; only," he dropped his voice slightly, "I wish you had it in +other things than FINANCE. Phil, I've a word to say to you alone +before I go. I may want you to follow me." + +"But what can I do?" said Barker eagerly. "You're not going to +leave me out." + +"You've done quite enough for us, old man," said Stacy, laying his +hand on Barker's shoulder. "And it may be for US to do something +for YOU. Trot off to bed now, like a good boy. I'll keep you +posted when the time comes." + +Shoving the protesting and leave-taking Barker with paternal +familiarity from the room, he closed the door and faced Demorest. + +"He's the best fellow in the world," said Stacy quietly, "and has +saved the situation; but we mustn't trust too much to him for the +present--not even seem to." + +"Nonsense, man!" said Demorest impatiently. "You're letting your +prejudices go too far. Do you mean to say that you suspect his +wife." + +"D--n his wife!" said Stacy almost savagely. "Leave her out of +this. It's Van Loo that I suspect. It was Van Loo who I knew was +behind it, who expected to profit by it, and now we have lost him." + +"But how?" said Demorest, astonished. + +"How?" repeated Stacy impatiently. "You know what Barker said? +Van Loo, either through stupidity, fright, or the wish to get the +lowest prices, was too late to buy up the market. If he had, we +might have openly declared the forgery, and if it was known that he +or his friends had profited by it, even if we could not have proven +his actual complicity, we could at least have made it too hot for +him in California. But," said Stacy, looking intently at his +friend, "do you know how the case stands now?" + +"Well," said Demorest, a little uneasily under his friend's keen +eyes, "we've lost that chance, but we've kept control of the +stock." + +"You think so? Well, let me tell you how the case stands and the +price we pay for it," said Stacy deliberately, as he folded his +arms and gazed at Demorest. "You and I, well known as old friends +and former partners, for no apparent reason--for we cannot prove +the forgery now--have thrown upon the market all our stock, with +the usual effect of depreciating it. Another old friend and former +partner has bought it in and sent up the price. A common trick, a +vulgar trick, but not a trick worthy of James Stacy or Stacy's +Bank!" + +"But why not simply declare the forgery without making any specific +charge against Van Loo?" + +"Do you imagine, Phil, that any man would believe it, and the story +of a providentially appointed friend like Barker who saved us from +loss? Why, all California, from Cape Mendocino to Los Angeles, +would roar with laughter over it! No! We must swallow it and the +reputation of 'jockeying' with the Wheat Trust, too. That Trust's +as good as done for, for the present! Now you know why I didn't +want poor Barker to know it, nor have much to do with our search +for the forger." + +"It would break the dear fellow's heart if he knew it," said +Demorest. + +"Well, it's to save him from having his heart broken further that I +intend to find out this forger," said Stacy grimly. "Good-night, +Phil! I'll telegraph to you when I want you, and then COME!" + +With another grip of the hand he left Demorest to his thoughts. In +the first excitement of meeting his old partners, and in the later +discovery of the forgery, Demorest had been diverted from his old +sorrow, and for the time had forgotten it in sympathetic interest +with the present. But, to his horror, when alone again, he found +that interest growing as remote and vapid as the stories they had +laughed over at the table, and even the excitement of the forged +letter and its consequences began to be as unreal, as impotent, as +shadowy, as the memory of the attempted robbery in the old cabin on +that very spot. He was ashamed of that selfishness which still +made him cling to this past, so much his own, that he knew it +debarred him from the human sympathy of his comrades. And even +Barker, in whose courtship and marriage he had tried to resuscitate +his youthful emotions and condone his selfish errors--even the +suggestion of his unhappiness only touched him vaguely. He would +no longer be a slave to the Past, or the memory that had deluded +him a few hours ago. He walked to the window; alas, there was the +same prospect that had looked upon his dreams, had lent itself to +his old visions. There was the eternal outline of the hills; there +rose the steadfast pines; there was no change in THEM. It was this +surrounding constancy of nature that had affected him. He turned +away and entered the bedroom. Here he suddenly remembered that the +mother of this vague enemy, Van Loo,--for his feeling towards him +was still vague, as few men really hate the personality they don't +know,--had only momentarily vacated it, and to his distaste of his +own intrusion was now added the profound irony of his sleeping in +the same bed lately occupied by the mother of the man who was +suspected of having forged his name. He smiled faintly and looked +around the apartment. It was handsomely furnished, and although it +still had much of the characterlessness of the hotel room, it was +distinctly flavored by its last occupant, and still brightened by +that mysterious instinct of the sex which is inevitable. Where a +man would have simply left his forgotten slippers or collars there +was a glass of still unfaded flowers; the cold marble top of the +dressing-table was littered with a few linen and silk toilet +covers; and on the mantel-shelf was a sheaf of photographs. He +walked towards them mechanically, glanced at them abstractedly, and +then stopped suddenly with a beating heart. Before him was the +picture of his past, the photograph of the one woman who had filled +his life! + +He cast a hurried glance around the room as if he half expected to +see the original start up before him, and then eagerly seized it +and hurried with it to the light. Yes! yes! It was SHE,--she as +she had lived in his actual memory; she as she had lived in his +dream. He saw her sweet eyes, but the frightened, innocent trouble +had passed from them; there was the sensitive elegance of her +graceful figure in evening dress; but the figure was fuller and +maturer. Could he be mistaken by some wonderful resemblance acting +upon his too willing brain? He turned the photograph over. No; +there on the other side, written in her own childlike hand, +endeared and familiar to his recollection, was her own name, and +the date! It was surely she! + +How did it come there? Did the Van Loos know her? It was taken in +Venice; there was the address of the photographers. The Van Loos +were foreigners, he remembered; they had traveled; perhaps had met +her there in 1858: that was the date in her handwriting; that was +the date on the photographer's address--1858. Suddenly he laid the +photograph down, took with trembling fingers a letter-case from his +pocket, opened it, and laid his last letter to her, indorsed with +the cruel announcement of her death, before him on the table. He +passed his hand across his forehead and opened the letter. It was +dated 1856! The photograph must have been taken two years AFTER +her alleged death! + +He examined it again eagerly, fixedly, tremblingly. A wild impulse +to summon Barker or Stacy on the spot was restrained with +difficulty and only when he remembered that they could not help +him. Then he began to oscillate between a joy and a new fear, +which now, for the first time, began to dawn upon him. If the news +of her death had been a fiendish trick of her relations, why had +SHE never sought him? It was not ill health, restraint, nor fear; +there was nothing but happiness and the strength of youth and +beauty in that face and figure. HE had not disappeared from the +world; he was known of men; more, his memorable good fortune must +have reached her ears. Had he wasted all these miserable years to +find himself abandoned, forgotten, perhaps even a dupe? For the +first time the sting of jealousy entered his soul. Perhaps, +unconsciously to himself, his strange and varying feelings that +afternoon had been the gathering climax of his mental condition; at +all events, in the sudden revulsion there was a shaking off of his +apathetic thought; there was activity, even if it was the activity +of pain. Here was a mystery to be solved, a secret to be +discovered, a past wrong to be exposed, an enemy or, perhaps, even +a faithless love to be punished. Perhaps he had even saved his +reason at the expense of his love. He quickly replaced the +photograph on the mantel-shelf, returned the letter carefully to +his pocket-book,--no longer a souvenir of the past, but a proof of +treachery,--and began to mechanically undress himself. He was +quite calm now, and went to bed with a strange sense of relief, and +slept as he had not slept since he was a boy. + +The whole hotel had sunk to rest by this time, and then began the +usual slow, nightly invasion and investment of it by nature. For +all its broad verandas and glaring terraces, its long ranges of +windows and glittering crest of cupola and tower, it gradually +succumbed to the more potent influences around it, and became their +sport and playground. The mountain breezes from the distant summit +swept down upon its flimsy structure, shook the great glass windows +as with a strong hand, and sent the balm of bay and spruce through +every chink and cranny. In the great hall and corridors the +carpets billowed with the intruding blast along the floors; there +was the murmur of the pines in the passages, and the damp odor of +leaves in the dining-room. There was the cry of night birds in the +creaking cupola, and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom +windows. Lissome shapes crept along the terraces between the +stolid wooden statues, or, bolder, scampered the whole length of +the great veranda. In the lulling of the wind the breath of the +woods was everywhere; even the aroma of swelling sap--as if the +ghastly stumps on the deforested slope behind the hotel were +bleeding afresh in the dewless night--stung the eyes and nostrils +of the sleepers. + +It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that Barker was awakened +suddenly by the voice of the boy from the crib beside him, crying, +"Mamma! mamma!" Taking the child in his arms, he comforted him, +saying she would come that morning, and showed him the faint dawn +already veiling with color the ghostly pallor of the Sierras. As +they looked at it a great star shot forth from its brethren and +fell. It did not fall perpendicularly, but seemed for some seconds +to slip along the slopes of Black Spur, gleaming through the trees +like a chariot of fire. It pleased the child to say that it was +the light of mamma's buggy that was fetching her home, and it +pleased the father to encourage the boy's fancy. And talking thus +in confidential whispers they fell asleep once more, the father-- +himself a child in so many things--holding the smaller and frailer +hand in his. + +They did not know that on the other side of the Divide the wife and +mother, scared, doubting, and desperate, by the side of her scared, +doubting, and desperate accomplice, was flying down the slope on +her night-long road to ruin. Still less did they know that, with +the early singing birds, a careless horseman, emerging from the +trail as the dust-stained buggy dashed past him, glanced at it with +a puzzled air, uttered a quiet whistle of surprise, and then, +wheeling his horse, gayly cantered after it. + + +CHAPTER V. + + +In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack Hamlin had sat up +all night in the magnolia saloon of the Divide, and as it was +rather early to go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, shaken +off the sedentary attitude and prepared himself for sleep by a +fierce preliminary gallop in the woods. Besides, he had been a +large winner, and on those occasions he generally isolated himself +from his companions to avoid foolish altercations with inexperienced +players. Even in fighting Jack was fastidious, and did not like to +have his stomach for a real difficulty distended and vitiated by +small preliminary indulgences. + +He was just emerging from the wood into the highroad when a buggy +dashed past him, containing a man and a woman. The woman wore a +thick veil; the man was almost undistinguishable from dust. The +glimpse was momentary, but dislike has a keen eye, and in that +glimpse Mr. Hamlin recognized Van Loo. The situation was equally +clear. The bent heads and averted faces, the dust collected in the +heedlessness of haste, the early hour,--indicating a night-long +flight,--all made it plain to him that Van Loo was running away +with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral scruples, but he had the +ethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van Loo was not. Whether +the woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress, he was +satisfied that Van Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin +also had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman was or was not +fair game, he knew that for HIS purposes Van Loo was. With the +greatest cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse and +cantered after them. + +They were evidently making for the Divide and a fresh horse, or to +take the coach due an hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's present +object to circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in his way +to return. Incidentally, however, the superior speed of his horse +gave him the opportunity of frequently lunging towards them at a +furious pace, which had the effect of frantically increasing their +own speed, when he would pull up with a silent laugh before he was +fairly discovered, and allow the sound of his rapid horse's hoofs +to die out. In this way he amused himself until the straggling +town of the Divide came in sight, when, putting his spurs to his +horse again, he managed, under pretense of the animal becoming +ungovernable, to twice "cross the bows" of the fugitives, +compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these passages +Van Loo apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his whip, +the lash caught slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr. +Hamlin instantly acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and +speeded on to the hotel, arriving at the steps and throwing himself +from the saddle exactly as the buggy drove up. With characteristic +audacity, he actually assisted the frightened and eager woman to +alight and run into the hotel. But in this action her veil was +accidentally lifted. Mr. Hamlin instantly recognized the pretty +woman who had been pointed out to him in San Francisco as Mrs. +Barker, the wife of one of the partners whose fortunes had +interested him five years ago. It struck him that this was an +additional reason for his interference on Barker's account, +although personally he could not conceive why a man should ever try +to prevent a woman from running away from him. But then Mr. +Hamlin's personal experiences had been quite the other way. + +It was enough, however, to cause him to lay his hand lightly on Van +Loo's arm as the latter, leaping down, was about to follow Mrs. +Barker into the hotel. "You'll have time enough now," said Hamlin. + +"Time for what?" said Van Loo savagely. + +"Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip," said +Jack sweetly. "We don't want to quarrel before a woman." + +"I've no time for fooling!" said Van Loo, endeavoring to pass. + +But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's wrist, although he still +smiled cheerfully. "Ah! Then you DID mean it, and you propose to +give me satisfaction?" + +Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack's reputation as a duelist. +But he was desperate. "You see my position," he said hurriedly. +"I'm in a hurry; I have a lady with me. No man of honor"-- + +"You do me wrong," interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,-- +"you do, indeed. You are in a hurry--well, I have plenty of time. +If you cannot attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany you +and the lady to the next station. Of course," he added, with a +smile, "at a proper distance, and without interfering with the +lady, whom I am pleased to recognize as the wife of an old friend. +It would be more sociable, perhaps, if we had some general +conversation on the road; it would prevent her being alarmed. I +might even be of some use to YOU. If we are overtaken by her +husband on the road, for instance, I should certainly claim the +right to have the first shot at you. Boy!" he called to the +hostler, "just sponge out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be ready +when the buggy goes?" And, loosening his grip of Van Loo's wrist, +he turned away as the other quickly entered the hotel. + +But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He had +already some experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility on +the drive, and had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an +impediment to his flight from the country. And another idea had +come to him. He had already effected his purpose of compromising +her with him in that flight, but it was still known only to few. +If he left her behind for the foolish, doting husband, would not +that devoted man take her back to avoid a scandal, and even forbear +to pursue HIM for his financial irregularities? What were twenty +thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker's money to the scandal of Mrs. +Barker's elopement? Again, the failure to realize the forgery had +left him safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with the bank and +Demorest to hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only obstacle to +his flight; but even he would scarcely pursue HIM if Mrs. Barker +were left behind. And it would be easier to elude him if he did. + +In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered the +bar-room, but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; a +glass of spirits would revive him. As he drank it he saw that the +room was full of rough men, apparently miners or packers--some of +them Mexican, with here and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two men +more ostentatiously clad, though apparently on equal terms with the +others, were standing in the corner with their backs towards him. +From the general silence as he entered he imagined that he had been +the subject of conversation, and that his altercation with Hamlin +had been overheard. Suddenly one of the two men turned and +approached him. To his consternation he recognized Steptoe,-- +Steptoe, whom he had not seen for five years until last night, when +he had avoided him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. His +first instinct was to retreat, but it was too late. And the +spirits had warmed him into temporary recklessness. + +"You ain't goin' to be backed down by a short-card gambler, are +yer?" said Steptoe, with coarse familiarity. + +"I have a lady with me, and am pressed for time," said Van Loo +quickly. "He knows it, otherwise he would not have dared"-- + +"Well, look here," said Steptoe roughly. "I ain't particularly +sweet on you, as you know; but I and these gentlemen," he added, +glancing around the room, "ain't particularly sweet on Mr. Jack +Hamlin neither, and we kalkilate to stand by you if you say so. +Now, I reckon you want to get away with the woman, and the quicker +the better, as you're afraid there'll be somebody after you afore +long. That's the way it pans out, don't it? Well, when you're +ready to go, and you just tip us the wink, we'll get in a circle +round Jack and cover him, and if he starts after you we'll send him +on a little longer journey!--eh, boys?" + +The men muttered their approval, and one or two drew their +revolvers from their belts. Van Loo's heart, which had leaped at +first at this proposal of help, sank at this failure of his little +plan of abandoning Mrs. Barker. He hesitated, and then stammered, +"Thank you! Haste is everything with us now; but I shouldn't mind +leaving the lady among CHIVALROUS GENTLEMEN like yourselves for a +few hours only, until I could communicate with my friends and +return to properly chastise this scoundrel." + +Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight whistle, and gazed at Van +Loo. He instantly understood him. But the plea did not suit +Steptoe, who, for purposes of his own, wished to put Mrs. Barker +beyond her husband's possible reach. He smiled grimly. "I think +you'd better take the woman with you," he said. "I don't think," +he added in a lower voice, "that the boys would like your leaving +her. They're very high-toned, they are!" he concluded ironically. + +"Then," said Van Loo, with another desperate idea, "could you not +let us have saddle-horses instead of the buggy? We could travel +faster, and in the event of pursuit and anything happening to ME," +he added loftily, "SHE at least could escape her pursuer's +vengeance." + +This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as the guilty couple fled +TOGETHER, and in the presence of witnesses. But he was not +deceived by Van Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice. "Quite +right," he said sarcastically, "it shall be done, and I've no doubt +ONE of you will escape. I'll send the horses round to the back +door and keep the buggy in front. That will keep Jack there, TOO,-- +with the boys handy." + +But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo's +methods and of his OWN standing with Steptoe's gang of roughs as +Mr. Steptoe himself. More than that, he also had a hold on a +smaller but more devoted and loyal following than Steptoe's. The +employees and hostlers of the hotel worshiped him. A single word +of inquiry revealed to him the fact that the buggy was NOT going +on, but that Mr. Van Loo and Mrs. Barker WERE--on two horses, a +temporary side-saddle having been constructed out of a mule's pack- +tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, with his usual audacity, walked into +the bar-room, and going to the bar leaned carelessly against it. +Then turning to the lowering faces around him, he said, with a +flash of his white teeth, "Well, boys, I'm calculating to leave the +Divide in a few minutes to follow some friends in the buggy, and it +seems to me only the square thing to stand the liquor for the +crowd, without prejudice to any feeling or roughness there may be +against me. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm generally there +when the band plays, and I'm pretty sure to turn up for THAT sort +of thing. So you'll just consider that I've had a good game on the +Divide, and I'm reckoning it's only fair to leave a little of it +behind me here, to 'sweeten the pot' until I call again. I only +ask you, gentlemen, to drink success to my friends in the buggy as +early and as often as you can." He flung two gold pieces on the +counter and paused, smiling. + +He was right in his conjecture. Even the men who would have +willingly "held him up" a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, +saw no reason for declining a free drink "without prejudice." And +it was a part of the irony of the situation that Steptoe and Van +Loo were also obliged to participate to keep in with their +partisans. It was, however, an opportune diversion to Van Loo, who +managed to get nearer the door leading to the back entrance of the +hotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who was watching him, as the men +closed up to the bar. + +The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another and yet +another. Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, were +both wondering if Hamlin's intention were to intoxicate and +incapacitate the crowd at the crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled +grimly over his superior knowledge of their alcoholic capacity. +But suddenly there was the greater diversion of a shout from the +road, the on-coming of a cloud of red dust, and the halt of another +vehicle before the door. This time it was no jaded single horse +and dust-stained buggy, but a double team of four spirited +trotters, whose coats were scarcely turned with foam, before a +light station wagon containing a single man. But that man was +instantly recognized by every one of the outside loungers and +stable-boys as well as the staring crowd within the saloon. It was +James Stacy, the millionaire and banker. No one but himself knew +that he had covered half the distance of a night-long ride from +Boomville in two hours. But before they could voice their +astonishment Stacy had thrown a letter to the obsequious landlord, +and then gathering up the reins had sped away to the railroad +station half a mile distant. + +"Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a hurry," said one of the +eager gazers in the doorway. "Somebody goin' to get smashed, +sure." + +"More like as if he was just humpin' himself to keep from getting +smashed," said Steptoe. "The bank hasn't got over the effect of +their smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything they had in their +hands tumbled yesterday in Sacramento. Men like me and you ain't +goin' to trust their money to be 'jockeyed' with in that style. +Nobody but a man with a swelled head like Stacy would have even +dared to try it on. And now, by G-d! he's got to pay for it." + +The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker showed that he had quite +forgotten Van Loo and Hamlin in his superior hatred of the +millionaire, and both men noticed it. Van Loo edged still nearer +to the door, as Steptoe continued, "Ever since he made that big +strike on Heavy Tree five years ago, the country hasn't been big +enough to hold him. But mark my words, gentlemen, the time ain't +far off when he'll find a two-foot ditch again and a pick and grub +wages room enough and to spare for him and his kind of cattle." + +"You're not drinking," said Jack Hamlin cheerfully. + +Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then started. "Where's Van +Loo?" he demanded of Jack sharply. + +Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Gone to hurry up his +girl, I reckon. I calculate he ain't got much time to fool away +here." + +Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at the same moment they +were all startled--even Jack himself--at the apparition of Mrs. +Barker passing hurriedly along the veranda before the windows in +the direction of the still waiting buggy. "D--n it!" said Steptoe +in a fierce whisper to the man next him. "Tell her not THERE--at +the back door!" But before the messenger reached the door there +was a sudden rattle of wheels, and with one accord all except +Hamlin rushed to the veranda, only to see Mrs. Barker driving +rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into the room, but Jack +also had disappeared. + +For in the confusion created at the sight of Mrs. Barker, he had +slipped to the back door and found, as he suspected, only one +horse, and that with a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right. +Van Loo, when he disappeared from the saloon, had instantly fled, +taking the other horse and abandoning the woman to her fate. Jack +as instantly leaped upon the remaining saddle and dashed after him. +Presently he caught a glimpse of the fugitive in the distance, +heard the half-angry, half-ironical shouts of the crowd at the back +door, and as he reached the hilltop saw, with a mingling of +satisfaction and perplexity, Mrs. Barker on the other road, still +driving frantically in the direction of the railroad station. At +which Mr. Hamlin halted, threw away his encumbering saddle, and, +good rider that he was, remounted the horse, barebacked but for his +blanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose girths, again +dashed forwards,--with such good results that, as Van Loo galloped +up to the stagecoach office, at the next station, and was about to +enter the waiting coach for Marysville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlin +was laid on his shoulder. + +"I told you," said Jack blandly, "that I had plenty of time. I +would have been here BEFORE and even overtaken you, only you had +the better horse and the only saddle." + +Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate and reckless. +Beckoning Jack out of earshot of the other passengers, he said with +tightened lips, "Why do you follow me? What is your purpose in +coming here?" + +"I thought," said Hamlin dryly, "that I was to have the pleasure of +getting satisfaction from you for the insult you gave me." + +"Well, and if I apologize for it, what then?" he said quickly. + +Hamlin looked at him quietly. "Well, I think I also said something +about the lady being the wife of a friend of mine." + +"And I have left her BEHIND. Her husband can take her back without +disgrace, for no one knows of her flight but you and me. Do you +think your shooting me will save her? It will spread the scandal +far and wide. For I warn you, that as I have apologized for what +you choose to call my personal insult, unless you murder me in cold +blood without witness, I shall let them know the REASON of your +quarrel. And I can tell you more: if you only succeed in STOPPING +me here, and make me lose my chance of getting away, the scandal to +your friend will be greater still." + +Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. There was a certain amount +of conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind of +creature before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition of +his character. He amused and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin was +also a man of the world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might be +good. He put his hands in his pockets, and said gravely, "What IS +your little game?" + +Van Loo had been seized with another inspiration of desperation. +Steptoe had been partly responsible for this situation. Van Loo +knew that Jack and Steptoe were not friends. He had certain +secrets of Steptoe's that might be of importance to Jack. Why +should he not try to make friends with this powerful free-lance and +half-outlaw? + +"It's a game," he said significantly, "that might be of interest to +your friends to hear." + +Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, turned on his heel, and +said, "Come with me." + +"But I must go by that coach now," said Van Loo desperately, "or-- +I've told you what would happen." + +"Come with me," said Jack coolly. "If I'm satisfied with what you +tell me, I'll put you down at the next station an hour before that +coach gets there." + +"You swear it?" said Van Loo hesitatingly. + +"I've SAID it," returned Jack. "Come!" and Van Loo followed Mr. +Hamlin into the station hotel. + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and the strange lady and +gentleman visitor was scarcely noticed by the other guests of the +Divide House, and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, who +were a distinct party and strangers to the town, there was no +excitement. Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded +them together, and, perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his +belief that their identity had not been suspected. Nor were +Steptoe's followers very much concerned in an episode in which they +had taken part only at the suggestion of their leader, and which +had terminated so tamely. That they would have liked a "row," in +which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to disgorge +his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference was +asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe's against +Van Loo was equally plain to them. There was some grumbling and +outspoken criticism of his methods. + +This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guest +for whom Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting. He was a +short, stout man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little more +carefully than when he was first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, the +drunkard of Heavy Tree Hill. His dress, too, exhibited a marked +improvement in quality and style, although still characterized in +the waist and chest by the unbuttoned freedom of portly and +slovenly middle age. Civilization had restricted his potations or +limited them to certain festivals known as "sprees," and his face +was less puffy and sodden. But with the accession of sobriety he +had lost his good humor, and had the irritability and intolerance +of virtuous restraint. + +"Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me," he said +querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of the party +through the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. "I want to keep +my head level till our business is over, and I reckon it wouldn't +hurt you and your gang to do the same. They're less likely to +blab; and there are few doors that whiskey won't unlock," he added, +as Steptoe turned the key in the door after the party had entered. + +The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors or +political caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and +whittled armchairs and a single long deal table, on which were ink +and pens. The men sat down around it with a half-embarrassed, +half-contemptuous attitude of formality, their bent brows and +isolated looks showing little community of sentiment and scarcely +an attempt to veil that individual selfishness that was prominent. +Still less was there any essay of companionship or sympathy in the +manner of Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table with his +knuckles. + +"Gentlemen," he said, with a certain deliberation of utterance, as +if he enjoyed his own coarse directness, "I reckon you all have a +sort of general idea what you were picked up for, or you wouldn't +be here. But you may or may not know that for the present you are +honest, hard-working miners,--the backbone of the State of +Californy,--and that you have formed yourselves into a company +called the 'Blue Jay,' and you've settled yourselves on the Bar +below Heavy Tree Hill, on a deserted claim of the Marshall +Brothers, not half a mile from where the big strike was made five +years ago. That's what you ARE, gentlemen; that's what you'll +continue TO BE until the job's finished; and," he added, with a +sudden dominance that they all felt, "the man who forgets it will +have to reckon with me. Now," he continued, resuming his former +ironical manner, "now, what are the cold facts of the case? The +Marshalls worked this claim ever since '49, and never got anything +out of it; then they dropped off or died out, leaving only one +brother, Tom Marshall, to work what was left of it. Well, a few +days ago HE found indications of a big lead in the rock, and +instead of rushin' out and yellin' like an honest man, and callin' +in the boys to drink, he sneaks off to 'Frisco, and goes to the +bank to get 'em to take a hand in it. Well, you know, when Jim +Stacy takes a hand in anything, IT'S BOTH HANDS, and the bank +wouldn't see it until he promised to guarantee possession of the +whole abandoned claim,--'dips, spurs, and angles,'--and let them +work the whole thing, which the d----d fool DID, and the bank +agreed to send an expert down there to-morrow to report. But while +he was away some one on our side, who was an expert also, got wind +of it, and made an examination all by himself, and found it was a +vein sure enough and a big thing, and some one else on our side +found out, too, all that Marshall had promised the bank and what +the bank had promised him. Now, gentlemen, when the bank sends +down that expert to-morrow I expect that he will find YOU IN +POSSESSION of every part of the deserted claim except the spot +where Tom is still working." + +"And what good is that to us?" asked one of the men contemptuously. + +"Good?" repeated Steptoe harshly. "Well, if you're not as d----d a +fool as Marshall, you'll see that if he has struck a lead or vein +it's bound to run across OUR CLAIMS, and what's to keep us from +sinking for it as long as Marshall hasn't worked the other claims +for years nor pre-empted them for this lead?" + +"What'll keep him from pre-empting now?" + +"Our possession." + +"But if he can prove that the brothers left their claims to him to +keep, he'll just send the sheriff and his posse down upon us," +persisted the first speaker. + +"It will take him three months to do that by law, and the sheriff +and his posse can't do it before as long as we're in peaceable +possession of it. And by the time that expert and Marshall return +they'll find us in peaceful possession, unless we're such blasted +fools as to stay talking about it here!" + +"But what's to prevent Marshall from getting a gang of his own to +drive us off?" + +"Now your talkin' and not yelpin'," said Steptoe, with slow +insolence. "D----d if I didn't begin to think you kalkilated I was +goin' to employ you as lawyers! Nothing is to prevent him from +gettin' up HIS gang, and we hope he'll do it, for you see it puts +us both on the same level before the law, for we're both BREAKIN' +IT. And we kalkilate that we're as good as any roughs they can +pick up at Heavy Tree." + +"I reckon!" "Ye can count us in!" said half a dozen voices +eagerly. + +"But what's the job goin' to pay us?" persisted a Sydney man. "An' +arter we've beat off this other gang, are we going to scrub along +on grub wages until we're yanked out by process-sarvers three +months later? If that's the ticket I'm not in it. I aren't no +b--y quartz miner." + +"We ain't going to do no more MINING there than the bank," said +Steptoe fiercely. "And the bank ain't going to wait no three +months for the end of the lawsuit. They'll float the stock of that +mine for a couple of millions, and get out of it with a million +before a month. And they'll have to buy us off to do that. What +they'll pay will depend upon the lead; but we don't move off those +claims for less than five thousand dollars, which will be two +hundred and fifty dollars to each man. But," said Steptoe in a +lower but perfectly distinct voice, "if there should be a row,--and +they BEGIN it,--and in the scuffle Tom Marshall, their only +witness, should happen to get in the way of a revolver or have his +head caved in, there might be some difficulty in their holdin' ANY +OF THE MINE against honest, hardworking miners in possession. You +hear me?" + +There was a breathless silence for the moment, and a slight +movement of the men in their chairs, but never in fear or protest. +Every one had heard the speaker distinctly, and every man +distinctly understood him. Some of them were criminals, one or two +had already the stain of blood on their hands; but even the most +timid, who at other times might have shrunk from suggested +assassination, saw in the speaker's words only the fair removal of +a natural enemy. + +"All right, boys. I'm ready to wade in at once. Why ain't we on +the road now? We might have been but for foolin' our time away on +that man Van Loo." + +"Van Loo!" repeated Hall eagerly,--"Van Loo! Was he here?" + +"Yes," said Steptoe shortly, administering a kick under the table +to Hall, as he had no wish to revive the previous irritability of +his comrades. "He's gone, but," turning to the others, "you'd have +had to wait for Mr. Hall's arrival, anyhow. And now you've got +your order you can start. Go in two parties by different roads, +and meet on the other side of the hotel at Hymettus. I'll be there +before you. Pick up some shovels and drills as you go; remember +you're honest miners, but don't forget your shootin'-irons for all +that. Now scatter." + +It was well that they did, vacating the room more cheerfully and +sympathetically than they had entered it, or Hall's manifest +disturbance over Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When the +last man had disappeared Hall turned quickly to Steptoe. "Well, +what did he say? Where has he gone?" + +"Don't know," said Steptoe, with uneasy curtness. "He was running +away with a woman--well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know," he +added, with rising anger, "the wife of one of those cursed +partners. Jack Hamlin was here, and was jockeying to stop him, and +interfered. But what the devil has that job to do with our job?" +He was losing his temper; everything seemed to turn upon this +infernal Van Loo! + +"He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker," gasped Hall,--"it was +with her MONEY! and the fear of being connected with the Wheat +Trust swindle which he organized, and with our money which I lent +him for the same purpose. And he knows all about that job, for I +wanted to get him to go into it with us. Your name and mine ain't +any too sweet-smelling for the bank, and we ought to have a +middleman who knows business to arrange with them. The bank +daren't object to him, for they've employed him in even shadier +transactions than this when THEY didn't wish to appear. I knew he +was in difficulties along with Mrs. Barker's speculations, but I +never thought him up to this. And," he added, with sudden +desperation, "YOU trusted him, too." + +In an instant Steptoe caught the frightened man by the shoulders +and was bearing him down on the table. "Are you a traitor, a liar, +or a besotted fool?" he said hoarsely. "Speak. WHEN and WHERE did +I trust him?" + +"You said in your note--I was--to--help him," gasped Hall. + +"My note," repeated Steptoe, releasing Hall with astonished eyes. + +"Yes," said Hall, tremblingly searching in his vest pocket. "I +brought it with me. It isn't much of a note, but there's your +signature plain enough." + +He handed Steptoe a torn piece of paper folded in a three-cornered +shape. Steptoe opened it. He instantly recognized the paper on +which he had written his name and sent up to his wife at the +Boomville Hotel. But, added to it, in apparently the same hand, in +smaller characters, were the words, "Help Van Loo all you can." + +The blood rushed into his face. But he quickly collected himself, +and said hurriedly, "All right, I had forgotten it. Let the d----d +sneak go. We've got what's a thousand times better in this claim +at Marshall's, and it's well that he isn't in it to scoop the +lion's share. Only we must not waste time getting there now. You +go there first, and at once, and set those rascals to work. I'll +follow you before Marshall comes up. Get; I'll settle up here." + +His face darkened once more as Hall hurried away, leaving him +alone. He drew out the piece of paper from his pocket and stared +at it again. Yes; it was the one he had sent to his wife. How did +Van Loo get hold of it? Was he at the hotel that night? Had he +picked it up in the hall or passage when the servant dropped it? +When Hall handed him the paper and he first recognized it a +fiendish thought, followed by a spasm of more fiendish rage, had +sent the blood to his face. But his crude common sense quickly +dismissed that suggestion of his wife's complicity with Van Loo. +But had she seen him passing through the hotel that night, and had +sought to draw from him some knowledge of his early intercourse +with the child, and confessed everything, and even produced the +paper with his signature as a proof of identity? Women had been +known to do such desperate things. Perhaps she disbelieved her +son's aversion to her, and was trying to sound Van Loo. As for the +forged words by Van Loo, and the use he had put them to, he cared +little. He believed the man was capable of forgery; indeed, he +suddenly remembered that in the old days his son had spoken +innocently, but admiringly, of Van Loo's wonderful chirographical +powers and his faculty of imitating the writings of others, and how +he had even offered to teach him. A new and exasperating thought +came into his feverish consciousness. What if Van Loo, in teaching +the boy, had even made use of him as an innocent accomplice to +cover up his own tricks! The suggestion was no question of moral +ethics to Steptoe, nor of his son's possible contamination, +although since the night of the big strike he had held different +views; it was simply a fierce, selfish jealousy that ANOTHER might +have profited by the lad's helplessness and inexperience. He had +been tormented by this jealousy before in his son's liking for Van +Loo. He had at first encouraged his admiration and imitative +regard for this smooth swindler's graces and accomplishments, +which, though he scorned them himself, he was, after the common +parental infatuation, willing that the boy should profit by. +Incapable, through his own consciousness, of distinguishing between +Van Loo's superficial polish and the true breeding of a gentleman, +he had only looked upon it as an equipment for his son which might +be serviceable to himself. He had told his wife the truth when he +informed her of Van Loo's fears of being reminded of their former +intimacy; but he had not told her how its discontinuance after they +had left Heavy Tree Hill had affected her son, and how he still +cherished his old admiration for that specious rascal. Nor had he +told her how this had stung him, through his own selfish greed of +the boy's affection. Yet now that it was possible that she had met +Van Loo that evening, she might have become aware of Van Loo's +power over her child. How she would exult, for all her pretended +hatred of Van Loo! How, perhaps, they had plotted together! How +Van Loo might have become aware of the place where his son was +kept, and have been bribed by the mother to tell her! He stopped +in a whirl of giddy fancies. His strong common sense in all other +things had been hitherto proof against such idle dreams or +suggestions; but the very strength of his parental love and +jealousy had awakened in him at last the terrors of imagination. + +His first impulse had been to seek his wife, regardless of +discovery or consequences, at Hymettus, where she had said she was +going. It was on his way to the rendezvous at Marshall's claim. +But this he as instantly set aside, it was his SON he must find; +SHE might not confess, or might deceive him--the boy would not; and +if his fears were correct, she could be arraigned afterwards. It +was possible for him to reach the little Mission church and school, +secluded in a remote valley by the old Franciscan fathers, where he +had placed the boy for the last few years unknown to his wife. It +would be a long ride, but he could still reach Heavy Tree Hill +afterwards before Marshall and the expert arrived. And he had a +feeling he had never felt before on the eve of a desperate +adventure,--that he must see the boy first. He remembered how the +child had often accompanied him in his flight, and how he had +gained strength, and, it seemed to him, a kind of luck, from the +touch of that small hand in his. Surely it was necessary now that +at least his mind should be at rest regarding HIM on the eve of an +affair of this moment. Perhaps he might never see him again. At +any other time, and under the influence of any other emotion, he +would have scorned such a sentimentalism--he who had never troubled +himself either with preparation for the future or consideration for +the past. But at that moment he felt both. He drew a long breath. +He could catch the next train to the Three Boulders and ride thence +to San Felipe. He hurriedly left the room, settled with the +landlord, and galloped to the station. By the irony of circumstances +the only horse available for that purpose was Mr. Hamlin's own. + +By two o'clock he was at the Three Boulders, where he got a fast +horse and galloped into San Felipe by four. As he descended the +last slope through the fastnesses of pines towards the little +valley overlooked in its remoteness and purely pastoral simplicity +by the gold-seeking immigrants,--its seclusion as one of the +furthest northern Californian missions still preserved through its +insignificance and the efforts of the remaining Brotherhood, who +used it as an infirmary and a school for the few remaining Spanish +families,--he remembered how he once blundered upon it with the boy +while hotly pursued by a hue and cry from one of the larger towns, +and how he found sanctuary there. He remembered how, when the +pursuit was over, he had placed the boy there under the padre's +charge. He had lied to his wife regarding the whereabouts of her +son, but he had spoken truly regarding his free expenditure for +the boy's maintenance, and the good fathers had accepted, equally +for the child's sake as for the Church's sake, the generous +"restitution" which this coarse, powerful, ruffianly looking father +was apparently seeking to make. He was quite aware of it at the +time, and had equally accepted it with grim cynicism; but it now +came back to him with a new and smarting significance. Might THEY, +too, not succeed in weaning the boy's affection from him, or if the +mother had interfered, would they not side with her in claiming an +equal right? He had sometimes laughed to himself over the security +of this hiding-place, so unknown and so unlikely to be discovered +by her, yet within easy reach of her friends and his enemies; he +now ground his teeth over the mistake which his doting desire to +keep his son accessible to him had caused him to make. He put +spurs to his horse, dashed down the little, narrow, ill-paved +street, through the deserted plaza, and pulled up in a cloud of +dust before the only remaining tower, with its cracked belfry, of +the half-ruined Mission church. A new dormitory and school- +building had been extended from its walls, but in a subdued, +harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual glaring white-pine +glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to himself bitterly. +Some of his money had gone in it. + +He seized the horsehair rope dangling from a bell by the wall and +rang it sharply. A soft-footed priest appeared,--Father Dominico. +"Eddy Horncastle? Ah! yes. Eddy, dear child, is gone." + +"Gone!" shouted Steptoe in a voice that startled the padre. +"Where? When? With whom?" + +"Pardon, senor, but for a time--only a pasear to the next village. +It is his saint's day--he has half-holiday. He is a good boy. It +is a little pleasure for him and for us." + +"Oh!" said Steptoe, softened into a rough apology. "I forgot. All +right. Has he had any visitors lately--lady, for instance?" + +Father Dominico cast a look half of fright, half of reproval upon +his guest. + +"A lady HERE!" + +In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. "Of course; you +see I forgot that, too. I was thinking of one of his woman folks, +you know--relatives--aunts. Was there any other visitor?" + +"Only one. Ah! we know the senor's rules regarding his son." + +"One?" repeated Steptoe. "Who was it?" + +"Oh, quite an hidalgo--an old friend of the child's--most polite, +most accomplished, fluent in Spanish, perfect in deportment. The +Senor Horncastle surely could find nothing to object to. Father +Pedro was charmed with him. A man of affairs, and yet a good +Catholic, too. It was a Senor Van Loo--Don Paul the boy called +him, and they talked of the boy's studies in the old days as if-- +indeed, but for the stranger being a caballero and man of the +world--as if he had been his teacher." + +It was a proof of the intensity of the father's feelings that they +had passed beyond the power of his usual coarse, brutal expression, +and he only stared at the priest with a dull red face in which the +blood seemed to have stagnated. Presently he said thickly, "When +did he come?" + +"A few days ago." + +"Which way did Eddy go?" + +"To Brown's Mills, scarcely a league away. He will be here--even +now--on the instant. But the senor will come into the refectory +and take some of the old Mission wine from the Catalan grape, +planted one hundred and fifty years ago, until the dear child +returns. He will be so happy." + +"No! I'm in a hurry. I will go on and meet him." He took off his +hat, mopped his crisp, wet hair with his handkerchief, and in a +thick, slow, impeded voice, more suggestive than the outburst he +restrained, said, "And as long as my son remains here that man, Van +Loo, must not pass this gate, speak to him, or even see him. You +hear me? See to it, you and all the others. See to it, I say, +or"-- He stopped abruptly, clapped his hat on the swollen veins of +his forehead, turned quickly, passed out without another word +through the archway into the road, and before the good priest could +cross himself or recover from his astonishment the thud of his +horse's hoofs came from the dusty road. + +It was ten minutes before his face resumed its usual color. But in +that ten minutes, as if some of the struggle of his rider had +passed into him, his horse was sweating with exhaustion and fear. +For in that ten minutes, in this new imagination with which he was +cursed, he had killed both Van Loo and his son, and burned the +refectory over the heads of the treacherous priests. Then, quite +himself again, a voice came to him from the rocky trail above the +road with the hail of "Father!" He started quickly as a lad of +fifteen or sixteen came bounding down the hillside, and ran towards +him. + +"You passed me and I called to you, but you did not seem to hear," +said the boy breathlessly. "Then I ran after you. Have you been +to the Mission?" + +Steptoe looked at him quite as breathlessly, but from a deeper +emotion. He was, even at first sight, a handsome lad, glowing with +youth and the excitement of his run, and, as the father looked at +him, he could see the likeness to his mother in his clear-cut +features, and even a resemblance to himself in his square, compact +chest and shoulders and crisp, black curls. A thrill of purely +animal paternity passed over him, the fierce joy of his flesh over +his own flesh! His own son, by God! They could not take THAT from +him; they might plot, swindle, fawn, cheat, lie, and steal away his +affections, but there he was, plain to all eyes, his own son, his +very son! + +"Come here," he said in a singular, half-weary and half-protesting +voice, which the boy instantly recognized as his father's accents +of affection. + +The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of the road and pointed +with mingled mischief and fastidiousness to the depths of impalpable +red dust that lay between him and the horseman. Steptoe saw that he +was very smartly attired in holiday guise, with white duck trousers +and patent leather shoes, and, after the Spanish fashion, wore black +kid gloves. He certainly was a bit of a dandy, as he had said. The +father's whole face changed as he wheeled and came before the lad, +who lifted up his arms expectantly. They had often ridden together +on the same horse. + +"No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy," he said in the same voice. +"But I'll get down and we'll go and sit somewhere under a tree and +have some talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurrying me, and I +can't waste time." + +"Not one of your old jobs, father? I thought you had quite given +that up?" + +The boy spoke more carelessly than reproachfully, or even +wonderingly; yet, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, Steptoe +answered evasively, "It's a big thing, sonny; maybe we'll make our +eternal fortune, and then we'll light out from this hole and have a +gay time elsewhere. Come along." + +He took the boy's gloved right hand in his own powerful grasp, and +together they clambered up the steep hillside to a rocky ledge on +which a fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself in +twain, and then left its withered crown to hang half down the +slope, while the other half rested on the ledge. On this they sat, +looking down upon the road and the tethered horse. A gentle breeze +moved the treetops above their heads, and the westering sun played +hide-and-seek with the shifting shadows. The boy's face was quick +and alert with all that moved round him, but without thought the +father's face was heavy, except for the eyes that were fixed upon +his son. + +"Van Loo came to the Mission," he said suddenly. + +The boy's eyes glittered quickly, like a steel that pierced the +father's heart. "Oh," he said simply, "then it was the padre told +you?" + +"How did he know you were here?" asked Steptoe. + +"I don't know," said the boy quietly. "I think he said something, +but I've forgotten it. But it was mighty good of him to come, for +I thought, you know, that he did not care to see me after Heavy +Tree, and that he'd gone back on us." + +"What did he tell you?" continued Steptoe. "Did he talk of me or +of your mother?" + +"No," said the boy, but without any show of interest or sympathy; +"we talked mostly about old times." + +"Tell ME about those old times, Eddy. You never told me anything +about them." + +The boy, momentarily arrested more by something in the tone of his +father's voice--a weakness he had never noticed before--than by any +suggestion of his words, said with a laugh, "Oh, only about what we +used to do when I was very little and used to call myself his +'little brother,'--don't you remember, long before the big strike +on Heavy Tree? They were gay times we had then." + +"And how he used to teach you to imitate other people's +handwriting?" said Steptoe. + +"What made you think of that, pop?" said the boy, with a slight +wonder in his eyes. "Why, that's the very thing we DID talk +about." + +"But you didn't do it again; you ain't done it since," said Steptoe +quickly. + +"Lord! no," said the boy contemptuously. "There ain't no chance +now, and there wouldn't be any fun in it. It isn't like the old +times when him and me were all alone, and we used to write letters +as coming from other people to all the boys round Heavy Tree and +the Bar, and sometimes as far as Boomville, to get them to do +things, and they'd think the letters were real, and they'd do 'em. +And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, and nobody ever knew who +did it." + +Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief, half +in frightened admiration. Sitting astride the log, his elbows on +his knees and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, the +boy's handsome face became illuminated with an impish devilry which +the father had never seen before. With dancing eyes he went on. +"It was one of those very games we played so long ago that he +wanted to see me about and wanted me to keep mum about, for some of +the folks that he played it on were around here now. It was a game +we got off on one of the big strike partners long before the +strike. I'll tell YOU, dad, for you know what happened afterwards, +and you'll be glad. Well, that partner--Demorest--was a kind of +silly, you remember--a sort of Miss Nancyish fellow--always gloomy +and lovesick after his girl in the States. Well, we'd written lots +of letters to girls from their chaps before, and got lots of fun +out of it; but we had even a better show for a game here, for it +happened that Van Loo knew all about the girl--things that even the +man's own partners didn't, for Van Loo's mother was a sort of a +friend of the girl's family, and traveled about with her, and knew +that the girl was spoony over this Demorest, and that they +corresponded. So, knowing that Van Loo was employed at Heavy Tree, +she wrote to him to find out all about Demorest and how to stop +their foolish nonsense, for the girl's parents didn't want her to +marry a broken-down miner like him. So we thought we'd do it our +own way, and write a letter to her as if it was from him, don't you +see? I wanted to make him call her awful names, and say that he +hated her, that he was a murderer and a horse-thief, and that he +had killed a policeman, and that he was thinking of becoming a +Digger Injin, and having a Digger squaw for a wife, which he liked +better than her. Lord! dad, you ought to have seen what stuff I +made up." The boy burst into a shrill, half-feminine laugh, and +Steptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly in his own coarse, +brutal fashion. + +For some moments they sat there looking in each other's faces, +shaking with sympathetic emotion, the father forgetting the purpose +of his coming there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and even the +rendezvous to which his horse in the road below was waiting to +bring him; the son forgetting their retreat from Heavy Tree Hill +and his shameful vagabond wanderings with that father in the years +that followed. The sinking sun stared blankly in their faces; the +protecting pines above them moved by a stronger gust shook a few +cones upon them; an enormous crow mockingly repeated the father's +coarse laugh, and a squirrel scampered away from the strangely +assorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and forehead with his +pocket-handkerchief, said:-- + +"And did you send it?" + +"Oh! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said that those sort of love- +sick fools made more fuss over little things than they did over big +things, and he sort of toned it down, and fixed it up himself. But +it told. For there were never any more letters in the post-office +in her handwriting, and there wasn't any posted to her in his." + +They both laughed again, and then Steptoe rose. "I must be getting +along," he said, looking curiously at the boy. "I've got to catch +a train at Three Boulders Station." + +"Three Boulders!" repeated the boy. "I'm going there, too, on +Friday, to meet Father Cipriano." + +"I reckon my work will be all done by Friday," said Steptoe +musingly. Standing thus, holding his boy's hand, he was thinking +that the real fight at Marshall's would not take place at once, for +it might take a day or two for Marshall to gather forces. But he +only pressed his son's hand gently. + +"I wish you would sometimes take me with you as you used to," said +the boy curiously. "I'm bigger now, and wouldn't be in your way. + +Steptoe looked at the boy with a choking sense of satisfaction and +pride. But he said, "No;" and then suddenly with simulated humor, +"Don't you be taken in by any letters from ME, such as you and Van +Loo used to write. You hear?" + +The boy laughed. + +"And," continued Steptoe, "if anybody says I sent for you, don't +you believe them." + +"No," said the boy, smiling. + +"And don't you even believe I'm dead till you see me so. You +understand. By the way, Father Pedro has some money of mine kept +for you. Now hurry back to school and say you met me, but that I +was in a great hurry. I reckon I may have been rather rough to the +priests." + +They had reached the lower road again, and Steptoe silently +unhitched his horse. "Good-by," he said, as he laid his hand on +the boy's arm. + +"Good-by, dad." + +He mounted his horse slowly. "Well," he said smilingly, looking +down the road, "you ain't got anything more to say to me, have +you?" + +"No, dad." + +"Nothin' you want?" + +"Nothin', dad." + +"All right. Good-by." + +He put spurs to his horse and cantered down the road without +looking back. The boy watched him with idle curiosity until he +disappeared from sight, and then went on his way, whistling and +striking off the heads of the wayside weeds with his walking-stick. + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after the +meeting of the three partners that it was small wonder that +Barker's impressionable nature quickly responded to it, and, +without awakening the still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly, +and was the first to greet it in the keen air of the slope behind +the hotel. To his pantheistic spirit it had always seemed as +natural for him to early welcome his returning brothers of the +woods and hills as to say good-morning to his fellow mortals. And, +in the joy of seeing Black Spur rising again to his level in the +distance before him, he doffed his hat to it with a return of his +old boyish habit, laid his arm caressingly around the great girth +of the nearest pine, clapped his hands to the scampering squirrels +in his path, and whistled to the dipping jays. In this way he +quite forgot the more serious affairs of the preceding night, or, +rather, saw them only in the gilding of the morning, until, looking +up, he perceived the tall figure of Demorest approaching him; and +then it struck him with his first glance at his old partner's face +that his usual suave, gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a +critical cynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of accent. +Barker's loyal heart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest +had been hard hit by the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's +concern in it, and had doubtless passed a restless night, while he +(Barker) had forgotten all about it. "I thought of knocking at +your door, as I passed," he said, with sympathetic apology, "but I +was afraid I might disturb you. Isn't it glorious here? Quite +like the old hill. Look at that lizard; he hasn't moved since he +first saw me. Do you remember the one who used to steal our sugar, +and then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of the bowl until +he looked like an ornamental handle to it?" he continued, +rebounding again into spirits. + +"Barker," said Demorest abruptly, "what sort of woman is this Mrs. +Van Loo, whose rooms I occupy?" + +"Oh," said Barker, with optimistic innocence, "a most proper woman, +old chap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreign accent +and a still more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't suppose we'd"-- + +"But what is she like?" said Demorest impatiently. + +"Well," said Barker thoughtfully, "she's the kind of woman who +might be Van Loo's mother, I suppose." + +"You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?" asked Demorest +sharply. + +"There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers," said Barker +gravely, "in the way you mean. It's only those poor devils," he +said, pointing, nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a +circling sparrow-hawk above him, "who have inherited instincts. +What I mean is that she might be Van Loo's mother, because he +didn't SELECT her." + +"Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?" asked +Demorest. + +"She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just after you +left. Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company, +sent for her and her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll +see her to-day or to-morrow probably, when she returns. I'll +introduce you; she'll be rather glad to meet some one from abroad, +and all the more if he happens to be rich and distinguished, and +eligible for her daughter." He stopped suddenly in his smile, +remembering Demorest's lifelong secret. But to his surprise his +companion's face, instead of darkening as it was wont to do at any +such allusion, brightened suddenly with a singular excitement as he +answered dryly, "Ah well, if the girl is pretty, who knows!" + +Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strange vivacity +as they walked back to the hotel, and he asked many other questions +regarding Mrs. Van Loo and her daughter, and particularly if the +daughter had also been abroad. When they reached the veranda they +found a few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramento papers, +which had just arrived, or, in little knots, discussing the news. +Indeed, they would probably have stopped Barker and his companion +had not Barker, anxious to relieve his friend's curiosity, hurried +with him at once to the manager's office. + +"Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo to return?" +asked Barker quickly. + +The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaper +which he, too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiar +smile, "Well no! she WAS to return to-day, but if you're wanting +to keep her rooms, I should say there wouldn't be any trouble about +it, as she'll hardly be coming back here NOW. She's rather high +and mighty in style, I know, and a determined sort of critter, but +I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't care much to be waltzing +round in public after what has happened." + +"I don't understand you," said Demorest impatiently. "WHAT has +happened?" + +"Haven't you heard the news?" said the manager in surprise. "It's +in all the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter--has +hypothecated everything he had and skedaddled." + +Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife's +money--only of HER disappointment and mortification over it. Poor +girl! Perhaps she was also worrying over his resentment,--as if +she did not know him! He would go to her at once at Boomville. +Then he remembered that she was coming with Mrs. Horncastle, and +might be already on her way here by rail or coach, and he would +miss her. Demorest in the meantime had seized a paper, and was +intently reading it. + +"There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner," said +the manager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. "There has +been a drop out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybody +is unloading. Two firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that were +carrying things for the bank, and have thrown everything back on +it. There was an awful panic last night, and they say none of the +big speculators know where they stand. Three of our best customers +in the hotel rushed off to the bay this morning, but Stacy himself +started before daylight, and got the through night express to stop +for him on the Divide on signal. Shall I send any telegrams that +may come to your room?" + +Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interested in +the bank, and understood the purport of the question. He answered, +with calm surprise, that he was expecting no telegrams, and added, +"But if Mrs. Van Loo returns I beg you to at once let me know," and +taking Barker's arm he went in to breakfast. Seated by themselves, +Demorest looked at his companion. "I'm afraid, Barker boy, that +this thing is more serious to Jim than we expected last night, or +than he cared to tell us. And you, old man, I fear are hurt a +little by Van Loo's flight. He had some money of your wife's, +hadn't he?" + +Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's fortune was in Stacy's +hands, was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought, and +answered with equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by the +fear of Mrs. Barker's disappointment. "Why, Lord! Phil, whether +she's lost or saved her money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her +to do what she liked with it, but I'm afraid she'll be worrying +over what I think of it,--as if she did not know me! And I'm half +a mind, if it were not for missing her, to go over to Boomville, +where she's stopping." + +"I thought you said she was in San Francisco?" said Demorest +abstractedly. + +Barker colored. "Yes," he answered quickly. "But I've heard since +that she stopped at Boomville on the way." + +"Then don't let ME keep you here," returned Demorest. "For if Jim +telegraphs to me I shall start for San Francisco at once, and I +rather think he will. I did not like to say so before those panic- +mongers outside who are stampeding everything; so run along, Barker +boy, and ease your mind about the wife. We may have other things +to think about soon." + +Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast and +slipped away. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wife +must have heard the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, if +so, would be on her way with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might be +waiting for him--knowing, too, that he had heard the news--in fear +and trembling. For it was Barker's custom to endow all those he +cared for with his own sensitiveness, and it was not like him to +reflect that the woman who had so recklessly speculated against his +opinion would scarcely fear his reproaches in her defeat. In the +fullness of his heart he telegraphed to her in case she had not yet +left Boomville: "All right. Have heard news. Understand perfectly. +Don't worry. Come to me." Then he left the hotel by the stable +entrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated on the +veranda, and made his way to a little wooded crest which he knew +commanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here he +determined to wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel. +He knew that many of the guests were aware of his wife's +speculations with Van Loo, and that he was her broker. He wished to +spare her running the gauntlet of their curious stares and comments +as she drove up alone. As he was climbing the slope the coach from +Sacramento dashed past him on the road below, but he knew that it +had changed horses at Boomville at four o'clock, and that his tired +wife would not have availed herself of it at that hour, particularly +as she could not have yet received the fateful news. He threw +himself under a large pine, and watched the stagecoach disappear as +it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel. + +He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forks +of the red road that diverged below him, but which appeared to +become whiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance. +There was nothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dust +which eventually revealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud out +of which a solitary mule, one of a pack-train of six or eight, +would momentarily emerge and be lost again. Then he suddenly heard +his name called, and, looking up, saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had +halted a few paces from him between two columns of the long-drawn +aisle of pines. + +In that mysterious half-light she seemed such a beautiful and +goddess-like figure that his consciousness at first was unable to +grasp anything else. She was always wonderfully well dressed, but +the warmth and seclusion of this mountain morning had enabled her +to wear a light gown of some delicate fabric which set off the +grace of her figure, and even pardoned the rural coquetry of a +silken sash around her still slender waist. An open white parasol +thrown over her shoulder made a nimbus for her charming head and +the thick coils of hair under her lace-edged hat. He had never +seen her look so beautiful before. And that thought was so plainly +in his frank face and eyes as he sprang to his feet that it brought +a slight rise of color to her own cheek. + +"I saw you climbing up here as I passed in the coach a few minutes +ago," she said, with a smile, "and as soon as I had shaken the dust +off I followed you." + +"Where's Kitty?" he stammered. + +The color faded from her face as it had come, and a shade of +something like reproach crept into her dark eyes. And whatever it +had been her purpose to say, or however carefully she might have +prepared herself for this interview, she was evidently taken aback +by the sudden directness of the inquiry. Barker saw this as +quickly, and as quickly referred it to his own rudeness. His whole +soul rushed in apology to his face as he said, "Oh, forgive me! I +was anxious about Kitty; indeed, I had thought of coming again to +Boomville, for you've heard the news, of course? Van Loo is a +defaulter, and has run away with the poor child's money." + +Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the hotel. She paused a +moment to collect herself, and then said slowly and tentatively, +with a watchful intensity in her eyes, "Mrs. Barker went, I think, +to the Divide"-- + +But she was instantly interrupted by the eager Barker. "I see. I +thought of that at once. She went directly to the company's +offices to see if she could save anything from the wreck before she +saw me. It was like her, poor girl! And you--you," he went on +eagerly, his whole face beaming with gratitude,--"you, out of your +goodness, came here to tell me." He held out both hands and took +hers in his. + +For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless and vacillating. She +had often noticed before that it was part of the irony of the +creation of such a simple nature as Barker's that he was not only +open to deceit, but absolutely seemed to invite it. Instead of +making others franker, people were inclined to rebuke his credulity +by restraint and equivocation on their own part. But the evasion +thus offered to her, although only temporary, was a temptation she +could not resist. And it prolonged an interview that a ruthless +revelation of the truth might have shortened. + +"She did not tell me she was going there," she replied still +evasively; "and, indeed," she added, with a burst of candor still +more dangerous, "I only learned it from the hotel clerk after she +was gone. But I want to talk to you about her relations to Van +Loo," she said, with a return of her former intensity of gaze, "and +I thought we would be less subject to interruption here than at the +hotel. Only I suppose everybody knows this place, and any of those +flirting couples are likely to come here. Besides," she added, +with a little half-hysterical laugh and a slight shiver, as she +looked up at the high interlacing boughs above her head, "it's as +public as the aisles of a church, and really one feels as if one +were 'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a +little more secluded, where we could sit down," she went on, as she +poked her parasol into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth +which mingled with the carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, +"and not get all sticky and dirty?" + +Barker's eyes sparkled. "I know every foot of this hill, Mrs. +Horncastle," he said, "and if you will follow me I'll take you to +one of the loveliest nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian +spring now forgotten, and I think known only to me and the birds. +It's not more than ten minutes from here; only"--he hesitated as he +caught sight of the smart French bronze buckled shoe and silken +ankle which Mrs. Horncastle's gathering up of her dainty skirts +around her had disclosed--"it may be a little rough and dusty going +to your feet." + +But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had already irretrievably +ruined her shoes and stockings in climbing up to him,--although +Barker could really distinguish no diminution of their freshness,-- +and that she might as well go on. Whereat they both passed down +the long aisle of slope to a little hollow of manzanita, which +again opened to a view of Black Spur, but left the hotel hidden. + +"What time did Kitty go?" began Barker eagerly, when they were half +down the slope. + +But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine- +needles, and not only stopped an answer, but obliged Barker to give +all his attention to keep his companion from falling again until +they reached the open. Then came the plunge through the manzanita +thicket, then a cool wade through waist-deep ferns, and then they +emerged, holding each other's hand, breathless and panting before +the spring. + +It did not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangular +hollow, niched in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a point +from which the overflow of the spring percolated through a fringe +of alder, to fall in what seemed from the valley to be a green +furrow down the whole length of the mountain-side. Overhung by +pines above, which met and mingled with the willows that everywhere +fringed it, it made the one cooling shade in the whole basking +expanse of the mountain, and yet was penetrated throughout by the +intoxicating spice of the heated pines. Flowering reeds and long +lush grasses drew a magic circle round an open bowl-like pool in +the centre, that was always replenished to the slow murmur of an +unseen rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavern in the +mountain-side like a vein opened in its flank. Shadows of timid +wings crossed it, quick rustlings disturbed the reeds, but nothing +more. It was silent, but breathing; it was hidden to everything +but the sky and the illimitable distance. + +They threaded their way around it on the spongy carpet, covered by +delicate lace-like vines that seemed to caress rather than trammel +their moving feet, until they reached an open space before the +pool. It was cushioned and matted with disintegrated pine bark, +and here they sat down. Mrs. Horncastle furled her parasol and +laid it aside; raised both hands to the back of her head and took +two hat-pins out, which she placed in her smiling mouth; removed +her hat, stuck the hat-pins in it, and handed it to Barker, who +gently placed it on the top of a tall reed, where during the rest +of that momentous meeting it swung and drooped like a flower; +removed her gloves slowly; drank still smilingly and gratefully +nearly a wineglassful of the water which Barker brought her in the +green twisted chalice of a lily leaf; looked the picture of +happiness, and then burst into tears. + +Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror-stricken. Mrs. +Horncastle crying! Mrs. Horncastle, the imperious, the collected, +the coldly critical, the cynical, smiling woman of the world, +actually crying! Other women might cry--Kitty had cried often--but +Mrs. Horncastle! Yet, there she was, sobbing; actually sobbing +like a schoolgirl, her beautiful shoulders rising and falling with +her grief; crying unmistakably through her long white fingers, +through a lace pocket-handkerchief which she had hurriedly produced +and shaken from behind her like a conjurer's trick; her beautiful +eyes a thousand times more lustrous for the sparkling beads that +brimmed her lashes and welled over like the pool before her. + +"Don't mind me," she murmured behind her handkerchief. "It's very +foolish, I know. I was nervous--worried, I suppose; I'll be better +in a moment. Don't notice me, please." + +But Barker had drawn beside her and was trying, after the fashion +of his sex, to take her handkerchief away in apparently the firm +belief that this action would stop her tears. "But tell me what it +is. Do Mrs. Horncastle, please," he pleaded in his boyish fashion. +"Is it anything I can do? Only say the word; only tell me +SOMETHING!" + +But he had succeeded in partially removing the handkerchief, and so +caught a glimpse of her wet eyes, in which a faint smile struggled +out like sunshine through rain. But they clouded again, although +she didn't cry, and her breath came and went with the action of a +sob, and her hands still remained against her flushed face. + +"I was only going to talk to you of Kitty" (sob)--"but I suppose +I'm weak" (sob)--"and such a fool" (sob) "and I got to thinking of +myself and my own sorrows when I ought to be thinking only of you +and Kitty." + +"Never mind Kitty," said Barker impulsively. "Tell me about +yourself--your own sorrows. I am a brute to have bothered you +about her at such a moment; and now until you have told me what is +paining you so I shall not let you speak of her." He was perfectly +sincere. What were Kitty's possible and easy tears over the loss +of her money to the unknown agony that could wrench a sob from a +woman like this? "Dear Mrs. Horncastle," he went on as +breathlessly, "think of me now not as Kitty's husband, but as your +true friend. Yes, as your BEST and TRUEST friend, and speak to me +as you would speak to him." + +"You will be my friend?" she said suddenly and passionately, +grasping his hand, "my best and truest friend? and if I tell you +all,--everything, you will not cast me from you and hate me?" + +Barker felt the same thrill from her warm hand slowly possess his +whole being as it had the evening before, but this time he was +prepared and answered the grasp and her eyes together as he said +breathlessly, "I will be--I AM your friend." + +She withdrew her hand and passed it over her eyes. After a moment +she caught his hand again, and, holding it tightly as if she feared +he might fly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, without +looking at him, said, "I lied to you about myself and Kitty that +night; I did not come with her. I came alone and secretly to +Boomville to see--to see the man who is my husband." + +"Your husband!" said Barker in surprise. He had believed, with the +rest of the world, that there had been no communication between +them for years. Yet so intense was his interest in her that he did +not notice that this revelation was leaving now no excuse for his +wife's presence at Boomville. + +Mrs. Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, "Yes, my husband. +I went to him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child. Yes, MY +child," she said frantically, tightening her hold upon his hand, +"for I lied to you when I once told you I had none. I had a child, +and, more than that, a child who at his birth I did not dare to +openly claim." + +She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her former +intensity as if she would pluck the thought that followed from his +brain. But he only moved closer to her, passed his arm over her +shoulders with a movement so natural and protecting that it had a +certain dignity in it, and, looking down upon her bent head with +eyes brimming with sympathy, whispered, "Poor, poor child!" + +Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears. And then, with her +head half drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,--all that +had passed between her and her husband,--even all that they had +then but hinted at. It was as if she felt she could now, for the +first time, voice all these terrible memories of the past which had +come back to her last night when her husband had left her. She +concealed nothing, she veiled nothing; there were intervals when +her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel hardness and return of her +old imperiousness of voice and manner took their place, as if she +was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter satisfaction in laying +bare her whole soul to him. "I never had a friend," she whispered; +"there were women who persecuted me with their jealous sneers; +there were men who persecuted me with their selfish affections. +When I first saw YOU, you seemed something so apart and different +from all other men that, although I scarcely knew you, I wanted to +tell you, even then, all that I have told you now. I wanted you to +be my friend; something told me that you could,--that you could +separate me from my past; that you could tell me what to do; that +you could make me think as you thought, see life as YOU saw it, and +trust always to some goodness in people as YOU did. And in this +faith I thought that you would understand me now, and even forgive +me all." + +She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and, +possibly, to look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively were +bent upon her downcast head. But he only held her the more tightly +until her cheek was close against his breast. "What could I do?" +she murmured. "A man in sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for +sympathy and support and the world will not gainsay or misunderstand +him. But a woman--weaker, more helpless, credulous, ignorant, and +craving for light--must not in her agony go to a man for succor and +sympathy." + +"Why should she not?" burst out Barker passionately, releasing her +in his attempt to gaze into her face. "What man dare refuse her?" + +"Not THAT," she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, "but +because the world would say she LOVED him." + +"And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands +aside and lets her suffer? Why should she heed its wretched +babble?" he went on in flashing indignation. + +"Because," she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and +parted lips towards him,--"because it would be TRUE!" + +There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to +withhold its song as their eyes and lips met. When the spring +recommenced its murmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee +above them and the rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, +with her face against his breast: "You did not think it strange +that I should follow you--that I should risk everything to tell you +what I have told you before I told you anything else? You will +never hate me for it, George?" + +There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked +again into the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, "I +have ALWAYS loved you. I know now I loved you from the first, from +the day when I leaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and +saw your tenderness for him in your eyes. I could have kissed you +THEN, dearest, as I do now." + +"And," she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, "you +will always remember, George, that you told me this BEFORE I told +you anything of her." + +"HER? Of whom, dearest?" he asked, leaning over her tenderly. + +"Of Kitty--of your wife," she said impatiently, as she drew back +shyly with her former intense gaze. + +He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, "Let us not +talk of her NOW. Later we shall have MUCH to say of her. For," he +added quietly, "you know I must tell her all." + +The color faded from her cheek. "Tell her all!" she repeated +vacantly; then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, "But +what if she is gone?" + +"Gone?" he repeated. + +"Yes; gone. What if she has run away with Van Loo? What if she +has disgraced you and her child?" + +"What do you mean?" he said, seizing both her hands and gazing at +her fixedly. + +"I mean," she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, "that she has +already gone with Van Loo. George! George!" she burst out +suddenly and passionately, falling upon her knees before him, "do +you think that I would have followed you here and told you what I +did if I thought that she had now the slightest claim upon your +love or honor? Don't you understand me? I came to tell you of her +flight to Boomville with that man; how I accidentally intercepted +them there; how I tried to save her from him, and even lied to you +to try to save her from your indignation; but how she deceived me +as she has you, and even escaped and joined her lover while you +were with me. I came to tell you that and nothing more, George, I +swear it. But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I was mad-- +wild! I wanted to win you first out of your own love. I wanted +you to respond to MINE before you knew your wife was faithless. +Yet I would have saved her if I could. Listen, George! A moment +more before you speak!" + +Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife's +dishonor, from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her +later appeal for concealment from her husband's unexpected +presence, to the use she made of that concealment to fly with her +lover. She spared no detail, and even repeated the insult Mrs. +Barker had cast upon her with the triumphant reproach that her +husband would not believe her. "Perhaps," she added bitterly, "you +may not believe me now. I could even stand that from you, George, +if it could make you happier; but you would still have to believe +it from others. The people at the Boomville Hotel saw them leave +it together." + +"I do believe you," be said slowly, but with downcast eyes, "and if +I did not love you before you told me this I could love you now for +the part you have taken; but"-- He stopped. + +"You love her still," she burst out, "and I might have known it. +Perhaps," she went on distractedly, "you love her the more that you +have lost her. It is the way of men--and women." + +"If I had loved her truly," said Barker, lifting his frank eyes to +hers, "I could not have touched YOUR lips. I could not even have +wished to--as I did three years ago--as I did last night. Then I +feared it was my weakness, now I know it was my love. I have +thought of it ever since, even while waiting my wife's return here, +knowing that I did not and never could have loved her. But for +that very reason I must try to save her for her own sake, if I +cannot save her for mine; and if I fail, dearest, it shall not be +said that we climbed to happiness over her back bent with the +burden of her shame. If I loved you and told you so, thinking her +still guiltless and innocent, how could I profit now by her fault?" + +Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. "Then you would take her +back?" she said frenziedly. + +"To my home--which is hers--yes. To my heart--no. She never was +there." + +"And I," said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering lip,--"where do I +go when you have settled this? Back to my past again? Back to my +husbandless, childless life?" + +She was turning away, but Barker caught her in his arms again. +"No!" he said, his whole face suddenly radiating with hope and +youthful enthusiasm. "No! Kitty will help us; we will tell her +all. You do not know her, dearest, as I do--how good and kind she +is, in spite of all. We will appeal to her; she will devise some +means by which, without the scandal of a divorce, she and I may be +separated. She will take dear little Sta with her--it is only +right, poor girl; but she will let me come and see him. She will +be a sister to us, dearest. Courage! All will come right yet. +Trust to me." + +An hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's lips and then +stopped. For as she looked up at him in his supreme hopefulness, +his divine confidence in himself and others--at his handsome face +beaming with love and happiness, and his clear gray eyes glittering +with an almost spiritual prescience--she, woman of the world and +bitter experience, and perfectly cognizant of her own and Kitty's +possibilities, was, nevertheless, completely carried away by her +lover's optimism. For of all optimism that of love is the most +convincing. Dear boy!--for he was but a boy in experience--only +his love for her could work this magic. So she gave him kiss for +kiss, largely believing, largely hoping, that Mrs. Barker was in +love with Van Loo and would NOT return. And in this hope an +invincible belief in the folly of her own sex soothed and sustained +her. + +"We must go now, dearest," said Barker, pointing to the sun already +near the meridian. Three hours had fled, they knew not how. "I +will bring you back to the hill again, but there we had better +separate, you taking your way alone to the hotel as you came, and I +will go a little way on the road to the Divide and return later. +Keep your own counsel about Kitty for her sake and ours; perhaps no +one else may know the truth yet." With a farewell kiss they +plunged again hand in hand through the cool bracken and again +through the hot manzanita bushes, and so parted on the hilltop, as +they had never parted before, leaving their whole world behind +them. + +Barker walked slowly along the road under the flickering shade of +wayside sycamore, his sensitive face also alternating with his +thought in lights and shadows. Presently there crept towards him +out of the distance a halting, vacillating, deviating buggy, +trailing a cloud of dust after it like a broken wing. As it came +nearer he could see that the horse was spent and exhausted, and +that the buggy's sole occupant--a woman--was equally exhausted in +her monotonous attempt to urge it forward with whip and reins that +rose and fell at intervals with feeble reiteration. Then he +stepped out of the shadow and stood in the middle of the sunlit +road to await it. For he recognized his wife. + +The buggy came nearer. And then the most exquisite pang he had +ever felt before at his wife's hands shot through him. For as she +recognized him she made a wild but impotent attempt to dash past +him, and then as suddenly pulled up in the ditch. + +He went up to her. She was dirty, she was disheveled, she was +haggard, she was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear- +swept eyes and smudges of dust-dried perspiration over her fair +cheek. He thought of the beauty, freshness, and elegance of the +woman he had just left, and an infinite pity swept the soul of this +weak-minded gentleman. He ran towards her, and tenderly lifting +her in her shame-stained garments from the buggy, said hurriedly, +"I know it all, poor Kitty! You heard the news of Van Loo's +flight, and you ran over to the Divide to try and save some of your +money. Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?" + +There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuine pity +and tenderness of his action; but the woman saw before her only the +familiar dupe of her life, and felt an infinite relief mingled with +a certain contempt for his weakness and anger at her previous fears +of him. + +"You might have driven over, then, yourself," she said in a high, +querulous voice, "if you knew it so well, and have spared ME this +horrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved +anything--there! And I have had all this disgusting bother!" + +For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to her face, +but he checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coat from her +shoulders and shook it out, wiped the dust from her face and eyes +with his own handkerchief, held her hat and blew the dust from it +with a vivid memory of performing the same service for Mrs. +Horncastle only an hour before, while she arranged her hair; and +then, lifting her again into the buggy, said quietly, as he took +his seat beside her and grasped the reins:-- + +"I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and you can +go at once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired, +you are nervous and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anything +now until you feel quite yourself again." + +He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at the +reins, lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes they +were at the hotel. + +As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the great dining-room, a +little pale and abstracted, she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidently +into the room, fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing toilette. +With a swift glance of conscious power towards the other guests she +walked towards Mrs. Horncastle. "Ah, here you are, dear," she said +in a voice that could easily reach all ears, "and you've arrived +only a little before me, after all. And I've had such an AWFUL +drive to the Divide! And only think! poor George telegraphed to me +at Boomville not to worry, and his dispatch has only just come back +here." + +And with a glance of complacency she laid Barker's gentle and +forgiving dispatch before the astonished Mrs. Horncastle. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +As the day advanced the excitement over the financial crisis +increased at Hymettus, until, in spite of its remote and peaceful +isolation, it seemed to throb through all its verandas and +corridors with some pulsation from the outer world. Besides the +letters and dispatches brought by hurried messengers and by coach +from the Divide, there was a crowd of guests and servants around +the branch telegraph at the new Heavy Tree post-office which was +constantly augmenting. Added to the natural anxiety of the deeply +interested was the stimulated fever of the few who wished to be "in +the fashion." It was early rumored that a heavy operator, a guest +of the hotel, who was also a director in the telegraph company, had +bought up the wires for his sole use, that the dispatches were +doctored in his interests as a "bear," and there was wild talk of +lynching by the indignant mob. Passengers from Sacramento, San +Francisco, and Marysville brought incredible news and the wildest +sensations. Firm after firm had failed in the great cities. Old +established houses that dated back to the "spring of '49," and had +weathered the fires and inundations of their perilous Californian +infancy, collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, impalpable +breath of panic. Companies rooted in respectability and sneered at +for old-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelessly +speculated with trusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the church +was found dead in his room with a bullet in his heart and a damning +confession on the desk before him! Foreign bankers were sending +their gold out of the country; government would be appealed to to +open the vaults of the Mint; there would be an embargo on all +bullion shipment! Nothing was too wild or preposterous to be +repeated or credited. + +And with this fever of sordid passion the summer temperature had +increased. For the last two weeks the thermometer had stood +abnormally high during the day-long sunshine; and the metallic dust +in the roads over mineral ranges pricked the skin like red-hot +needles. In the deepest woods the aromatic sap stood in beads on +felled logs and splintered tree-shafts; even the mountain night +breeze failed to cool these baked and heated fastnesses. There +were ominous clouds of smoke by day that were pillars of fire by +night along the distant valleys. Some of the nearer crests were +etched against the midnight sky by dull red creeping lines like a +dying firework. The great hotel itself creaked and crackled and +warped though all its painted, blistered, and veneered expanse, and +was filled with the stifling breath of desiccation. The stucco +cracked and crumbled away from the cornices; there were yawning +gaps in the boarded floors beneath the Turkey carpets. Plate-glass +windows became hopelessly fixed in their warped and twisted sashes, +and added to the heat; there was a warm incense of pine sap in the +dining-room that flavored all the cuisine. And yet the babble of +stocks and shares went on, and people pricked their ears over their +soup to catch the gossip of the last arrival. + +Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found bitterness, was +nevertheless impatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting a +telegram from Stacy; Barker had disappeared since luncheon. +Suddenly there was a commotion on the veranda as a carriage drove +up with a handsome, gray-haired woman. In the buzzing of voices +around him Demorest heard the name of Mrs. Van Loo. In further +comments, made in more smothered accents, he heard that Van Loo had +been stopped at Canyon Station, but that no warrant had yet been +issued against him; that it was generally believed that the bank +dared not hold him; that others openly averred that he had been +used as a scapegoat to avert suspicion from higher guilt. And +certainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, confident air seemed to corroborate +these assertions. + +He was still wondering if the strange coincidence which had brought +both mother and son into his own life was not merely a fancy, as +far as SHE was concerned, when a waiter brought a message from Mrs. +Van Loo that she would be glad to see him for a few moments in her +room. Last night he could scarcely have restrained his eagerness +to meet her and elucidate the mystery of the photograph; now he was +conscious of an equally strong revulsion of feeling, and a dull +premonition of evil. However, it was no doubt possible that the +man had told her of his previous inquiries, and she had merely +acknowledged them by that message. + +Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private sitting-room where he +and his old partners had supped on the preceding night. She +received him with unmistakable courtesy and even a certain dignity +that might or might not have been assumed. He had no difficulty in +recognizing the son's mechanical politeness in the first, but he +was puzzled at the second. + +"The manager of this hotel," she began, with a foreigner's +precision of English, "has just told me that you were at present +occupying my rooms at his invitation, but that you wished to see me +at once on my return, and I believe that I was not wrong in +apprehending that you preferred to hear my wishes from my own lips +rather than from an innkeeper. I had intended to keep these rooms +for some weeks, but, unfortunately for me, though fortunately for +you, the present terrible financial crisis, which has most unjustly +brought my son into such scandalous prominence, will oblige me to +return to San Francisco until his reputation is fully cleared of +these foul aspersions. I shall only ask you to allow me the +undisturbed possession of these rooms for a couple of hours until I +can pack my trunks and gather up a few souvenirs that I almost +always keep with me." + +"Pray, consider that your wishes are my own in respect to that, my +dear madam," returned Demorest gravely, "and that, indeed, I +protested against even this temporary intrusion upon your +apartments; but I confess that now that you have spoken of your +souvenirs I have the greatest curiosity about one of them, and that +even my object in seeking this interview was to gratify it. It is +in regard to a photograph which I saw on the chimney-piece in your +bedroom, which I think I recognized as that of some one whom I +formerly knew." + +There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hard +aggressiveness that quite changed the lady's face as he mentioned +the word "souvenir," but it quickly changed to a smile as she put +up her fan with a gesture of arch deprecation, and said: + +"Ah! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph." + +The reply irritated Demorest. More than that, he felt a sudden +sense of the absolute sentimentality of his request, and the +consciousness that he was about to invite the familiar confidence +of this strange woman--whose son had forged his name--in regard to +HER! + +"It was a Venetian picture," he began, and stopped, a singular +disgust keeping him from voicing the name. + +But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. "Oh, you mean my dearest +friend--a lovely picture, and you know her? Why, yes, surely. You +are THE Mr. Demorest who-- Of course, that old love-affair. Well, +you are a marvel! Five years ago, at least, and you have not +forgotten! I really must write and tell her." + +"Write and tell her!" Then it was all a lie about her death! He +felt not only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but even +his self-control. With an effort he said.-- + +"I think you have already satisfied my curiosity. I was told five +years ago that she was dead. It was because of the date of the +photograph--two years later--that I ventured to intrude upon you. +I was anxious only to know the truth." + +"She certainly was very much living and of the world when I saw her +last, two years ago," said Mrs. Van Loo, with an easy smile. "I +dare say that was a ruse of her relatives--a very stupid one--to +break off the affair, for I think they had other plans. But, dear +me! now I remember, was there not some little quarrel between you +before? Some letter from you that was not very kind? My +impression is that there was something of the sort, and that the +young lady was indignant. But only for a time, you know. She very +soon forgot it. I dare say if you wrote something very charming to +her it might not be too late. We women are very forgiving, Mr. +Demorest, and although she is very much sought after, as are all +young American girls whose fathers can give them a comfortable +'dot', her parents might be persuaded to throw over a poor prince +for a rich countryman in the end. Of course, you know, to you +Republicans there is always something fascinating in titles and +blood, and our dear friend is like other girls. Still, it is worth +the risk. And five years of waiting and devotion really ought to +tell. It's quite a romance! Shall I write to her and tell her I +have seen you, looking well and prosperous? Nothing more. Do let +me! I should be delighted." + +"I think it hardly worth while for you to give yourself that +trouble," said Demorest quietly, looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smiling +eyes, "now that I know the story of the young lady's death was a +forgery. And I will not intrude further on your time. Pray give +yourself no needless hurry over your packing. I may go to San +Francisco this afternoon, and not even require the rooms to-night." + +"At least, let me make you a present of the souvenir as an +acknowledgment of your courtesy," said Mrs. Van Loo, passing into +her bedroom and returning with the photograph. "I feel that with +your five years of constancy it is more yours than mine." As a +gentleman Demorest knew he could not refuse, and taking the +photograph from her with a low bow, with another final salutation +he withdrew. + +Alone by himself in a corner of the veranda he was surprised that +the interview had made so little impression on him, and had so +little altered his conviction. His discovery that the announcement +of his betrothed's death was a fiction did not affect the fact that +though living she was yet dead to him, and apparently by her own +consent. The contrast between her life and his during those five +years had been covertly accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whether +intentionally or not, and he saw again as last night the full +extent of his sentimental folly. He could not even condole with +himself that he was the victim of miserable falsehoods that others +had invented. SHE had accepted them, and had even excused her +desertion of him by that last deceit of the letter. + +He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as a +lover. Had she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Was +the spirituality and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely his +own idiotic fancy? Had she always been like this? Yes. There was +the girl who could weakly strive, weakly revenge herself, and +weakly forget. There was the figure that he had expected to find +carved upon the tomb which he had long sought that he might weep +over. He laughed aloud. + +It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What was +Barker doing, and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And what +were those people in the courtyard doing? Were they discussing +news of further disaster and ruin? Perhaps he was even now a +beggar. Well, his fortune might go with his faith. + +But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, and he +now saw that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard, and +was conscious of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped down from +the veranda among the mingled guests and servants, and saw that the +smoke was only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, that the +chimney had been on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom +chimney, and that when the startled servants had knocked at the +locked door she had told them that she was only burning some old +letters and newspapers, the refuse of her trunks. There was +naturally some indignation that the hotel had been so foolishly +endangered, in such scorching weather, and the manager had had a +scene with her which resulted in her leaving the hotel indignantly +with her half-packed boxes. But even after the smoke had died away +and the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth, there was +an acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upper floors of +the hotel all that afternoon. + +When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to +the rooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still +littered with charred ashes of burnt paper. "My belief is," said +the manager darkly, "that the old hag came here just to burn up a +lot of incriminating papers that her son had intrusted to her +keeping. It looks mighty suspicious. You see she got up an awful +lot of side when I told her I didn't reckon to run a smelting +furnace in a wooden hotel with the thermometer at one hundred in +the office, and I reckon it was just an excuse for getting off in a +hurry." + +But the continued delay in Stacy's promised telegram had begun to +work upon Demorest's usual equanimity, and he scarcely listened in +his anxiety for his old partner. He knew that Stacy should have +arrived in San Francisco by noon. He had almost determined to take +the next train from the Divide when two horsemen dashed into the +courtyard. There was the usual stir on the veranda and rush for +news, but the two new arrivals turned out to be Barker, on a horse +covered with foam, and a dashing, elegantly dressed stranger on a +mustang as carefully groomed and as spotless as himself. Demorest +instantly recognized Jack Hamlin. + +He had not seen Hamlin since that day, five years before, when the +latter had accompanied the three partners with their treasure to +Boomville, and had handed him the mysterious packet. As the two +men dismounted hurriedly and moved towards him, he felt a +premonition of something as fateful and important as then. In +obedience to a sign from Barker he led them to a more secluded +angle of the veranda. He could not help noticing that his younger +partner's face was mobile as ever, but more thoughtful and older; +yet his voice rang with the old freemasonry of the camp, as he +said, with a laugh, "The signal has been given, and it's boot and +saddle and away." + +"But I have had no dispatch from Stacy," said Demorest in surprise. +"He was to telegraph to me from San Francisco in any emergency." + +"He never got there at all," said Barker. "Jack ran slap into Van +Loo at the Divide, and sent a dispatch to Jim, which stopped him +halfway until Jack could reach him, which he nearly broke his neck +to do; and then Jack finished up by bringing a message from Stacy +to us that we should all meet together on the slope of Heavy Tree, +near the Bar. I met Jack just as I was riding into the Divide, and +came back with him. He will tell you the rest, and you can swear +by what Jack says, for he's white all through," he added, laying +his hand affectionately on Hamlin's shoulder. + +Hamlin winced slightly. For he had NOT told Barker that his wife +was with Van Loo, nor his first reason for interfering. But he +related how he had finally overtaken Van Loo at Canyon Station, and +how the fugitive had disclosed the conspiracy of Steptoe and Hall +against the bank and Marshall as the price of his own release. On +this news, remembering that Stacy had passed the Divide on his way +to the station, he had first sent a dispatch to him, and then met +him at the first station on the road. "I reckon, gentlemen," said +Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in his voice, "that he'd not +only got my telegram, but ALL THE NEWS that had been flying around +this morning, for he looked like a man to whom it was just a 'toss- +up' whether he took his own life then and there or was willing to +have somebody else take it for him, for he said, 'I'll go myself,' +and telegraphed to have the surveyor stopped from coming. Then he +told me to tell you fellows, and ask you to come too." Jack +paused, and added half mischievously, "He sort of asked ME what I +would take to stand by him in the row, if there was one, and I told +him I'd take--whiskey! You see, boys, it's a kind of off-night +with me, and I wouldn't mind for the sake of old times to finish +the game with old Steptoe that I began a matter of five years ago." + +"All right," said Demorest, with a kindling eye; "I suppose we'd +better start at once. One moment," he added. "Barker boy, will +you excuse me if I speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and +walked to the rails of the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, +"You and I," he said hurriedly, "are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife +and child. This is likely to be no child's play." + +But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions +which Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, +he surmised that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He +answered a little more seriously than his wont, "I don't think as +regards HIS WIFE that would make much difference to him or her how +stiff the work was." + +Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed +only this confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he +himself had seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his +return, to shake his last remaining faith. "We'll all go together, +then," he said, with a laugh, "as in the old times, and perhaps +it's as well that we have no woman in our confidence." + +An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel, +scarcely noticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious of +their absence during the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered +from her fatiguing ride, was in high spirits and the most beautiful +and spotless of summer gowns, and was considered quite a heroine by +the other ladies as she dwelt upon the terrible heat of her return +journey. "Only I knew Mr. Barker would be worried--and the poor +man actually walked a mile down the Divide road to meet me--I +believe I should have stayed there all day." She glanced round the +other groups for Mrs. Horncastle, but that lady had retired early. +Possibly she alone had noticed the absence of the two partners. + +The guests sat up until quite late, for the heat seemed to grow +still more oppressive, and the strange smell of burning wood +revived the gossip about Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in setting +fire to her chimney. Some averred that it would be days before the +smell could be got out of the house; others referred it to the +fires in the woods, which were now dangerously near. One spoke of +the isolated position of the hotel as affording the greatest +security, but was met by the assertion of a famous mountaineer that +the forest fires were wont to leap from crest to crest mysteriously, +without any apparent continuous contact. This led to more or less +light-hearted conjecture of present danger and some amusing stories +of hotel fires and their ludicrous revelations. There were also some +entertaining speculations as to what they would do and what they +would try to save in such an emergency. + +"For myself," said Mrs. Barker audaciously, "I should certainly let +Mr. Barker look after Sta and confine myself entirely to getting +away with my diamonds. I know the wretch would never think of +them." + +It was still later when, exhausted by the heat and some reaction +from the excitement of the day, they at last deserted the veranda +for their rooms, and for a while the shadowy bulk of the whole +building was picked out with regularly spaced lights from its open +windows, until now these finally faded and went out one by one. An +hour later the whole building had sunk to rest. It was said that +it was only four in the morning when a yawning porter, having put +out the light in a dark, upper corridor, was amazed by a dull glow +from the top of the wall, and awoke to the fact that a red fire, as +yet smokeless and flameless, was creeping along the cornice. He +ran to the office and gave the alarm; but on returning with +assistance was stopped in the corridor by an impenetrable wall of +smoke veined with murky flashes. The alarm was given in all the +lower floors, and the occupants rushed from their beds half dressed +to the courtyard, only to see, as they afterwards averred, the +flames burst like cannon discharges from the upper windows and +unite above the crackling roof. So sudden and complete was the +catastrophe, although slowly prepared by a leak in the overheated +chimney between the floors, that even the excitement of fear and +exertion was spared the survivors. There was bewilderment and +stupor, but neither uproar nor confusion. People found themselves +wandering in the woods, half awake and half dressed, having +descended from the balconies and leaped from the windows,--they +knew not how. Others on the upper floor neither awoke nor moved +from their beds, but were suffocated without a cry. From the first +an instinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating the +conflagration possessed them all; to a blind, automatic feeling to +flee the building was added the slow mechanism of the somnambulist; +delicate women walked speechlessly, but securely, along ledges and +roofs from which they would have fallen by the mere light of reason +and of day. There was no crowding or impeding haste in their dumb +exodus. It was only when Mrs. Barker awoke disheveled in the +courtyard, and with an hysterical outcry rushed back into the +hotel, that there was any sign of panic. + +Mrs. Horncastle, who was standing near, fully dressed as from some +night-long vigil, quickly followed her. The half-frantic woman was +making directly for her own apartments, whose windows those in the +courtyard could see were already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs. +Horncastle stopped with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It +had just flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told her only a few +hours before that Sta had been removed with the nurse to the UPPER +FLOOR! It was not the forgotten child that Mrs. Barker was +returning for, but her diamonds! Mrs. Horncastle called her; she +did not reply. The smoke was already pouring down the staircase. +Mrs. Horncastle hesitated for a moment only, and then, drawing a +long breath, dashed up the stairs. On the first landing she +stumbled over something--the prostrate figure of the nurse. But +this saved her, for she found that near the floor she could breathe +more freely. Before her appeared to be an open door. She crept +along towards it on her hands and knees. The frightened cry of a +child, awakened from its sleep in the dark, gave her nerve to rise, +enter the room, and dash open the window. By the flashing light +she could see a little figure rising from a bed. It was Sta. +There was not a moment to be lost, for the open window was +beginning to draw the smoke from the passage. Luckily, the boy, by +some childish instinct, threw his arms round her neck and left her +hands free. Whispering him to hold tight, she clambered out of the +window. A narrow ledge of cornice scarcely wide enough for her +feet ran along the house to a distant balcony. With her back to +the house she zigzagged her feet along the cornice to get away from +the smoke, which now poured directly from the window. Then she +grew dizzy; the weight of the child on her bosom seemed to be +toppling her forward towards the abyss below. She closed her eyes, +frantically grasping the child with crossed arms on her breast as +she stood on the ledge, until, as seen from below through the +twisting smoke, they might have seemed a figure of the Madonna and +Child niched in the wall. Then a voice from above called to her, +"Courage!" and she felt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an +upper window against her face. She grasped it eagerly; it held +firmly. Then she heard a cry from below, saw them carrying a +ladder, and at last was lifted with her burden from the ledge by +powerful hands. Then only did she raise her eyes to the upper +window whence had come her help. Smoke and flame were pouring from +it. The unknown hero who had sacrificed his only chance of escape +to her remained forever unknown. + + . . . . . . + +Only four miles away that night a group of men were waiting for the +dawn in the shadow of a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the sky +glowed redly over the crest between them and Hymettus, Hamlin +said:-- + +"Another one of those forest fires. It's this side of Black Spur, +and a big one, I reckon." + +"Do you know," said Barker thoughtfully, "I was thinking of the +time the old cabin burnt up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about in +the same place." + +"Hush!" said Stacy sharply. + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +An abandoned tunnel--an irregular orifice in the mountain flank +which looked like a dried-up sewer that had disgorged through its +opening the refuse of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and a +peculiar clay known as "cement," in a foul streak down its side; a +narrow ledge on either side, broken up by heaps of quartz, +tailings, and rock, and half hidden in scrub, oak, and myrtle; a +decaying cabin of logs, bark, and cobblestones--these made up the +exterior of the Marshall claim. To this defacement of the +mountain, the rude clearing of thicket and underbrush by fire or +blasting, the lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitation of +saplings, might be added the debris and ruins of half-civilized +occupancy. The ground before the cabin was covered with broken +boxes, tin cans, the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the +cast-off rags of blankets and clothing. The whole claim in its +unsavory, unpicturesque details, and its vulgar story of sordid, +reckless, and selfish occupancy and abandonment, was a foul blot +on the landscape, which the first rosy dawn only made the more +offending. Surely the last spot in the world that men should +quarrel and fight for! + +So thought George Barker, as with his companions they moved in +single file slowly towards it. The little party consisted only of +himself, Demorest, and Stacy; Marshall and Hamlin--according to a +prearranged plan--were still in ambush to join them at the first +appearance of Steptoe and his gang. The claim was yet unoccupied; +they had secured their first success. Steptoe's followers, unaware +that his design had been discovered, and confident that they could +easily reach the claim before Marshall and the surveyor, had +lingered. Some of them had held a drunken carouse at their +rendezvous at Heavy Tree. Others were still engaged in procuring +shovels and picks and pans for their mock equipment as miners, and +this, again, gave Marshall's adherents the advantage. THEY knew +that their opponents would probably first approach the empty claim +encumbered only with their peaceful implements, while they +themselves had brought their rifles with them. + +Stacy, who by tacit consent led the party, on reaching the claim at +once posted Demorest and Barker each behind a separate heap of +quartz tailings on the ledge, which afforded them a capital +breastwork, and stationed himself at the mouth of the tunnel which +was nearest the trail. It had already been arranged what each man +was to do. They were in possession. For the rest they must wait. +What they thought at that moment no one knew. Their characteristic +appearance had slightly changed. The melancholy and philosophic +Demorest was alert and bitter. Barker's changeful face had become +fixed and steadfast. Stacy alone wore his "fighting look," which +the others had remembered. + +They had not long to wait. The sounds of rude laughter, coarse +skylarking, and voices more or less still confused with half-spent +liquor came from the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared with +part of his straggling followers, who were celebrating their easy +invasion by clattering their picks and shovels and beating loudly +upon their tins and prospecting-pans. The three partners quickly +recognized the stamp of the strangers, in spite of their peaceful +implements. They were the waifs and strays of San Francisco +wharves, of Sacramento dens, of dissolute mountain towns; and there +was not, probably, a single actual miner among them. A raging +scorn and contempt took possession of Barker and Demorest, but +Stacy knew their exact value. As Steptoe passed before the opening +of the tunnel he heard the cry of "Halt! + +He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards before him with his +rifle at half-cock. He saw Barker and Demorest, fully armed, rise +from behind their breastworks of rock along the ledge and thus +fully occupy the claim. But he saw more. He saw that his plot was +known. Outlaw and desperado as he was, he saw that he had lost his +moral power in this actual possession, and that from that moment he +must be the aggressor. He saw he was fighting no irresponsible +hirelings like his own, but men of position and importance, whose +loss would make a stir. Against their rifles the few revolvers +that his men chanced to have slung to them were of little avail. +But he was not cowed, although his few followers stumbled together +at this momentary check, half angrily, half timorously like wolves +without a leader. "Bring up the other men and their guns," he +whispered fiercely to the nearest. Then he faced Stacy. + +"Who are YOU to stop peaceful miners going to work on their own +claim?" he said coarsely. "I'll tell you WHO, boys," he added, +suddenly turning to his men with a hoarse laugh. "It ain't even +the bank! It's only Jim Stacy, that the bank kicked out yesterday +to save itself,--Jim Stacy and his broken-down pals. And what's +the thief doing here--in Marshall's tunnel--the only spot that +Marshall can claim? We ain't no particular friends o' Marshall's, +though we're neighbors on the same claim; but we ain't going to see +Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys?" + +"No, by G-d!" said his followers, dropping the pans and seizing +their picks and revolvers. They understood the appeal to arms if +not to their reason. For an instant the fight seemed imminent. +Then a voice from behind them said:-- + +"You needn't trouble yourselves about that! I'M Marshall! I sent +these gentlemen to occupy the claim until I came here with the +surveyor," and two men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in the rear +of Steptoe and his followers. The speaker, Marshall, was a thin, +slight, overworked, over-aged man; his companion, the surveyor, was +equally slight, but red-bearded, spectacled, and professional- +looking, with a long traveling-duster that made him appear even +clerical. They were scarcely a physical addition to Stacy's party, +whatever might have been their moral and legal support. + +But it was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in his +designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor +was really the only disinterested witness between the two parties. +If Steptoe could confuse his mind before the actual fighting--from +which he would, of course, escape as a non-combatant--it would go +far afterwards to rehabilitate Steptoe's party. "Very well, then," +he said to Marshall, "I shall call this gentleman to witness that +we have been attacked here in peaceable possession of our part of +the claim by these armed strangers, and whether they are acting on +your order or not, their blood will be on your head." + +"Then I reckon," said the surveyor, as he tore away his beard, wig, +spectacles, and mustache, and revealed the figure of Jack Hamlin, +"that I'm about the last witness that Mr. Steptoe-Horncastle ought +to call, and about the last witness that he ever WILL call!" + +But he had not calculated upon the desperation of Steptoe over the +failure of this last hope. For there sprang up in the outlaw's +brain the same hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at the +Divide. With a hoarse cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxe +into the brain of Marshall, who stood near him, and sprang forward. +Three or four shots were exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bullet +from Stacy's rifle pierced Steptoe's leg, and he dropped forward on +one knee. He heard the steps of his reinforcements with their +weapons coming close behind him, and rolled aside on the sloping +ledge to let them pass. But he rolled too far. He felt himself +slipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shoot of the tunnel. +He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but the treacherous +drift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he were part of +its refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, but +otherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundred +feet below. + +When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above him had +ceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by a +circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could +only reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily +descend to the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain +hidden in a growth of hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, +and dragged himself on his hands and knees laboriously to the +outcrop. He did not look up; since his pick had crashed into +Marshall's brain he had but one blind thought before him--to escape +at once! That his revenge and compensation would come later he +never doubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, from bush to +bush through the sloping thickets, until he saw the red road a few +feet below him. + +If he only had a horse he could put miles between him and any +present pursuit! Why should he not have one? The road was +frequented by solitary horsemen--miners and Mexicans. He had his +revolver with him; what mattered the life of another man if he +escaped from the consequences of the one he had just taken? He +heard the clatter of hoofs; two priests on mules rode slowly by; he +ground his teeth with disappointment. But they had scarcely passed +before another and more rapid clatter came from their rear. It was +a lad on horseback. He started. It was his own son! + +He remembered in a flash how the boy had said he was coming to meet +the padre at the station on that day. His first impulse was to +hide himself, his wound, and his defeat from the lad, but the blind +idea of escape was still paramount. He leaned over the bank and +called to him. The astonished lad cantered eagerly to his side. + +"Give me your horse, Eddy," said the father; "I'm in bad luck, and +must get." + +The boy glanced at his father's face, at his tattered garments and +bandaged leg, and read the whole story. It was a familiar page to +him. He paled first and then flushed, and then, with an odd +glitter in his eyes, said, "Take me with you, father. Do! You +always did before. I'll bring you luck." + +Desperation is superstitious. Why not take him? They had been +lucky before, and the two together might confound any description +of their identity to the pursuers. "Help me up, Eddy, and then get +up before me." + +"BEHIND, you mean," said the boy, with a laugh, as he helped his +father into the saddle. + +"No," said Steptoe harshly. "BEFORE me,--do you hear? And if +anything happens BEHIND you, don't look! If I drop off, don't +stop! Don't get down, but go on and leave me. Do you understand?" +he repeated almost savagely. + +"Yes," said the boy tremulously. + +"All right," said the father, with a softer voice, as he passed his +one arm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. "Hold tight +when we come to the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, for +old luck's sake, to the Mission." + +They were the last words exchanged between them, for as they +wheeled rapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin and +Demorest swung as quickly out of another road to the right +immediately behind them. Jack's challenge to "Halt!" was only +answered by Steptoe's horse springing forward under the sharp lash +of the riata. + +"Hold up!" said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the rifle which +Demorest had lifted to his shoulder. "He's carrying some one,--a +wounded comrade, I reckon. We don't want HIM. Swing out and go +for the horse; well forward, in the neck or shoulder." + +Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised his +rifle. As it cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly +struck some obstacle ahead of him rather than to have been hit +himself, for his head went down with his fore feet under him, and +he turned a half-somersault on the road, flinging his two riders a +dozen feet away. + +Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other +figure never moved. "Hands up!" said Jack, sighting his own +weapon. The reports seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had +pierced Steptoe's brain even before the outlaw's pistol exploded +harmlessly in the air. + +The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to +the prostrate figure that had never moved. + +"By God! it's a boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting +the shoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neck broken and +dead as his pal." Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's +astonishment, began hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's +limp right hand. + +"What are you doing?" demanded Demorest in creeping horror. + +"Look!" said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. The first +two fingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hidden in +the padded glove. + +"Good God! Van Loo's brother!" said Demorest, recoiling. + +"No!" said Jack, with a grim face, "it's what I have long +suspected,--it's Steptoe's son!" + +"His son?" repeated Demorest. + +"Yes," said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies +with a long-drawn whistle of concern, "and I wouldn't, if I were +you, say anything of this to Barker." + +"Why?" said Demorest. + +"Well," returned Jack, "when our scrimmage was over down there, and +they brought the news to Barker that his wife and her diamonds were +burnt up at the hotel, you remember that they said that Mrs. +Horncastle had saved his boy." + +"Yes," said Demorest; "but what has that to do with it?" + +"Nothing, I reckon," said Jack, with a slight shrug of his +shoulders, "only Mrs. Horncastle was the mother of the boy that's +lying there." + + . . . . . . + +Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat before the fire in the +old cabin on Marshall's claim--now legally their own--they looked +from the door beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to the pallid +snow-line of the Sierras, still as remote and unchanged to them as +when they had gazed upon it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for the +matter of that, they themselves seemed to have been left so +unchanged that even now, as in the old days, it was Barker's voice +as he greeted them from the darkening trail that alone broke their +reverie. + +"Well," said Demorest cheerfully, "your usual luck, Barker boy!" +for they already saw in his face the happy light they had once seen +there on an eventful night seven years ago. + +"I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next month," he said +breathlessly, "and little Sta loves her already as if she was his +own mother. Wish me joy." + +A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face; but his hand was the +first to grasp Barker's, and his voice the first to say "Amen!" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Three Partners, by Bret Harte + diff --git a/old/tpart10.zip b/old/tpart10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c45a279 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tpart10.zip |