With the savings of his two years of school-teaching Keith found that he had enough, by practising rigid economy, to give himself another year at college, and he practised rigid economy.
He worked under the spur of ambition to show Alice Yorke and those who surrounded her that he was not a mere country clod.
With his face set steadily in the direction where stood the luminous form of the young girl he had met and come to worship amid the blossoming woods, he studied to such good purpose that at the end of the session he had packed two years' work into one.
Keith had no very definite ideas, when he started out at the end of his college year, as to what he should do. He only knew that he had strong pinions, and that the world was before him. He wished to bury himself from observation until he should secure the success with which he would burst forth on an astonished world, overwhelm Mrs. Yorke, and capture Alice. His first intention had been to go to the far West; but on consideration he abandoned the idea.
Rumors were already abroad that in the great Appalachian mountain-range opportunity might be as golden as in that greater range on the other side of the continent.
Keith had a sentiment that he would rather succeed in the South than elsewhere.
"Only get rifles out and railroads in, and capital will come pouring after them," Rhodes had said. "Old Wickersham knows his business."
That was a good while ago, and at last the awakening had begun. Now that carpet-bagging was at an end, and affairs were once more settled in that section, the wealth of the country was again being talked of in the press.
The chief centre of the new life was a day's drive farther in the mountains than Eden, the little hamlet which Keith had visited once with Dr. Balsam when he attended an old stage-driver, Gilsey by name, and cut a bullet out of what he called his "off-leg." This was the veiled Golconda. To the original name of Humboldt the picturesque and humorous mountaineer had given the name of "Gumbolt."
This was where old Adam Rawson, stirred by the young engineer's prophecy, had taken time by the forelock and had bought up the mineral rights, and "gotten ahead" of Wickersham & Company.
Times and views change even in the Ridge region, and now, after years of delay, Wickersham & Company's railroad was about to be built. It had already reached Eden.
Keith, after a few days with his father, stopped at Ridgely to see his old friends. The Doctor looked him over with some disapproval.
"As gaunt as a greyhound," he muttered. "My patient not married yet, I suppose? Well, she will be. You'd better tear her out of your memory before she gets too firmly lodged there."
Keith boldly said he would take the chances.
When old Rawson saw him he, too, remarked on his thinness; but more encouragingly.
"Well, 'a lean dog for a long chase,'" he said.
"How are cattle?" inquired Keith.
The old fellow turned his eyes on him with a keen look.
"Cattle's tolerable. I been buyin' a considerable number up toward Gumbolt, where you're goin'. I may get you to look after 'em some day," he chuckled.
Gordon wrote to Dave Dennison that he was going to Gumbolt and would look out for him. A little later he learned that the boy had already gone there.
The means of reaching Gumbolt from Eden, the terminus of the railroad which Wickersham & Company were building, was still the stage, a survivor of the old-time mountain coach, which had outlasted all the manifold chances and changes of fortune.
Happily for Keith, he had been obliged, though it was raining, to take the outside seat by the driver, old Tim Gilsey, to whom he recalled himself, and by his coolness at "Hellstreak Hill," where the road climbed over the shoulder of the mountain along a sheer cliff, and suddenly dropped to the river below, a point where old Gilsey was wont to display his skill as a driver and try the nerves of passengers, he made the old man his friend for life.
When the stage began to ascend the next hill, the old driver actually unbent so far as to give an account of a "hold-up" that had occurred at that point not long before, "all along of the durned railroad them Yankees was bringin' into the country," to which he laid most of the evils of the time. "For when you run a stage you know who you got with you," declared Mr. Gilsey; "but when you run a railroad you dunno who you got."
"Well, tell me about the time you were held up."
"Didn't nobody hold me up," sniffed Mr. Gilsey. "If I had been goin' to stop I wouldn't 'a' started. It was a dom fool they put up here when I was down with rheumatiz. Since then they let me pick my substitute.
"Well," he said, as a few lights twinkled below them, "there she is. Some pretty tough characters there, too. But you ain't goin' to have no trouble with 'em. All you got to do is to put the curb on 'em onct."
As Keith looked about him in Gumbolt, the morning after his arrival, he found that his new home was only a rude mining-camp, raw and rugged; a few rows of frame houses, beginning to be supplanted by hasty brick structures, stretched up the hills on the sides of unpaved roads, dusty in dry weather and bottomless in wet. Yet it was, for its size, already one of the most cosmopolitan places in the country. Of course, the population was mainly American, and they were beginning to pour in--sharp-eyed men from the towns in black coats, and long-legged, quiet-looking and quiet-voiced mountaineers in rusty clothes, who hulked along in single file, silent and almost fugitive in the glare of daylight. Quiet they were and well-nigh stealthy, with something of the movement of other denizens of the forest, unless they were crossed and aroused, and then, like those other denizens, they were fierce almost beyond belief. A small cavil might make a great quarrel, and pistols would flash as quick as light.
The first visit that Keith received was from J. Quincy Plume, the editor of theGumbolt Whistle. He had the honor of knowing his distinguished father, he said, and had once had the pleasure of being at his old home. He had seen Keith's name on the book, and had simply called to offer him any services he or his paper could render him. "There are so few gentlemen in this ---- hole," he explained, "that I feel that we should all stand together." Keith, knowing J. Quincy's history, inwardly smiled.
Mr. Plume had aged since he was the speaker of the carpet-bag legislature; his black hair had begun to be sprinkled with gray, and had receded yet farther back on his high forehead, his hazel eyes were a little bleared; and his full lips were less resolute than of old. He had evidently seen bad times since he was the facile agent of the Wickersham interests. He wore a black suit and a gay necktie which had once been gayer, a shabby silk hat, and patent-leather shoes somewhat broken.
His addiction to cards and drink had contributed to Mr. Plume's overthrow, and after a disappearance from public view for some time he had turned up just as Gumbolt began to be talked of, with a small sheet somewhat larger than a pocket-handkerchief, which, in prophetic tribute to Gumbolt's future manufactures, he christened theGumbolt Whistle.
Mr. Plume offered to introduce Keith to "the prettiest woman in Gumbolt," and, incidentally, to "the best cocktail" also. "Terpsichore is a nymph who practises the Terpsichorean art; indeed, I may say, presides over a number of the arts, for she has the best faro-bank in town, and the only bar where a gentleman can get a drink that will not poison a refined stomach. She is, I may say, the leader of Gumbolt society."
Keith shook his head; he had come to work, he declared.
"Oh, you need not decline; you will have to know Terpy. I am virtue itself; in fact, I am Joseph--nowadays. You know, I belong to the cloth?" Keith's expression indicated that he had heard this fact. "But even I have yielded to her charms--intellectual, I mean, of course."
Mr. Plume withdrew after having suggested to Keith to make him a small temporary loan, or, if more convenient, to lend him the use of his name on a little piece of bank-paper "to tide over an accidental and unexpected emergency," assuring Keith that he would certainly take it up within sixty days.
Unfortunately for Keith, Plume's cordiality had made so much impression on him that he was compliant enough to lend him the use of his name, and as neither at the expiration of sixty days, nor at any other time, did Mr. Plume ever find it convenient to take up his note, Keith found himself later under the necessity of paying it himself. This circumstance, it is due to Mr. Plume to say, he always deplored, and doubtless with sincerity.
Women were at a premium in Gumbolt, and Mr. Plume was not the only person who hymned the praises of "Terpsichoar," as she was mainly called. Keith could not help wondering what sort of a creature she was who kept a dance-house and a faro-bank, and yet was spoken of with unstinted admiration and something very like respect by the crowd that gathered in the "big room of the Windsor." She must be handsome, and possibly was a good dancer, but she was no doubt a wild, coarse creature, with painted cheeks and dyed hair. The mental picture he formed was not one to interfere with the picture he carried in his heart.
Next day, as he was making a purchase in a shop, a neat and trim-looking young woman, with a fresh complexion and a mouth full of white teeth, walked in, and in a pleasant voice said, "Good mornin', all." Keith did not associate her at all with Terpsichore, but he was surprised that old Tim Gilsey should not have known of her presence in town. He was still more surprised when, after having taken a long and perfectly unabashed look at him, with no more diffidence in it than if he had been a lump of ore she was inspecting, she said:
"You're the fellow that come to town night before last? Uncle Tim was tellin' me about you."
"Yes; I got here night before last. Who is Uncle Tim?"
"Uncle Tim Gilsey."
She walked up and extended her hand to him with the most perfect friendliness, adding, with a laugh as natural as a child's:
"We'll have to be friends; Uncle Tim says you're a white man, and that's more than some he brings over the road these days are."
"Yes, I hope so. You are Mr. Gilsey's nieces I am glad to meet you"
The young woman burst out laughing.
"Lor',no. I ain't anybody's niece; but he's my uncle--I've adoptedhim. I'm Terpy--Terpsichore, run Terpsichore's Hall," she said by way of explanation, as if she thought he might not understand her allusion.
Keith's breath was almost taken away. Why, she was not at all like the picture he had formed of her. She was a neat, quiet-looking young woman, with a fine figure, slim and straight and supple, a melodious voice, and laughing gray eyes.
"You must come and see me. We're to have a blow-out to-night. Come around. I'll introduce you to the boys. I've got the finest ball-room in town--just finished--and three fiddles. We christen it to-night. Goin' to be the biggest thing ever was in Gumbolt."
Keith awoke from his daze.
"Thank you, but I am afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse me," he said.
"Why?" she inquired simply.
"Because I can't come. I am not much of a dancer."
She looked at him first with surprise and then with amusement.
"Are you a Methodist preacher?"
"No."
"Salvation?"
"No."
"I thought, maybe, you were like Tib Drummond, the Methodist, what's always a-preachin' ag'in' me." She turned to the storekeeper. "What do you think he says? He says he won't come and see me, and he ain't a preacher nor Salvation Army neither. But he will, won't he?"
"You bet," said the man, peeping up with a grin from behind a barrel. "If he don't, he'll be about the only one in town who don't."
"No," said Keith, pleasantly, but firmly. "I can't go."
"Oh, yes, you will," she laughed. "I'll expect you. By-by"; and she walked out of the store with a jaunty air, humming a song about the "iligint, bauld McIntyres."
The "blow-out" came off, and was honored with a column in the next issue of the Whistle--a column of reeking eulogy. But Keith did not attend, though he heard the wheezing of fiddles and the shouting and stamping of Terpsichore's guests deep into the night.
Keith was too much engrossed for the next few days in looking about him for work and getting himself as comfortably settled as possible to think of anything else.
If, however, he forgot the "only decent-looking woman in Gumbolt," she did not forget him. The invitation of a sovereign is equivalent to a command the world over; and Terpsichore was as much the queen regnant of Gumbolt as Her Majesty, Victoria, was Queen of England, or of any other country in her wide realm. She was more; she was absolute. She could have had any one of a half-dozen men cut the throat of any other man in Gumbolt at her bidding.
The mistress of the "Dancing Academy" had not forgotten her boast. The institution over which she presided was popular enough almost to justify her wager. There were few men of Keith's age in Gumbolt who did not attend its sessions and pay their tribute over the green tables that stretched along the big, low room.
In fact, Miss Terpsichore was not of that class that forget either friends or foes; whatever she was she was frankly and outspokenly. Mr. Plume informed Keith that she was "down on him."
"She's got it in for you," he said. "Says she's goin' to drive you out of Gumbolt."
"Well, she will not," said Keith, with a flash in his eye.
"She is a good friend and a good foe," said the editor. "Better go and offer a pinch of incense to Diana. She is worth cultivating. You ought to see her dance."
Keith, however, had made his decision. A girl with eyes like dewy violets was his Diana, and to her his incense was offered.
A day or two later Keith was passing down the main street, when he saw the young woman crossing over at the corner ahead of him, stepping from one stone to another quite daintily. She was holding up her skirt, and showed a very neat pair of feet in perfectly fitting boots. At the crossing she stopped. As Keith passed her, he glanced at her, and caught her eye fastened on him. She did not look away at all, and Keith inclined his head in recognition of their former meeting.
"Good morning," she said.
"Good morning." Keith lifted his hat and was passing on.
"Why haven't you been to see me?" she demanded.
Keith pretended not to hear.
"I thought I invited you to come and see me?"
Still, Keith did not answer, but he paused. His head was averted, and he was waiting until she ceased speaking to go on.
Suddenly, to his surprise, she bounded in front of him and squared her straight figure right before him.
"Did you hear what I said to you?" she demanded tempestuously.
"Yes."
"Then why don't you answer me?"
"Then why don't you answer me?" Her gaze was fastened on his face. Her cheeks were flushed, her voice was imperative, and her eyes flashed.
"Because I didn't wish to do so," said Keith, calmly.
Suddenly she flamed out and poured at him a torrent of vigorous oaths. He was so taken by surprise that he forgot to do anything but wonder, and his calmness evidently daunted her.
"Don't you know that when a lady invites you to come to see her, you have to do it?"
"I have heard that," said Keith, beginning to look amused.
"You have? Do you mean to say Tam not a lady?"
"Well, from your conversation, I might suppose you were a man," said Keith, half laughing.
"I will show you that I am man enough for you. Don't you know I am the boss of this town, and that when I tell you to do a thing you have to obey me?"
"No; I do not know that," said Keith. "You may be the boss of this town, but I don't have to obey you."
"Well, I will show you about it, and ---- quick, too. See if I don't! I will run you out of this town, my young man."
"Oh, I don't think you will," said Keith, easily.
"Yes, I will, and quick enough, too. You look out for me."
"Good morning," said Keith, raising his hat.
The loudness of her tone and the vehemence of her manner had arrested several passers-by, who now stood looking on with interest.
"What's the matter, Terpy?" asked one of them. "What are you so peppery about? Bank busted?"
The young woman explained the matter with more fairness than Keith would have supposed.
"Oh, he is just a fool. Let him alone," said the man; whilst another added: "He'll come around, darlin'; don't you bother; and if he don't, I will."
"---- him! He's got to go. I won't let him now. You know when I say a thing it's got to be, and I mean to make him know it, too," asserted the young Amazon. "I'll have him driven out of town, and if there ain't any one here that's man enough to do it, I'll do it myself." This declaration she framed with an imprecation sufficiently strong if an oath could make it so.
That evening Tim Gilsey came in to see Keith. He looked rather grave.
"I am sorry you did not drop in, if it was for no more than to git supper," he said. "Terpy is a bad one to have against you. She's the kindest gal in the world; but she's got a temper, and when a gal's got a temper, she's worse'n a fractious leader."
"I don't want her against me; but I'll be hanged if I will be driven into going anywhere that I don't want to go," asserted Keith.
"No, I don't say as you should," said the old driver, his eye resting on Keith with a look that showed that he liked him none the less for his pluck. "But you've got to look out. This ain't back in the settlements, and there's a plenty around here as would cut your throat for a wink of Terpy's eye. They will give you a shake for it, and if you come out of that safe it will be all right. I'll see one or two of the boys and see that they don't let 'em double up on you. A horse can't do nothin' long if he has got a double load on him, no matter what he is."
Tim strolled out, and, though Keith did not know it for some time, he put in a word for him in one or two places which stood him in good stead afterwards.
The following day a stranger came up to Keith. He was a thin man between youth and middle age, with a long face and a deep voice, and light hair that stuck up on his head. His eyes were deep-set and clear; his mouth was grave and his chin strong. He wore a rusty black coat and short, dark trousers.
"Are you Mr. Keith?" His voice was deep and melancholy.
Keith bowed. He could not decide what the stranger was. The short trousers inclined him to the church.
"I am proud to know you, sir. I am Mr. Drummond, the Methodist preacher." He gripped Keith's hand.
Keith expressed the pleasure he had in meeting him.
"Yes, sir; I am proud to know you," repeated Mr. Drummond. "I hear you have come out on the right side, and have given a righteous reproof to that wretched dancing Jezebel who is trying to destroy the souls of the young men of this town."
Keith said that he was not aware that he had done anything of the kind. As to destroying the young men, he doubted if they could be injured by her--certainly not by dancing. In any event, he did not merit his praise.
Mr. Drummond shook his head. "Yes, sir. You are the first young man who has had the courage to withstand the wiles of that person. She is the most abandoned creature in this town; she beguiles the men so that I can make no impression on them. Even when I am holding my meetings, I can hear the strains of her fiddles and the shouts of the ribald followers that throng her den-of-Satan. I have tried to get her to leave, but she will not go."
Keith's reply was that he thought she had as much right there as any one, and he doubted if there were any way to meet the difficulty.
"I am sorry to hear you say that," said the preacher. "I shall break up her sink of iniquity if I have to hold a revival meeting at her very door and call down brimstone and fire upon her den of wickedness"
"If you felt so on the subject of dancing, why did you come here?" demanded Keith. "It seems to me that dancing is one of the least sins of Gumbolt."
The preacher looked at him almost pensively. "I thought it my duty. I have encountered ridicule and obloquy; but I do not mind them. I count them but dross. Wherever I have found the print of my Lord's shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my feet also."
Keith bowed. The speech of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth carried its cachet with it. The stiff, awkward figure had changed. The preacher's sincerity had lent him dignity, and his simple use of a simple tinker's words had suddenly uplifted him to a higher plane.
"Do not you think you might go about it in a less uncompromising spirit? You might succeed better and do more good," said Keith.
"No, sir; I will make no compromise with the devil--not even to succeed. Good-by. I am sorry to find you among the obdurate." As he shook hands, his jaw was set fast and his eye was burning. He strode off with the step of a soldier advancing in battle.
Keith had not long to wait to test old Gilsey's advice. He was sitting in the public room of the Windsor, a few evenings later, among the motley crew that thronged that popular resort, who were discoursing of many things, from J. Quincy Plume's last editorial on "The New Fanny Elssler," to the future of Gumbolt, when Mr. Plume himself entered. His appearance was the signal for some humor, for Mr. Plume had long passed the time when any one but himself took him seriously.
"Here comes somebody that can tell us the news," called some one. "Come in, J. Quincy, and tell us what you know."
"That would take too long," said Mr. Plume, as he edged himself toward the stove. "You will find all the news in theWhistleto-morrow."
Just then another new arrival, who had pushed his way in toward the stove, said: "I will tell you a piece of news: Bill Bluffy is back."
"Come back, has he?" observed one of the company. "Well, that is more interesting to J. Quincy than if the railroad had come. They are hated rivals. Since J. Quincy has taken to writing editorials on Terpy, Bill says there ain't no show for him. He threatened to kill Terp, I heard."
"Oh, I guess he has got more sense than that, drunk or sober. He had better stick to men; shootin' of women ain't popular in most parts, an' it ain't likely to get fashionable in Gumbolt, I reckon."
"He is huntin' for somebody," said the newcomer.
"I guess if he is going to get after all of Terpy's ardent admirers, he will have his hands pretty full," observed Mr. Plume--a sentiment which appeared to meet with general approval.
Just then the door opened a little roughly, and a man entered slowly whom Keith knew intuitively to be Mr. Bill Bluffy himself. He was a young, brown-bearded man, about Keith's size, but more stockily built, his flannel shirt was laced up in front, and had a full, broad collar turned over a red necktie with long ends. His slouch-hat was set on the back of his head. The gleaming butts of two pistols that peeped out of his waistband gave a touch of piquancy to his appearance. His black eyes were restless and sparkling with excitement. He wavered slightly in his gait, and his speech was just thick enough to confirm what his appearance suggested, and what he was careful to declare somewhat superfluously, that he was "on a ---- of a spree."
"I am a-huntin' for a ---- furriner 'at I promised to run out of town before to-morrow mornin'. Is he in here!" He tried to stand still, but finding this difficult, advanced.
A pause fell in the conversation around the stove. Two or three of the men, after a civil enough greeting, hitched themselves into a more comfortable posture in their chairs, and it was singular, though Keith did not recall it until afterwards, that each of them showed by the movement a pistol on his right hip.
After a general greeting, which in form was nearer akin to an eternal malediction than to anything else, Mr. Bluffy walked to the bar. Resting himself against it, he turned, and sweeping his eye over the assemblage, ordered every man in the room to walk up and take a drink with him, under penalties veiled in too terrific language to be wholly intelligible. The violence of his invitation was apparently not quite necessary, as every man in the room pulled back his chair promptly and moved toward the bar, leaving Keith alone by the stove. Mr. Bluffy had ordered drinks, when his casual glance fell on Keith standing quietly inside the circle of chairs on the other side of the stove. He pushed his way unsteadily through the men clustered at the bar.
"Why in the ---- don't you come up and do what I tell you? Are you deaf?"
"No," said Keith, quietly; "but I'll get you to excuse me."
"Excuse ----! You aren't too good to drink with me, are you? If you think you are, I'll show you pretty ----d quick you ain't."
Keith flushed.
"Drink with him," said two or three men in an undertone. "Or take a cigar," said one, in a friendly aside.
"Thank you, I won't drink," said Keith, yet more gravely, his face paling a little, "and I don't care for a cigar."
"Come on, Mr. Keith," called some one.
The name caught the young bully, and he faced Keith more directly.
"Keith?--Keith!" he repeated, fastening his eyes on him with a cold glitter in them. "So you're Mr. Keith, are you?"
"That is my name," said Keith, feeling his blood tingling.
"Well, you're the man I'm a-lookin' for. No, you won't drink with me, 'cause I won't let you, you ---- ---- ----! You are the ---- ---- that comes here insultin' a lady?"
"No; I am not," said Keith, keeping his eyes on him.
"You're a liar!" said Mr. Bluffy, adding his usual expletives. "And you're the man I've come back here a-huntin' for. I promised to drive you out of town to-night if I had to go to hell a-doin' it."
His white-handled pistol was out of his waistband with a movement so quick that he had it cocked and Keith was looking down the barrel before he took in what had been done. Quickness was Mr. Bluffy's strongest card, and he had played it often.
Keith's face paled slightly. He looked steadily over the pistol, not three feet from him, at the drunken creature beyond it. His nerves grew tense, and every muscle in his frame tightened. He saw the beginning of the grooves in the barrel of the pistol and the gray cones of the bullets at the side in the cylinder; he saw the cruel, black, drunken eyes of the young desperado. It was all in a flash. He had not a chance for his life. Yes, he had.
"Let up, Bill," said a voice, coaxingly, as one might to soothe a wild beast. "Don't--"
"Drop that pistol!" said another voice, which Keith recognized as Dave Dennison's.
The desperado half glanced at the latter as he shot a volley of oaths at him. That glance saved Keith. He ducked out of the line of aim and sprang upon his assailant at the same time, seizing the pistol as he went, and turning it up just as Bluffy pulled the trigger. The ball went into the remote corner of the ceiling, and the desperado was carried off his feet by Keith's rush.
The only sounds heard in the room were the shuffling of the feet of the two wrestlers and the oaths of the enraged Bluffy. Keith had not uttered a word. He fought like a bulldog, without noise. His effort was, while he still gripped the pistol, to bring his two hands together behind his opponent's back. A sudden relaxation of the latter's grip as he made another desperate effort to release his pistol favored Keith, and, bringing his hands together, he lifted his antagonist from his feet, and by a dexterous twist whirled him over his shoulder and dashed him with all his might, full length flat on his back, upon the floor. It was an old trick learned in his boyish days and practised on the Dennisons, and Gordon had by it ended many a contest, but never one more completely than this. A buzz of applause came from the bystanders, and more than one, with sudden friendliness, called to him to get Bluffy's pistol, which had fallen on the floor. But Keith had no need to do so, for just then a stoutly built young fellow snatched it up. It was Dave Dennison, who had come in just as the row began. He had been following up Bluffy. The desperado, however, was too much shaken to have used it immediately, and when, still stunned and breathless, he rose to his feet, the crowd was too much against him to have allowed him to renew the attack, even had he then desired it.
As for Keith, he found himself suddenly the object of universal attention, and he might, had he been able to distribute himself, have slept in half the shacks in the camp.
The only remark Dave made on the event was characteristic:
"Don't let him git the drop on you again."
The next morning Keith found himself, in some sort, famous. "Tacklin' Bill Bluffy without a gun and cleanin' him up," as one of his new friends expressed it, was no mean feat, and Keith was not insensible to the applause it brought him. He would have enjoyed it more, perhaps, had not every man, without exception, who spoke of it given him the same advice Dave had given--to look out for Bluffy. To have to kill a man or be killed oneself is not the pleasantest introduction to one's new home; yet this appeared to Keith the dilemma in which he was placed, and as, if either had to die, he devoutly hoped it would not be himself, he stuck a pistol in his pocket and walked out the next morning with very much the same feeling he supposed he should have if he had been going to battle. He was ashamed to find himself much relieved when some one he met volunteered the information that Bluffy had left town by light that morning. "Couldn't stand the racket. Terpy wouldn't even speak to him. But he'll come back. Jest as well tote your gun a little while, till somebody else kills him for you." A few mornings later, as Keith was going down the street, he met again the "only decent-lookin' gal in Gumbolt." It was too late for him to turn off, for when he first caught sight of her he saw that she had seen him, and her head went up, and she turned her eyes away. He hoped to pass without appearing to know her; but just before they met, she cut her eye at him, and though his gaze was straight ahead, she said, "Good morning," and he touched his hat as he passed. That afternoon he met her again. He was passing on as before, without looking at her, but she stopped him. "Good afternoon." She spoke rather timidly, and the color that mounted to her face made her very handsome. He returned the salutation coldly, and with an uneasy feeling that he was about to be made the object of another outpouring of her wrath. Her intention, however, was quite different. "I don't want you to think I set that man on you; it was somebody else done it." The color came and went in her cheeks.
Keith bowed politely, but preserved silence.
"I was mad enough to do it, but I didn't, and them that says I done it lies." She flushed, but looked him straight in the face.
"Oh, that's all right," said Keith, civilly, starting to move on.
"I wish they would let me and my affairs alone," she began.' "They're always a-talkin' about me, and I never done 'em no harm. First thing they know, I'll give 'em something to talk about."
The suppressed fire was beginning to blaze again, and Keith looked somewhat anxiously down the street, wishing he were anywhere except in that particular company. To relieve the tension, he said:
"I did not mean to be rude to you the other day. Good morning."
At the kind tone her face changed.
"I knew it. I was riled that mornin' about another thing--somethin' what happened the day before, about Bill," she explained. "Bill's bad enough when he's in liquor, and I'd have sent him off for good long ago if they had let him alone. But they're always a-peckin' and a-diggin' at him. They set him on drinkin' and fightin', and not one of 'em is man enough to stand up to him."
She gave a little whimper, and then, as if not trusting herself further, walked hastily away. Mr. Gilsey said to Gordon soon afterwards:
"Well, you've got one friend in Gumbolt as is a team by herself; you've captured Terp. She says you're the only man in Gumbolt as treats her like a lady."
Keith was both pleased and relieved.
A week or two after Keith had taken up his abode in Gumbolt, Mr. Gilsey was taken down with his old enemy, the rheumatism, and Keith went to visit him. He found him in great anxiety lest his removal from the box should hasten the arrival of the railway. He unexpectedly gave Keith evidence of the highest confidence he could have in any man. He asked if he would take the stage until he got well. Gordon readily assented.
So the next morning at daylight Keith found himself sitting in the boot, enveloped in old Tim's greatcoat, enthroned in that high seat toward which he had looked in his childhood-dreams.
It was hard work and more or less perilous work, but his experience as a boy on the plantation and at Squire Rawson's, when he had driven the four-horse wagon, stood him in good stead.
Old Tim's illness was more protracted than any one had contemplated, and, before the first winter was out, Gordon had a reputation as a stage-driver second only to old Gilsey himself.
Stage-driving, however, was not his only occupation, and before the next Spring had passed, Keith had become what Mr. Plume called "one of Gumbolt's rising young sons." His readiness to lend a hand to any one who needed a helper began to tell. Whether it was Mr. Gilsey trying to climb with his stiff joints to the boot of his stage, or Squire Rawson's cousin, Captain Turley, the sandy-whiskered, sandy-clothed surveyor, running his lines through the laurel bushes among the gray débris of the crumbled mountain-side; Mr. Quincy Plume trying to evolve new copy from a splitting head, or the shouting wagon-drivers thrashing their teams up the muddy street, he could and would help any one.
He was so popular that he was nominated to be the town constable, a tribute to his victory over Mr. Bluffy.
Terpy and he, too, had become friends, and though Keith stuck to his resolution not to visit her "establishment," few days went by that she did not pass him on the street or happen along where he was, and always with a half-abashed nod and a rising color.
With the growth of Gumbolt, Mr. Wickersham and his friends awakened to the fact that Squire Rawson was not the simple cattle-dealer he appeared to be, but was a man to be reckoned with. He not only held a large amount of the most valuable property in the Gap, but had as yet proved wholly intractable about disposing of it. Accordingly, the agent of Wickersham & Company, Mr. Halbrook, came down to Gumbolt to look into the matter. He brought with him a stout, middle-aged Scotchman, named Matheson, with keen eyes and a red face, who was represented to be the man whom Wickersham & Company intended to make the superintendent of their mines as soon as they should be opened.
The railroad not having yet been completed more than a third of the way beyond Eden, Mr. Halbrook took the stage to Gumbolt.
Owing to something that Mr. Gilsey had let fall about Keith, Mr. Halbrook sent next day for Keith. He wanted him to do a small piece of surveying for him. With him was the stout Scotchman, Matheson.
The papers and plats were on a table in his room, and Keith was looking at them.
"How long would it take you to do it?" asked Mr. Halbrook. He was a short, alert-looking man, with black eyes and a decisive manner. He always appeared to be in a hurry.
Keith was so absorbed that he did not answer immediately, and the agent repeated the question with a little asperity in his tone.
"I say how long would it take you to run those lines?"
"I don't know," said Keith, doubtfully. "I see a part of the property lies on the mountain-side just above and next to Squire Rawson's lands. I could let you know to-morrow."
"To-morrow! You people down here always want to put things off. That is the reason you are so behind the rest of the world. The stage-driver, however, told me that you were different, and that is the reason I sent for you."
Keith straightened himself. "Dr. Chalmers said when some one praised him as better than other Scotchmen, 'I thank you, sir, for no compliment paid me at the expense of my countrymen." He half addressed himself to the Scotchman.
Matheson turned and looked him over, and as he did so his grim face softened a little.
"I know nothing about your doctors," said Mr. Halbrook; "what I want is to get this work done. Why can't you let me know to-day what it will cost? I have other things to do. I wish to leave to-morrow afternoon."
"Well," said Keith, with a little flush in his face, "I could guess at it to-day. I think it will take a very short time. I am familiar with a part of this property already, and--"
Mr. Halbrook was a man of quick intellect; moreover, he had many things on his mind just then. Among them he had to go and see what sort of a trade he could make with this Squire Rawson, who had somehow stumbled into the best piece of land in the Gap, and was now holding it in an obstinate and unreasonable way.
"Well, I don't want any guessing. I'll tell you what I will do. I will pay you so much for the job." He named a sum which was enough to make Keith open his eyes. It was more than he had ever received for any one piece of work.
"It would be cheaper for you to pay me by the day," Keith began.
"Not much! I know the way you folks work down here. I have seen something of it. No day-work for me. I will pay you so many dollars for the job. What do you say? You can take it or leave it alone. If you do it well, I may have some more work for you." He had no intention of being offensive; he was only talking what he would have called "business"; but his tone was such that Keith answered him with a flash in his eye, his breath coming a little more quickly.
"Very well; I will take it."
Keith took the papers and went out. Within a few minutes he had found his notes of the former survey and secured his assistants. His next step was to go to Captain Turley and take him into partnership in the work, and within an hour he was out on the hills, verifying former lines and running such new lines as were necessary. Spurred on by the words of the newcomer even more than by the fee promised him, Keith worked with might and main, and sat up all night finishing the work. Next day he walked into the room where Mr. Halbrook sat, in the company's big new office at the head of the street. He had a roll of paper under his arm.
"Good morning, sir." His head was held rather high, and his voice had a new tone in it.
Mr. Wickersham's agent looked up, and his face clouded. He was not used to being addressed in so independent a tone.
"Good morning. I suppose you have come to tell me how long it will take you to finish the job that I gave you, or that the price I named is not high enough?"
"No," said Keith, "I have not. I have come to show you that my people down here do not always put things off till to-morrow. I have come to tell you that I have done the work. Here is your survey." He unrolled and spread out before Mr. Halbrook's astonished gaze the plat he had made. It was well done, the production of a draughtsman who knew the value of neatness and skill. The agent's eyes opened wide.
"Impossible! You could not have done it, or else you--"
"I have done it," said Keith, firmly. "It is correct."
"You had the plat before?" Mr. Halbrook's eyes were fastened on him keenly. He was feeling a little sore at what he considered having been outwitted by this youngster.
"I had run certain of the lines before," said Keith: "these, as I started to tell you yesterday. And now," he said, with a sudden change of manner, "I will make you the same proposal I made yesterday. You can pay me what you think the work is worth. I will not hold you to your bargain of yesterday."
The other sat back in his chair, and looked at him with a different expression on his face.
"You must have worked all night?' he said thoughtfully.
"I did," said Keith, "and so did my assistant, but that is nothing. I have often done that for less money. Many people sit up all night in Gumbolt," he added, with a smile.
"That old stage-driver said you were a worker." Mr. Halbrook's eyes were still on him. "Where are you from?"
"Born and bred in the South," said Keith.
"I owe you something of an apology for what I said yesterday. I shall have some more work for you, perhaps."
The agent, when he went back to the North, was as good as his word. He told his people that there was one man in Gumbolt who would do their work promptly.
"And he's straight," he said. "He says he is from the South; but he is a new issue."
He further reported that old Rawson, the countryman who owned the land in the Gap, either owned or controlled the cream of the coal-beds there. "He either knows or has been well advised by somebody who knows the value of all the lands about there. And he has about blocked the game. I think it's that young Keith, and I advise you to get hold of Keith."
"Who is Keith? What Keith? What is his name?" asked Mr. Wickersham.
"Gordon Keith."
Mr. Wickersham's face brightened. "Oh, that is all right; we can get him. We might give him a place?"
Mr. Halbrook nodded.
Mr. Wickersham sat down and wrote a letter to Keith, saying that he wished to see him in New York on a matter of business which might possibly turn out to his advantage. He also wrote a letter to General Keith, suggesting that he might possibly be able to give his son employment, and intimating that it was on account of his high regard for the General.
That day Keith met Squire Rawson on the street. He was dusty and travel-stained.
"I was jest comin' to see you," he said.
They returned to the little room which Keith called his office, where the old fellow opened his saddle-bags and took out a package of papers.
"They all thought I was a fool," he chuckled as he laid out deed after deed. "While they was a-talkin' I was a-ridin'. They thought I was buyin' cattle, and I was, but for every cow I bought I got a calf in the shape of the mineral rights to a tract of land. I'd buy a cow and I'd offer a man half as much again as she was worth if he'd sell me the mineral rights at a fair price, and he'd do it. He never had no use for 'em, an' I didn't know as I should either; but that young engineer o' yourn talked so positive I thought I might as well git 'em inside my pasture-fence." He sat back and looked at Keith with quizzical complacency.
"Come a man to see me not long ago," he continued; "Mr. Halbrook--black-eyed man, with a face white and hard like a tombstone. I set up and talked to him nigh all night and filled him plumb full of old applejack. That man sized me up for a fool, an' I sized him up for a blamed smart Yankee. But I don't know as he got much the better of me."
Keith doubted it too.
"I think it was in and about the most vallyble applejack that I ever owned," continued the old landowner, after a pause. "You know, I don't mind Yankees as much as I used to--some of 'em. Of course, thar was Dr. Balsam; he was a Yankee; but I always thought he was somethin' out of the general run, like a piebald horse. That young engineer o' yourn that come to my house several years ago, he give me a new idea about 'em--about some other things, too. He was a very pleasant fellow, an' he knowed a good deal, too. It occurred to me 't maybe you might git hold of him, an' we might make somethin' out of these lands on our own account. Where is he now?"
Keith explained that Mr. Rhodes was somewhere in Europe.
"Well, time enough. He'll come home sometime, an' them lands ain't liable to move away. Yes, I likes some Yankees now pretty well; but, Lord! I loves to git ahead of a Yankee! They're so kind o' patronizin' to you. Well," he said, rising, "I thought I'd come up and talk to you about it. Some day I'll git you to look into matters a leetle for me."
The next day Keith received Mr. Wickersham's letter requesting him to come to New York. Keith's heart gave a bound.
The image of Alice Yorke flashed into his mind, as it always did when any good fortune came to him. Many a night, with drooping eyes and flagging energies, he had sat up and worked with renewed strength because she sat on the other side of the hot lamp.
It is true that communication between them had been but rare. Mrs. Yorke had objected to any correspondence, and he now began to see, though dimly, that her objection was natural. But from time to time, on anniversaries, he had sent her a book, generally a book of poems with marked passages in it, and had received in reply a friendly note from the young lady, over which he had pondered, and which he had always treasured and filed away with tender care.
Keith took the stage that night for Eden on his way to New York. As they drove through the pass in the moonlight he felt as if he were soaring into a new life. He was already crossing the mountains beyond which lay the Italy of his dreams.
He stopped on his way to see his father. The old gentleman's face glowed with pleasure as he looked at Gordon and found how he had developed. Life appeared to be reopening for him also in his son.
"I will give you a letter to an old friend of mine, John Templeton. He has a church in New York. But it is not one of the fashionable ones; for
"'Unpractised he to fawn or seek for powerBy doctrines fashioned to the varying hour:Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.'
"You will find him a safe adviser. You will call also and pay my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth."
On his way, owing to a break in the railroad, Keith had to change his train at a small town not far from New York. Among the passengers was an old lady, simply and quaintly dressed, who had taken the train somewhere near Philadelphia. She was travelling quite alone, and appeared to be much hampered by her bags and parcels. The sight of an old woman, like that of a little girl, always softened Keith's heart. Something always awoke in him that made him feel tender. When Keith first observed this old lady, the entire company was streaming along the platform in that haste which always marks the transfer of passengers from one train to another. No one appeared to notice her, and under the weight of her bags and bundles she was gradually dropping to the rear of the crowd. As Keith, bag in hand, swung past her with the rest, he instinctively turned and offered his services to help carry her parcels. She panted her thanks, but declined briefly, declaring that she should do very well.
"You may be doing very well," Keith said pleasantly, "but you will do better if you will let me help you."
"No, thank you." This time more firmly than before. "I am quite used to helping myself, and am not old enough for that yet. I prefer to carry my own baggage," she added with emphasis.
"It is not the question of age, I hope, that gives me the privilege of helping a lady," said Keith. He was already trying to relieve her of her largest bag and one or two bundles.
A keen glance from a pair of very bright eyes was shot at him.
"Well, I will let you take that side of that bag and this bundle--no; that one. Now, don't run away from me."
"No; I will promise not," said Keith, laughing; and relieved of that much of her burden, the old lady stepped out more briskly than she had been doing. When they finally reached a car, the seats were nearly all filled. There was one, however, beside a young woman at the far end, and this Keith offered to the old lady, who, as he stowed her baggage close about her, made him count the pieces carefully. Finding the tale correct, she thanked him with more cordiality than she had shown before, and Keith withdrew to secure a seat for himself. As, however, the car was full, he stood up in the rear of the coach, waiting until some passengers might alight at a way-station. The first seat that became vacant was one immediately behind the old lady, who had now fallen into a cheerful conversation with the young woman beside her.
"What do you do when strangers offer to take your bags?" Keith heard her asking as he seated himself.
"Why, I don't know; they don't often ask. I never let them do it," said the young woman, firmly.
"A wise rule, too. I have heard that that is the way nowadays that they rob women travelling alone. I had a young man insist on taking my bag back there; but I am very suspicious of these civil young men." She leaned over and counted her parcels again. Keith could not help laughing to himself. As she sat up she happened to glance around, and he caught her eye. He saw her clutch her companion and whisper to her, at which the latter glanced over her shoulder and gave him a look that was almost a stare. Then the two conferred together, while Keith chuckled with amusement. What they were saying, had Keith heard it, would have amused him still more than the other.
"There he is now, right behind us," whispered the old lady.
"Why, he doesn't look like a robber."
"They never do. I have heard they never do. They are the most dangerous kind. Of course, a robber who looked it would be arrested on sight."
"But he is very good-looking," insisted the younger woman, who had, in the meantime, taken a second glance at Keith, who pretended to be immersed in a book.
"Well, so much the worse. They are the very worst kind. Never trust a good-looking young stranger, my dear. They may be all right in romances, but never in life."
As her companion did not altogether appear to take this view, the old lady half turned presently, and taking a long look down the other side of the car, to disarm Keith of any suspicion that she might be looking at him, finally let her eyes rest on his face, quite accidentally, as it were. A moment later she was whispering to her companion.
"I am sure he is watching us. I am going to ask you to stick close beside me when we get to New York until I find a hackney-coach."
"Have you been to New York often?" asked the girl, smiling.
"I have been there twice in the last thirty years; but I spent several winters there when I was a young girl. I suppose it has changed a good deal in that time?"
The young lady also supposed that it had changed in that time, and wondered why Miss Brooke--the name the other had given--did not come to New York oftener.
"You see, it is such an undertaking to go now," said the old lady. "Everything goes with such a rush that it takes my breath away. Why, three trains a day each way pass near my home now. One of them actually rushes by in the most impetuous and disdainful way. When I was young we used to go to the station at least an hour before the train was due, and had time to take out our knitting and compose our thoughts; but now one has to be at the station just as promptly as if one were going to church, and if you don't get on the train almost before it has stopped, the dreadful thing is gone before you know it. I must say, it is very destructive to one's nerves."
Her companion laughed.
"I don't know what you will think when you get to New York."
"Think! I don't expect to think at all. I shall just shut my eyes and trust to Providence."
"Your friends will meet you there, I suppose?"
"I wrote them two weeks ago that I should be there to-day, and then my cousin wrote me to let her know the train, and I replied, telling her what train I expected to take. I would never have come if I had imagined we were going to have this trouble."
The girl reassured her by telling her that even if her friends did not meet her, she would put her in the way of reaching them safely. And in a little while they drew into the station.
Keith's first impression of New York was dazzling to him. The rush, the hurry, stirred him and filled him with a sense of power. He felt that here was the theatre of action for him.
The offices of Wickersham & Company were in one of the large buildings down-town. The whole floor was filled with pens and railed-off places, beyond which lay the private offices of the firm. Mr. Wickersham was "engaged," and Keith had to wait for an hour or two before he could secure an interview with him. When at length he was admitted to Mr. Wickersham's inner office, he was received with some cordiality. His father was asked after, and a number of questions about Gumbolt were put to him. Then Mr. Wickersham came to the point. He had a high regard for his father, he said, and having heard that Gordon was living in Gumbolt, where they had some interests, it had occurred to him that he might possibly be able to give him a position. The salary would not be large at first, but if he showed himself capable it might lead to something better.
Keith was thrilled, and declared that what he most wanted was work and opportunity to show that he was able to work. Mr. Wickersham was sure of this, and informed him briefly that it was outdoor work that they had for him--"the clearing up of titles and securing of such lands as we may wish to obtain," he added.
This was satisfactory to Keith, and he said so.
Mr. Wickersham's shrewd eyes had a gleam of content in them.
"Of course, our interest will be your first consideration?" he said.
"Yes, sir; I should try and make it so."
"For instance," proceeded Mr. Wickersham, "there are certain lands lying near our lands, not of any special value; but still you can readily understand that as we are running a railroad through the mountains, and are expending large sums of money, it is better that we should control lands through which our line will pass."
Keith saw this perfectly. "Do you know the names of any of the owners?" he inquired. "I am familiar with some of the lands about there."
Mr. Wickersham pondered. Keith was so ingenuous and eager that there could be no harm in coming to the point.
"Why, yes; there is a man named Rawson that has some lands or some sort of interest in lands that adjoin ours. It might be well for us to control those properties."
Keith's countenance fell.
"It happens that I know something of those lands."
"Yes? Well, you might possibly take those properties along with others?"
"I could certainly convey any proposition you wish to make to Mr. Rawson, and should be glad to do so," began Keith.
"We should expect you to use your best efforts to secure these and all other lands that we wish," interrupted Mr. Wickersham, speaking with sudden sharpness. "When we employ a man we expect him to give us all his services, and not to be half in our employ and half in that of the man we are fighting."
The change in his manner and tone was so great and so unexpected that Keith was amazed. He had never been spoken to before quite in this way. He, however, repressed his feeling.
"I should certainly render you the best service I could," he said; "but you would not expect me to say anything to Squire Rawson that I did not believe? He has talked with me about these lands, and he knows their value just as well as you do."
Mr. Wickersham looked at him with a cold light in his eyes, which suddenly recalled Ferdy to Keith.
"I don't think that you and I will suit each other, young man," he said.
Keith's face flushed; he rose. "I don't think we should, Mr. Wickersham. Good morning." And turning, he walked out of the room with his head very high.
As he passed out he saw Ferdy. He was giving some directions to a clerk, and his tone was one that made Keith glad he was not under him.
"Haven't you any brains at all?" Keith heard him say.
"Yes, but I did not understand you."
"Then you are a fool," said the young man.
Just then Keith caught his eye and spoke to him. Ferdy only nodded "Hello!" and went on berating the clerk.
Keith walked about the streets for some time before he could soothe his ruffled feelings and regain his composure. How life had changed for him in the brief interval since he entered Mr. Wickersham's office! Then his heart beat high with hope; life was all brightness to him; Alice Yorke was already won. Now in this short space of time his hopes were all overthrown. Yet, his instinct told him that if he had to go through the interview again he would do just as he had done.
He felt that his chance of seeing Alice would not be so good early in the day as it would be later in the afternoon; so he determined to deliver first the letter which his father had given him to Dr. Templeton.
The old clergyman's church and rectory stood on an ancient street over toward the river, from which wealth and fashion had long fled. His parish, which had once taken in many of the well-to-do and some of the wealthy, now embraced within its confines a section which held only the poor. But, like an older and more noted divine, Dr. Templeton could say with truth that all the world was his parish; at least, all were his parishioners who were needy and desolate.
The rectory was an old-fashioned, substantial house, rusty with age, and worn by the stream of poverty that had flowed in and out for many years.
When Keith mounted the steps the door was opened by some one without waiting for him to ring the bell, and he found the passages and front room fairly filled with a number of persons whose appearance bespoke extreme poverty.
The Doctor was "out attending a meeting, but would be back soon," said the elderly woman, who opened the door. "Would the gentleman wait?"
Just then the door opened and some one entered hastily. Keith was standing with his back to the door; but he knew by the movement of those before him, and the lighting up of their faces, that it was the Doctor himself, even before the maid said: "Here he is now."
He turned to find an old man of medium size, in a clerical dress quite brown with age and weather, but whose linen was spotless. His brow under his snow-white hair was lofty and calm; his eyes were clear and kindly; his mouth expressed both firmness and gentleness; his whole face was benignancy itself.
His eye rested for a moment on Keith as the servant indicated him, and then swept about the room; and with little more than a nod to Keith he passed him by and entered the waiting-room. Keith, though a little miffed at being ignored by him, had time to observe him as he talked to his other visitors in turn. He manifestly knew his business, and appeared to Keith, from the scraps of conversation he heard, to know theirs also. To some he gave encouragement; others he chided; but to all he gave sympathy, and as one after another went out their faces brightened.
When he was through with them he turned and approached Keith with his hands extended.
"You must pardon me for keeping you waiting so long; these poor people have nothing but their time, and I always try to teach them the value of it by not keeping them waiting."
"Certainly, sir," said Keith, warmed in the glow of his kindly heart. "I brought a letter of introduction to you from my father, General Keith."
The smile that this name brought forth made Keith the old man's friend for life.
"Oh! You are McDowell Keith's son. I am delighted to see you. Come back into my study and tell me all about your father."
When Keith left that study, quaint and old-fashioned as were it and its occupant, he felt as though he had been in a rarer atmosphere. He had not dreamed that such a man could be found in a great city. He seemed to have the heart of a boy, and Keith felt as if he had known him all his life. He asked Gordon to return and dine with him, but Gordon had a vision of sitting beside Alice Yorke at dinner that evening and declined.