* “To die with one's boots on.” A synonym for death byviolence, popular among Southwestern desperadoes, and thesubject of superstitious dread.
Manuel suddenly drew off his boots with their muffled covering, and put on the ones designated.
“Now open the door.”
He did so. Falkner was already waiting at the threshold, “Turn Manuel loose with the other, Ned, but disarm him first. They might quarrel. The habit of carrying arms, Manuel,” added Lee, as Falkner took a pistol and bowie-knife from the half-breed, “is of itself provocative of violence, and inconsistent with a bucolic and pastoral life.”
When Falkner returned he said hurriedly to his companion, “Do you think it wise, George, to let those hell-hounds loose? Good God! I could scarcely let my grip of his throat go, when I thought of what they were hunting.”
“My dear Ned,” said Lee, luxuriously ensconcing himself under the bedclothes again with a slight shiver of delicious warmth, “I must warn you against allowing the natural pride of a higher walk to prejudice you against the general level of our profession. Indeed, I was quite struck with the justice of Manuel's protest that I was interfering with certain rude processes of his own towards results aimed at by others.”
“George!” interrupted Falkner, almost savagely.
“Well. I admit it's getting rather late in the evening for pure philosophical inquiry, and you are tired. Practically, then, it WAS wise to let them get away before they discovered two things. One, our exact relations here with these women; and the other, HOW MANY of us were here. At present they think we are three or four in possession and with the consent of the women.”
“The dogs!”
“They are paying us the highest compliment they can conceive of by supposing us cleverer scoundrels than themselves. You are very unjust, Ned.”
“If they escape and tell their story?”
“We shall have the rare pleasure of knowing we are better than people believe us. And now put those boots away somewhere where we can produce them if necessary, as evidence of Manuel's evening call. At present we'll keep the thing quiet, and in the early morning you can find out where they got in and remove any traces they have left. It is no use to frighten the women. There's no fear of their returning.”
“And if they get away?”
“We can follow in their tracks.”
“If Manuel gives the alarm?”
“With his burglarious boots left behind in the house? Not much! Good-night, Ned. Go to bed.”
With these words Lee turned on his side and quietly resumed his interrupted slumber. Falkner did not, however, follow this sensible advice. When he was satisfied that his friend was sleeping he opened the door softly and looked out. He did not appear to be listening, for his eyes were fixed upon a small pencil of light that stole across the passage from the foot of Kate's door. He watched it until it suddenly disappeared, when, leaving the door partly open, he threw himself on his couch without removing his clothes. The slight movement awakened the sleeper, who was beginning to feel the accession of fever. He moved restlessly.
“George,” said Falkner, softly.
“Yes.”
“Where was it we passed that old Mission Church on the road one dark night, and saw the light burning before the figure of the Virgin through the window?”
There was a moment of crushing silence. “Does that mean you're wanting to light the candle again?”
“No.”
“Then don't lie there inventing sacrilegious conundrums, but go to sleep.”
Nevertheless, in the morning his fever was slightly worse. Mrs. Hale, offering her condolence, said, “I know that you have not been resting well, for even after your friend met with that mishap in the hall, I heard your voices, and Kate says your door was open all night. You have a little fever too, Mr. Falkner.”
George looked curiously at Falkner's pale face—it was burning.
The speed and fury with which Clinch's cavalcade swept on in the direction of the mysterious shot left Hale no chance for reflection. He was conscious of shouting incoherently with the others, of urging his horse irresistibly forward, of momentarily expecting to meet or overtake something, but without any further thought. The figures of Clinch and Rawlins immediately before him shut out the prospect of the narrowing trail. Once only, taking advantage of a sudden halt that threw them confusedly together, he managed to ask a question.
“Lost their track—found it again!” shouted the ostler, as Clinch, with a cry like the baying of a hound, again darted forward. Their horses were panting and trembling under them, the ascent seemed to be growing steeper, a singular darkness, which even the density of the wood did not sufficiently account for, surrounded them, but still their leader madly urged them on. To Hale's returning senses they did not seem in a condition to engage a single resolute man, who might have ambushed in the woods or beaten them in detail in the narrow gorge, but in another instant the reason of their furious haste was manifest. Spurring his horse ahead, Clinch dashed out into the open with a cheering shout—a shout that as quickly changed to a yell of imprecation. They were on the Ridge in a blinding snow-storm! The road had already vanished under their feet, and with it the fresh trail they had so closely followed! They stood helplessly on the shore of a trackless white sea, blank and spotless of any trace or sign of the fugitives.
“'Pears to me, boys,” said the ostler, suddenly ranging before them, “ef you're not kalkilatin' on gittin' another party to dig ye out, ye'd better be huntin' fodder and cover instead of road agents. 'Skuse me, gentlemen, but I'm responsible for the hosses, and this ain't no time for circus-ridin'. We're a matter o' six miles from the station in a bee line.”
“Back to the trail, then,” said Clinch, wheeling his horse towards the road they had just quitted.
“'Skuse me, Kernel,” said the ostler, laying his hand on Clinch's rein, “but that way only brings us back the road we kem—the stage road—three miles further from home. That three miles is on the divide, and by the time we get there it will be snowed up worse nor this. The shortest cut is along the Ridge. If we hump ourselves we ken cross the divide afore the road is blocked. And that, 'skuse me, gentlemen, is MY road.”
There was no time for discussion. The road was already palpably thickening under their feet. Hale's arm was stiffened to his side by a wet, clinging snow-wreath. The figures of the others were almost obliterated and shapeless. It was not snowing—it was snowballing! The huge flakes, shaken like enormous feathers out of a vast blue-black cloud, commingled and fell in sprays and patches. All idea of their former pursuit was forgotten; the blind rage and enthusiasm that had possessed them was gone. They dashed after their new leader with only an instinct for shelter and succor.
They had not ridden long when fortunately, as it seemed to Hale, the character of the storm changed. The snow no longer fell in such large flakes, nor as heavily. A bitter wind succeeded; the soft snow began to stiffen and crackle under the horses' hoofs; they were no longer weighted and encumbered by the drifts upon their bodies; the smaller flakes now rustled and rasped against them like sand, or bounded from them like hail. They seemed to be moving more easily and rapidly, their spirits were rising with the stimulus of cold and motion, when suddenly their leader halted.
“It's no use, boys. It can't be done! This is no blizzard, but a regular two days' snifter! It's no longer meltin', but packin' and driftin' now. Even if we get over the divide, we're sure to be blocked up in the pass.”
It was true! To their bitter disappointment they could now see that the snow had not really diminished in quantity, but that the now finely-powdered particles were rapidly filling all inequalities of the surface, packing closely against projections, and swirling in long furrows across the levels. They looked with anxiety at their self-constituted leader.
“We must make a break to get down in the woods again before it's too late,” he said briefly.
But they had already drifted away from the fringe of larches and dwarf pines that marked the sides of the Ridge, and lower down merged into the dense forest that clothed the flank of the mountain they had lately climbed, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they again reached it, only to find that at that point it was too precipitous for the descent of their horses. Benumbed and speechless, they continued to toil on, opposed to the full fury of the stinging snow, and at times obliged to turn their horses to the blast to keep from being blown over the Ridge. At the end of half an hour the ostler dismounted, and, beckoning to the others, took his horse by the bridle, and began the descent. When it came to Hale's turn to dismount he could not help at first recoiling from the prospect before him. The trail—if it could be so called—was merely the track or furrow of some fallen tree dragged, by accident or design, diagonally across the sides of the mountain. At times it appeared scarcely a foot in width; at other times a mere crumbling gully, or a narrow shelf made by the projections of dead boughs and collected debris. It seemed perilous for a foot passenger, it appeared impossible for a horse. Nevertheless, he had taken a step forward when Clinch laid his hand on his arm.
“You'll bring up the rear,” he said not unkindly, “ez you're a stranger here. Wait until we sing out to you.”
“But if I prefer to take the same risks as you all?” said Hale stiffly.
“You kin,” said Clinch grimly. “But I reckoned, as you wern't familiar with this sort o' thing, you wouldn't keer, by any foolishness o' yours, to stampede the rocks ahead of us, and break down the trail, or send down an avalanche on top of us. But just ez you like.”
“I will wait, then,” said Hale hastily.
The rebuke, however, did him good service. It preoccupied his mind, so that it remained unaffected by the dizzy depths, and enabled him to abandon himself mechanically to the sagacity of his horse, who was contented simply to follow the hoofprints of the preceding animal, and in a few moments they reached the broader trail without a mishap. A discussion regarding their future movements was already taking place. The impossibility of regaining the station at the Summit was admitted; the way down the mountain to the next settlement was still left to them, or the adjacent woods, if they wished for an encampment. The ostler once more assumed authority.
“'Skuse me, gentlemen, but them horses don't take no pasear down the mountain to-night. The stage-road ain't a mile off, and I kalkilate to wait here till the up stage comes. She's bound to stop on account of the snow; and I've done my dooty when I hand the horses over to the driver.”
“But if she hears of the block up yer, and waits at the lower station?” said Rawlins.
“Then I've done my dooty all the same. 'Skuse me, gentlemen, but them ez hez their own horses kin do ez they like.”
As this clearly pointed to Hale, he briefly assured his companions that he had no intention of deserting them. “If I cannot reach Eagle's Court, I shall at least keep as near it as possible. I suppose any messenger from my house to the Summit will learn where I am and why I am delayed?”
“Messenger from your house!” gasped Rawlins. “Are you crazy, stranger? Only a bird would get outer Eagle's now; and it would hev to be an eagle at that! Between your house and the Summit the snow must be ten feet by this time, to say nothing of the drift in the pass.”
Hale felt it was the truth. At any other time he would have worried over this unexpected situation, and utter violation of all his traditions. He was past that now, and even felt a certain relief. He knew his family were safe; it was enough. That they were locked up securely, and incapable of interfering with HIM, seemed to enhance his new, half-conscious, half-shy enjoyment of an adventurous existence.
The ostler, who had been apparently lost in contemplation of the steep trail he had just descended, suddenly clapped his hand to his leg with an ejaculation of gratified astonishment.
“Waal, darn my skin ef that ain't Hennicker's 'slide' all the time! I heard it was somewhat about here.”
Rawlins briefly explained to Hale that a slide was a rude incline for the transit of heavy goods that could not be carried down a trail.
“And Hennicker's,” continued the man, “ain't more nor a mile away. Ye might try Hennicker's at a push, eh?”
By a common instinct the whole party looked dubiously at Hale. “Who's Hennicker?” he felt compelled to ask.
The ostler hesitated, and glanced at the others to reply. “There ARE folks,” he said lazily, at last, “ez beleeves that Hennicker ain't much better nor the crowd we're hunting; but they don't say it TO Hennicker. We needn't let on what we're after.”
“I for one,” said Hale stoutly, “decidedly object to any concealment of our purpose.”
“It don't follow,” said Rawlins carelessly, “that Hennicker even knows of this yer robbery. It's his gineral gait we refer to. Ef yer think it more polite, and it makes it more sociable to discuss this matter afore him, I'm agreed.”
“Hale means,” said Clinch, “that it wouldn't be on the square to take and make use of any points we might pick up there agin the road agents.”
“Certainly,” said Hale. It was not at all what he had meant, but he felt singularly relieved at the compromise.
“And ez I reckon Hennicker ain't such a fool ez not to know who we are and what we're out for,” continued Clinch, “I reckon there ain't any concealment.”
“Then it's Hennicker's?” said the ostler, with swift deduction.
“Hennicker's it is! Lead on.”
The ostler remounted his horse, and the others followed. The trail presently turned into a broader track, that bore some signs of approaching habitations, and at the end of five minutes they came upon a clearing. It was part of one of the fragmentary mountain terraces, and formed by itself a vast niche, or bracketed shelf, in the hollow flank of the mountain that, to Hale's first glance, bore a rude resemblance to Eagle's Court. But there was neither meadow nor open field; the few acres of ground had been wrested from the forest by axe and fire, and unsightly stumps everywhere marked the rude and difficult attempts at cultivation. Two or three rough buildings of unplaned and unpainted boards, connected by rambling sheds, stood in the centre of the amphitheatre. Far from being protected by the encircling rampart, it seemed to be the selected arena for the combating elements. A whirlwind from the outer abyss continually filled this cave of AEolus with driving snow, which, however, melted as it fell, or was quickly whirled away again.
A few dogs barked and ran out to meet the cavalcade, but there was no other sign of any life disturbed or concerned at their approach.
“I reckon Hennicker ain't home, or he'd hev been on the lookout afore this,” said the ostler, dismounting and rapping on the door.
After a silence, a female voice, unintelligibly to the others, apparently had some colloquy with the ostler, who returned to the party.
“Must go in through the kitchin—can't open the door for the wind.”
Leaving their horses in the shed, they entered the kitchen, which communicated, and presently came upon a square room filled with smoke from a fire of green pine logs. The doors and windows were tightly fastened; the only air came in through the large-throated chimney in voluminous gusts, which seemed to make the hollow shell of the apartment swell and expand to the point of bursting. Despite the stinging of the resinous smoke, the temperature was grateful to the benumbed travellers. Several cushionless arm-chairs, such as were used in bar-rooms, two tables, a sideboard, half bar and half cupboard, and a rocking-chair comprised the furniture, and a few bear and buffalo skins covered the floor. Hale sank into one of the arm-chairs, and, with a lazy satisfaction, partly born of his fatigue and partly from some newly-discovered appreciative faculty, gazed around the room, and then at the mistress of the house, with whom the others were talking.
She was tall, gaunt, and withered; in spite of her evident years, her twisted hair was still dark and full, and her eyes bright and piercing; her complexion and teeth had long since succumbed to the vitiating effects of frontier cookery, and her lips were stained with the yellow juice of a brier-wood pipe she held in her mouth. The ostler had explained their intrusion, and veiled their character under the vague epithet of a “hunting party,” and was now evidently describing them personally. In his new-found philosophy the fact that the interest of his hostess seemed to be excited only by the names of his companions, that he himself was carelessly, and even deprecatingly, alluded to as the “stranger from Eagle's” by the ostler, and completely overlooked by the old woman, gave him no concern.
“You'll have to talk to Zenobia yourself. Dod rot ef I'm gine to interfere. She knows Hennicker's ways, and if she chooses to take in transients it ain't no funeral o' mine. Zeenie! You, Zeenie! Look yer!”
A tall, lazy-looking, handsome girl appeared on the threshold of the next room, and with a hand on each door-post slowly swung herself backwards and forwards, without entering. “Well, Maw?”
The old woman briefly and unalluringly pictured the condition of the travellers.
“Paw ain't here,” began the girl doubtfully, “and—How dy, Dick! is that you?” The interruption was caused by her recognition of the ostler, and she lounged into the room. In spite of a skimp, slatternly gown, whose straight skirt clung to her lower limbs, there was a quaint, nymph-like contour to her figure. Whether from languor, ill-health, or more probably from a morbid consciousness of her own height, she moved with a slightly affected stoop that had become a habit. It did not seem ungraceful to Hale, already attracted by her delicate profile, her large dark eyes, and a certain weird resemblance she had to some half-domesticated dryad.
“That'll do, Maw,” she said, dismissing her parent with a nod. “I'll talk to Dick.”
As the door closed on the old woman, Zenobia leaned her hands on the back of a chair, and confronted the admiring eyes of Dick with a goddess-like indifference.
“Now wot's the use of your playin' this yer game on me, Dick? Wot's the good of your ladlin' out that hogwash about huntin'? HUNTIN'! I'll tell yer the huntin' you-uns hev been at! You've been huntin' George Lee and his boys since an hour before sun up. You've been followin' a blind trail up to the Ridge, until the snow got up and hunted YOU right here! You've been whoopin' and yellin' and circus-ridin' on the roads like ez yer wos Comanches, and frightening all the women folk within miles—that's your huntin'! You've been climbin' down Paw's old slide at last, and makin' tracks for here to save the skins of them condemned government horses of the Kempany! And THAT'S your huntin'!”
To Hale's surprise, a burst of laughter from the party followed this speech. He tried to join in, but this ridiculous summary of the result of his enthusiastic sense of duty left him—the only earnest believer mortified and embarrassed. Nor was he the less concerned as he found the girl's dark eyes had rested once or twice upon him curiously. Zenobia laughed too, and, lazily turning the chair around, dropped into it. “And by this time George Lee's loungin' back in his chyar and smokin' his cigyar somewhar in Sacramento,” she added, stretching her feet out to the fire, and suiting the action to the word with an imaginary cigar between the long fingers of a thin and not over-clean hand.
“We cave, Zeenie!” said Rawlins, when their hilarity had subsided to a more subdued and scarcely less flattering admiration of the unconcerned goddess before them. “That's about the size of it. You kin rake down the pile. I forgot you're an old friend of George's.”
“He's a white man!” said the girl decidedly.
“Ye used to know him?” continued Rawlins.
“Once. Paw ain't in that line now,” she said simply.
There was such a sublime unconsciousness of any moral degradation involved in this allusion that even Hale accepted it without a shock. She rose presently, and, going to the little sideboard, brought out a number of glasses; these she handed to each of the party, and then, producing a demijohn of whiskey, slung it dexterously and gracefully over her arm, so that it rested on her elbow like a cradle, and, going to each one in succession, filled their glasses. It obliged each one to rise to accept the libation, and as Hale did so in his turn he met the dark eyes of the girl full on his own. There was a pleased curiosity in her glance that made this married man of thirty-five color as awkwardly as a boy.
The tender of refreshment being understood as a tacit recognition of their claims to a larger hospitality, all further restraint was removed. Zenobia resumed her seat, and placing her elbow on the arm of her chair, and her small round chin in her hand, looked thoughtfully in the fire. “When I say George Lee's a white man, it ain't because I know him. It's his general gait. Wot's he ever done that's underhanded or mean? Nothin'! You kant show the poor man he's ever took a picayune from. When he's helped himself to a pile it's been outer them banks or them express companies, that think it mighty fine to bust up themselves, and swindle the poor folks o' their last cent, and nobody talks o' huntin' THEM! And does he keep their money? No; he passes it round among the boys that help him, and they put it in circulation. HE don't keep it for himself; he ain't got fine houses in Frisco; he don't keep fast horses for show. Like ez not the critter he did that job with—ef it was him—none of you boys would have rid! And he takes all the risks himself; you ken bet your life that every man with him was safe and away afore he turned his back on you-uns.”
“He certainly drops a little of his money at draw poker, Zeenie,” said Clinch, laughing. “He lost five thousand dollars to Sheriff Kelly last week.”
“Well, I don't hear of the sheriff huntin' him to give it back, nor do I reckon Kelly handed it over to the Express it was taken from. I heard YOU won suthin' from him a spell ago. I reckon you've been huntin' him to find out whar you should return it.” The laugh was clearly against Clinch. He was about to make some rallying rejoinder when the young girl suddenly interrupted him. “Ef you're wantin' to hunt somebody, why don't you take higher game? Thar's that Jim Harkins: go for him, and I'll join you.”
“Harkins!” exclaimed Clinch and Hale simultaneously.
“Yes, Jim Harkins; do you know him?” she said, glancing from one to the other.
“One of my friends do,” said Clinch laughing; “but don't let that stop you.”
“And YOU—over there,” continued Zenobia, bending her head and eyes towards Hale.
“The fact is—I believe he was my banker,” said Hale, with a smile. “I don't know him personally.”
“Then you'd better hunt him before he does you.”
“What's HE done, Zeenie?” asked Rawlins, keenly enjoying the discomfiture of the others.
“What?” She stopped, threw her long black braids over her shoulder, clasped her knee with her hands, and rocking backwards and forwards, sublimely unconscious of the apparition of a slim ankle and half-dropped-off slipper from under her shortened gown, continued, “It mightn't please HIM,” she said slyly, nodding towards Hale.
“Pray don't mind me,” said Hale, with unnecessary eagerness.
“Well,” said Zenobia, “I reckon you all know Ned Falkner and the Excelsior Ditch?”
“Yes, Falkner's the superintendent of it,” said Rawlins. “And a square man too. Thar ain't anything mean about him.”
“Shake,” said Zenobia, extending her hand. Rawlins shook the proffered hand with eager spontaneousness, and the girl resumed: “He's about ez good ez they make 'em—you bet. Well, you know Ned has put all his money, and all his strength, and all his sabe, and—”
“His good looks,” added Clinch mischievously.
“Into that Ditch,” continued Zenobia, ignoring the interruption. “It's his mother, it's his sweetheart, it's his everything! When other chaps of his age was cavortin' round Frisco, and havin' high jinks, Ned was in his Ditch. 'Wait till the Ditch is done,' he used to say. 'Wait till she begins to boom, and then you just stand round.' Mor'n that, he got all the boys to put in their last cent—for they loved Ned, and love him now, like ez ef he wos a woman.”
“That's so,” said Clinch and Rawlins simultaneously, “and he's worth it.”
“Well,” continued Zenobia, “the Ditch didn't boom ez soon ez they kalkilated. And then the boys kept gettin' poorer and poorer, and Ned he kept gettin' poorer and poorer in everything but his hopefulness and grit. Then he looks around for more capital. And about this time, that coyote Harkins smelt suthin' nice up there, and he gits Ned to give him control of it, and he'll lend him his name and fix up a company. Soon ez he gets control, the first thing he does is to say that it wants half a million o' money to make it pay, and levies an assessment of two hundred dollars a share. That's nothin' for them rich fellows to pay, or pretend to pay, but for boys on grub wages it meant only ruin. They couldn't pay, and had to forfeit their shares for next to nothing. And Ned made one more desperate attempt to save them and himself by borrowing money on his shares; when that hound Harkins got wind of it, and let it be buzzed around that the Ditch is a failure, and that he was goin' out of it; that brought the shares down to nothing. As Ned couldn't raise a dollar, the new company swooped down on his shares for the debts THEY had put up, and left him and the boys to help themselves. Ned couldn't bear to face the boys that he'd helped to ruin, and put out, and ain't been heard from since. After Harkins had got rid of Ned and the boys he manages to pay off that wonderful debt, and sells out for a hundred thousand dollars. That money—Ned's money—he sends to Sacramento, for he don't dare to travel with it himself, and is kalkilatin' to leave the kentry, for some of the boys allow to kill him on sight. So ef you're wantin' to hunt suthin', thar's yer chance, and you needn't go inter the snow to do it.”
“But surely the law can recover this money?” said Hale indignantly. “It is as infamous a robbery as—” He stopped as he caught Zenobia's eye.
“Ez last night's, you were goin' to say. I'll call it MORE. Them road agents don't pretend to be your friend—but take yer money and run their risks. For ez to the law—that can't help yer.”
“It's a skin game, and you might ez well expect to recover a gambling debt from a short-card sharp,” explained Clinch; “Falkner oughter shot him on sight.”
“Or the boys lynched him,” suggested Rawlins.
“I think,” said Hale, more reflectively, “that in the absence of legal remedy a man of that kind should have been forced under strong physical menace to give up his ill-gotten gains. The money was the primary object, and if that could be got without bloodshed—which seems to me a useless crime—it would be quite as effective. Of course, if there was resistance or retaliation, it might be necessary to kill him.”
He had unconsciously fallen into his old didactic and dogmatic habit of speech, and perhaps, under the spur of Zenobia's eyes, he had given it some natural emphasis. A dead silence followed, in which the others regarded him with amused and gratified surprise, and it was broken only by Zenobia rising and holding out her hand. “Shake!”
Hale raised it gallantly, and pressed his lips on the one spotless finger.
“That's gospel truth. And you ain't the first white man to say it.”
“Indeed,” laughed Hale. “Who was the other?”
“George Lee!”
The laughter that followed was interrupted by a sudden barking of the dogs in the outer clearing. Zenobia rose lazily and strode to the window. It relieved Hale of certain embarrassing reflections suggested by her comment.
“Ef it ain't that God-forsaken fool Dick bringing up passengers from the snow-bound up stage in the road! I reckon I'VE got suthin' to say to that!” But the later appearance of the apologetic Dick, with the assurance that the party carried a permission from her father, granted at the lower station in view of such an emergency, checked her active opposition. “That's like Paw,” she soliloquized aggrievedly; “shuttin' us up and settin' dogs on everybody for a week, and then lettin' the whole stage service pass through one door and out at another. Well, it's HIS house and HIS whiskey, and they kin take it, but they don't get me to help 'em.”
They certainly were not a prepossessing or good-natured acquisition to the party. Apart from the natural antagonism which, on such occasions, those in possession always feel towards the new-comer, they were strongly inclined to resist the dissatisfied querulousness and aggressive attitude of these fresh applicants for hospitality. The most offensive one was a person who appeared to exercise some authority over the others. He was loud, assuming, and dressed with vulgar pretension. He quickly disposed himself in the chair vacated by Zenobia, and called for some liquor.
“I reckon you'll hev to help yourself,” said Rawlins dryly, as the summons met with no response. “There are only two women in the house, and I reckon their hands are full already.”
“I call it d—d uncivil treatment,” said the man, raising his voice; “and Hennicker had better sing smaller if he don't want his old den pulled down some day. He ain't any better than men that hev been picked up afore now.”
“You oughter told him that, and mebbe he'd hev come over with yer,” returned Rawlins. “He's a mild, soft, easy-going man, is Hennicker! Ain't he, Colonel Clinch?”
The casual mention of Clinch's name produced the effect which the speaker probably intended. The stranger stared at Clinch, who, apparently oblivious of the conversation, was blinking his cold gray eyes at the fire. Dropping his aggressive tone to mere querulousness, the man sought the whiskey demijohn, and helped himself and his companions. Fortified by liquor he returned to the fire.
“I reckon you've heard about this yer robbery, Colonel,” he said, addressing Clinch, with an attempt at easy familiarity.
Without raising his eyes from the fire, Clinch briefly assented, “I reckon.”
“I'm up yer, examining into it, for the Express.”
“Lost much?” asked Rawlins.
“Not so much ez they might hev. That fool Harkins had a hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks sealed up like an ordinary package of a thousand dollars, and gave it to a friend, Bill Guthrie, in the bank to pick out some unlikely chap among the passengers to take charge of it to Reno. He wouldn't trust the Express. Ha! ha!”
The dead, oppressive silence that followed his empty laughter made it seem almost artificial. Rawlins held his breath and looked at Clinch. Hale, with the instincts of a refined, sensitive man, turned hot with the embarrassment Clinch should have shown. For that gentleman, without lifting his eyes from the fire, and with no apparent change in his demeanor, lazily asked—
“Ye didn't ketch the name o' that passenger?”
“Naturally, no! For when Guthrie heard what was said agin him he wouldn't give his name until he heard from him.”
“And WHAT was said agin him?” asked Clinch musingly.
“What would be said agin a man that give up that sum o' money, like a chaw of tobacco, for the asking? Why, there were but three men, as far ez we kin hear, that did the job. And there were four passengers inside, armed, and the driver and express messenger on the box. Six were robbed by THREE!—they were a sweet-scented lot! Reckon they must hev felt mighty small, for I hear they got up and skedaddled from the station under the pretext of lookin' for the robbers.” He laughed again, and the laugh was noisily repeated by his five companions at the other end of the room.
Hale, who had forgotten that the stranger was only echoing a part of his own criticism of eight hours before, was on the point of rising with burning cheeks and angry indignation, when the lazily uplifted eye of Clinch caught his, and absolutely held him down with its paralyzing and deadly significance. Murder itself seemed to look from those cruelly quiet and remorseless gray pupils. For a moment he forgot his own rage in this glimpse of Clinch's implacable resentment; for a moment he felt a thrill of pity for the wretch who had provoked it. He remained motionless and fascinated in his chair as the lazy lids closed like a sheath over Clinch's eyes again. Rawlins, who had probably received the same glance of warning, remained equally still.
“They haven't heard the last of it yet, you bet,” continued the infatuated stranger. “I've got a little statement here for the newspaper,” he added, drawing some papers from his pocket; “suthin' I just run off in the coach as I came along. I reckon it'll show things up in a new light. It's time there should be some change. All the cussin' that's been usually done hez been by the passengers agin the express and stage companies. I propose that the Company should do a little cussin' themselves. See? P'r'aps you don't mind my readin' it to ye? It's just spicy enough to suit them newspaper chaps.”
“Go on,” said Colonel Clinch quietly.
The man cleared his throat, with the preliminary pose of authorship, and his five friends, to whom the composition was evidently not unfamiliar, assumed anticipatory smiles.
“I call it 'Prize Pusillanimous Passengers.' Sort of runs easy off the tongue, you know.
“'It now appears that the success of the late stagecoach robbery near the Summit was largely due to the pusillanimity—not to use a more serious word'”—He stopped, and looked explanatorily towards Clinch: “Ye'll see in a minit what I'm gettin' at by that pusillanimity of the passengers themselves. 'It now transpires that there were only three robbers who attacked the coach, and that although passengers, driver, and express messenger were fully armed, and were double the number of their assailants, not a shot was fired. We mean no reflections upon the well-known courage of Yuba Bill, nor the experience and coolness of Bracy Tibbetts, the courteous express messenger, both of whom have since confessed to have been more than astonished at the Christian and lamb-like submission of the insiders. Amusing stories of some laughable yet sickening incidents of the occasion—such as grown men kneeling in the road, and offering to strip themselves completely, if their lives were only spared; of one of the passengers hiding under the seat, and only being dislodged by pulling his coat-tails; of incredible sums promised, and even offers of menial service, for the preservation of their wretched carcases—are received with the greatest gusto; but we are in possession of facts which may lead to more serious accusations. Although one of the passengers is said to have lost a large sum of money intrusted to him, while attempting with barefaced effrontery to establish a rival “carrying” business in one of the Express Company's own coaches—'I call that a good point.” He interrupted himself to allow the unrestrained applause of his own party. “Don't you?”
“It's just h-ll,” said Clinch musingly.
“'Yet the affair,” resumed the stranger from his manuscript, “'is locked up in great and suspicious mystery. The presence of Jackson N. Stanner, Esq.' (that's me), 'special detective agent to the Company, and his staff in town, is a guaranty that the mystery will be thoroughly probed.' Hed to put that in to please the Company,” he again deprecatingly explained. “'We are indebted to this gentleman for the facts.'”
“The pint you want to make in that article,” said Clinch, rising, but still directing his face and his conversation to the fire, “ez far ez I ken see ez that no three men kin back down six unless they be cowards, or are willing to be backed down.”
“That's the point what I start from,” rejoined Stanner, “and work up. I leave it to you ef it ain't so.”
“I can't say ez I agree with you,” said the Colonel dryly. He turned, and still without lifting his eyes walked towards the door of the room which Zenobia had entered. The key was on the inside, but Clinch gently opened the door, removed the key, and closing the door again locked it from his side. Hale and Rawlins felt their hearts beat quickly; the others followed Clinch's slow movements and downcast mien with amused curiosity. After locking the other outlet from the room, and putting the keys in his pocket, Clinch returned to the fire. For the first time he lifted his eyes; the man nearest him shrank back in terror.
“I am the man,” he said slowly, taking deliberate breath between his sentences, “who gave up those greenbacks to the robbers. I am one of the three passengers you have lampooned in that paper, and these gentlemen beside me are the other two.” He stopped and looked around him. “You don't believe that three men can back down six! Well, I'll show you how it can be done. More than that, I'll show you how ONE man can do it; for, by the living G-d, if you don't hand over that paper I'll kill you where you sit! I'll give you until I count ten; if one of you moves he and you are dead men—but YOU first!”
Before he had finished speaking Hale and Rawlins had both risen, as if in concert, with their weapons drawn. Hale could not tell how or why he had done so, but he was equally conscious, without knowing why, of fixing his eye on one of the other party, and that he should, in the event of an affray, try to kill him. He did not attempt to reason; he only knew that he should do his best to kill that man and perhaps others.
“One,” said Clinch, lifting his derringer, “two—three—”
“Look here, Colonel—I swear I didn't know it was you. Come—d—m it! I say—see here,” stammered Stanner, with white cheeks, not daring to glance for aid to his stupefied party.
“Four—five—six—”
“Wait! Here!” He produced the paper and threw it on the floor.
“Pick it up and hand it to me. Seven—eight—”
Stanner hastily scrambled to his feet, picked up the paper, and handed it to the Colonel. “I was only joking, Colonel,” he said, with a forced laugh.
“I'm glad to hear it. But as this joke is in black and white, you wouldn't mind saying so in the same fashion. Take that pen and ink and write as I dictate. 'I certify that I am satisfied that the above statement is a base calumny against the characters of Ringwood Clinch, Robert Rawlins, and John Hale, passengers, and that I do hereby apologize to the same.' Sign it. That'll do. Now let the rest of your party sign as witnesses.”
They complied without hesitation; some, seizing the opportunity of treating the affair as a joke, suggested a drink.
“Excuse me,” said Clinch quietly, “but ez this house ain't big enough for me and that man, and ez I've got business at Wild Cat Station with this paper, I think I'll go without drinkin'.” He took the keys from his pocket, unlocked the doors, and taking up his overcoat and rifle turned as if to go.
Rawlins rose to follow him; Hale alone hesitated. The rapid occurrences of the last half hour gave him no time for reflection. But he was by no means satisfied of the legality of the last act he had aided and abetted, although he admitted its rude justice, and felt he would have done so again. A fear of this, and an instinct that he might be led into further complications if he continued to identify himself with Clinch and Rawlins; the fact that they had professedly abandoned their quest, and that it was really supplanted by the presence of an authorized party whom they had already come in conflict with—all this urged him to remain behind. On the other hand, the apparent desertion of his comrades at the last moment was opposed both to his sense of honor and the liking he had taken to them. But he reflected that he had already shown his active partisanship, that he could be of little service to them at Wild Cat Station, and would be only increasing the distance from his home; and above all, an impatient longing for independent action finally decided him. “I think I'll stay here,” he said to Clinch, “unless you want me.”
Clinch cast a swift and meaning glance at the enemy, but looked approval. “Keep your eyes skinned, and you're good for a dozen of 'em,” he said sotto voce, and then turned to Stanner. “I'm going to take this paper to Wild Cat. If you want to communicate with me hereafter you know where I am to be found, unless”—he smiled grimly—“you'd like to see me outside for a few minutes before I go?”
“It is a matter that concerns the Stage Company, not me,” said Stanner, with an attempt to appear at his ease.
Hale accompanied Clinch and Rawlins through the kitchen to the stables. The ostler, Dick, had already returned to the rescue of the snow-bound coach.
“I shouldn't like to leave many men alone with that crowd,” said Clinch, pressing Hale's hand; “and I wouldn't have allowed your staying behind ef I didn't know I could bet my pile on you. Your offerin' to stay just puts a clean finish on it. Look yer, Hale, I didn't cotton much to you at first; but ef you ever want a friend, call on Ringwood Clinch.”
“The same here, old man,” said Rawlins, extending his hand as he appeared from a hurried conference with the old woman at the woodshed, “and trust to Zeenie to give you a hint ef there's anythin' underhanded goin' on. So long.”
Half inclined to resent this implied suggestion of protection, yet half pleased at the idea of a confidence with the handsome girl he had seen, Hale returned to the room. A whispered discussion among the party ceased on his entering, and an awkward silence followed, which Hale did not attempt to break as he quietly took his seat again by the fire. He was presently confronted by Stanner, who with an affectation of easy familiarity crossed over to the hearth.
“The old Kernel's d—d peppery and high toned when he's got a little more than his reg'lar three fingers o' corn juice, eh?”
“I must beg you to understand distinctly, Mr. Stanner,” said Hale, with a return of his habitual precision of statement, “that I regard any slighting allusion to the gentleman who has just left not only as in exceedingly bad taste coming from YOU, but very offensive to myself. If you mean to imply that he was under the influence of liquor, it is my duty to undeceive you; he was so perfectly in possession of his faculties as to express not only his own but MY opinion of your conduct. You must also admit that he was discriminating enough to show his objection to your company by leaving it. I regret that circumstances do not make it convenient for me to exercise that privilege; but if I am obliged to put up with your presence in this room, I strongly insist that it is not made unendurable with the addition of your conversation.”
The effect of this deliberate and passionless declaration was more discomposing to the party than Clinch's fury. Utterly unaccustomed to the ideas and language suddenly confronting them, they were unable to determine whether it was the real expression of the speaker, or whether it was a vague badinage or affectation to which any reply would involve them in ridicule. In a country terrorized by practical joking, they did not doubt but that this was a new form of hoaxing calculated to provoke some response that would constitute them as victims. The immediate effect upon them was that complete silence in regard to himself that Hale desired. They drew together again and conversed in whispers, while Hale, with his eyes fixed on the fire, gave himself up to somewhat late and useless reflection.
He could scarcely realize his position. For however he might look at it, within a space of twelve hours he had not only changed some of his most cherished opinions, but he had acted in accordance with that change in a way that made it seem almost impossible for him ever to recant. In the interests of law and order he had engaged in an unlawful and disorderly pursuit of criminals, and had actually come in conflict not with the criminals, but with the only party apparently authorized to pursue them. More than that, he was finding himself committed to a certain sympathy with the criminals. Twenty-four hours ago, if anyone had told him that he would have condoned an illegal act for its abstract justice, or assisted to commit an illegal act for the same purpose, he would have felt himself insulted. That he knew he would not now feel it as an insult perplexed him still more. In these circumstances the fact that he was separated from his family, and as it were from all his past life and traditions, by a chance accident, did not disturb him greatly; indeed, he was for the first time a little doubtful of their probable criticism on his inconsistency, and was by no means in a hurry to subject himself to it.
Lifting his eyes, he was suddenly aware that the door leading to the kitchen was slowly opening. He had thought he heard it creak once or twice during his deliberate reply to Stanner. It was evidently moving now so as to attract his attention, without disturbing the others. It presently opened sufficiently wide to show the face of Zeenie, who, with a gesture of caution towards his companions, beckoned him to join her. He rose carelessly as if going out, and, putting on his hat, entered the kitchen as the retreating figure of the young girl glided lightly towards the stables. She ascended a few open steps as if to a hay-loft, but stopped before a low door. Pushing it open, she preceded him into a small room, apparently under the roof, which scarcely allowed her to stand upright. By the light of a stable lantern hanging from a beam he saw that, though poorly furnished, it bore some evidence of feminine taste and habitation. Motioning to the only chair, she seated herself on the edge of the bed, with her hands clasping her knees in her familiar attitude. Her face bore traces of recent agitation, and her eyes were shining with tears. By the closer light of the lantern he was surprised to find it was from laughter.
“I reckoned you'd be right lonely down there with that Stanner crowd, particklerly after that little speech o' your'n, so I sez to Maw I'd get you up yer for a spell. Maw and I heerd you exhort 'em! Maw allowed you woz talkin' a furrin' tongue all along, but I—sakes alive!—I hed to hump myself to keep from bustin' into a yell when yer jist drawed them Webster-unabridged sentences on 'em.” She stopped and rocked backwards and forwards with a laugh that, subdued by the proximity of the roof and the fear of being overheard, was by no means unmusical. “I'll tell ye whot got me, though! That part commencing, 'Suckamstances over which I've no controul.'”
“Oh, come! I didn't say that,” interrupted Hale, laughing.
“'Don't make it convenient for me to exercise the privilege of kickin' yer out to that extent,'” she continued; “'but if I cannot dispense with your room, the least I can say is that it's a d—d sight better than your company—'or suthin' like that! And then the way you minded your stops, and let your voice rise and fall just ez easy ez if you wos a First Reader in large type. Why, the Kernel wasn't nowhere. HIS cussin' didn't come within a mile o' yourn. That Stanner jist turned yaller.”
“I'm afraid you are laughing at me,” said Hale, not knowing whether to be pleased or vexed at the girl's amusement.
“I reckon I'm the only one that dare do it, then,” said the girl simply. “The Kernel sez the way you turned round after he'd done his cussin', and said yer believed you'd stay and take the responsibility of the whole thing—and did, in that kam, soft, did-anybody-speak-to-me style—was the neatest thing he'd seen yet. No! Maw says I ain't much on manners, but I know a man when I see him.”
For an instant Hale gave himself up to the delicious flattery of unexpected, unintended, and apparently uninterested compliment. Becoming at last a little embarrassed under the frank curiosity of the girl's dark eyes, he changed the subject.
“Do you always come up here through the stables?” he asked, glancing round the room, which was evidently her own.
“I reckon,” she answered half abstractedly. “There's a ladder down thar to Maw's room”—pointing to a trapdoor beside the broad chimney that served as a wall—“but it's handier the other way, and nearer the bosses if you want to get away quick.”
This palpable suggestion—borne out by what he remembered of the other domestic details—that the house had been planned with reference to sudden foray or escape reawakened his former uneasy reflections. Zeenie, who had been watching his face, added, “It's no slouch, when b'ar or painters hang round nights and stampede the stock, to be able to swing yourself on to a boss whenever you hear a row going on outside.”
“Do you mean that YOU—”
“Paw USED, and I do NOW, sense I've come into the room.” She pointed to a nondescript garment, half cloak, half habit, hanging on the wall. “I've been outer bed and on Pitchpine's back as far ez the trail five minutes arter I heard the first bellow.”
Hale regarded her with undisguised astonishment. There was nothing at all Amazonian or horsey in her manners, nor was there even the robust physical contour that might have been developed through such experiences. On the contrary, she seemed to be lazily effeminate in body and mind. Heedless of his critical survey of her, she beckoned him to draw his chair nearer, and, looking into his eyes, said—
“Whatever possessed YOU to take to huntin' men?”
Hale was staggered by the question, but nevertheless endeavored to explain. But he was surprised to find that his explanation appeared stilted even to himself, and, he could not doubt, was utterly incomprehensible to the girl. She nodded her head, however, and continued—
“Then you haven't anythin' agin' George?”
“I don't know George,” said Hale, smiling. “My proceeding was against the highwayman.”
“Well, HE was the highwayman.”
“I mean, it was the principle I objected to—a principle that I consider highly dangerous.”
“Well HE is the principal, for the others only HELPED, I reckon,” said Zeenie with a sigh, “and I reckon he IS dangerous.”
Hale saw it was useless to explain. The girl continued—
“What made you stay here instead of going on with the Kernel? There was suthin' else besides your wanting to make that Stanner take water. What is it?”
A light sense of the propinquity of beauty, of her confidence, of their isolation, of the eloquence of her dark eyes, at first tempted Hale to a reply of simple gallantry; a graver consideration of the same circumstances froze it upon his lips.
“I don't know,” he returned awkwardly.
“Well, I'll tell you,” she said. “You didn't cotton to the Kernel and Rawlins much more than you did to Stanner. They ain't your kind.”
In his embarrassment Hale blundered upon the thought he had honorably avoided.
“Suppose,” he said, with a constrained laugh, “I had stayed to see you.”
“I reckon I ain't your kind, neither,” she replied promptly. There was a momentary pause when she rose and walked to the chimney. “It's very quiet down there,” she said, stooping and listening over the roughly-boarded floor that formed the ceiling of the room below. “I wonder what's going on.”
In the belief that this was a delicate hint for his return to the party he had left, Hale rose, but the girl passed him hurriedly, and, opening the door, cast a quick glance into the stable beyond.
“Just as I reckoned—the horses are gone too. They've skedaddled,” she said blankly.
Hale did not reply. In his embarrassment a moment ago the idea of taking an equally sudden departure had flashed upon him. Should he take this as a justification of that impulse, or how? He stood irresolutely gazing at the girl, who turned and began to descend the stairs silently. He followed. When they reached the lower room they found it as they had expected—deserted.
“I hope I didn't drive them away,” said Hale, with an uneasy look at the troubled face of the girl. “For I really had an idea of going myself a moment ago.”
She remained silent, gazing out of the window. Then, turning with a slight shrug of her shoulders, said half defiantly: “What's the use now? Oh, Maw! the Stanner crowd has vamosed the ranch, and this yer stranger kalkilates to stay!”