“May God be merciful to him and to us all.”—The Advocate of Arras.
“May God be merciful to him and to us all.”
—The Advocate of Arras.
“Better come along and share my guilty splendor,” urged Adam Forbes, toe to stirrup.
Charlie See shook his head. “Not none. Here I rest. Gold is nothing to me. I’ve got no time for frivolity. I want but little here below and want that little now. Say, Adam—don’t you never carry a gun?”
“Naw. I take a rifle, of course, for reindeer, snow dear, dear me and antelope—but I haven’t packed a gun for two years. No need of it here. Well, if you won’t side me, you won’t. I’m sorry, but you see how it is about me going right now,” said Adam, swinging into the saddle. “The water in that little tank of mine won’t last long, and there may not be any more rains this fall. So long! You just make yourself at home.”
“Good luck, Adam. And you might wish me the same. While you’re gone, I may wantto make a little journey from bad to worse.”
Adam gathered up his lead rope. “Good luck, Charlie.” But a troubled look came to his eyes as he passed through the gate; in his heart he thought his friend rode late and vainly from Selden Hill.
The pack horse jogged alongside, his friendly head at Adam’s knee. It was earliest morning and they were still in the fresh cool shadow of the low eastern hills. Farther north the enormous bulk of Timber Mountain loomed monstrous in the sky, and there the shadows were deep and dense, impenetrably black; there night lingered visible, brighter than in all the wide arc to westward, bench-land and mighty hill were drenched with sparkling sun.
Adam rode with a pleasant jingling of spurs. He passed through Garfield town, or town-to-be, remodeled from the old San Ysidro, the bare and grassless Mexicanplazachanged to the square of a Kansas town, by tree and hard-won turf; blacksmith shop and school, with a little store and post office, clustered for company on one side: business wouldfill up the three blank sides—like Columbus or Cherryvale. For there is no new thing beneath the kindly sun. Not otherwise, far from the plains of windy Troy, did Priam’s son build and copy, in the wild hills of Epirus:
The little Troy, the castle Pergamus,The river Xanthus, and the Scæan gate.
The little Troy, the castle Pergamus,The river Xanthus, and the Scæan gate.
Fringing the townlet, new gristmill and new factory stood where the mother ditch was bridged. Beyond the bridge the roads forked. From the right hand a steep cañon came plunging to the valley, winding dark between red-brown hills. This cañon was Redgate; here turned the climbing road to Upham; and Adam Forbes followed the Redgate road.
At the summit he turned to the left across a corner of MacCleod’s Park; he crossed a whorl of low ridges at the head of Apache Cañon and came to Hidden Tanks—a little limestone basin, now brimming with rainwater, perhaps a dozen barrels in all. Adam had fenced this in with a combination of stone wall and cedar brush, to keep cattle out. Henow climbed to a little low cliff near by. There he had cached his outfit in a little cupboard of a cave, the floor of it shoulder high to him where he stood. Here he unpacked. He added to the cache his little store of sugar, coffee, rice, bacon and flour, all packed in five or ten pound baking-powder cans against the ravages of mice, gray squirrels and trade rats. The little deep cave gave protection against larger pests and shelter from rain. He rolled up his bedding, lifted it into the mouth of the cave and shoved it back.
Two empty five-gallon kegs were left of his pack; he had not dared to leave them in the cache, to fall apart in the dry and sun-parched air. These kegs he filled at the tanks and slung on the pack saddle; with them he made his way to the hill of his hopes. It was close by; he had hidden there his pick, shovel and the broad shallow basin used for panning gold. He hobbled the horses; by ten o’clock, or a little later, he was deep in the interrupted task of a month before.
Freakish chance had timed that interruption to halt him on the very brink of success.Before he had taken out a dozen pans he was in rich dirt. Noon found him shaken from the poise and mastery of years. Abandoning the patient and systematic follow-up system, he pushed on up the hill, sampling at random, and finding each sample richer. The scant supply of water was nearly gone, the gold frenzy clutched at his heart. By sighting, he roughly developed the lines showing the probable limit of pay dirt, as marked by the monuments of his earlier labor; he noted the intersection of those lines, and there began a feverish panning with his remnant of water. He found gold in flakes, in scales, in millet-seed grains—in grains like rice at last! He had tracked down a pocket to make history with, to count time from. And the last of his water was used.
Adam sat down, trembling to think his find had been unprotected by the shadow of a claim for the last month; reflected then that it had lain unclaimed for some thousands of years, and with the reflection pulled himself together and managed a grin at his own folly.
He went back to his saddle. Tucked inthe saddle pockets was a goodly lunch, but he did not touch that. He untied his coat and took out two printed location notices, several crumply sheets of blank paper and a pencil. He filled in the blanks as the location notice of the Goblin Gold Mine—original notice and copy. On the blank paper he wrote out four more notices, two originals and two copies, for the Nine Bucks Placer Claim and the Please Hush. For the Goblin Gold he wrote himself as locator, Charles See and Howard Lull as witnesses; he reserved this for the highest and richest claim. For the next below, Charles See was locator, Forbes and Lull were witnesses; and the third was assigned to Howard Lull, with See and Forbes to bear witness.
Adam paced off the three claims adjoining each other and built a stone monument at each corner, with a larger monument for the location-papers at the center of each claim; the central monument of the Goblin Gold about where he had made the last panning. And then, even as he started to slip the first location notice in its monument, he lifted up his eyesand saw, across the tangled ridges, three men riding up from the deeps of Apache Cañon.
The cool judgment that had brought him safe through a thousand dangers was warped now by the fever and frenzy of gold lust; his canny instinct against disaster failed him in his need. There must be no shadow of irregularity on these claims, his hot brain reasoned; his find was too rich for chance-taking in the matter of mythical witnesses; yonder, by happy and unlooked for chance, were witnesses indeed; he must have their names to his location notices, and then he would get the copies to Hillsboro for recording at the earliest; he would mail them in Garfield post office that very afternoon.
He reversed his pencil and erased the names of his fictitious witnesses; he saddled his horse and rode to intercept the three horsemen, half a mile away now, trailing slowly across the park toward MacCleod’s Tanks. He waved them to stop. As he drew near he knew two of the men—Jody Weir, of Hillsboro, and Big Ed Caney, a deputy sheriff from Dona Ana County; two men he trusted not at all. Timewas he would have deemed this conjunction sinister; to-day, madness was upon him. The third was a stranger. Each man had a blanket and a bulging slicker tied behind his saddle. Evidently they carried rations for several days’ camping.
“Hello, Adam!”
“You’re another—three of ’em. Got any water in those canteens? If I was to do a piece of wishin’, right now, I’d mention water first off. This is sure one old scorcher of a day! She’s a weather breeder. Rain before morning, sure as snakes. I see thunder-heads peeping up over the Black Range, right now.”
Caney handed over a canteen. “Drink hearty! You shore look like you’d been working, Adam.”
Adam drank deep before replying.
“Working is right. Prospecting. Tired of farming—need a change. Say, I want you fellows to witness some location notices for me. Ride over on the next ridge and I can point out where the claims lay so you can swear to ’em—or ride over with me if you got time. I was just doing a little forgery whenI saw your dust, for I wasn’t expectin’ to see a man up this way—not ever. I do reckon this is the lonesomest place in the world.”
“Adam, meet my friend,” said Jody. “Mr. Forbes, Mr. Hales. Now, Adam, no need for us to go over to your layout, is there? We can see your silly monuments. That’s enough. No particular odds anyway, is it? I reckon half the notices on record have ghost signatures to ’em. Just as good as any. Nobody’ll ever know the difference.”
“Sure, that’s all right—but seein’ you happened along so slick, I thought I’d get your John Hancocks. Sign on the dotted line, please—where I rubbed out my forgeries.”
“Any good, your mines?” asked Jody as they signed.
“Might be—will be, likely enough. Just struck pay dirt to-day. Lots of room if you want to try a whirl—all round my claims, any direction except down.”
“Not to-day, I guess. Say, Forbes—you ain’t seen any strangers this way, have you? Mexicans, mebbe?”
“Not any. But I just come up from theriver. Hills might be full of people, for all I know. Water all round, after these rains.”
“Look, now,” said Jody. “We’re doin’ a little man hunt—and if you’re hangin’ round here prospectin’, you may be able to give us a straight tip. Keep your eye peeled. There’ll be a piece of money in it for you if you can help us out.”
“Give it a name. But see here, Caney—this isn’t Dona Ana County, you know. You’re over the line.”
“I’m not doing this official,” said Caney. “Neither is Hales, here, though he is a deputy in Socorro County. We’re private cits in this man’s county—playin’ a hunch. Here’s the lay: There’s been a heap of stealing saddles for a business lately—saddles and other truck, but saddles, wholesale, most particular. Got so it wasn’t safe for a man to leave a saddle on a horse at night, down round Las Cruces.”
“They got Bill McCall’s saddle in Mesilla three months ago,” broke in Jody, laughing. “So Bill, he went and broke a bronc backward. Yes, sir! Broke him to be saddled and mounted from the wrong side. Only left-handedhorse in the world, I reckon. Then Bill slips off down to Mesilla, ties his horse in front of Isham Holt’s house about dark, and filters inside to jolly Miss Valeria. Pretty soon Bill heard a tur’ble row outside, and when he went out he found a Mex boy rollin’ round in the street and a-holdin’ both hands to his belly. Claimed he had the cramps, he did—but that’s why we’re rather looking for Mexicans.”
“We figured they were a regular gang, scattered up and down, hurrying the stuff along by relays, and likely taking it down in old Mexico to dispose of,” said Caney. “Then we hear that saddles are being missed up in Socorro County too. So Hales and me gets our wise heads together. Here is our hugeous hunch: This is lonesome country here, the big roads dodge the river from San Marcial to Rincon, ’count of it being so rough, so thieves wouldn’t go by the Jornada nor yet take the big west-side roads through Palomas or Hillsboro. No, sir. They just about follow the other side of the river, where nobody lives, as far down as Engle Ferry. There orthereabouts they cross over, climb up Mescal Cañon and ooze out through the rough country east of Caballo Mountain. Then they either come through by MacCleod’s and cross the river here again, or they keep on down below Rincon to Barela Bosque. Maybe they save up till they get a wagonload of saddles, cover them up with a tarp or maybe some farm truck, and drive whistlin’ down the big road to El Paso.”
“Anyhow,” said Hales, “the Cattle Association has offered an even thousand for information leading to conviction, and we’re going to watch the passes and water holes—here and at Hadley Spring and Palomas Gap. If you help get the thousand, you help spend it. That’s right, ain’t it, boys?”
The others nodded.
“Go with you, you mean?”
“No. You stay here—so long as you’re here anyway—while we ride up the line. That way, one of us can go on and watch Mescal. We was one man shy before,” said Caney. “Does it go?”
“It goes.”
“Take your silly location papers then, and we’ll ride. We’re going across to have a look for tracks in Deadman first.” He jerked his chin toward a notch in the hills, halfway between the head of Apache Cañon and the head of Redgate. “Then we’ll go up by MacCleod’s Tank and on through to the Jornada and up the east side of Timber Mountain.”
“Me, I reckon I’ll post my notice and then go mail the copies to the recorder’s office,” said Adam. “Thank’ee, gentlemen.Adios!”
Jody Weir pulled up his horse behind the first hill.
“Fellers, that man has made a strike! Didya see his face—all sweat and dust? Adam Forbes is not the man to rustle like that in this broiling sun unless he was worked up about something. He didn’t act natural, nohow. He drawls his talk along, as a usual thing—but to-day he spoke up real crisp and peart. I tell you now, Forbes has found the stuff!”
“I noticed he didn’t seem noways keen forus to go help post his papers,” said Caney.
“Humph! I began noticin’ before that,” said Toad Hales. “Us signing as witnesses—that got my eye. Usually it makes no never minds about a witness to a mining claim. They sign up John Smith, Robinson Crusoe or Jesse James, and let it go at that. Mighty strict and law-abiding all of a sudden, he was! And going to record his papers the day of discovery—when he has ninety days for it? It’s got all the earmarks of a regular old he-strike! I move we take rounders on him and go look-see.”
“Cowboy—you done said something.”
They slipped back furtively, making a detour, riding swiftly under cover of shielding hills; they peeped over a hill crest beyond Adam’s claims just in time to see him riding slowly away in the direction of Redgate.
“Gone to mail his notices to Hillsboro!” snarled Jody. “Some hurry! Come on, you—let’s look into this.”
They found pick and pan, stacked with the empty water kegs by the location monument of the Goblin Gold; they scraped up a smallpan of dirt from one of the shallow holes of Adam’s making; they poured in water from their canteens; Caney did the washing. He poured off the lighter dirt, he picked out the pebbles, he shook the residue with a gentle oscillating movement; he poured the muddy water cautiously, he shook the pan again.
“Sufferin’ tomcats!” yelled Hales. “Gold as big as wheat!”
Caney’s face went whitey-green; he completed the washing with a last dexterous flirt and set down the pan with trembling hands.
“Look at that!”
Jody’s eyes were popping from his head. “A pocket! Even if it plays out in a day—a day’s work would make us rich for life!”
“Us—hell!” said Caney. “We get the crumbs and leavings. Adam Forbes knows what he’s about. He’s got the cream. Outside of his claims the whole damn mountain won’t be worth hell room!”
Jody turned his eyes slowly toward Redgate. “If we’d only known we might have horned in. Three of us—why, sooner thanlose it all and get himself killed to boot, we might have split this fifty-fifty.”
“We’ll split this thirty-thirty!” Caney sprang to his feet. “Have you got the guts for it? Jody, this is your country—can we head him off?”
“If he goes round by the head of Redgate Cañon—and if we don’t stay here talking—we can cut across through Deadman. There’s a pass where Deadman and Redgate bend close together. It won’t be a long shot—two hundred yards.”
“Three shots! Come on!” Hales swung on his horse. “We’ve all got our rifles. Three shots! Come on!” He jabbed the spurs home.
It was not until they had passed the park that the others overtook Hales.
“Here, you, Hales—don’t kill your horse!” said Jody Weir. “If he beats us to the pass we’re not done yet. He’ll come back to-night. He said so.”
“You cussed fool! If he once gets those location notices in the mail we might as welllet him go. We couldn’t take the chances and get by with it.”
“That’s just it,” said Jody. “Hi! Caney! Ride up alongside. Slow up, Hales! Listen, both of you. Even if he gets those papers in the mail, the recorder need never see them. All I have to do is to say the word. I’m on the inside—sure and safe.”
“Sure?”
“Sure and safe. If he beats us to the gap and comes back—well, you stop Adam’s mouth and I’ll be responsible for the papers. They’ll never be recorded in this world!”
“Where’s your stand-in? At Garfield?”
“Never you mind my stand-in. That’s my lookout. A letter posted at Garfield to-night goes to Rincon by buckboard to-morrow; it lays over in Rincon to-morrow night, goes out on the High Line to Nutt on the nine-fifteen day after to-morrow, takes the branch line to Lake Valley, and goes from Lake to Hillsboro by stage. It don’t get to Hillsboro till two in the afternoon, day after to-morrow. It takes as long from Garfield to Hillsboro as from Chicago. After—after—if we turn thetrick—we can come back and post location notices for ourselves. Then we can beat it on a bee line for Hillsboro and record ’em.”
“Aha! So it’s at Hillsboro post office you’re the solid Muldoon, is it?”
Weir’s gun flashed to a level with Caney’s breast. “That will be all from you, Caney! Your next supposing along those lines will be your last. Get me? Now or ever! Keep your mouth closed, and Adam Forbes’ mouth. That’s your job.”
“Put up your gun, kid. I can’t afford to be killed. I’m going to be a howlin’ millionaire. I’ll say no more, but I’m not sorry I spoke. You bein’ so very earnest that way, I’m satisfied you can deliver the goods. That is what I want to know—for I tell you now, I don’t expect to head Forbes off here. He had too much start of us—unless he dilly-dallies along the road or is delayed.”
“If he comes back, won’t he bring a gang with him? If he does we’re done,” said Hales. “That’s why I’m willing to kill my horse to beat him to it. You two seem more interested in chewing the rag.”
“O, that’s all right! Jody and me, we’ve come to a good understanding,” said Caney smoothly. Jody Weir glanced carelessly at the back of Hales’ head, his eyes wandered till they met Caney’s eyes and held steadily there for a moment; his brows arched a trifle.
“Well, here we are,” announced Jody. “We’d better make the climb afoot. The horses are about done and they’d make too much noise anyway—floundering about. It’s all slick rock.”
They took their rifles from the saddles, they clambered up the steep pass, they peered over cautiously.
“Hell! There’s two of them!” said Caney. “Get ’em both! Big stakes! This is the chance of a lifetime!”
Below them on a little shelf of promontory stood a saddled horse, a blue horse. A yearling was hog-tied there, and a branding fire burned beside. As they looked, a young man knelt over the yearling and earmarked it. Close by, Adam Forbes slouched in the saddle, leaning with both hands on the horn. Hegave a letter to the young man, who stuck it into his shirt and then went back to the yearling. He loosed the hogging-string. The yearling scrambled to his feet, bawling defiance, intent on battle; the young man grabbed the yearling’s tail and jerked him round till his head faced down the cañon. Adam Forbes made a pass with his horse and slapped with his hat; the yearling fled.
“Wait! Wait!” whispered Jody. “I know that man! That’s Johnny Dines. Wait! Adam wants to get back and feel that gold in his fingers. Ten to one Dines is going across the river; I can guess his business; he’s hunting for the John Cross. Adam gave him the location-papers to mail. If Adam goes back—there’s your scapegoat—Dines! He’ll be the man that killed Forbes!”
“Friend of yours, Jody?”
“Damn him! If they both start down the cañon, you fellows get Forbes. I’ll get Dines myself. That’s the kind of friend he is. Get your guns ready—they’ll be going in a minute, one way or the other.”
“Curiously enough, I know Johnny Dines myself,” muttered Hales. “Very intelligent man, Dines. Very! I would take a singular satisfaction in seeing young Dines hung. To that laudable end I sure hope your Mr. Forbes will not go down the cañon.”
“Well, he won’t! Didn’t you see him give Dines the papers?” said Caney. “Lay still! This is going to match up like clockwork.”
The men below waved their hands to each other in friendly fashion; Forbes jogged lazily up the cañon; Dines stamped out the branding fire and rode whistling on the riverward road.
“Weir, you’re dead sure you can pull the trick about the papers? All right, then—you and Hales go over there and write out joint location papers in the names of the three of us. Got a pencil? Yes? Burn the old notices, and burn ’em quick. Burn his kegs and turn his hobbled horse loose. We will bring his tools as we come back, and hide ’em in the rocks. Any old scrap of paper will do us. Here’s some old letters. Use the backs of them. After we get to Hillsboro we’ll make copies to file.”
These directions came jerkily and piecemeal as the conspirators scrambled down the hillside.
“Where’ll we join you?”
Caney paused with his foot in the stirrup to give Jody Weir a black look.
“I’ll join you, young fellow, and I’ll join you at our mine. Do you know, I don’t altogether trust you? I want to see those two sets of location papers with my two eyes before we start. So you’ll have lots of time. Don’t you make no mistakes. And when we go, we go together. Then if we happen to find Adam Forbes by the fire where he caught young Dines stealin’ a maverick of his—”
“How’ll you manage that? Forbes is halfway to the head of the cañon by now.”
“That’s your way to the left, gentlemen. Take your time, now. I’m in no hurry and you needn’t be, and our horses are all tired from their run. And you want to be most mighty sure you keep on going. For the next half hour nobody’s going to know what I’m doing but me and God—and we won’t tell.”
Caney turned off to the right. Fifteen minutes later he met Adam Forbes in a tangle of red hills by the head of Redgate.
“Hi, Adam! We got ’em!” he hailed jubilantly. “Caught ’em with the goods. Two men and five saddles. Both Mexicans.”
“They must have given you one hell of a chase, judging from your horse.”
“They did. We spied ’em jest over the divide at the head of Deadman. There wasn’t any chance to head ’em off. We woulda tagged along out of sight, but they saw us first. They dropped their lead horses and pulled out—but we got close enough to begin foggin’ lead at ’em in a straight piece of cañon, and they laid ’em down.”
“Know ’em?”
“Neither one. Old Mexico men, I judge by the talk of ’em. Hales and Jody took ’em on down Deadman—them and the lead horses—while I come back for you.”
“Me? Whadya want o’ me?”
“Why, you want to go down to represent for yourself. You know that odd bit of land,grown up to brush, that you bought of Miguel Silva?”
“Took it on a bad debt. What of it?”
“Why, there’s an old tumbledown shack on it, and they’ve been using that as a store house, tha’sall. By their tell they got eighteen assorted saddles hid there.”
“Well, I’m damned!” said Adam, turning back. “That’s a blame fine howdy-do, ain’t it? How long have they been at this lay?”
“Four or five months. More’n that south of here. But they just lately been extendin’ and branchin’ out.”
“Making new commercial connections, so to speak. Any of the Garfieldgenteimplicated?”
“One. Albino Villa Neuva.”
Adam nodded. “Always thought he was a badhombre, Albino.”
“They’re going to come clean, these two,” said Caney cheerfully. “We told ’em if they’d turn state’s evidence they’d probable get off light. Reckon we’re going to round up the whole gang. Say, I thought you’dhiked on to Garfield. I started back to your little old mine, cut into your sign, and was followin’ you up.”
“Yes, I did start down all right. But I met up with a lad down here a stretch and give him my papers and shackled on back. Damn your saddle thieves, anyway—I sure wanted to go back and paw round that claim of mine. My pack horse is back there hobbled, too.”
“Aw, nemmine your pack horse. He’ll make out till mornin’.”
Ahead of them the wagon road was gouged into the side of an overhang of promontory, under a saddleback pass to northward. A dim trail curved away toward the pass. Adam’s eye followed the trail. Caney’s horse fell back a step.
“There’s where I found my mail carrier,” said Adam; “up on top of that little thumb. A Bar Cross waddy, he was—brandin’ a calf.”
Caney fired three times. The muzzle of his forty-five was almost between Adam’s shoulders. Adam fell sidewise to the left, he clutched at his rifle, he pulled it with him ashe fell. His foot hung in the stirrup, his horse dragged him for a few feet. Then his foot came free. He rolled over once, and tried to pull his rifle up. Then he lay still with his face in the dust.
“Look on my face. My name is Might-Have-Been—I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell.”—Credit Lost.
“Look on my face. My name is Might-Have-Been—I am also called No-More, Too-Late, Farewell.”
—Credit Lost.
“It is a hard world,” sighed Charlie See. “Life is first one thing and then it is a broom factory.”
They made a gay cavalcade of laughter and shining life, those four young people. They had been to show Charlie over the gristmill and the broom factory, new jewels in Garfield’s crown, and now they turned from deed to dream, rode merry for a glimpsing of to-morrow, where Hobby Lull planned a conquest more lasting than Cæsar’s. Their way led now beyond the mother ditch to lands yet unredeemed, which in the years to come would lie under a high ditch yet to be. So they said and thought. But what in truth they rode forth for to see was east of the sun and west of the moon—not to be told here. Where youth rides with youth under a singing sky the chronicle should be broad-spaced between the lines; a double story, word and silence.To what far-off divine event we move, there shall be no rapture keener than hoping time in unspoiled youth.
The embankments of the mother ditch were head-high to them as they rode. They paused on the high bridge between the desert and the sown. Behind lay the broad and level clearings, orchard, kempt steading and alfalfa; a step beyond was the raw wilderness, the yucca and the sand, dark mesquite in hummocks and mottes and clumps, a brown winding belt between the mother ditch and the first low bench land. The air came brisk and sweet; it rippled the fields to undulant shimmer of flashing purple and green and gold.
“Your’cequia madreis sure brimful this evenin’,” remarked the guest.
“Always is—when we don’t need it. In dry weather she gets pretty low enough,” said Hobby. “Colorado people get the first whack at the water, and New Mexico takes what is left. Never high water here except at flood time. Fix that different some day. We got to fight flood and drought now, one down, another come on. Some day we’ll save the floodwater. Sure! No floods, no drought. Easy as lying!Vamonos!”
The road followed the curving ditch; their voices were tuned to lipping water and the drone of bees. Lull pointed out the lines where his high ditch was to run at the base of the bench land, with flume at gully and cañon steeps. As eye and mapping hand turned toward Redgate a man came down Redgate road to meet them; a man on a Maltese horse. He rode briskly, poised, sure-swaying as ever bird on bough. Charlie See warmed to the lithe youth of him.
“There, fellow citizens,” he said, “there is what I’d call a good rider!”
As the good rider came abreast he swept off his hat. His eyes were merry; he nodded greeting and shook back a mop of blackest hair. The sun had looked upon him. He checked the blue horse in his stride—not to stop, but to slow him; he spoke to Lull in passing.
“Garfield post office?” He jerked a thumb toward the bridge; for indeed, seen across the ramparts of the ditch, there was smalldistinction between visible Garfield and the scattered farmsteads. “This way?”
“Yes.”
“Just across the bridge,” added Lyn. The story scorns to suppress the truth—she smiled her dimpliest.
“Thanks,” said the stranger; and then, as he came abreast of Charlie See: “And the road to Hillsboro? Back this way—or straight on?”
“Straight through. Take the right hand at the post office—straight to the ford. You’ll have to swim, I reckon.”
“Yes,” said the stranger indifferently. He was well beyond See and Edith Harkey now, and the blue horse came back into the road and into his reaching stride. “Thanks.” The stranger looked back with the last word; at the same time Miss Dyer turned her head. They smiled.
“And they turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt!” said Mr. Lull bitterly.
“He had such smiling eyes,” urged Lyn.
“Ruin and destruction! See! Edith! Spread out—head her off!” Hobby grabbed Lyn’sbridle rein and led his captive away at a triumphant trot.
They turned aside to inspect the doubtful passage where the future ditch must clamber and twist to cross Deadman; Hobby Lull explained, defended, expounded; he bristled with estimates, alternative levels and acre costs; here was the inevitable way, but yonder there was a choosing; at that long gray point, miles away, the ditch must leave the river to gain the needed grades. He sparkled with irresistible enthusiasm, he overbore opposition.
“Look here, folks!” said Hobby. “See those thunder-heads? It’s clouding up fast. It’s going to rain and there’s not a man in town can stop it. I aimed to take you up and show you the place we picked to make the ditch head, but I judge we best go home. We can see the ditch head another day.”
“Now was I convinced or only persuaded?” Charlie See made the grumbling demand of Edith as they set their faces homeward.
Yet he was secretly impressed; he paused by jungle and sandy swale or ribbed and gulliedslope for admiration of orchards unplanted and friendly homesteads yet to be; he drew rein by a pear thicket and peered half enviously into its thorny impenetrable keeps.
“Who lives there, Edith? That’s the best place we’ve seen. Big fine house and all, but it looks comfortable and homey, just the same—mighty pleasant and friendly. And them old-fashioned flower beds are right quaint.”
“Hollyhocks,” she breathed; “and marigolds, and four o’clocks. An old-fashioned woman lives here.”
Charlie’s voice grew wistful. “I might have had a place like this just as well as not—if I’d only had sense enough to hear and hark. Hobby Lull brought me out here and put me wise, years ago, but I wouldn’t listen. There was a bunch of us. Hobby and—and—now who else was it? It was a merry crowd, I can remember that. Hobby did all the talking—but who were the others? And have they forgotten too? It was a long time ago, before the big ditch. Oh, dear! I do wish I could remember who was with me!”
His voice trailed off to silence and a sigh that was only half assumed.
“You make it seem very real,” she said, unconscious of her answering deeper sigh.
“Real. It is real! Look there—and there—and there!”
“That is all Hobby’s work,” said Edith as her eyes followed his pointing finger, and saw there what he saw—the city of his vision, the courts and palaces of love. “He has the builder’s mind.”
“Yes. It is a great gift.” It was said ungrudgingly. “I wish I had it. That way lies happiness. Me—I am a spectator.”
She shook her reins to go, with a last look at his phantom farmlands. “‘An’ I ’a stubb’d Thurnaby waäste.’ That’s what they’ll put on Hobby’s tombstone.”
She lifted up her eyes from the waste places and the seeming, and let them rest on the glowing mesas beyond the river and the long dim ridges of misty mountain beyond and over all; and saw them in the light that never was on sea or land. The heart of the good warmboisterous earth called to kindred clay, “and turned her sweet blood into wine.”
Shy happiness tinged her pale cheek with color, a tint of wild rose and sea-shell delicacy, faint and all unnoted; he was half inattentive to her as she rode beside him, glowing in her splendid spring, a noble temple of life, a sanctuary ready for clean sacrifice.
“Yes. Hobby, he’s all right. Him and his likes, they put up the brains and take the risks and do the work. But after it’s all done some of these austere men we read about, they’ll ooze in and gather the crops.”
“He doesn’t miss much worth having. What may be weighed and counted and stolen and piled in heaps—oh, yes, Hobby Lull may miss that. Not real things, like laughter and joy and—and love, Charlie.”
Charlie See turned his head toward Redgate. She read his thought; in her face the glow of life faded behind the white skin. But he did not see it; nor the thread of pain in her eyes. In his thought she was linked with Adam Forbes, and at her word he smiled tothink of his friend, and looked up to Redgate where, even then, “Nicanor lay dead in his harness.”
Pete Harkey’s buckboard stood by the platform in front of the little store, and the young people waited there for him and his marketing.
“Mail day?” asked Charlie.
“Nope. To-morrow is the big day.”
“We used to get it three times a week,” said Lyn. “Now it’s only twice.”
“When I was a boy,” said See thoughtfully, “I always wanted to rob a stage, just once. Somehow or other I never got round to it.” His brow clouded.
“Why, Mr. See!”
“Charlie,” said Mr. See. “Well, you needn’t be shocked. Society is very unevenly divided between the criminal and the non-criminal classes.”
“That,” said Edith, “might be called a spiral remark. Would it be impertinent to ask you to specify?”
“Not at all. Superfluous. See for yourself. Old Sobersides, here—you might give him the benefit of the doubt—he’s so durned practical. But Adam and me, Uncle Dan and your Dad—there’s no doubt about us, I’m afraid. It’s right quaint to see how proud those old roosters are of the lurid past. When one of ’em gets on the peck, all you got to do is to start relatin’ how wild they used to be, and they’ll be eatin’ out of your hand in no time. They ought to be ashamed of themselves—silly old donkeys!”
“How about the women?” asked Lyn.
“I’ve never been able to make a guess. But there’s so few of you out here at the world’s end, that you don’t count for much, either way.”
“Lyn realizes that,” said Hobby. “Here at the ragged edge of things she knows that the men outnumber the women five to one. So she tries to make up for it. She is a friendly soul.”
Miss Lyn Dyer ignored this little speech and harked back to the last observation of Charlie See. “So you did manage to notice that, did you? I’m surprised. They’veamused me for years—Uncle Dan and Uncle Pete; how mean they were, the wild old days and the chimes at midnight! But a girl—oh, dear me, how very different! No hoydens need apply! A notably unwild boy is reproached as a sissy and regarded with suspicion, but a girl must not even play at being wild. ‘Prunes, prisms and potatoes!’ Podsnap! Pecksniff! Turveydrop and Company! Doesn’t anyone ever realize that it might be a tame business never to be wild at all?”
“’Tis better to be wild and weep—”
“Now, Hobby Lull, you hush up! The answer is, No. Catechism. A man expects from his womankind a scrupulous decorum which he is far too broad-minded to require from himself or his mates—charitable soul! Laughter and applause. Cries of ‘That’s true!’—Anything more grossly unfair—”
Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub! Rub-a-dub!
Three men thundered over the’cequiabridge. At the first drum of furious hoofs See wheeled his horse sharply.
“What’s that? Trouble!” The threehorsemen swooped from the bridge, pounding on the beaten road. “Trouble, sure!”
“You two girls light out of this! Ride!” said Lull. He spurred to the open door of the store. “Pete!” he called, and turned back.
“Adam?” said Charlie. “Something wrong up Redgate way. Adam’s there, and no one else that we know of.”
“I’m afraid so. Horse fell on him maybe—dynamite or something. Here they come. Big Ed and Jody Weir. I don’t know the third man.”
The horsemen were upon them. “Murder!” cried Caney. “Adam Forbes has been murdered! Up in Redgate. The murderer came this way. We trailed him to the bridge. His horse had lost a shoe.”
“Adam Forbes!”
“Who is to tell Edith?” said Charlie See, under his breath.
“Someone’s going to hang for this. When we found him—I never had such a shock in my life!” said Jody Weir. “Shot from behind—three times. The powder burned his shirt. Adam never had a chance. Cold-blooded murder. Adam was holding fast to his rifle, wrong side up, just as he pulled it from the scabbard. That man came through here.”
“Or stopped here,” amended Caney. “Might have been a Garfield man, of course. I’ve heard that Forbes was tol’able arbitrary.”
“We met a stranger coming down from Redgate, something like an hour and a half ago,” said Hobby. “But if he had just killed a man, I’ll eat my hat. That man was feeling fine. Only a boy, too. Someone else did it, I guess.”
“And he’d been riding slow. No sweat on his horse,” added Charlie.
“Couldn’t have been anyone else. There wasn’t any other tracks, except the tracks of Adam’s horse. They turned off south as soon as he got out of the mouth of the cañon.”
“How’d you know it was Adam’s horse?” This was Pete Harkey, at the open door.
“Saw where the bridle reins dragged. Say! Any you fellows comin’ with us? That man killed Forbes, I tell you—and we’re goin’ after him. Only about two hours till dark—twoand a half at most—and a rain coming up. This is no time for talking. We can talk on the road.”
“Anybody stay with Adam?” asked Pete.
“No. There was just the three of us. We came full chisel after the murderer, hard as we could ride. Come on—get some of your men together—let’s ride,” said Caney impatiently. “Get a wiggle on, can’t you? Let’s find out which way he went and what he looked like. He came here. No chance for mistake. The body was still warm.”
“I saw him! I saw him!” cackled the storekeeper. “Little man, smaller than Charlie—and young. About twenty. Came in after you all left,” he said, addressing Lull. “Mailed a letter. Ridin’ a blue horse, he was—agrullo. That the man you met?”
“Yes. But riding a blue horse doesn’t prove that a man has done murder. Nor yet mailing a letter. Or being young. We knew that man went through Garfield. That’s nothing new. He told us he was going on to Hillsboro.”
“That was a blind, I reckon. He can turnalways back, soon as he gets out of sight,” said Hales.
“He went that way,” piped the storekeeper. “Mailed a letter here, bought a shoe and tacked it on his horse. I fished round to find out who he was, but he put me off. Finally I asked him, p’int-blank. ‘You didn’t say what your name was,’ says I. ‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t.’ And off he went, laughing, impydent as hell!”
“Did you notice the brand on his horse?” asked Charlie. “He passed on our right-hand side, so we didn’t see it.”
“No, I didn’t. He took the Greenhorn road, and he was ridin’ middlin’ slow.”
“If you had used your mouth less and your eyes more, you might have something to tell us,” sneered Hales.
“Little man on agrullohorse—that’s enough for us—we’re goin’!” snapped Caney. “Say, you fellers make me plumb sick! The murderer’s getting away, and all you do is blat. We’re goin’, and we’re goin’ now!”
“Something tells me you won’t,” said Pete Harkey.
He had mysteriously acquired a shotgun from his buckboard, and he cocked both hammers with the word. “Not till we talk a little. According to your tell, the killing was done in Sierra County. That’s my county, and we figure we are plenty competent to skin our own skunks. Also, we want one good long look before we leap. You three are the only men who can tell us anything, and we want to know what you know, so we’ll not lose time or make mistakes. We can’t afford to shoot so as to hit if it’s a deer and miss if it’s a mule. You fellers are excited. What you need is a head. I’ll be head.
“You just calm down a little. I’ll be getting a posse together to go back and look into this. You can be fixing to give us some idea what’s happened. After that, these two boys can go with you. They’ve seen this stranger and they’ll know him on a fresh horse. All you three know about his looks is a blue horse. I’m going up where Adam was killed. Where was it? Don’t be nervous about this gun. I never shot a man accidentally in my life. Where was Adam killed?”
“In Redgate. Near the upper end. We was looking—”
“That’s enough. You wait till I send for some friends of mine.” Pete raised his voice. “Girls! Ride over here! Now you folks keep still till the girls get away. Toad Hales, is it? I’ve seen you before, Mr. Hales.... Edith, you go to the mill and tell Jerome I want him. Lyn, you go to Chuck Barefoot’s and tell him to get Jim-Ike-Jones and come here and be quick about it. Then you girls go home.”
“What is it, Uncle Pete? Adam?” said Lyn, with a quivering lip.
“Yes, dear. Go on, now.”
“Dead?”
“Murdered!”
“Adam!”
Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent to her horse’s mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull.
“Oh, Hobby! Be careful—come back to me!” She raised her lips to his. He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with sobbing. “Oh,poor Adam!” She cried. “Poor Adam!”
Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips to silence. If his face was bleak—why not, for Adam, his friend?
And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone of them all, had seen that stricken face.
“Lyn, you go on,” said Pete. “Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever God’ll let him come.”
He turned back to the men.
“Now, then, you fellows! Begin at the beginning. Hales, you didn’t know Adam, so you won’t be so bad broke up as the others. Suppose you tell us what you know. Wait a minute. Sam, you be saddling up a horse for me. Now, Mr. Hales?”
“We were looking out for that gang of saddle thieves. Went up ’Pache Cañon. Along in the park we saw tracks where two shod horses turned down into Redgate, and we followed them up. One of ’em had been chasinga bunch of cattle—or so we thought, though we didn’t notice that part very close, having no particular reason for it then. We’d looked through two-three bunches of cattle ourselves earlier, for Jody’s stuff.”
“Yes, and you had breakfast, likely—but what do I care? You get on with your story.”
“Say, old man,” said Hales in some exasperation, “if you don’t want this man caught, I’m satisfied. It’s nothing to me. I didn’t know Forbes. If you want this friend of yours to get away, I’m willing to get down and stay all night. You’re pretty overbearing with your little old shotgun.”
He made as if to dismount.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Pete mildly. “Look at your friends, first. They’re just as overborne as you are, likely—but you notice they are not making any complaints. They know me, you see. They know how Adam Forbes stood in Garfield, and what kind of folks live in Garfield; and they know that whoever killed Adam is in trouble up to his neck. You mustn’t mind our little ways.However, as the witness is peeved, we’ll try another. Jody, speak up and tell us.”
“You act like we was under suspicion,” sneered Hales.
“Sure, you’re under suspicion! What do you expect? Everybody’s under suspicion till we find the right man. I’m going to send word up and down to hold all strangers. That part is all right. Hello, Jerome! You missed most of the evidence! I’ll tell you about it as we go up.”
“Now why the little gun?” said Jerome Martin, tranquilly.
“Been holding an election. Now, Jody—your little piece.”
“There’s not much to tell. We found Adam’s body a little ways down the cañon, maybe a quarter or a little more; and just this side of it we found where a yearling had been branded, or a big calf; ashes still warm. Looks just like this fellow had been stealing one of Adam’s calves, and Adam caught him at it.”
“But you said Adam was shot in the back at close range,” objected Charlie. “AdamForbes wouldn’t turn his back to any man, under those circumstances. That won’t work.”
“Yes, we thought of that,” said Caney. “More likely he saw Adam coming and killed him before he got to the calf—pretending to be friendly. Anyhow, Adam’s horse went off down the cañon, and the other man went down the cañon, and we came after him. Oh, yes! His horse lost a shoe, as we told you before—the murderer’s. Must have lost it chasing that calf. Tracks didn’t show it in the soft ground in the park, anyhow—though we didn’t look very close till we found Adam. But after he left Adam’s body his tracks showed one shoe gone. That’s all. Adam’s horse bore off to the left. He had a larger foot than the other, and we could see where the bridle dragged.”
“I’ll send someone to find him. You didn’t hear any shots?”
“Oh, no—we just thought maybe we’d meet up with some puncher ridin’ the range, and ask him had he seen any strangers. This gang of saddle thieves—”
“Yes, I know about them. Thankee, gentlemen. You can ride now. If you catch your man beyond the river you might as well take him on to Hillsboro. Be mighty sure to remember not to forget to be particular to take this young man alive. We want to hang the man that killed Adam Forbes. That’s all.”
“Here, I want some cartridges,” said Hobby. He leaped off and jingled into the store. “Hi, Sam! Get me a box of forty-fives,” he called. Then to Harkey, in a guarded voice: “Pete, this looks fishy as hell! Those ashes were warm, they said. Look what time it is now—half past four. The way they were riding, this bunch made it from Redgate in half an hour. We met this stranger near two hours ago. That don’t hold together. If the stranger man built that fire, the ashes would have been cold when Caney’s bunch found them. And they say there are no other tracks. Wrong—all wrong!”
“And all the rest of it. Son, I didn’t miss a bet. Neither did Charlie See. He looked hard at me. Save your breath. Say nothingand see everything. You do your part and I’ll do mine. I’ll know more before dark if it don’t rain and rub out the tracks. Our Father which is in Garfield hates a lie, and he’s fixed up this here solar system so there is no safe place in it for a lie. Sh-h! Here comes Caney!” He raised his voice. “What the devil do you need of more men? Five to one—what more do you want?”
“Well, but we may lose track of him and want to spread out to look and ask, while some of us go on—”
“Where can I find drinking water?” asked Caney.
“Back there,” said Pete, pointing. Then, to Hobby: “Well, pick up someone in Arrey, then, or on the way. I want the men round here to go with me and look round before it gets dark. Say, Sam—you send someone up with a wagon to bring Adam back, will you? I’m off—me and Jerome. Tell Jones and Barefoot to come right on. Take care of my team for me.”
He went out on the platform. Lull and Caney followed.
“Well, so long, you fellows,” said Pete. “Send word back if you find your man. Because there’s going to be a lot of irritated strangers when we start to picking them up.”
“We had some plunder—grub and a blanket apiece tied behind our saddles, and we dumped it, to ride light, where we found Adam—just kept our slickers,” said Caney. “Have ’em bring ’em in, will you, Harkey?”
“Sure,” said Pete.