The thought which caused Bennington de Lane so suddenly look grave was suggested by the sentence in his mother's letter. For the first time he realized that these people, up to now so amusing, were possibly destined to come into intimate relations with himself. Old Bill Lawton was Mary's father; while Mrs. Lawton was Mary's mother; Maude was Mary's sister.
The next instant a great rush of love into his heart drove this feeling from it. What matter anything, provided she loved him and he loved her? Generous sentiment so filled him that there was room for nothing else. He even experienced dimly in the depths of his consciousness, a faint pale joy that in thus accepting what was disagreeable to his finer sensibilities, he was proving more truly to his own self the boundlessness of his love. For the moment he was exalted by this instant revulsion against anything calculating in his passion. And then slowly, one by one, the objections stole back, like a flock of noisome sombre creatures put to flight by a sudden movement, but now returning to their old nesting places. The very unassuming method of their recurrence lent them an added influence. Almost before Bennington knew it they had established a case, and he found himself face to face with a very ugly problem.
Perhaps it will be a little difficult for the average and democratic reader to realize fully the terrible proportions of this problem. We whose lives assume little, require little of them. Intangible objections to the desires of our hearts do not count for much against their realization; there needs the rough attrition of reality to turn back our calm, complacent acquisition of that which we see to be for our best interest in the emotional world. Claims of ancestry mean nothing. Claims of society mean not much more. Claims of wealth are considered as evanescent among a class of men who, by their efforts and genius, are able to render absolute wealth itself an evanescent quality. When one of us loves, he questions the worth of the object of his passion. That established, nothing else is of great importance. There is a grand and noble quality in this, but it misses much. About the other state of affairs—wherein the woman's appurtenances of all kinds, as well as the woman herself, are significant—is a delicate and subtle aura of the higher refinement—the long refinement of the spirit through many generations—which, to an eye accustomed to look for gradations of moral beauty, possesses a peach-blow iridescence of its own. From one point of view, the old-fashioned forms of thought and courtesy are stilted and useless. From another they retain still the lofty dignity ofnoblesse oblige.
So we would have none set down Bennington de Laney as a prig or a snob because he did not at once decide for his heart as against his aristocratic instincts. Not only all his early education, but the life lessons of many generations of ancestors had taught him to set a fictitious value on social position. He was a de Laney on both sides. He had never been allowed to forget it. A long line of forefathers, proud-eyed in their gilded frames, mutely gazed their sense of the obligations they had bequeathed to this last representative of their race. When one belongs to a great family he can not live entirely for himself. His disgrace or failure reflects not alone on his own reputation, but it sullies the fair fame of men long dead and buried; and this is a dreadful thing. For all these old Puritans and Cavaliers, these knights and barons, these king's councillors and scholars, have perchance lived out the long years of their lives with all good intent and purpose and with all earnestness of execution, merely that they might build and send down to posterity this same fair fame. It is a bold man, or a wicked man, who will dare lightly to bring the efforts of so many lives to naught! In the thought of these centuries of endeavour, the sacrifice of mere personal happiness does not seem so great an affair after all. The Family Name has taken to itself a soul. It is a living thing. It may be worked for, it may be nourished by affection, it may even be worshipped. Men may give their lives to it with as great a devotion, with as exalted a sense of renunciation, and as lofty a joy in that renunciation, as those who vow allegiance to St. Francis or St. Dominic. The tearing of the heart from the bosom often proves to be a mortal hurt when there is nothing to put in the gap of its emptiness. Not so when a tradition like this may partly take its place.
These, and more subtle considerations, were the noblest elements of Bennington de Laney's doubts. But perhaps they were no more potent than some others which rushed through the breach made for them in the young man's decision.
He had always lived so much at home that he had come to accept the home point of view without question. That is to say, he never examined the value of his parent's ideas, because it never occurred to him to doubt them. He had no perspective.
In a way, then, he accepted as axioms the social tenets held by his mother, or the business methods practised by his father. He believed that elderly men should speak precisely, and in grammatical, but colourless English. He believed also that people should, in society, conduct themselves according to the fashion-plate pattern designed by Mrs. de Laney. He believed these things, not because he was a fool, or shallow, or lacking in humour, or snobbish, but because nothing had ever happened to cause him to examine his beliefs closely, that he might appreciate what they really were. One of these views was, that cultured people were of a class in themselves, and could not and should not mix with other classes. Mrs. de Laney entertained a horror of vulgarity. So deep-rooted was this horror that a remote taint of it was sufficient to thrust forever outside the pale of her approbation any unfortunate who exhibited it. She preferred stupidity to common sense, when the former was allied with good form, and the latter only with plain kindliness. This was partly instinct and partly the result of cultivation. She would shrink, with uncontrollable disgust, from any of the lower classes with whom she came unavoidably in contact. A slight breach of the conventions earned her distrust of one of her own caste. As this personal idiosyncrasy fell in line with the de Laney pride, it was approved by the head of the family. Under encouragement it became almost a monomania.
Bennington pictured to himself only too vividly the effect of the Lawtons on this lady's aristocratic prejudices. He knew, only too well, that Bill Lawton's table manners would not be allowed even in her kitchen. He could imagine Mrs. Lawton's fatuous conversation in the de Laney's drawing-room, or Maude Eliza's dressed-up self-consciousness. The experience of having the three Westerners to dinner just once would, Bennington knew, drive his lady mother to the verge of nervous prostration—he remembered his father's one and only experience in bringing business connections home to lunch—; his imagination failed to picture the effect of her having to endure them as actual members of the family! As if this were not bad enough, his restless fancy carried him a step farther. He perceived the agonies of shame and mortification, real even though they were conventional, she would have to endure in the face of society. That the de Laneys, social leaders, rigid in respectability, should be forced to the humiliation of acknowledging a misalliance, should be forced to the added humiliation of confessing that this marriage was not only with a family of inferior social standing, but with one actually unlettered and vulgar! Bennington knew only too well the temper of his mother—and of society.
It would not be difficult to expand these doubts, to amplify these reasons, and even to adduce others which occurred to the unhappy young man as he climbed the hill. But enough has been said. Surely the reader, no matter how removed in sympathy from that line of argument, must be able now at least to sympathize, to perceive that Bennington de Laney had some reason for thought, some excuse for the tardiness of his steps as they carried him to a meeting with the girl he loved.
For he did love her, perhaps the more tenderly that doubts must, perforce, arise. All these considerations affected not at all his thought of her. But now, for the first time, Bennington de Laney was weighing the relative claims of duty and happiness. His happiness depended upon his love. That his duty to his race, his parents, his caste had some reality in fact, and a very solid reality in his own estimation, the author hopes he has shown. If not, several pages have been written in vain.
The conflict in his mind had carried him to the Rock. Here, as he expected, he found Mary already arrived. He ascended to the little plateau and dropped wearily to the moss. His face had gone very white in the last quarter of an hour.
"You see now why I asked you to come to-day," she said without preliminary. "Now you have seen them, and there is nothing more to conceal."
"I know, I know," he replied dully. "I am trying to think it out. I can't see it yet."
They took entirely for granted that each knew the subject of the other's thoughts. The girl seemed much the more self-possessed of the two.
"We may as well understand each other," she said quietly, without emotion. "You have told me a certain thing, and have asked me for a certain answer. I could not give it to you before without deceiving you. Now the answer depends on you. I have deceived you in a way," she went on more earnestly, "but I did not mean to. I did not realize the difference, truly I didn't, until I saw the girl on the train. Then I knew the difference between her and me, and between her's and mine. And when you turned away, I saw that you were her kind, and I saw, too, that you ought to know everything there was about me. Then you spoke."
"I meant what I said, too," he interrupted. "You must believe that, Mary, whatever comes."
"I was sorry you did," she went on, as though she had not heard him. Then with just a touch of impatience tingeing the even calm of her voice, "Oh, why will men insist on saying those things!" she cried. "The way to win a girl is not thus. He should see her often, without speaking of love, being everything to her, until at last she finds she can not live without him."
"Have I been that to you, Mary? Has it come to that with me?" he asked wistfully.
"Heaven help me, I am afraid it has!" she cried, burying her face in her hands.
A great gladness leaped up into his face, and died as the blaze of a fire leaps up and expires.
"That makes it easier—and harder," he said. "It is bad enough as it is. I don't know how I can make you understand, dear."
"I understand more than you think," she replied, becoming calm again, and letting her hands fall into her lap. "I am going to speak quite plainly. You love me, Ben—ah, don't I know it!" she cried, with a sudden burst of passion. "I have seen it in your eyes these many days. I have heard it in your voice. I have felt it welling out from your great heart. It has been sweet to me—so sweet! You can not know, no man ever could know, how that love of yours has filled my soul and my heart until there was room for nothing else in the whole wide world!"
"You love me!" he said wonderingly.
"If I had not known that, do you think I would have endured a moment's hesitation after you had seen the objectionable features of my life? Do you think that if I had the slightest doubts of your love, I could now understandwhyyou hesitate? But I do, and I honour you for it."
"You love me!" he repeated.
"Yes, yes, Ben dear, Idolove you. I love you as I never thought to be permitted to love. Do you want to know what I did that second day on the Rock—the day you first showed me what you really were? The day you told me of your old home and the great tree? It was all so peaceful, and tender, and comforting, so sweet and pure, that it rested me. I felt, here is a man at last who could not misunderstand me, could not be abrupt, and harsh, and cruel. I said to myself, 'He is not perfect nor does he expect perfection.' I shut my eyes, and then something choked me, and the tears came. I cried out loud, 'Oh, to be what I was, to give again what I have not! O God, give me back my heart as it once was, and let me love!' Yes, Ben dear, I said 'love.' And then I was not happy any more all day. But God answered that prayer, Ben dear, and we do love one another now, and that is why we can look at things together, and see what is best for us both."
"You love me!" he exclaimed for the third time.
"And now, dear, we must talk plainly and calmly. You have seen what my family is."
"I don't know, Mary, that I can make you understand at all," began Bennington helplessly. "I can't express it even to myself. Our people are so different. My training has been so different. All this sort of thing means so much to us, and so little to you."
"I know exactly," she interrupted. "I have read, and I have lived East. I can appreciate just how it is. See if I can not read your thoughts. My family is uneducated. If it becomes your family, your own parents will be more than grieved, and your friends will have little to do with you. You have also duties toward your family,asa family. Is that it?"
"Yes, thatisit," answered he, "but there are so many things it does not say. It seems to me it has come to be a horrible dilemma with me. If I do what I am afraid is my duty to my family and my people, I will be unhappy without you forever. And if I follow my heart, then it seems to me I will wrong myself, and will be unhappy that way. It seems a choice of just in what manner I will be miserable!" he ended with a ghastly laugh.
"And which is the most worth while?" she asked in a still voice.
"I don't know, I don't know!" he cried miserably. "I must think."
He looked out straight ahead of him for some time. "Whichever way I decide," he said after a little, "I want you to know this, Mary: I love you, and I always will love you, and the fact that I choose my duty, if I do, is only that if I did not, I would not consider myself worthy even to look at you." A silence fell on them again.
"I can not live West," said he again, as though he had been arguing this point in his mind and had just reached the conclusion of it. "My life is East; I never knew it until now." He hesitated. "Would you—that is, could you—I mean, would your family have to live East too?"
She caught his meaning and drew herself up, with a little pride in the movement.
"Wherever I go, whatever I do, my people must be free to go or do. You have your duty to your family. I have my duty to mine!"
He bowed his head quietly in assent. She looked at the struggle depicted in the lines of his face with eyes in which, strangely enough, was much pity, but no unhappiness or doubt. Could it be that she was so sure of the result?
At last he raised his head slowly and turned to her with an air of decision.
"Mary----" he began.
At that moment there became audible a sudden rattle of stones below the Rock, and at the same instant a harsh voice broke in rudely upon their conversation.
Bennington instinctively put his finger on his lips to enjoin silence, and peered cautiously over the edge of the dike. Perhaps he was glad that this diversion had occurred to postpone even for a short time the announcement of a decision it had cost him so much to make. Perhaps he recognised the voice.
Three men were clambering a trifle laboriously over the broken rocks at the foot of the dike, swearing a little at their unstable footing, but all apparently much in earnest in their conversation. Even as Bennington looked they came to a halt, and then sank down each on a convenient rock, talking interestedly. One was Old Mizzou, one was the man Arthur, the third was a stranger whom Bennington had never seen.
The latter had hardly the air of the country.
He was a dapper little man dressed in a dark gray bob-tailed cutaway, and a brown derby hat, which was pushed far back on his head. His face, however, was keen and alert and brown, all of which characteristics indicated an active Western life at no very remote day. The words which had so powerfully arrested Bennington de Laney's attention were delivered by Old Mizzou to this stranger.
"Thar!" the old man had said, "ain't that Crazy Hoss Lode 'bout as good-lookin' a lead as they make 'em?"
"So, so; so, so;" replied the man in the derby in a high voice. "Your vein is a fissure vein all right enough, and you've got a good wide lead. If it holds up in quality, I don't know but what you're right."
"I shows you them assays of McPherson's, don't I?" argued Mizzou, "an' any quartz in this kentry that assays twenty-four dollars ain't no ways cheap."
This speech was so significantly in line with Bennington's surmise that he caught his breath and drew back cautiously out of sight, but still in such a position that he could hear plainly every word uttered by the group below. The girl was watching him with bright, interested eyes.
"Listen carefully!" he whispered, bringing his mouth close to her ear. "I think there's some sort of plot here."
She nodded ready comprehension, and they settled themselves to hear the following conversation:
"I saw the assay," replied the stranger's voice to Mizzou's last statement, "but who's this McPherson? How do I know the assays are all right?"
"Why, he's that thar professer at th' School of Mines," expostulated Mizzou.
"Oh, yes!" cried the stranger, as though suddenly enlightened. "If those are his assays, they're all right. Let's see them again."
There followed a rustling of papers.
"Well, I've looked over your layout," went on the stranger after a moment, "and pretty thoroughly in the last few days. I know what you've got here. Now what's your proposition?"
There was a pause.
"I knows you a good while, Slayton----" began Mizzou, but was interrupted almost immediately by a third voice, that of Arthur. "The point is this," said the latter sharply, "Davidson here is in a position to give you possession of this group o' claims, but he ain't in a position to appear in th' transaction. How are you goin' to purtect him an' me so we gets something out of it?"
"Wait a minute," put in the stranger, "I want to ask a few questions myself. These claims belong to the Holy Smoke Company now, don't they?"
"Well, that's the idea."
"Are either of you the agent of that Company?"
"Not directly, perhaps."
"Are you indirectly?"
"Seems to me you haven't got any call t' look into that, if we guarantee t' give you good title."
"How do I know you can give me good title?"
"Ain't I tellin' you so?"
"Yes, but why should I believe you?"
"You shouldn't, unless you've got sense enough to see that we ain't gettin' you 'way up here, an' we ain't living round these parts a couple of years on a busted proposition."
The stranger evidently debated this.
"How would it be if you took equal shares with me on the claims, your shares to be paid from the earnings? That would be fair all round. You would get nothing unless the title was good. I would risk no more than you did," he suggested.
"Isn't I tellin' yo' I don't appear a tall in this yere transaction?" objected Mizzou.
The stranger laughed a little.
"I can see through a millstone," he said. "Why don't you old turtlebacks come out of your shells and play square? You've got some shady game on here that you're working underhand. Spin your yarn and I'll tell you what I think of it."
"How do I know you don't leave us out a'ter we tells you," objected Mizzou, returning to his original idea.
"You don't!" answered the stranger impatiently, "you don't! But it seems to me if you expect to get anything out of a shady transaction, you've got to risk something."
"That's right," put in Arthur, "that's right! 'Nuff said! Now, Slayton, we'll agree to git you full legal control of these yere claims if you'll develop them at your expense, an' gin Davidson and me a third interest between us fer our influence. That's our proposition, an' that goes. If you don't play squar', I knows how t' make ye."
"Spin your yarn," repeated the stranger quietly. "I'll agree to give you and Davidson a third interest,providedI take hold of the thing at all."
"An' Jack Slayton," put in Mizzou threateningly, "if you don't play us squar', I swar I'll shoot ye like a dog!"
"Oh, stow that, Davidson," rejoined the stranger in an irritated voice; "that rot don't do any good. I know you, and you know me. I never went back on a game yet, and you know it."
"I does know it, Jack!" came up Davidson's voice repentantly, "but this is a big deal, an' y' can't be too careful!"
"All right, all right," the stranger responded "Now tell us your scheme. How can you get hold of the property?"
"By jumping the claims," replied Arthur calmly. There ensued a short pause. Then:
"Don't be a fool," exclaimed Slayton with contempt; "this is no hold-up country. You can't drive a man off his property with a gun."
"I knows that. These claims can be 'jumped' quiet and legal."
"How?"
"They ain't be'n a stroke of assessment work done on 'em since we came. Th' Company's title's gone long ago. They lost their job last January. Them claims is open to any one who cares to have 'em."
The stranger uttered a long whistle. Old Mizzou chuckled cunningly. "I has charge of them claims from th' time they quits work on 'em 'till now. They ain't be'n a pick raised on 'em. Anybody could a-jumped 'em any time since las' January."
"But how about the Company?" asked Slayton. "How did you fool them?"
"Oh, I sends 'em bills fer work reg'lar enough! And I didn't throw away th' money neither!"
"Yes, that'd be easy enough. But how about the people around here? Why haven't they jumped the claims long ago?"
"Wall, I argues about this a-way. These yere gents sees I has charge, an' they says to themselves, 'Ole Davidson takes care of them assessment works all right,' an' so they never thinks it's worth while t' see whether it is done or not."
"You trusted to their thinking you were performing your duties?"
"Thet's it."
"Well, it was a pretty big risk!"
"Ev'rything t' gain an' nothin' t' lose," quoted Old Mizzou comfortably.
"How about this new man the Company has out here—de Laney? Is he in this deal too?"
"Oh, him!" said Davidson with vast contempt. "He don' know enough t' dodge a brick! I tells him th' assessment work is all done. He believes it, an' never looks t' see. I gets him fooled so easy it's shore funny."
"Hold on!" put in Slayton sharply. "I'm not so sure you aren't liable there somewhere. Of course your failure to do the assessment work while you were alone here was negligence, but that is all. The Company could fire you for failing to do your duty, but they couldn't prove any fraud against you. But when this de Laney came along it changed things."
"How is that?"
"Well, you told him the assessment work had been done, in so many words, didn't you? The Company can prove that you were using your official information to deceive him for the purposes of fraud. In other words, you were an officer of the Company, and you deceived another officer in your official capacity. I don't know but you'd be liable to a criminal action."
"Not on your tin-type," said Old Mizzou with confidence.
"Have you looked it up?"
"I does better than that. At that point I shore becomes subtle.I resigns from th' Company!A'ter that I talks assessment work. I tells him advice, jest as a friend. If he believes th' same, an' it ain't so, why thet's unfort'nit, but they can't do anythin' t' me. I'm jest an outsider. He is responsible to th' Company, an' if he wants information, he ought to go to th' books, and not to frien's who may deceive him."
"Davidson, you're a genius!" exclaimed the stranger heartily.
"I tells you I becomes subtle," acknowledged the old man with just pride. "But now you sees it ain't delikit that my name appears in th' case a tall. Folks is so suspicious these yere days, that if I has a share, and Arthur yere has a share, they says p'rhaps we has this yere scheme in view right along. But if Slayton gets them lapsed claims by hisself, Slayton bein' a stranger, they thinks how fortinit that Slayton is t' git onto it, and they puts pore Ole Mizzou down as becomin' fergitful in his old age."
The stranger laughed.
"It's easy," he remarked. "We get them for nothing, and you can bet your sweet life I'll push 'em through for all there is in it. Why, boys, you're rich! You won't have anything more to do the rest of your mortal days, unless you want to."
"I ain't seekin' no manual employment," observed Mizzou.
"I'm willin' to quit work," agreed Arthur.
"Well, you'll have a chance. Now we better hustle this thing through lively. We've got to make our discoveries on the quiet so no one will get on to us."
"It ain't goin' t' take us long t' tack up them notices, now 't we've agreed. We kin do th' most on it this evenin'. Jest lay low, that's all."
"Ain't de Laney going to get onto us sasshaying off with a lot of notices?"
"If he does," remarked Old Mizzou grimly, "I knows a dark hole whar we retires that young man for th' day! If it comes t' that, though, you got t' tend to it, Slayton. I ain't showin' in this deal y' know."
The stranger laughed unpleasantly.
"You show me the hole and I'll take care of Mr. man," he agreed. He laughed again. "By the way, it strikes me that fellow's going to run up against a good deal of tribulation before he gets through."
"Wall, thet thar Comp'ny ain't goin' to raise his pay when they finds it out," agreed Mizzou. "Thet Bishop, he gets tolerable anxious 'bout them assessment works now, and writes frequent. I got a whole bunch of his letters up t' camp that I keeps for th' good of his health. Ain't no wise healthy t' worry 'bout business, you know."
"Wonder th' little idiot didn't miss his mail," growled Arthur.
"Oh, I coaxes him on with th' letters from his mammy and pappy. They's harmless enough."
The three men fell into a discussion of various specimens of quartz which they took from their pockets, and, after what seemed to be an interminable time, arose and moved slowly down the hill.
The girl looked at her companion with wide-open eyes. "Ben!" she gasped, "what have you done?"
"Made a fool of myself," he responded curtly.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know."
He knit his brows deeply. She cast about for an expedient.
"I wish I knew more about mining!" she cried. "I know there is some way to get legal possession of a claim by patenting it, but I don't know how you do it."
He did not reply.
"There must be some way out of this," she went on, all alert. "They haven't done anything yet. Why don't you go down to camp and inquire?"
"Every man would be in the hills in less than an hour. I couldn't trust them," he replied brusquely.
"Oh, I know!" she cried with relief. "You must hunt up Jim. He knows all about those things, and you could rely on him."
"Jim? What Jim?"
"Jim Fay. Oh, that's just it! Run, Ben; go at once; don't wait a minute!"
"I want nothing whatever to do with that man," he said deliberately. "He has insulted me at every opportunity. He has treated me in a manner that was even more than insulting every time we have met. If I were dying, and he had but to turn his head toward me to save me, I would not ask him to do so!"
"Oh, don't be foolish, Ben!" cried she, wringing her hands in despair. "Don't let your pride stand in your way! Do you not realize the disgrace this will be to you—to lose all these rich claims just by carelessness? Do you realize that it means something to me, for I have been the reason of that carelessness. I know it! Just this once, forget all he has done to you. You can trust him. Don't be afraid of that. Tell him that I sent you, if you don't want to trust him on your own account----" she broke off. "Where are you going?" she asked anxiously.
"To do something," he answered, shutting his teeth together with a snap.
"Will you see Jim?" she begged, following him to the edge of the Rock as he swung himself down the tree.
"No!" he said, without looking back.
After he disappeared—in the direction of the Holy Smoke camp, as she noticed—she descended rapidly to the ground and hurried, sobbing excitedly, away toward Spanish Gulch. She was all alive with distress. She had never realized until the moment of his failure how much she had loved this man. Near the village she paused, bathed her eyes in the brook, and, assuming an air of deliberation and calmness, began making inquiries as to the whereabouts of Jim Fay.
Bennington de Laney sat on the pile of rocks at the entrance to the Holy Smoke shaft. Across his knees lay the thirty-calibre rifle. His face was very white and set. Perhaps he was thinking of his return to New York in disgrace, of his interview with Bishop, of his inevitable meeting with a multitude of friends, who would read in the daily papers the accounts of his incompetence—criminal incompetence, they would call it. The shadows were beginning to lengthen across the slope of the hill. Up the gulch cow bells tinkled, up the hill birds sang, and through the little hollows twilight flowed like a vapour. The wild roses on the hillside were blooming—late in this high altitude. The pines were singing their endless song. But Bennington de Laney was looking upon none of these softer beauties of the Hills. Rather he watched intently the lower gulch with its flood-wracked, water-twisted skeleton laid bare. Could it be that in the destruction there figured forth he caught the symbol of his own condition? That the dreary gloom of that ruin typified the chaos of sombre thoughts that occupied his own remorseful mind? If so, the fancy must have absorbed him. The moments slipped by one by one, the shadows grew longer, the bird songs louder, and still the figure with the rifle sat motionless, his face white and still, watching the lower gulch.
Or could it be that Bennington de Laney waited for some one, and that therefore his gaze was so fixed? It would seem so. For when the beat of hoofs became audible, the white face quickened into alertness, and the motionless figure stirred somewhat.
The rider came in sight, rising and falling in a steady, unhesitating lope. He swung rapidly to the left, and ascended the knoll. Opposite the shaft of the Holy Smoke lode he reined in his bronco and dismounted. The rider was Jim Fay.
Bennington de Laney did not move. He looked up at the newcomer with dull resignation. "He takes it hard, poor fellow!" thought Fay.
"Well, what's to be done?" asked the Easterner in a strained voice. "I suppose you know all about it, or you wouldn't be here."
"Yes, I know all about it," said Fay gently. "You mustn't take it so hard. Perhaps we can do something. We'll be able to save one or two claims, any way, if we're quick about it."
"I've heard something about patenting claims," went on de Laney in the same strange, dull tones; "could that be done?"
"No. You have to do five hundred dollars' worth of work, and advertise for sixty days. There isn't time."
"That settles it. I don't know what we can do then."
"Well, that depends. I've come to help do something. We've got to get an everlasting hustle on us, that's all; and I'm afraid we are beginning a little behindhand in the race. You ought to have hunted me up at once."
"I don't see what there is to do," repeated Bennington thickly.
"Don't you? The assessment work hasn't been done—that's the idea, isn't it?—and so the claims have reverted to the Government. They are therefore open to location, as in the beginning, and that is just what Davidson and that crowd are going to do to them. Well, they're just as much open to us. We'll justjump our own claims!"
"What!" cried the Easterner, excited.
"Well, relocate them ourselves, if that suits you better."
Bennington's dull eyes began to light up.
"So get a move on you," went on Fay; "hustle out some paper so we can make location notices. Under the terms of a relocation, we can use the old stakes and 'discovery,' so all we have to do is to tack up a new notice all round. That's the trouble. That gang's got their notices all written, and I'm afraid they've got ahead of us. Come on!"
Bennington, who had up to this time remained seated on the pile of stones, seemed filled with a new and great excitement. He tottered to his feet, throwing his hands aloft.
"Thank God! Thank God!" he cried, catching his breath convulsively.
Fay turned to look at him curiously. "We aren't that much out of the woods," he remarked; "the other gang'll get in their work, don't you fret."
"They never will, they never will!" cried the Easterner exultantly. "They can't. We'll locate 'em all!" The tears welled over his eyes and ran down his cheeks.
"What do you mean?" asked Fay, beginning to fear the excitement had unsettled his companion's wits.
"Because they're there!" cried Bennington, pointing to the mouth of the shaft near which he had been sitting. "Davidson, Slayton, Arthur—they're all there, and they can't get away! I didn't know what else to do. I had to do something!"
Fay cast an understanding glance at the young man's rifle, and sprang to the entrance of the shaft. As though in direct corroboration of his speech, Fay could perceive, just emerging from the shadow, the sinister figure of the man Arthur creeping cautiously up the ladder, evidently encouraged to an attempt to escape by the sound of the conversation above. The Westerner snatched his pistol from his holster and presented it down the shaft.
"Kindly return!" he commanded in a soft voice. The upward motion of the dim figure ceased, and in a moment it had faded from view in the descent. Fay waited a moment. "In five minutes," he announced in louder tones, "I'm going to let loose this six-shooter down that shaft. I should advise you gentlemen to retire to the tunnel." He peered down again intently. A sudden clatter and thud behind him startled him. He looked around. Bennington had fallen at full length across the stones, and his rifle, falling, had clashed against the broken ore.
Fay, with a slight shrug of contempt at such womanish weakness, ran to his assistance. He straightened the Easterner out and placed his folded coat under his head. "He'll come around in a minute," he muttered. He glanced toward the gulch and then back to the shaft. "Can't leave that lay-out," he went on. He bent over the prostrate figure and began to loosen the band of his shirt. Something about the boy's clothing attracted his attention, so, drawing his knife, he deftly and gently ripped away the coat and shirt. Then he arose softly to his feet and bared his head.
"I apologize to you," said he, addressing the recumbent form; "you are game."
In the fleshy part of the naked shoulder was a small round hole, clotted and smeared with blood.
Jim Fay stooped and examined the wound closely. The bullet had entered near the point of the shoulder, but a little below, so that it had merely cut a secant through the curve of the muscle. If it had struck a quarter of an inch to the left it would have gouged a furrow; a quarter of an inch beyond that would have caused it to miss entirely. Fay saw that the hurt itself was slight, and that the Easterner had fainted more because of loss of blood than from the shock. This determined to his satisfaction, he moved quickly to the mouth of the shaft. "Way below!" he cried in a sharp voice, and discharged his revolver twice down the opening. Then he stole noiselessly away, and ran at speed to the kitchen of the shack, whence he immediately returned with a pail of water and a number of towels. He set these down, and again peered down the shaft. "Way below!" he repeated, and dropped down a sizable chunk of ore. Apparently satisfied that the prisoners were well warned, he gave his whole attention to his patient.
He washed the wound carefully. Then he made a compress of one of the towels, and bound it with the other two. Looking up, he discovered Bennington watching him intently.
"It's all right!" he assured the latter in answer to the question in his eyes. "Nothing but a scratch. Lie still a minute till I get this fastened, and you can sit up and watch the rat hole while I get you some clothes."
In another moment or so the young man was propped up against an empty ore "bucket," his shoulder bound, and his hand slung comfortably in a sling from his neck.
"There you are," said Jim cheerily. "Now you take my six-shooter and watch that aggregation till I get back. They won't come out any, but you may as well be sure."
He handed Bennington his revolver, and moved off in the direction of the cabin, whistling cheerfully. The young man looked after him thoughtfully. Nothing could have been more considerate than the Westerner's manner, nothing could have been kinder than his prompt action—Bennington saw that his pony, now cropping the brush near at hand, was black with sweat—nothing could have been more straightforward than his assistance in the matter of the claims. And yet Bennington de Laney was not satisfied. He felt he owed the sudden change of front to a word spoken in his behalf by the girl. This was a strange influence she possessed, thus to alter a man's attitude entirely by the mere voicing of a wish.
The Westerner returned carrying a loose shirt and a coat, which he drew entire over the injured shoulder, which left one sleeve empty.
"I guess that fixes you," said he with satisfaction.
"Look here," put in Bennington suddenly, "you've been mighty good to me in all this. If you hadn't come along as you did, these fellows would have nabbed me sooner or later, and probably I'd have lost the claims any way. I feel I owe you a lot. But I want you to know before you go any further that that don't square us. You've had it in for me ever since I came out here, and you've made it mighty unpleasant for me. I can't forget that all at once. I want to tell you plainly that, although I am grateful enough, I know just why you have done all this. It is becausesheasked you to. And knowing that, I can't accept what you do for me as from a friend, for I don't feel friendly toward you in the least." His face flushed painfully. "I'm not trying to insult you or be boorish," he said; "I just want you to understand how I feel about it. And now that you know, I suppose you'd better let the matter go, although I'm much obliged to you for fixing me up."
He glanced at his shoulder.
Fay listened to this speech quietly and with patience. "What do you intend to do?" he asked, when the other had quite finished.
"I don't know yet. If you'll say nothing down below—and I'm sure you will not—I'll contrive some way of keeping this procession down the hole, and of feeding them, and then I'll relocate the claims myself."
"With one arm?"
"Yes, with one arm!" cried Bennington fiercely; "with no arms at all, if need be!" he broke off suddenly, with the New Yorker's ingrained instinct of repression. "I beg your pardon. I mean I'll do as well as I can, of course."
"How about the woman—Arthur's wife? She'll give you trouble."
"She has locked herself in her cabin already. I will assist her to continue the imprisonment."
Fay laughed outright. "And you expect, with one arm and wounded, to feed four people, keep them in confinement, and at the same time to relocate eighteen claims lying scattered all over the hills! Well, you're optimistic, to say the least."
"I'll do the best I can," repeated Bennington doggedly.
"And you won't ask help of a friend ready to give it?"
"Not as a friend."
"Well," Fay chuckled, apparently not displeased, "you're an obstinate young man, or rather a pig-headed young man, but I don't know as that counts against you. I'll help you out, anyway—if not as a friend, then as an enemy. You see, I have my marching orders from someone else, and you haven't anything to do with it."
Bennington bowed coldly, but his immense relief flickered into his face in spite of himself. "What should we do first?" he asked formally.
"Sit here and wait for the kids," responded Jim.
"Who are the kids?"
"Friends of mine—trustworthy."
Jim rearranged Bennington's coverings and lit a pipe. "Tell us about it," said he.
"There isn't much to tell. I knew I had to do something, so I just held them up and made them get down the shaft. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I was glad to have them out of the way to get time to think."
"Who plugged you?" inquired Fay, motioning with the mouthpiece of his pipe toward the wounded shoulder.
"That was Arthur. He had a little gun in his coat pocket and he shot from inside the pocket. I'd made them drop all the guns they had, I thought."
"Did you take a crack at him then?" asked Fay, interested.
"Oh, no. I just covered him and made him shell out. As a matter of fact I don't believe any one of them knew I was hit."
Fay smoked on in silence, glancing from time to time with satisfaction at the youth opposite. During the passage of these events the day had not far advanced. The shadow of Harney had not yet reached out to the edge of the hills.
"Hullo! The kids!" said Fay suddenly.
Two pedestrians emerged from the lower gulch and bent their steps toward the camp. As they came nearer, Bennington, with a gasp of surprise, recognised the Leslies.
The sprightly youths were dressed just alike, in knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets of dark brown plaid, and small college caps to match—an outfit which Bennington had always believed would attract too vivid attention in this country. As they came nearer he saw that the jackets were fitted with pockets of great size. In the pockets were sketch books and bulging articles. They caught sight of the two figures on the ore heap simultaneously.
"Behold our attentive host!" cried Jeems. "He is now in the act of receiving us with all honour!"
Bennington's face fairly shone with pleasure at the encounter. "Hullo fellows! Hullo there!" he cried out delightedly again and again, and rose slowly to his feet. This disclosed the fact of his injury, and the brothers ran forward, with real sympathy and concern expressed on their lively countenances. There ensued a rapid fire of questions and answers. The Leslies proved to be already familiar with the details of the attempt to jump the claims, and understood at once Fay's brief account of the present situation, over which they rejoiced in the well-known Leslie fashion. They exploded in genuine admiration of Bennington's adventure, and praised that young man enthusiastically. Bennington could feel, even before this, that he stood on a different footing than formerly with these self-reliant young men. They treated him as familiarly as ever, but with a new respect. The truth is, their astuteness in reading character, which is as essentially an attribute of the artistic temperament in black and white as in words and phrases, had shown them already that their old acquaintance had grown from boy to man since last they had met. They knew this even before they learned of its manifestation. So astounding was the change that they gave it credit, perhaps, for being more thorough than it was. After the situation had been made plain, Bennington reverted to the unexpectedness of their appearance.
"But you haven't told me yet how you happen to be here," he suggested. "I'd as soon have expected to see Ethel Henry coming up the gulch!"
"Didn't you get our letters?" cried Bert in astonishment.
"No, I haven't received any letters. Did you write?"
"Did we write! Well, I should think so! We wrote three times, telling you we were coming and when to expect us. Jeems and I wondered why you didn't meet us. That explains it. Seems funny you didn't get any of those letters!"
"No, I don't believe it is so funny after all," responded Bennington, who had been thinking it over. "I remember now that Davidson told the others he had been intercepting my letters from the Company, and I suppose he got yours too."
"That's it, of course. I'll have to interview that Davidson later. Well, we used to train around here off and on, as I told you once, and this year Jeems and I thought we'd do our summer sketching here, and sort of revive old times. So we packed up and came."
"I'm mighty glad you came, anyway," replied Bennington fervently.
"So'm I. We're just in time to help foil the villain. As foilers Jeems and I are an artistic success. We have studied foiling under the best masters in the Bowery and Sixth Avenue theatres."
"Where's Bill?" asked Jim suddenly.
"Will be around in the morning. You're to report progress at once. Didn't dare to come up until after the row. Dreadful anxious though. Would have come if Jeems and I hadn't forbidden it."
Bennington wondered vaguely who Bill might be, but he was beginning to feel a little tired from the excitement and his wound, so he said nothing.
"The next thing is grub," remarked Fay, rising and gathering his pony's reins. "I'll mosey up to the shack and see about supper. You fellows can sit around and talk until I get organized."
He turned to move away, leading his horse.
"Hold on a minute, Jim," called Bert. "You might lend me your bronc, and I'll lope down and set Bill's mind easy. It won't take long."
"Good scheme!" approved Jim heartily. "That's thoughtful of you, Bertie!"
He dropped the reins where he stood, and the pony, with the usual well-trained Western docility, hung his head and halted. Bert arose and looked down the shaft.
"Supper will be served shortly, gentlemen," he observed suavely. He turned toward the pony.
"Bert," called Bennington in a different voice, "did you say you were going down the gulch?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to do something for me?"
"Why, surely. What is it?"
"Would you just as soon stop at the Lawtons' and tell Miss Lawton for me that it's all right! You'll find the Lawton house----"
"Yes, I know where the Lawton house is," interrupted Bert, "but Miss Lawton, you said?"
"Don't you remember, Bert," put in James, "there is a kid there—Maude, or something of that sort?"
"No, no, not Maude," persisted Bennington, still more bashfully. "I mean Miss Lawton, the young lady."
He felt that both the youths were looking keenly at him with dawning wonder and delight. "Hold on, Bert," interposed James, as the other was about to exclaim, "do you mean, Ben, the one you've been giving such a rush for the last two months?"
"Miss Lawton and I are very good friends," replied Bennington with dignity, wondering whence James had his information.
Bert drew in his breath sharply, and opened his mouth to speak.
"Hold on, Bert," interposed James again. "There are possibilities in this. Don't destroy artistic development by undue haste. What did you call the young lady, Ben?"
"Miss Lawton, of course!"
"Daughter of Bill Lawton?"
"Why, yes."
"Oh, my eye!" ejaculated James.
"And you have eyes in your head!" he cried after a moment. "You have ears in your head! Blamed if you haven't everything in your head but brains! She's a good one! I didn't appreciate the subtlety of that woman before. Ben, you everlasting idiot, do you mean to tell me that you've seen that girl every day for the last two months, and don't know yet that she's too good to belong to Bill Lawton?"
Bert began to laugh hysterically.
"What do you mean!" cried Bennington.
"What I say.Sheisn't Bill Lawton's daughter. Her name isn't Lawton at all. O glory! He don't even know her name!" James in his turn went into a fit of laughing. In uncontrollable excitement Bennington seized him with his sound hand.
"What is it? Tell me! What is her name, then?"
"O Lord! Don't squeeze so! I'll tell you! Letup!"
James dashed the back of his hand across his eyes.
"What is her name?" repeated Bennington fiercely.
"Wilhelmina Fay. We call her Bill for short."
"And Jim Fay?"
"Is her brother."
"And the Lawtons?"
"They board there."
Across Bennington's mind flashed vaguely a suspicion that turned him faint with mortification.
"Who is this Jim Fay?" he asked.
"He's Jim Fay—James Leicester Fay, of Boston."
"Not----"
"Yes, exactly. The Boston Fays."
Bert swung himself into the saddle. "Better not say anything to Bill about the young 'un's shoulder," called after him the ever-thoughtful James.