Goldite to the Eastern girl, who had found herself practically abandoned for nearly a week, had proved to be a mixture of discomforts, excitements, and disturbing elements. Fascinated by the maelstrom of the mining-camp life, and unwilling to retreat from the scene until she should see her roving brother, and gratify at least a curiosity concerning Van, she nevertheless felt afraid to be there, not only on account of the roughness and uncertainty of the existence, but also because, despite herself, she had attracted undesirable attention. Moreover, the house was full of "gentlemen" lodgers, with three of whom Elsa was conducting most violent flirtations.
There were few respectable women in the town. It was still too early for their advent. Beth had been annoyed past all endurance. There was no possibility of even mild social diversions; there was no one to visit. While the street could be described as perfectly safe, it was nevertheless an uncomfortable place in which to walk. Bostwick's car had been recovered and brought into camp, but skilled as she was at the steering wheel, she had hardly desired or dared to take it out.
Crime was frequent in the streets and houses. Disturbing reports of marauding expeditions on the part of the convicts, still at large, came with insistent frequency. Altogether the week had been a trial to her nerves. It had also been a vexation. No man had a right, she told herself, to do and say the things that Van had said and done, only to go off, without so much as a little good-by and give no further sign. She told herself she had a right to at least some sort of opportunity to tender her honest congratulations. She had heard of his claim—the "Laughing Water"—and perhaps she wished to know how it chanced to have this particular name. If certain disturbing reflections anent that woman who had run to him wildly, out in the street, came mistily clouding the estimate she tried to place upon his character, she confessed he certainly had the right to make an explanation. In a purely feminine manner she argued that she had the right to some such explanation—if only because of certain liberties he had taken with her hands—on which memories still warmly burned.
Wholly undecided as to what she would do if she could, and impatient with Bostwick for his sheer neglect in searching out her brother, she was thoroughly glad to see him to-day when he came so unannounced to the house.
"Well if you don't look like a mountaineer!" she said, as she met him in the dining-room, which was likewise the parlor of the place. "Where in the world have you been, all this time? You haven't come back without Glen?"
He had gone away ostensibly to find her brother.
"Well, the fact is he wasn't where I went, after all," he said. "I hastened home, after all that trip, undertaken for nothing, and found a letter from him here. I've come at once to have an important talk."
"A letter?" she cried. "Let me see it—let me read it, please. He's—where? He's well? He's successful?"
"Sit down," answered Bostwick, taking a chair and placing his hat on the table. "There's a good deal to say. But first, how have you been here, all alone?"
"Oh—very well—I suppose," she answered, restraining the natural resentment she felt at his patent neglect. "It isn't exactly the place I'd choose to remain in, alone all the time."
"Poor little girl, I've been thinking of that," he told her, reaching across the table to take her hands. "It's worried me, Beth, worried me greatly—your unprotected position, and all that."
"Oh, you needn't worry." She withdrew her hands. Someway it seemed a sacrilege for him to touch them—it was not to be borne—she hardly knew why, or since when. "I want to know about Glen," she added. "Never mind me."
"But I do mind," he assured her. His hand was trembling. "Beth, I—I can't talk much—I mean romantic talk, and all that, but—well—I've about concluded we ought to be married at once—for your sake—your protection—and my peace of mind. I have thought about it ever since I left you here alone."
The brightness expressive of the gayety of her nature departed from her eyes. She looked fixedly at the man's dark face, with its gray, deep-set, penetrative eyes, its bluish jaw, and knitted brows. It frightened her, someway, as it never had before. He had magnetized her always—sometimes more than now, but his influence crept upon her subtly even here.
"But I—I think I'd rather not—just yet," she faltered, crimsoning and dropping her gaze to the table. "You promised not to—to urge me again—at least till I've spoken to Glen."
"But I could not have known—forseen these conditions," he told her, leaning further towards her across the table. "Why shouldn't we be married now—at once? A six months' engagement is certainly long enough. Your position here is—well—almost dubious. You must see that. It isn't right of me—decent—not to make you my wife immediately. I wish to do so—I wish it very much."
She arose, as if to wrench herself free from the spell he was casting upon her.
"I'm all right—I'm quite all right," she said. "I'd rather not—just now. There's no one here who cares a penny who or what I am. If my position here is misunderstood—it can do no harm. I'd rather you wouldn't say anything further about it—just at present."
Her agitation did not escape him. If he thought of the horseman who had carried her off while sending himself to the convicts, his plan for vengeance only deepened.
"You must have some reason for refusing." He too arose.
"No—no particular reason," she answered, artlessly walking around the table, apparently to pick up a button from the floor, but actually to avoid his contact. "I just don't wish to—to be married now—here—that's all. I ask you to keep your promise—not to ask it while we remain."
He had feared to lose her a score of times before. He feared it now more potently than ever. And there was much that he must ask. The risk of giving her a fright was not to be incurred.
"Very well," he said resignedly, "but—it's very hard to wait."
"Won't you sit down?" she asked him, an impulse of gratitude upon her. "Now do be good and sensible, and tell me all about Glen."
She returned to the table and resumed her seat.
Bostwick sat opposite and drew his forged letter from his pocket. He had placed it in Glenmore's envelope after tearing the young man's letter into scraps.
"This letter," said he, "was sent from way down in the desert—from Starlight, another new camp. It looks to me as if the boy has struck something very important. I'll read you what he says—or you can read it for yourself."
"No, no—read it. I'd rather listen."
He read it haltingly, as one who puzzles over unfamiliar writing. Its effect sank in the deeper for the method. Beth was open-eyed with wonder, admiration, and delight over all that Glen had done and was about to accomplish. She rose to the bait with sisterly eagerness.
"Why, hemusthave the chance—he'sgotto have the chance!" she cried excitedly. "What do you think of it yourself?"
Bostwick fanned the blaze with conservatism.
"It's quite a sum of money and Glen might overestimate the value of the mine. I've inquired around and learn that the property is considered tremendously promising. If we—if he actually secures that claim it will doubtless mean a for—— I don't like to lose my sense of judgment, but I do want to help the boy along. Frankly, however, I don't see how I can let him have so much. I couldn't possibly send him but thirty thousand dollars at the most."
Beth's eyes were blazing with excitement. She had never dreamed that Searle could be so generous—so splendid. An impulse of gratitude and admiration surged throughout her being.
"You'ddoit?" she said. "You'll do as much as that for Glen?"
"Why, how can I do less?" he answered. "That claim will doubtless be worth half a million, maybe more—if all I hear is reliable—and I get it from disinterested parties. The boy has done a good big thing. I've got to help him out. It seems too bad to offer him only half of what he needs, but I'm not a very wealthy man. I can't be utterly Quixotic. We've all got to help him all we can."
"Oh, thank you, Searle—thank you for saying 'we,'" she said in a voice that slightly trembled. "I'm glad of the chance—glad to show dear Glen that a sister can help a little, too."
He stared at her with an excellent imitation of surprise in his gaze.
"You'll—help?" he said in astonishment, masterfully simulated. "Not with the other thirty thousand?"
"Why not?" she cried. "Why not, when Glen has the chance of his life? You don't really think I'd hesitate?"
"But," said he, leading her onward, "he needs the money now—at once. You'd have to get it here by wire, and all that sort of trouble."
"Then we'd better get things started," she said. "You'll help me, Searle, I'm sure."
"If you wish it," said Bostwick, "certainly."
"Dear Glen!" she said. "Dear boy! I'll write him a letter at once."
Bostwick started, alertly, as she ran in her girlish pleasure to a stand where she had placed her materials for writing.
"Good," he commented drily, "I'll mail it with one of my own."
She dashed off a bright effusion with all her spontaneous enthusiasm. Bostwick supplied her with the address, and presently took the letter in his hand. He had much to do at the bank, he informed her, by way of preparing for the deal. He promised to return when he could.
On his way down street be deliberately tore the letter to the smallest of fragments and scattered them widely on the wind.
On the following morning news arrived in Goldite that temporarily dimmed the excitement attendant upon stories of the "Laughing Water" property and the coming stampede to the Indian reservation.
Matt Barger and three others of the convicts, still uncaptured, had pillaged a freight team, of horses, provisions, and arms, murdered a stage driver, robbed the express of a large consignment of gold, and escaped as before to the mountains.
Two separate posses were in pursuit. Rewards aggregating ten thousand dollars were offered for Barger, dead or alive, with smaller sums for each of his companions. Their latest depredations had occurred alarmingly close to the mining camp, from which travel was becoming hazardous.
The gold theft was particularly disquieting to the Goldite mining contingent. Dangers beset their enterprises in many directions at the very best. To have this menace added, together with worry over every man's personal safety in traveling about, was fairly intolerable. The inefficient posses were roundly berated, but no man volunteered to issue forth and "get" Matt Barger—either alive or as a corpse.
The man who arrived with the news was one of Van's cronies, Dave, the little station man whom Beth had met the morning of her coming. He was here in response to a summons from Van, who thought he saw an opportunity to assist his friend to better things. Everything Dave owned he had fetched across the desert, including both the horses that Beth and Elsa once had ridden. The station itself he had sold. He had launched forth absolutely on Van's new promises, burning all his bridges, as it were, behind him.
Van came down to meet him. He had other concerns in Goldite, some with Culver, the Government representative, and others a trifle more personal, and intended to combine them all in one excursion.
No sooner had he appeared on the street, after duly stabling "Suvy" at the hay-yard, than a hundred acquaintances, suddenly transformed into intimate friends, by the change in his fortunes, pounced upon him in a spirit of generosity, hilarity, and comaraderie that cloyed not only his senses, but even his movements in the camp.
He was dragged and carried into four saloons like a helpless, good-natured bear cub, strong enough to resist by inflicting injuries, but somewhat amused by the game. Intelligence of his advent went the rounds. The local editor and the girl he had addressed as "Queenie," on the day of the fight in the street, were rivals in another joyous attack as he escaped at last to proceed about his own affairs.
The editor stood no chance whatsoever. Van had nothing to say, and said so. Moreover, Queenie was a very persistent, as well as a very pretty, young person, distressingly careless of deportment. She clung to Van like a bur.
"Gee, Van!" she cried with genuine tears in her eyes, "didn't I always say you was the candy? Didn't I always say I'd give you my head and breathe through my feet—day or night? Didn't I tell 'em all you was the only one? You're the only diamonds there is for me—and I didn't never wait for you to strike it first."
"No, you didn't even wait for an invitation," answered Van with a smile. "Everybody's got to hike now. I'm busy, trying to breathe."
She clung on. Unfortunately, down in an Arizona town, Van had trounced a ruffian once in Queenie's protection—simply because of her gender and entirely without reference to her character or her future attitude towards himself. In her way she personified a sort of adoration and gratitude, which could neither be slain nor escaped by anything that he or anyone else could do. Her devotion, however, had palled upon him early, perhaps more because of its habit of increasing. It had recently become a pest.
"Busy?" she echoed. "You said that before. When ain't you going to be busy?"
"When I'm dead," he answered, and wrenching loose he dived inside a hardware store, to purchase a hunting knife for Gettysburg, then went at once to a barber shop and shut out the torment of friends.
He escaped at the rear, when his face had been groomed, and made his way unseen to Mrs. Dick's.
Beth was not at home. She and Bostwick were together at the office of the telegraph company, where Searle was assisting her, as she thought to aid her brother, to such excellent purpose that her thirty thousand dollars bid fair to repose in the bank at his call before the business day should reach its end.
Mrs. Dick seemed to Van the one and only person in the camp unaffected by the news of his luck. She treated him precisely as she always had and doubtless always should. Therefore, he had no difficulty in getting away to Culver at his office.
The official surveyor was a fat-cheeked, handsome man, with a silky brown beard, an effeminate voice, and prodigious self-conceit. He was pacing up and down the inside office, at the rear of the rough board building, when Van came in and found him. The horseman's business was one of maps and land-office data made essential to his needs by the new recording of the "Laughing Water" property as a placer instead of a quartz claim. He had drawn a crude outline of his holdings and in taking it forth from his pocket found the knife bought for Gettysburg in the way. He removed the weapon and placed it on the table near at hand.
"There's so much of this desert unsurveyed," he said, "that no man can tell whether he's just inside or just outside of Purgatory."
"So you come to me to find out?" Culver demanded somewhat shortly. "Do you tin-horn miners think that's all this office is for?"
"Well, in my instance, I had to come to some wiser spirit than myself to get my bearings," answered Van drawlingly. "You can see that."
"There are the maps." Culver waved his hand towards a drawer in the office table, and moved impatiently over to a window, the view from which commanded a section of the street, including the bank.
Van was presently engrossed in a search for quarter sections, ranges, and townships.
"Look here," said Culver, turning upon him aggressively, "what's this racket I hear about you taking the inside track with that stunning new petticoat in town?"
Van looked up without the least suspicion of the man's real meaning.
"If you are referring to that reckless young woman called Queenie——"
"Oh, Queenie—rats!" interrupted Culver irritably. "You know who I mean. I guess you call her Beth."
Van's face took on a look of hardness as if it were chiseled in stone. He had squared around as if at a blow. For a moment he faced the surveyor in silence.
"You are making some grave mistake," he said presently in ominous calm. "Please don't make such an allusion as that again."
"So, the shot went home," Culver laughed unctuously, turning for a moment from the window. "I thought it would. You know you couldn't expect to keep anything like that all to yourself, Van Buren. You're not the only ladies' man on the beach. And as for this clod of a Bostwick——" He had turned to look out as before, and grew suddenly excited. Beth was in view at the bank. "By the gods!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of tone, "she is the handsomest bit of confectionery on earth. If I don't win her——"
His utterance promptly ceased, together with his abominable activities and primping in the window. Van, who did not know that this creature had been Beth's particular annoyance, had crossed the room without a sound and laid his grip on Culver's collar.
"You cur!" he said quietly, and choking the man he flung him down against the floor and wall as if he had been the merest puppet.
Someone had entered the outside door. Neither Culver nor Van heard the sound. Culver rolled over, scrambled to his feet, and with his face and neck engorged with rage, came rushing at the horseman like a fury.
"You blackguard!" he screamed, "I'll tear out your heart for that! I'll kill you like——"
"Shut up!" Van commanded quietly, stopping the onrush of his angered foe by putting his hand against the surveyor's face and sending him reeling as before. "Don't tell me what you'll do to me—or to anyone else in this camp! And if ever I hear of you opening your mouth again as you did here a moment ago, I'll tie a knot so hard in your carcass you'll have to be buried in a hat box!"
He glanced towards the doorway. A stranger stood on the threshold. Bowing, Van passed him and left the place, too angered to think either of the maps or of his knife.
Culver, raging like a maniac, bowled headlong into the visitor, in his effort to overtake the horseman, but found himself baffled and took out his wrath in foul vituperation that presently drove the stranger from the place.
The stranger who had witnessed the trouble at Culver's office had come there at the instance of McCoppet. It was, therefore, to McCoppet that he carried the intelligence of what had taken place, so far as he had seen.
The gambler was exceedingly pleased. That Culver would now be ready, as never before, to receive a proposition whereby the owners of the "Laughing Water" claim could be deprived of their ground, he was well convinced.
For reasons best known to himself and skillfully concealed from all acquaintances, McCoppet had remained practically in hiding since the moment in which he had beheld that half-breed Piute Indian in the saloon. He remained out of sight even now, dispatching a messenger to Culver, in the afternoon, requesting his presence for a conference for the total undoing of Van Buren.
Culver, who in ordinary circumstances might have refused this request with haughty insolence, responded to the summons rather sooner than McCoppet had expected. He was still red with anger, and meditating personal violence to Van at the earliest possible meeting.
McCoppet, with his smokeless cigar in his mouth, and his great opal sentient with fire, received his visitor in the little private den to which Bostwick had been taken.
"How are you, Culver?" he said off-handedly.
"I wanted to have a little talk. I sent a man up to your shop a while ago, and he told me you fired Van Buren out of the place on the run."
"That's nobody's business but mine," said Culver aggressively. "If that is all you care to talk about——"
"Don't roil up," interrupted the gambler. "I don't even know what the fight was about, and I don't care a tinker's whoop either. I got you here to give you a chance to put Van Buren out of commission and make a lifetime winning."
Culver looked at him sharply.
"It must be something crooked."
"Nothing's crooked that works out straight," said McCoppet. "What's life anyhow but a sure-thing game? It's stacked for us all to lose out in the end. What's the use of being finniky while we live—as long as even the Almighty's dealing brace?"
Culver was impatient. "Well?"
"I won't beat around the chapparal," said McCoppet. "It ain't my way." Nevertheless, with much finesse and art he contrived to put his proposition in a manner to rob it of many of its ugly features. However, he made the business plain.
"You see," he concluded, "the old reservation line might actually be wrong—and all you'd have to do would be to put it right. That's what we want—we want the line put right."
Culver was more angered than before. He understood the conspiracy thoroughly. No detail of its cleverness escaped him.
"If you thought you could trade on my personal unpleasantness with an owner of the 'Laughing Water' claim," he said hotly, "you have made the mistake of your life. I wish you good-day."
He rose to go. McCoppet rose and stopped him.
"Don't get feverish," said he. "It don't pay. I ain't requesting this service from you for just your feelings against a man. There's plenty in this for us all."
"You mean bribe money, I suppose," said Culver no less aggressively than before. "Is that what you mean?"
"Don't call it hard names," begged the gambler. "It's just a retainer—say twenty thousand dollars."
Culver burned to the top of his ears. He looked at McCoppet intently with an expression the gambler could not interpret.
"Just to change that line a thousand feet," urged the man of gambling propensities. "I'll make it twenty-five."
Still Culver made no response. With all his other hateful attributes of character he was tempered steel on incorruptibility. He was not even momentarily tempted to avenge himself thus on Van Buren.
McCoppet thought he had him wavering. He attempted to push him over the brink.
"Say," said he persuasively, lowering his voice to a tone of the confidential, "I can strain a little more out of one of my partners and make it thirty thousand dollars." He had no intention of employing a cent of his own. Bostwick was to pay all these expenses. "Thirty thousand dollars, cash," he repeated, "the minute you finish your work—and make it look like a Governmentcorrectionof the line."
Culver broke forth on him with accumulated wrath.
"You damnable puppy!" he said in a futile effort to be adequate to the situation. "You sneak! Of all the accursed intrigues—insults—robberies that ever were hatched—— By God, sir, if you offered me a million of money you shouldn't alter that Government line by a hair! If you speak to me again—I'll knock you down!"
He flung the door wide open, went out like a rocket, and bowled a man half over in his blind haste to be quit the place.
McCoppet was left there staring where he had gone—staring and afraid of what the results would probably be to all the game. He had no eyes to behold a man who had suddenly discerned him from the crowds. A moment later he started violently as a huge form stood in the door.
"Trimmer!" he said, "I'm busy!"
"You're goin' to be busier in about a minute, if I don't see you right now," said the man addressed as Trimmer, a raw, bull-like lumberman from the mountains. "Been waitin' to see you some time."
"Come in," said the gambler instantly regaining his composure. "Come in and shut the door. How are you, anyway?" He held out his hand to shake.
Trimmer closed the door. "Ain't ready to shake, jest yet," he said. "I come here to see you on business."
"That's all right, Larry," answered McCoppet. "That's all right. Sit down."
"I'm goin' to," announced his visitor. He took a chair, pulled out a giant cigar, and lighting it up smoked like a pile of burning leaves. "You seem to be pretty well fixed," he added, taking a huge black pistol from his pocket and laying it before him on the table. "Looks like money was easy."
"I ain't busted," admitted the gambler. "Have a drink?"
"Not till we finish." The lumberman settled in his chair. "That was the way you got me before—and you ain't goin' to come it again."
McCoppet waited for his visitor to open. Trimmer was not in a hurry. He eyed the man across the table calmly, his small, shifting optics dully gleaming.
Presently he said; "Cayuse is here in camp."
Cayuse was the half-breed Piute Indian whose company McCoppet had avoided. Partially educated, wholly reverted to his Indian ways and tribal brethren, Cayuse was a singular mixture of the savage, plus civilized outlooks and ethical standards that made him a dangerous man—not only a law unto himself, as many Indians are, but also a strange interpreter of the law, both civilized and aboriginal.
McCoppet had surmised what was coming.
"Yes—I noticed he was here."
"Know what he come fer?" asked the lumberman. "Onto his game?"
"You came here to tell me. Deal the cards."
Trimmer puffed great lungfuls of the reek from his weed and took his revolver in hand.
"Opal," said he, enjoying his moment of vantage, "you done me up for a clean one thousand bucks, a year ago—while I was drunk—and I've been laying to git you ever since."
McCoppet was unmoved.
"Well, here I am."
"You bet! here you are—and here you're goin' to hang out till we fix thingsright!" The lumberman banged his gun barrel on the table hard enough to make a dent. "That's why Cayuse is here, too. Mrs. Cayuse is dead."
The gambler nodded coldly, and Trimmer went on.
"She kicked the bucket havin' a kid which wasn't Cayuse's—too darn white fer even him—and Cayuse is on the war trail fer that father."
McCoppet threw away his chewed cigar and replaced it with a fresh one. He nodded as before.
"Cayuse is on that I know who the father was," resumed the visitor. "I told him to come here to Goldite and I'd give up the name."
He began to consume his cigar once more by inches and watched the effect of his words. There was no visible effect. McCoppet had never been calmer in his life—outwardly. Inwardly he had never felt Dearer to death, and his own kind of fright was upon him.
"Well," he said, "your aces look good to me. What do you want—how much?"
"I ought to hand you over to Cayuse—good riddance to the whole country," answered Trimmer, with rare perspicacity of judgment. "You bet you're goin' to pay."
"If you want your thousand back, why don't you say so?" inquired the gambler quietly. "I'll make it fifteen hundred. That's pretty good interest, I reckon."
"Your reckoner's run down," Trimmer assured him. "I want ten thousand dollars to steer Cayuse away."
McCoppet slowly shook his head. "You ain't a hog, Larry, you're a Rockyfeller. Five thousand, cash on the nail, if you show me you can steer Cayuse so far off the trail he'll never get on it again."
Five thousand dollars was a great deal of money to Trimmer. Ten thousand was far in excess of his real expectations. But he saw that his power was large. He was brutally frank.
"Nope, can't do it, Opal, not even fer a friend," and he grinned. "I've got you in the door and I'm goin' to jamb you hard. Five thousand ain't enough."
Things had been going against the gambler for nearly an hour. He had been acutely alarmed by the presence of Cayuse in the camp. His mind, like a ferret in a trap, was seeking wildly for a loophole of advantage. Light came in upon him suddenly, with a thought of Culver, by whom, subconsciously, he was worried.
"How do you mean to handle the half-breed?" he inquired by way of preparing his ground. "You've promised to cough up a name."
Trimmer scratched his head with the end of his pistol.
"I guess I could tell him I was off—don't know the father after all."
"Sounds like a kid's excuse," commented McCoppet. "Like as not he'd take it out of you."
The likelihood was so strong that Trimmer visibly paled.
"I've got to give him somebody's name," he agreed with alacrity. "Has anyone died around here recent?"
"Yes," answered McCoppet with ready mendacity.
"Culver, who used to do surveying."
"Who?" asked Trimmer. "Don't know him."
McCoppet leaned across the table.
"Yes you do. He stopped you once from stealing—from picking up a lot of timber land. Remember?"
Trimmer was interested. His vindictive attributes were aroused.
"Was that the cuss? I never seen him. Do you think Cayuse would know who he was?—and believe it—the yarn?"
"Cayuse was once his chain-man." McCoppet was tremendously excited, though apparently as cold as ice, as he swiftly thought out the niceties of his own and fate's arrangements. "Cayuse's wife once worked for Mrs. Culver, cooking and washing."
"Say, anybody'd swaller that," reflected the lumberman aloud. "But five thousand dollars ain't enough."
"I'll make it seven thousand five hundred—that's an even split," agreed the gambler. He thought he foresaw a means whereby he could save this amount from the funds that Bostwick would furnish. He rose from his seat. "A thousand down, right now—the balance when Cayuse is gone, leaving me safe forever. You to give him the name right now."
Trimmer stood up, quenched the light on the stub of his cigar, and chewed up the butt with evident enjoyment.
"All right," he answered. "Shake."
Ten minutes later he had found Cayuse, delivered up the name agreed upon, and was busy spending his money acquiring a load of fiery drink.
Van was far too occupied to retain for long the anger that Culver had aroused in all his being. Moreover, he had come to camp in a mood of joyousness, youth, and bounding emotions such as nothing could submerge. The incident with Culver was closed. As for land-office data, it was far from being indispensable, and Gettysburg's knife was forgotten.
He had fetched down a nugget from the "Laughing Water" claim, a bright lump of virgin gold, rudely fashioned by nature like a heart. This he took at once to a jeweler's shop, where more fine diamonds were being sold than in all the rest of the State, and while it was being soldered to a pin he returned to the hay-yard for Dave. His business was to purchase the mare on which, one beautiful morning when the wild peach was in bloom, Beth Kent had ridden by his side. Dave would have given him the animal out of hand. Van compelled him to receive a market price. Even ponies here were valuable, and Dave had been poor all his life.
"Say, Van," he drawled, when at length the transaction was complete, "this camp has set me to thinkin'. It's full of these rich galoots, all havin' an easy time. If ever I git a wad of dough I'm comin' here and buy five dollars worth of good sardines and eat 'em, every one. Never have had enough sardines in all my life."
"I'd buy them for you now and sit you down," said Van, "only why start a graveyard with a friend?"
Some woman who had come and gone from Goldite had disposed of a beautiful side saddle, exposed in the hay-yard to the weather. Van paid fifty dollars and became its owner. The outfit for Beth was soon complete. He ordered the best of feed and attention for her roan—bills to be rendered to himself—and hastening off to the jeweler's, found his pin ready and reposing in a small blue box. Avoiding a number of admiring friends, he slipped around a corner, and once more appeared at Mrs. Dick's.
Beth was in the dining-room, alone. Her papers were spread upon the table. She was flushed with the day's excitements,
Van had entered unannounced. His active tread upon the carpet of the hall had made no sound. When he halted in the doorway, transfixed by the beauty of the face he saw reflected in the sideboard mirror opposite, Beth was unconscious of his presence.
She was busily gathering up her documents. Her pretty hands were moving lightly on the table. Her eyes were downcast, focused where she worked. Only the wondrous addition of their matchless brown, thought Van, was necessary to complete a picture of the most exquisite loveliness he had ever beheld.
He had come there prepared to be sedate—at least not over-bold again, or too presumptuous. Already, however, a riot of love was in his veins. He loved as he fought—with all his strength, with a tidal impetuosity that could scarcely understand resistance or imagine defeat. To restrain himself from a quick descent upon her position and a boyish sweeping of her up in his powerful arms was taxing the utmost of his self-control. Then Beth glanced up at the mirror.
The light of her eyes seemed to liquify his heart. He felt that mad, joyous organ spread abruptly, throughout his entire being.
She rose up suddenly and turned to greet him.
"Why—Mr. Van!" she stammered, flushing rosily. "Iheardyou were in town."
He came towards her quietly enough, the jeweler's box in his hand.
"I called before," he answered in his off-hand way. "You must have been out with poor old Searle."
"Oh," she said, "poor old Searle? Why poor?"
"I told you why before," he said boldly, in spite of himself. He was standing before her by the table, looking fairly into her eyes, with that dancing boyishness amazingly bright in his own. "You remember, too—you can't forget."
The flush in her cheeks increased. Her glance was lowered.
"You didn't give me time to—rebuke you for that," she answered, attempting to assume a tone of severity. "You had no right—it wasn't nice or like you in the least."
"Yes it was, nice, and like me," he corrected. "I've brought you a nugget from the claim." He opened the box and shook out the pin on the table.
She had started to make a reply concerning his actions when leaving on that former occasion. The words were pushed aside.
"Oh, my!" she said in a little exclamation, instead. "A nugget!—gold!—not from the—not from your claim?"
His hand slightly trembled.
"From the 'Laughing Water' claim. Named for the girl I'm going to marry."
She gasped, almost audibly. The things he said were so wholly unexpected—so almost naked in their bluntness.
"The girl—some girl you—Isn't it beautiful?" she faltered helplessly. "Of course I don't know—how any girl could have such a singular name."
"Yes you do," he corrected in his shockingly candid way. "You know when Dave gave her the name."
"Do I?" she asked weakly, trying to smile, and feeling some wonderful, welcome sort of fear of the passion with which he fairly glowed. "You are—very positive."
He moved a trifle closer, touching the pin, with a finger, as she held it in her hand. His voice slightly shook as he asked:
"Do you like it?"
"The pin? Of course. A genuine nugget! You were very kind, I'm sure."
"I thought when you and I ride over to the claim, some day, you ought to have a horse of your own," he announced in his manner of finality. "So your horse and outfit are over at Charlie's, at your order."
She looked up at him swiftly. "My horse—over at Charlie's?"
"Yes, Charlie's—the hay-yard. I thought you liked a side-saddle best and I found a good one in the hay."
"But—I haven't any horse," she protested, failing for a moment to grasp his meaning. "How could I have a horse in Goldite?"
"You couldn't help having him—that's all—any more than you can help having me."
The light in his eyes was far too magnetic for her own brown glance to escape. She hardly knew what she was saying, or what she was thinking. She was simply aflame with happiness in his presence—and she feared he must read it in her glance. That the horse was his gift she comprehended all at once—but—what had he said—what was it he had said, that she must answer? Her heart and her mind had coalesced. There was love in both and little of reason in either. She knew he was holding her eyes to his with the sheer force of overwhelming love.
She tried to escape.
"You—mean——-"
He broke all control like a whirlwind.
"I mean I can't hold it any longer! I love you!—I love you to death!"
He took her in his arms suddenly, passionately, crushing her almost fiercely against his heart. He kissed her on the lips—once—twice—a dozen times in half a minute—feeling the warm, moist softness in the contact and holding her pliant figure yet more closely.
She, too, was mad with it all, for a second. Then she began to battle with his might.
"Van!—Mr. Van!" she said, pushing his face away with a hand he might have devoured. "Let me go! Let me go! How dare—— You shan't! You shan't! Let me go!"
Her nature, in revolt for a moment against her better judgment, refused to do the bidding of her muscles. Then she gathered strength out of the whirlwind itself and pushed him away like a tigress.
"You shan't!" she repeated. "You ought to be ashamed! How dare you treat me——"
He had turned abruptly, looking towards the door. Her utterance was halted by his movement of listening. She had barely time to take up her papers, and make an effort at regaining her composure. Bostwick was coming down the hall. He presently appeared at the door. For a moment there was silence.
Van was the first to speak.
"How are you, Searle?" he said cheerily. "Got over your grouch?"
Bostwick looked him over with ill-concealed loathing.
"You thought you were clever, I suppose," he said in a growl-like tone that certainly fitted his face. "What are you doing here, I'd like to know?"
"Tottering angels!" said Van, "didn't that experience do you any good after all? No wonder the convicts wouldn't have you!"
Beth was afraid for what Bostwick might have heard. She could not censure Van for what he had done; she saw he would make no explanations. At best she could only attempt to put some appearance of the commonplace upon the horseman's visit.
"Mr. Van Buren came—to see Mrs. Dick," she faltered, steadying her voice as best she might. "They're—very old friends."
"What's that?" demanded Bostwick, coming into the room and pointing at the bright nugget pin, lying exposed upon the table. "Some present, I suppose, for Mrs. Dick?" He started to take it in his hand.
Van interposed. "It's neither for Mrs. Dick nor for you. It's a present I've made to Miss Kent."
Bostwick elevated his brows.
"Indeed?"
Beth fluttered in with a word of defense.
"It's just a little souvenir—that's all—a souvenir of—of my escape from those terrible men."
"And Searle's return," added Van, who felt the very devil in his veins at sight of Bostwick helpless and enraged.
Searle opened his lips as if to fling out something of his wrath. He held it back and turned to Beth.
"It will soon be night. We have much to do. I suppose I may see you, privately—even here?"
Beth was helpless. And in the circumstances she wished for Van to go.
"Certainly," she answered, raising her eyes for a second to the horseman's, "—that is—if——"
"Certainly," Van answered cordially. "Good-by." He advanced and held out his hand.
She gave him her own because there was nothing else to do—and the tingling of his being made it burn. She did not dare to meet his gaze.
"So long, Searle," he added smilingly. "Better turn that grouch out to pasture."
Then he went.