Half an hour later Joan left the house for the barn.
In that brief space she had lived through one of those swiftly-passing epochs in human life when mind, heart and inclination are brought into something approaching actual conflict. But, stern as the fight with weakness had been, she had emerged chastened and victorious. Realization had come to her—realization of whither her troubles had been leading her. She knew she must not abandon herself to the selfishness which her brief rebellion had prompted. She was young, inexperienced, and of a highly-sensitive temperament, but she was not weak. And it was this fact which urged her now. Metaphorically speaking, she had determined to tackle life with shirt sleeves rolled up.
She knew that duty was not only duty, but something which was to yield her a measure of happiness. She knew, too, that duty was not only to be regarded from a point of view of its benefit to others. There was a duty to oneself—which must not be claimed for the sin of selfishness—just as surely as to others; that in its thoroughness of performance lay the secret of all that was worth having in life, and that the disobedience of the laws of such duty, the neglect of them, was to outrage the canons of all life’s ethics, and to bring down upon the head of the offender the inevitable punishment.
She must live her life calmly, honestly, whatever thefate hanging over her. That was the first and most important decision she arrived at. She must not weakly yield to panic inspired by superstitious dread. To do so was, she felt, to undermine her whole moral being. She must ignore this shadow, she must live a life that defied its power. And when the cloud grew too black, if that method were not sufficient to dispel it, she must appeal for alleviation and support from that Power which would never deny its weak and helpless creatures. She knew that human endurance of suffering was intended to be limited, and that when that limit was honestly reached support was still waiting for the sufferer.
Thus she left the house in a chastened spirit, and once more full of youthful courage. The work, the new life she had chosen for herself, must fill every moment of her waking hours. And somehow she felt that with her stern resolve had come a foretaste of that happiness she demanded of life. Her spirits rose as she neared the barn, and a wild excitement filled her as she contemplated a minute inspection of her belongings and her intention to personally minister to their wants.
Something of the instinct of motherhood stirred in her veins at the thought. These were hers to care for—hers to attend and “do” for. She laughed as she thought of the family awaiting her. What a family. Yes, why not? These creatures were for the guardianship of the human race. With all their physical might they were helpless dependents on human aid. Yes, they must be thought for and cared for. They were her family. And she laughed again.
The barn was a sturdy building. Nor was it unpicturesque with its solid, dovetailed lateral logs and heavythatched roof. She saw that it was built with the same care and finish as the house that was now her home. She could not help wondering at the manner of man who had designed and built it. She saw in it such deliberateness, such skill. There was nothing here of the slap-dash prairie carpenter she had read of—the man who flung up buildings simply for the needs of the moment. These were buildings that might last for ages and still retain all their original weather-proof comfort for the creatures they sheltered. She felt pleased with this man Moreton Kenyon.
She passed round the angle of the building to the doorway, and paused for a moment to admire the scheme of the farm. Every building fronted on a largish open space, which was split by the waters of Yellow Creek, beyond which lay the corrals. Here was forethought. The operative part of the farm was hidden from the house, and every detail of it was adjacent one to another. There was the wagon shed with a wagon in it, and harvesting implements stabled in perfect order. There were the hog-pens, the chicken-houses; the sheds for milch cows. There was the barn and the miniature grain store; then, across the creek, a well, with accompanying drinking-trough, corrals with lowing kine in them; a branding cage. And beyond these she could see a vista of fenced pastures.
As she stood reveling in the survey of her little possession the thought recurred to her that this was hers, all hers. It was the home of her family, and she laughed still more happily as she passed into the barn.
Pushing the door open she found herself greeted in the half-light by a chorus of equine whinnying such as shehad never before experienced, and the sound thrilled her. There stood the team of great Clydesdale horses, their long, fiddle heads turned round staring at her with softly inquiring eyes. She wanted to cry out in her joy, but, restraining herself, walked up beside the nearest of them and patted its glossy sides. Her touch was a caress which more than gave expression to her delight.
Those were precious moments to Joan. They were so precious, indeed, that she quite forgot the purpose which had brought her there. She forgot that it was hers to tend and feed these great, helpless creatures. It was enough for her to sit on the swinging bail between the stalls, and revel in the gentle nuzzling of two velvety noses. In those first moments her sensations were unforgettable. The joy of it all held her in its thrall, and, for the moment at least, there was nothing else in the world.
The moments passed unheeded. Every sound was lost to her. And so it came about that she did not hear the galloping of a horse approaching. She did not hear it come to a halt near by. She did not even notice the figure that presently filled the doorway. And only did her first realization of the intrusion come with the pleasant sound of a man’s deep voice.
“Bob an’ Kitty’s kind o’ friendly, Miss Joan,” it said.
The girl turned with a jump and found herself confronted by Buck’s smiling face. And oddly enough her first flash of thought was that this man had used her own name, and not her nickname, and she was grateful to him.
Then she saw that he had the fork in his hand with which she had first seen him, and she remembered his overnight promise to do those very things for her which she had set out to do, but, alas! had forgotten all about.
His presence became a reproach at once, and a slight pucker of displeasure drew her even brows together.
“You’re very kind,” she began, “but——”
Buck’s smile broadened.
“‘But’s’ a ter’ble word,” he said. “It most always goes ahead of something unpleasant.” He quietly laid the fork aside, and, gathering an armful of hay, proceeded to fill Kitty’s manger. “Now what you wer’ going to say was something like that old—I mean your housekeeper—said, only you wouldn’t say it so mean. You jest want to say I’m not to git around doing the chores here for the reason you can’t accept favors, an’ you don’t guess it would be right to offer me pay, same as a ‘hired’ man.”
He hayed Bob’s manger, and then loosened both horses’ collar chains.
“If you’ll sit on the oat-box I’ll turn ’em round an’ take ’em to water at the trough. That’s it.”
Joan obeyed him without a word, and the horses were led out. And while they were gone the girl was left to an unpleasant contemplation of the situation. She determined to deal with the matter boldly, however, and began the moment he returned.
“You’re quite right, Mr. Buck,” she began.
“Buck—jest plain Buck,” he interrupted her. “But I hadn’t jest finished,” he went on deliberately. “I want to show you how you can’t do those things the old—your housekeeper was yearnin’ to do. Y’ see, you can’t get a ‘hired’ man nearer than Leeson Butte. You can’t get him in less’n two weeks. You can’t do the chores yourself, an’ that old—your housekeeper ain’t fit to do anything but make hash. Then you can’t let the stock gohungry. Besides all of which you’re doing me a real kindness letting me help you out. Ther’s no favor to you. It’s sure to me, an’ these creatures which can’t do things for themselves. So it would be a sound proposition to cut that ‘but’ right out of our talk an’ send word to your lawyer feller in Leeson Butte for a ‘hired’ man. An’ when he gits around, why—well, you won’t be needin’ me.”
All the time he was speaking his fork was busy clearing the stalls of their litter, and, at the finish, he leant on the haft of it and quizzically smiled into the girl’s beautiful, half-troubled face.
Joan contemplated protesting, but somehow his manner was so friendly, so frank and honest, that she felt it would be ungracious of her. Finally he won the day, and she broke into a little laugh of yielding.
“You talk too—too well for me,” she cried. “I oughtn’t to accept,” she added. “I know I oughtn’t, but what am I to do? I can’t do—these things.” Then she added regretfully: “And I thought it would be all so simple.”
Buck saw her disappointment, and it troubled him. He felt in a measure responsible, so he hastened to make amends.
“Wal, y’ see, men are rough an’ strong. They can do the things needed around a farm. I don’t guess women wer’ made for—for the rough work of life. It ain’t a thing to feel mean about. It’s jest in the nature of things.”
Joan nodded. All the time he was speaking she had been studying him, watching the play of expression upon his mobile features rather than paying due attention to his words.
She decided that she liked the look of him. It was not that he was particularly handsome. He seemed so strong, and yet so—so unconcerned. She wondered if that were only his manner. She knew that often volcanic natures, reckless, were hidden under a perfect calm. She wondered if it were so in his case. His eyes were so full of a brilliant dark light. Yes, surely this man roused might be an interesting personality. She remembered him last night. She remembered the strange, superheated fire in those same eyes when he had hurled the gold at her feet. Yes, she felt sure a tremendous force lay behind his calmness of manner.
The man’s thoughts were far less analytical. His was not the nature to search the psychology of a beautiful girl. To him Joan was the most wonderful thing on earth. She was something to be reverenced, to be worshipped. His imagination, fired by all his youthful impulse, endowed her with every gift that the mind of simple manhood could conceive, every virtue, every beauty of mind as well as body.
Joan watched him for some moments as he continued his work. It was wonderful how easy he made it seem, how quickly it was done. She even found herself regretting that in a few minutes the morning “chores” would be finished, and this man would be away to—where?
“You must have been up very early to get over here,” she said designedly. Her girlish curiosity and interest could no longer be denied. She must find out what he was and what he did for a living.
“I’m mostly up early,” he replied simply.
“Yes, of course. But—you have your own—stock to see to?”
She felt quite pleased with her cunning. But her pleasure was short-lived.
“Sure,” he returned, with disarming frankness.
“It really doesn’t seem fair that you should have the double work,” she went on, with another attempt to penetrate his reserve.
Buck’s smile was utterly baffling. He walked to the door of the barn and gave a prolonged, low whistle. Then he came back.
“It sure wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t,” he said simply.
“But you must have heaps to do on your—farm,” Joan went on, feeling that she was on the right track at last “Look at what you’re doing for me. These horses, the cattle, the—the pigs and things. I’ve no doubt you have much more to see to of your own.”
At that moment the head of Cæsar appeared in the doorway. He stared round the familiar stable evidently searching for his master. Finally catching sight of him, he clattered in to the place and rubbed his handsome head against Buck’s shoulder.
“This is my stock,” Buck said, affectionately rubbing the creature’s nose. “An’ I generally manage to see to him while the kettle’s boilin’ for breakfast.”
Just for a moment Joan felt abashed at her deliberate attempt to pump her companion. Then the quick, inquiring survey of the beautiful horse was too much for her, and she left her seat to join in the caresses.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” she cried, smoothing his silken face from the star on his forehead to the tip of his wide muzzle.
Just for a second her hand came into contact with the man’s, and, all unconscious, she let it remain. Then suddenlyrealizing the position she drew it away rather sharply.
Buck made no move, but had she only looked up she must have noted the sudden pallor of his face. That brief touch, so unconscious, so unmeaning, had again set his pulses hammering through his body. And it had needed all his control to repress the fiery impulse that stirred him. He longed to kiss that soft white hand. He longed to take it in his own strong palms and hold it for his own, to keep it forever. But the moment passed, and when he spoke it was in the same pleasant, easy fashion.
“I kind o’ thought I ought to let him go with the farm,” he said, “only the Padre wouldn’t think of it. He’d have made a dandy feller for you to ride.”
But Joan was up in arms in a moment.
“I’d never have forgiven you if you’d parted with him,” she cried. “He’s—he’s perfectly beautiful.”
Buck nodded.
“He’s a good feller.” And his tone said far more than his words.
He led the beast to the door, and, giving him an affectionate slap, sent him trotting off.
“I must git busy,” he said, with a laugh. “The hay needs cuttin’. Guess I’ll cut till dinner. After that I’ve got to quit till sundown. I’ll go right on cuttin’ each mornin’ till your ‘hired’ man comes along. Y’ see if it ain’t cut now we’ll be too late. I’ll just throw the harness on Kitty an’ Bob an’ leave ’em to git through with their feed while I see the hogs fed. Guess that old—your housekeeper can milk? I ran the cows into the corral as I came up. Seems to me she could do most things she got fixed on doing.”
Joan laughed.
“She was ‘fixed’ on sending you about what she called ‘your business,’” she said slyly.
Buck raised his brows in mock chagrin.
“Guess she succeeded, too. I sure got busy right away—until you come along, and—and got me quittin’.”
“Oh!” Joan stared at him with round eyes of reproach. Then she burst out laughing. “Well, now you shall hear the truth for that, and you’ll have to answer me too, Mr. Buck.”
“Buck—jest plain Buck.”
The girl made an impatient little movement.
“Well, then, ‘Buck.’ I simply came along to thank you, and to tell you that I couldn’t allow your help—except as a ‘hired’ man. And—I’m afraid you’ll think me very curious—I came to find out who you were, and how you came to find me and bring me home here. And—and I wanted to know—well, everything about my arrival. And you—you’ve made it all very difficult. You—insist on doing all this for me. You’re—you’re not so kind as I thought.”
Joan’s complaint was made half-laughingly and half-seriously. Buck saw the reality underlying her words, but determined to ignore it and only answer her lighter manner.
“If you’d only asked me these things I’d have told you right away,” he protested, smiling. “Y’ see you never asked me.”
“I—I was trying to,” Joan said feebly.
Buck paused in the act of securing Kitty’s harness.
“That old—your housekeeper wouldn’t ha’ spent a deal of time trying,” he said dryly.
Joan ignored the allusion.
“I don’t believe you intend to tell me now,” she said.
Buck left the stall and stood before the corn-box. His eyes were still smiling though his manner was tremendously serious.
“You’re wantin’ to know who I am,” he said. Then he paused, glancing out of the doorway, and the girl watched the return of that thoughtful expression which she had come to associate with his usual manner. “Wal,” he said at last, in his final way, “I’m Buck, and I was picked up on the trail-side, starving, twenty years ago by the Padre. He’s raised me, an’ we’re big friends. An’ now, since we sold his farm, we’re living at the old fur fort, back ther’ in the hills, and we’re goin’ to get a living pelt hunting. I’ve got no folks, an’ no name except Buck. I was called Buck. All I can remember is that my folks were farmers, but got burnt out in a prairie fire, and—burnt to death. That’s why I was on the trail starving when the Padre found me.”
Joan’s eyes had softened with a gentle sympathy, but she offered no word.
“’Bout the other,” the man went on, turning back to the girl, and letting his eyes rest on her fair face, “that’s easy, too. I was at the shack of the boys in the storm. You come along an’ wer’ lying right ther’ on the door-sill when I found you. I jest carried you right here. Y’ see, I guessed who you wer’. Your cart was wrecked on the bank o’ the creek——”
“And the teamster?” Joan’s eyes were eagerly appealing.
Buck turned away.
“Oh, guess he was ther’ too.” Then he abruptlymoved toward the horses. “Say, I’ll get on an’ cut that hay.”
Joan understood. She knew that the teamster was dead. She sighed deeply, and as the sound reached him Buck looked round. It was on the tip of his tongue to say some word of comfort, for he knew that Joan had understood that the man was dead, but the girl herself, under the influence of her new resolve, made it unnecessary. She rose from her seat, and her manner suggested a forced lightness.
“I’ll go and feed the chickens,” she said. “I—I ought to be capable of doing that.”
Buck smiled as he prepared to go and see to the hogs.
“Guess you won’t have trouble—if you know what to give ’em,” he said.
Nor was he quite sure if the girl were angry or smiling as she hurried out of the barn.
The seedling of success planted in rank soil generally develops a wild, pernicious growth which, until the summer of its life has passed, is untameable and pollutes all that with which it comes into contact. The husbandman may pluck at its roots, but the seed is flung broadcast, and he finds himself wringing his hands helplessly in the wilderness.
So it was on the banks of Yellow Creek. The seedling was already flinging its tendrils and fastening tightly upon the life of the little camp. The change had come within three weeks of the moment when the Padre had gazed upon that first wonderful find of gold. So rapid was its development that it was almost staggering to the man who stood by watching the result of the news he had first carried to the camp.
The Padre wandered the hills with trap and gun. Nothing could win him from the pursuit which was his. But his eyes were wide open to those things which had somehow become the care of his leisure. Many of his evenings were spent in the camp, and there he saw and heard the things which, in his working moments, gave him food for a disquietude of thought.
He knew that the luck that had come to the camp was no ordinary luck. His first find had suggested something phenomenal, but it was nothing to the reality. A wealthalmost incalculable had been yielded by a prodigal Nature. Every claim into which he, with the assistance of the men of the camp, had divided the find, measured carefully and balloted for, was rich beyond all dreams. Two or three were richer than the others, but this was the luck of the ballot, and the natural envy inspired thereby was of a comparatively harmless character.
At first the thought of these things was one of a pleasant satisfaction. These men had waited, and suffered, and starved for their chance, and he was glad their chance had come. How many had waited, and suffered and starved, as they had done, and done all those things in vain? Yes, it was a pleasant thought, and it gave him zest and hope in his own life.
The first days passed in a perfect whirlwind of joy. Where before had sounded only the moanings of despair, now the banks of Yellow Creek rang with laughter and joyous voices, bragging, hoping, jesting. One and all saw their long-dimmed hopes looming bright in the prospect of fulfilment.
Then came a change. Just at first it was hardly noticeable. But it swiftly developed, and the shrewd mind of the watcher in the hills realized that the days of halcyon were passing all too swiftly. Men were no longer satisfied with hopes. They wanted realities.
To want the realities with their simple, unrestrained passions, and the means of obtaining them at their disposal, was to demand them. To demand them was to have them. They wanted a saloon. They wanted an organized means of gambling, they wanted a town, with all its means of satisfying appetites that had all too long hungered for what they regarded as the necessarypleasures of life. They wanted a means of spending the accumulations gleaned from the ample purse of mother Nature. And, in a moment, they set about the work of possessing these things.
As is always the case the means was not far to seek. It needed but one mind, keener in self-interest than the rest, and that mind was to hand. Beasley Melford, at no time a man who cared for the physical hardships of the life of these people, saw his opportunity and snatched it. He saw in it a far greater gold-mine than his own claim could ever yield him, and he promptly laid his plans.
He set to work without any noise, any fuss. He was too foxy to shout until his purpose was beyond all possibility of failure. He simply disappeared from the camp for a week. His absence was noted, but no one cared. They were too full of their own affairs. The only people who thought on the matter were the Padre and Buck. Nor did they speak of it until he had been missing four days. Then it was, one evening as they were returning from their traps, the Padre gave some inkling of what had been busy in his thoughts all day.
“It’s queer about Beasley,” he said, pausing to look back over a great valley out of which they had just climbed, and beyond which the westering sun was shining upon the distant snow-fields.
Buck turned sharply at the sound of his companion’s voice. They were not given to talking much out on these hills.
“He’s been away nigh four days,” he said, and took the opportunity of shifting his burden of six freshly-taken fox pelts and lighting his pipe.
The Padre nodded.
“I think he’ll be back soon,” he said. Then he added slowly: “It seems a pity.”
“His coming back?” Buck eyed his companion quickly.
“Yes.”
“Wher’ d’you reckon he’s gone?”
The elder man raised a pair of astonished brows.
“Why, to Leeson Butte,” he said decidedly. Then he went on quietly, but with neither doubt nor hesitation: “There’s a real big change coming here—when Beasley gets back. These men want drink, they are getting restless for high play. They are hankering for—for the flesh-pots they think their gold entitles them to. Beasley will give them all those things when he comes back. It’s a pity.”
Buck thought for some moments before he answered. He was viewing the prospect from the standpoint of his years.
“They must sure have had ’em anyway,” he said at last.
“Ye—es.”
The Padre understood what was in the other’s mind.
“You see,” he went on presently, “I wasn’t thinking of that so much. It’s—well, it amounts to this. These poor devils are just working to fill Beasley’s pockets. Beasley’s the man who’ll benefit by this ‘strike.’ In a few months the others will be on the road again, going through all—that they’ve gone through before.”
“I guess they will,” Buck agreed. His point of view had changed. He was seeing through the older eyes. After that they moved on toward their home lost in the thoughts which their brief talk had inspired.
In a few days the Padre’s prophecy was fulfilled. Beasleyreturned from Leeson Butte at the head of a small convoy. He had contrived his negotiations with a wonderful skill and foresight. His whole object had been secrecy, and this had been difficult. To shout the wealth of the camp in Leeson Butte would have been to bring instantly an avalanche of adventurers and speculators to the banks of Yellow Creek. His capital was limited to the small amount he had secretly hoarded while his comrades were starving, and the gold he had taken from his claim. The latter was his chief asset not from its amount, but its nature. Therefore he had been forced to take the leading merchant in the little prairie city into his confidence, and to suggest a partnership. This he had done, and a plausible tongue, and the sight of the wonderful raw gold, had had the effect he desired. The partnership was arranged, the immediate finance was forthcoming, and, for the time at least, Leeson Butte was left in utter ignorance of its neighboring Eldorado.
Once he had made his deal with Silas McGinnis, Beasley promptly opened his heart in characteristic fashion.
“They’re all sheep, every one of ’em,” he beamed upon his confederate. “They’ll be so easy fleecin’ it seems hardly worth while. All they need is liquor, and cards, and dice. Yes, an’ a few women hangin’ around. You can leave the rest to themselves. We’ll get the gilt, and to hell with the dough under it. Gee, it’s an elegant proposition!” And he rubbed his hands gleefully. “But ther’ must be no delay. We must get busy right away before folks get wind of the luck. I’ll need marquees an’ things until I can get a reg’lar shanty set up. Have you got a wood spoiler you can trust?”
McGinnis nodded.
“Then weight him down with money so we don’t need to trust him too much, and ship him out with the lumber so he can begin right away. We’re goin’ to make an elegant pile.”
In his final remark lay the key-note of his purpose. But the truth of it would have been infinitely more sure had the pronoun been singular.
Never was so much popularity extended to Beasley in his life as at the moment of his return to camp. When the gold-seekers beheld his convoy, with the wagons loaded with all those things their hearts and stomachs craved, the majority found themselves in a condition almost ready to fling welcoming arms about his neck. Their wishes had been expressed, their demands made, and now, here they were fulfilled.
A rush of trade began almost before the storekeeper’s marquee was erected. It began without regard to cost, at least on the purchasers’ parts. The currency was gold, weighed in scales which Beasley had provided, and his exorbitant charges remained quite unheeded by the reckless creatures he had marked down for his victims.
In twenty-four hours the camp was in high revelry. In forty-eight Beasley’s rough organization was nearing completion. And long before half those hours had passed gold was pouring into the storekeeper’s coffers at a pace he had never even dreamed of.
But the first rush was far too strenuous to be maintained for long. The strain was too great even for such wild spirits as peopled the camp. It soared to its height with a dazzling rapidity, culminating in a number of quarrels and fights, mixed up with some incipient shooting, after which a slight reaction set in which reduced it to a simmerat a magnificently profitable level for the foxy storekeeper. Still, there remained ample evidence that the Devil was rioting in the camp and would continue to do so just as long as the lure of gold could tempt his victims.
Then came the inevitable. In a few days it became apparent that the news of the “strike” had percolated abroad. Beasley’s attempt at secrecy had lasted him just sufficiently long to establish himself as the chief trader. Then came the rush from the outside.
It was almost magical the change that occurred in one day. The place became suddenly alive with strangers from Leeson Butte and Bay Creek, and even farther afield. Legitimate traders came to spy out the land. Loafers came in and sat about waiting for developments. Gamblers, suave, easy, ingratiating, foregathered and started the ball of high stakes rolling. And in their wake came all that class of carrion which is ever seeking something for nothing. But the final brand of lawlessness was set on the camp by the arrival of a number of jaded, painted women, who took up their abode in a disused shack sufficiently adjacent to Beasley’s store to suit their purposes. It was all very painful, all very deplorable. Yet it was the perfectly natural evolution of a successful mining camp—a place where, before the firm hand of Morality can obtain its restraining grip, human nature just runs wild.
The seedling had grown. Its rank tendrils were everywhere reaching out and choking all the better life about it. Its seeds were scattered broadcast and had germinated as only such seeds can. It only remained for the husbandman to gaze regretful and impotent upon his handiwork. His hand had planted the seedling, and now—already the wilderness was beyond all control.
Something of this was in the Padre’s mind as he sat in his doorway awaiting Buck’s return for the night. The dusk was growing, and already the shadows within the ancient stockade were black with approaching night. The waiting man had forgotten his pipe, so deeply was he engrossed with his thoughts, and it rested cold in his powerful hand.
He sat on oblivious of everything but that chain of calm reasoning with which he tried to tell himself that the things happening down there on the banks of the Yellow Creek must be. He told himself that he had always known it; that the very fact of this lawlessness pointed the camp’s prosperity, and showed how certainly the luck had come to stay. Later, order would be established out of the chaos, but for the moment there was nothing to be done but—wait. All this he told himself, but it left him dissatisfied, and his thoughts concentrated upon the one person he blamed for all the mischief. Beasley was the man—and he felt that wherever Beasley might be, trouble would never be far——What was that?
An unusual sound had caught and held his attention. He rose quickly from his seat and stood peering out into the darkness which he had failed to notice creeping on him. There was no mistaking it. The sound of running feet was quite plain. Why running?
He turned about and moved over to the arm rack. The next moment he was in the doorway again with his Winchester at his side.
A few moments later a short, stocky man leapt out of the darkness and halted before him. As the Padre recognized him his finger left the trigger of his gun.
“For Gawd’s sake don’t shoot, Padre!”
It was Curly Saunders’ voice, and the other laid his gun aside.
“What’s amiss?” demanded the Padre, noting the man’s painful gasping for breath.
For a moment Curly hesitated. Then, finally, between heavy breaths he answered the challenge.
“I got mad with the Kid—Soapy,” he said. “Guess I shot him up. He ain’t dead an’ ain’t goin’ to die, but Beasley, curse him, set ’em on to lynch me. They’re all mad drunk—guess I was, too, ’fore I started to run—an’ they come hot foot after me. I jest got legs of ’em an’ come along here. It’s—it’s a mighty long ways.”
The Padre listened without moving a muscle—the story so perfectly fitted in with his thoughts.
“The Kid isn’t dead? He isn’t going to die?” His voice had neither condemnation nor sympathy in it.
“No. It’s jest a flesh wound on the outside of his thigh.”
“What was the trouble?”
“Why, the durned young skunk wus jest tryin’ to set them—them women payin’ a ‘party’ call on the gal at the farm, an’ they wus drunk enough to do it. It made me mad—an’—an’, wal, we got busy with our tongues, an’ I shot him up fair an’ squar’.”
“And how about Beasley?”
“Why, it was him set the Kid to git the women on the racket. When he see how I’d stopped it he got madder than hell, an’ went right out fer lynchin’ me. The boys wus drunk enough to listen to his lousy talk.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Not on your life. Beasley’s too sweet on the dollars.But I guess he’s got his knife into that Golden Woman of ours.”
The Padre had no more questions to ask. He dropped back into the room and lit the oil lamp.
“Come right in, Curly,” he said kindly. Then he laid his rifle on the table and pointed at it. “The magazine’s loaded plumb up. Guess no man has a right to give up his life without a kick. That’ll help you if they come along—which they won’t. Maybe Buck’ll be along directly. Don’t shoot him down. Anyway he’s got Cæsar with him—so you’ll know. I’m going down to the camp.”
For a second the two men looked into each other’s eyes. The Padre read the suspicion in Curly’s. He also saw the unhealthy lines in his cheeks and round his mouth. Nor could he help feeling disgusted at the thoughts of the fortune that had come to the camp and brought all these hideous changes in its wake.
He shook his head.
“I’m not giving you away,” he said. “Guess I’ll be back in an hour.”
Curly nodded and moved over to one of the two chairs.
“Thanks, Padre,” he said as the other passed quickly out of the room.
Beasley Melford was in a detestable mood. For one reason his miserable bar was empty of all customers, and, for another, he knew that he was responsible for the fact.
Had he any sense of humor, the absurdity of the thing must have forced itself upon him and possibly helped to improve his temper. But he had no humor, and so abandoned himself to the venomous temper that was practically the mainspring of his life.
He cursed his absent customers. He cursed the man, Curly Saunders. He cursed the girl whom the trouble had been about. But more than all he cursed himself for his own folly in permitting a desire to bait Joan Rest to interfere with his business.
In his restless mood he sought to occupy himself, and, nothing else offering, he cleared his rough counter of glasses, plunged them into a bucket of filthy water, and set them out to drain. Then he turned his attention to his two oil lamps. He snuffed them with his dirty fingers in a vain attempt to improve their miserable light. Then, seating himself upon his counter, he lit a cheap green cigar and prepared to wait.
“Damn ’em all anyway,” he muttered comprehensively, and abandoned himself to watching the hands of a cheap alarm clock creeping on toward the hour of nine.
Apparently the soothing influence of his cigar changed the trend of his thoughts, for presently he began to smile in his own unpleasant way. He was reviewing the scene which his venom had inspired, and the possibilities of it—at the moment delayed, but not abandoned—gave him a peculiar sense of gratification.
He was thinking, too, of Joan Rest and some others. He was thinking of the day of her arrival in the camp, and the scene that had followed Buck’s discovery of her. He could never forgive that scene, or those who took part in it. Buck, more surely than anybody else, he could never forgive. He had always hated Buck and his friend the Padre. They had been in a position to hand out benefits to the starving camp, and patronage was an intolerable insult to a man of his peculiar venom. The thought that he owed those men anything was anathema to him, for he knew in his heart that they despised him.
Since the day of Joan’s coming he had pondered upon how he could pay Buck something of that which he owed him for the insult that still rankled. He had been called an “outlaw parson,” and the truth of the appellation made the insult only the more maddening. Nothing else could have hurt the man so much as to remind him of the downfall which had reduced him to an “outlaw parson.”
He had told Buck then that he would not forget. He might have added that he could not forget. So, ever since, he had cast about for any and every means of hurting the man who had injured him, and his curiously mean mind set him groping in the remotest and more subtle directions. Nor had it taken him long to locate the most vulnerable point in Buck’s armor. He had realized somethingof the possibilities at the first coming of Joan. He had seen then the effect of the beautiful inanimate body upon the man’s susceptibilities. It had been instantaneous. Then had come that scene at the farm, and Buck’s further insult over the gold which he had hated to see pass into the girl’s possession. It was then that the first glimmer of an opening for revenge had shown itself to him.
The rest was the simple matter of camp gossip. Here he learned, through the ridicule bestowed upon Montana Ike and Pete, who were always trying to outdo each other in their rivalry for the favors of Joan, and who never missed an opportunity of visiting the farm when they knew they would find her there, of Buck’s constant attendance upon Joan. He needed very little of his evil imagination to tell him the rest. With Buck in love with the woman it was a simple enough process to his scheming mind to drive home his revenge upon the man—through her.
The necessary inspiration had come that night, when the four women vultures, plying their trade of preying upon the men in his bar, had reached a sufficient degree of drunkenness. Then it had occurred to his devilish mind to bribe them into going across to the farm and paying what he was pleased to call a “party” call upon its mistress, and, in their own phraseology, to “raise hell with her.”
It was a master stroke. Then had come Curly’s interference. The fool had spoilt it all. Nobody but Curly had attempted to interfere. The men had all been too drunk to bother, and the women had jumped at the chance of morally rending a virtuous member of their own sex.
He laughed silently as he thought of it all. But his laugh only expressed his gratification at the subtlety of his ideas. His failure still annoyed him. Curly had stood champion for this Golden Woman, as they called her. Well, it wasn’t his, Beasley’s, fault if he hadn’t paid for his interference by this time. The men were quite drunk enough to hang him, or shoot him for “doing up” young Kid, who had been a mere tool in the matter. He cordially hoped they had. Anyway, the sport at Joan’s expense was too good to miss, and the night was still young.
The prospect almost entirely restored his good-humor, and he was still smiling when the door was suddenly pushed open and the Padre’s burly figure appeared on the threshold.
The saloon-keeper’s smile died at sight of the familiar white hair. Of all the people on Yellow Creek this was the man he least wanted to see at the moment. But he was shrewd enough to avoid any sign of open antagonism. He knew well enough that Moreton Kenyon was neither a fool nor a coward. He knew that to openly measure swords with him was to challenge a man of far superior intellect and strength, and the issue was pretty sure to go against him. Besides, this man they affectionately called the Padre had the entire good-will of the place.
But though he always avoided open antagonism the storekeeper never let go his grip on his dislike. He clung to it hoping to discover some means of breaking the man’s position in the camp and bringing about an utter revulsion of the public feeling for him. There was much about the Padre that gave him food for thought. One detail in particular was always in his mind, a detail such as a mindlike his was bound to question closely. He could never understand the man’s object in the isolation of the life he had lived for so many years here in the back country of the West.
However, he was only concerned at the moment with the object of this unusual visit, and his shrewd speculation turned upon the pursuit of Curly.
“Evenin’, Padre,” he said, with a cordiality the most exacting could have found no fault with.
“Good-evening,” replied the newcomer, smiling pleasantly as he glanced round the sordid hovel. Then he added: “Times are changed, sure. But—where are your customers?”
Beasley’s quick eyes gazed sharply at the perfect mask of disarming geniality. He was looking for some sign to give him a lead, but there was only easy good-nature in the deep gray eyes beneath their shaggy brows.
“Guess they’re out chasin’ that fool-head Curly Saunders,” he said unguardedly. However, he saw his mistake in an instant and tried to rectify it. “Y’ see they’re always skylarkin’ when they git liquor under their belts.”
“Skylarking?” The Padre propped himself against the bar, and his eyes suddenly rested on an ugly stain on the sand floor.
Beasley followed his glance, and beheld the pool of blood which had flowed from the Kid’s wound. He cursed himself for not having obliterated it. Then, in a moment, he decided to carry the matter with a high hand.
“Psha’! What’s the use’n beatin’ around!” he said half-defiantly. “They’re chasin’ Curly to lynch him for shootin’ up the Kid.”
The Padre gave a well-assumed start and emitted a low whistle. Then he turned directly toward the counter.
“You best have a drink on me—for the good of the house,” he said. “I’ll take rye.”
Beasley swung himself across the counter with a laugh.
“Say, that beats the devil!” he cried. “I’ll sure drink with you. No one sooner.”
The Padre nodded.
“Splendid,” he smiled. Then as the other passed glasses and the bottle, he went on: “Tell us about it—the racket, I mean.”
Beasley helped himself to a drink and laughed harshly.
“Wal, I didn’t get it right,” he said, raising his glass. “Here’s ‘how’!” He gulped down his drink and set the empty glass on the counter. “Y’ see, I was handin’ out drinks when the racket started. They were all muckin’ around with them four sluts that come in town the other day. Guess they was all most sloshed to the gills. First thing I know they were quarreling, then some un got busy with a gun. Then they started chasin’ Curly, an’ I see the Kid lying around shot up. It was jest a flesh wound, an’ I had him boosted out to his own shack. His partner, Pete—they struck a partnership, those two—why, I guess he’s seein’ to him. ’Tain’t on’y a scratch.”
The Padre set his glass down. He had not drunk his liquor at a gulp like the other.
“Pity,” he said, his eyes turned again to the blood-stained floor. “I s’pose it was the women—I mean the cause?”
The man’s manner was so disarming that Beasley felt quite safe in “opening out.”
“Pity?” he laughed brutally. “Wher’s the pity?Course it was the women. It’s always the women. Set men around a bunch of women and ther’s always trouble. It’s always been, and it always will be. Ther’s no pity about it I can see. We’re all made that way, and those who set us on this rotten earth meant it so, or it wouldn’t be.”
The Padre’s gray eyes surveyed the narrow face before him. This man, with his virulent meanness, his iron-gray hair, his chequered past, always interested him.
“And do you think this sort of trouble would occur if—if the men hadn’t been drunk?” he asked pointedly.
Beasley’s antagonism surged, but his outward seeming was perfectly amiable.
“Meaning me?” he asked, with a grin.
The Padre shrugged.
“I was thinking that these things have been occurring ever since the camp was flooded with——”
“Rye!” Beasley’s eyes sparkled. He reached the Padre’s now empty glass and gave him a fresh one, pushing the bottle toward him. “You’ll hev a drink on me, an’ if you’ve got time, I’ll tell you about this thing.”
The other submitted, and the drink was poured out. The Padre ignored his.
“Get right ahead,” he said in his easy way.
Beasley leered over the rim of his glass as he drank his whisky.
“You think it’s rye,” he said, setting his glass down with unnecessary force. “An’ I say it’s the women—or the woman. Trouble come to this camp with that tow-headed gal over at the farm. Anybody with two eyes could see that. Anybody that wasn’t as blind as a dotin’ mother. The boys are all mad ’bout her. They’re plumb-crazed. They got her tow-head and sky-blue eyeson their addled brains, an’ all the youngsters, anyway, are fumin’ jealous of each other, and ready to shoot, or do anything else that comes handy, to out the other feller. That’s the root of the trouble—an’ you brought that about selling her your farm.”
Beasley had let himself go intending to aggravate, but the other’s manner still remained undisturbed.
“But this only happens when they’re drunk,” he said mildly.
Beasley’s angry impatience broke out.
“Tcha’! Drunk or sober it don’t make any difference. I tell you the whole camp’s on edge over that gal. It only needs a word to set things hummin’. It’s that gal! She’s a Jonah, a Hoodoo to us all—to this place. She’s got rotten luck all over her—and you brought her here. You needn’t try an’ sling mud at me fer handing them the rot-gut the boys ask for. Get that woman out of the place and things’ll level up right away.”
The man’s rudeness still seemed to have no effect.
“But all this doesn’t seem to fit in with—with this affair to-night,” the Padre argued. “You said it began, you thought, over the four women you allow in here.”
Beasley was being steadily drawn without knowing it. His swift-rising spleen led him farther into the trap.
“So it did,” he snapped. Then he laughed mirthlessly. “Y’ see some one suggested those gals pay a ‘party’ call on your Golden Woman,” he said with elaborate sarcasm. “And it was because Mr. Curly Saunders sort o’ fancies he’s got some sort of right to that lady he butted in and shot up the Kid.”
“Who suggested it?” asked the other quickly, his mild gray eyes hardening.
“Why, the Kid.”
The Padre looked the saloon-keeper squarely in the eye.
“And who put it into that foolish boy’s head?” he asked slowly.
Beasley’s face purpled with rage.
“You needn’t to put things that way with me,” he cried. “If you got things to say, say ’em right out. You reckon I was the man who suggested——”
“I do.”
The Padre’s eyes were wide open. The hard gray gleam literally bored into the other’s heated face. He stood up, his whole body rigid with purpose.
“I say right here that you were responsible for it all. The Kid wasn’t capable of inventing such a dirty trick on a decent girl. He was sufficiently drunk to be influenced by you, and, but for Curly’s timely interference, you would doubtless have had your rotten way. I tell you the trouble, whatever trouble happens in this camp, is trouble which you are directly or indirectly responsible for. These men, in their sober senses, are harmless. Give them the poison you charge extortionately for and they are ready to do anything. I warn you, Beasley, to be careful what you do—be damned careful. There are ways of beating you, and, by thunder! I’ll beat you at your own game! Good-night!”
The Padre turned and walked out, leaving the discomfited storekeeper speechless with rage, his narrow eyes glaring after him.
Moreton Kenyon was never a man to allow an impulse of anger to get the better of him. All that he had said to Beasley he had made up his mind to say before starting for the camp. There was only one way of dealing withthe man’s genius for mischief. And that way did not lie in the direction of persuasion or moral talk. Force was the only thing such a nature as his would yield to. The Padre knew well enough that such force lay to his command should he choose to exert his influence in the camp. He was man of the world enough to understand that the moral condition of the life in this camp must level itself. It could not be regulated—yet. But the protection of a young and beautiful girl was not only his duty, but the duty of every sane citizen in the district, and he was determined it should be carried out. There was no ordinary law to hold this renegade in check, so, if necessary, he must be treated to the harshness of a law framed by the unpracticed hands of men who only understood the wild in which they lived.
On his way home the Padre encountered Buck, who had been back to the fur fort, and, learning from Curly the facts of what had occurred, was now on his way to join his friend.
They paused to talk for some minutes, and their talk was upon those things which were still running through their minds in a hot tide of resentment. After a while they parted, Buck to continue his way to the camp, and the Padre to his home.
“I think it’s all right for to-night,” the Padre said as he prepared to move off. “I don’t think he’ll make another attempt. Anyway, the boys will be sober. But you might have an eye on him.”
Buck nodded, and in the darkness the fierce anger in his dark eyes was lost to his companion.
“I’ll be to home when the camp’s abed,” he said. “I’ll sure see the gal safe.”
So they parted, leaving the Padre perfectly confident in Buck’s ability to make good his assurance.
It was a wild scene inside the drinking-booth over which the ex-Churchman presided. The men had returned from their fruitless pursuit of their intended victim. And as they came in, no longer furiously determined upon a man’s life, but laughing and joking over the events of their blind journey in the darkness, Beasley saw that they were rapidly sobering.
Still raging inwardly at the result of the Padre’s visit he set to work at once, and, before any one else could call for a drink, he seized the opportunity himself. He plied them with a big drink at his own expense, and so promptly enlisted their favor—incidentally setting their appetites for a further orgie with a sharpness that it would take most of the night to appease.
The ball set rolling by his cunning hand quickly ran riot, and soon the place again became the pandemonium which was its nightly habit. Good-humor was the prevalent note, however. The men realized now, in their half-sober senses, that the Kid was only wounded, and this inclined them to leniency toward Curly. So it was quickly evident that their recently-intended victim need no longer have any fear for his life. He was forgiven as readily and as easily as he had been condemned.
So the night proceeded. The roulette board was set going again in one corner of the hut and a crowd hung about it, while the two operators of it, “Diamond” Jack and his partner, strangers to the place, raked in their harvest. The air was thick with the reek of cheap cigars, sold at tremendous prices, and the foul atmosphere ofstale drink. The usual process of a further saturation had set in. Nor amidst the din of voices was there a discordant note. Even the cursings of the losers at the roulette board were drowned in the raucous din of laughter and loud-voiced talk around the bar.
As time went on Beasley saw that his moment was rapidly approaching. The shining, half-glazed eyes, the sudden outbursts of wild whoopings, told him the tale he liked to hear. And he promptly changed his own attitude of bonhomie, and began to remind those who cared to listen of the fun they had all missed through Curly’s interference. This was done at the same time as he took to pouring out the drinks himself in smaller quantities, and became careless in the matter of making accurate change for the bigger bills of his customers.
Beasley’s hints were not long in bearing the fruit he desired. Some one recollected the women who had been participants in their earlier frolic, and instantly there was a clamor for their presence.
Beasley grinned. He was feeling almost joyous.
The women readily answered the summons. They came garbed in long, flowing, tawdry wrappers, the hallmark of the lives they lived. Nor was it more than seconds before they were caught in the whirl of the orgie in progress.
The sight was beyond all description in its revolting and hideous pathos. These blind, besotted men hovered about these wrecks of womanhood much in the manner of hungry animals. They plied them with drink, and sought to win their favors by ribald jesting and talk as obscene as their condition of drunkenness would permit them, while the women accepted their attentions in thespirit in which they were offered, calculating, watching, with an eye trained to the highest pitch of mercenary motive, for the direction whence the greatest benefit was to come.
Beasley was watching too. He knew that the Padre’s threat had been no idle one, but he meant to forestall its operation. The Padre was away to his home by now. Nothing that he could do could operate until the morning, when these men were sober. He had got this night, at least, in which to satisfy his evil whim.
His opportunity came sooner than he expected. One of the girls, quite a young creature, whose originally-pretty face was now distorted and bloated by the life she lived, suddenly appealed to him. She jumped up from the bench on which she had been sitting listening to the drunken attentions of a stranger who bored her, and challenged the saloon-keeper with a laugh and an ingratiating wink.
“Say, you gray-headed old beer-slinger,” she cried, “how about that ‘party’ call you’d fixed up for us? Ain’t ther’ nuthin’ doin’ since that mutt with the thin yeller thatch got busy shootin’? Say, he got you all scared to a pea shuck.”
She laughed immoderately, and, swaying drunkenly, was caught by the attentive stranger.
“Quit it, Mamie,” protested one of the other girls. “If you want another racket I don’t. You’re always raisin’ hell.”
“Quit yourself,” shrieked Mamie in sudden anger. “I ain’t scared of a racket.” She turned to Beasley, who was pouring out a round of drinks for Abe Allinson, now so drunk that he had to support himself against the counter.“Say, you don’t need to be scared, that feller’s out o’ the way now,” she jeered. “Wot say? Guess it would be a ‘scream.’”
Beasley handed the change of a twenty-dollar bill to Abe and turned to the girl.
“Sure it would,” he agreed promptly, his face beaming. Then he added cunningly: “But it’s you folks are plumb scared.”
“Who the h—— scared of a gal like that?” Mamie yelled at him, her eyes blazing. “I ain’t. Are you, Lulu? You, Kit?” She turned to the other women, but ignored the protesting Sadie.
Lulu sprang from the arms of a man on whose shoulder she had been reclining.
“Scared?” she cried. “Come right on. I’m game. Beasley’s keen to give her a twistin’—well, guess it’s always up to us to oblige.” And she laughed immoderately.
Kit joined in. She cared nothing so long as she was with the majority. And it was Beasley himself who finally challenged the recalcitrant Sadie.
“Guess you ain’t on, though,” he said, and there was something like a threat in his tone.
Sadie shrugged.
“It don’t matter. If the others——”
“Bully for you, Sadie!” cried Mamie impulsively. “Come right on! Who’s comin’ to get the ‘scream’?” she demanded of the men about her, while Beasley nodded his approval from his stand behind the bar.
But somehow her general invitation was not received with the same enthusiasm the occasion had met with earlier in the evening. The memory of the Kid stillhovered over some of the muddled brains, and only a few of those who were in the furthest stages of drunkenness responded.
Nothing daunted, however, the girl Mamie, furiously anxious to stand well with the saloon-keeper, laughed over at him.
“We’ll give her a joyous time,” she shrieked. “Say, what’s her name? Joan Rest, the Golden Woman! She’ll need the rest when we’re through. Come on, gals. We’ll dance a cancan on her parlor table. Come on.”
She made a move and the others prepared to follow. Several of the men, laughing recklessly, were ready enough to go whither they led. Already Mamie was within a pace of the closed door when a man suddenly pushed Abe Allinson roughly aside, leant his right elbow on the counter, and stood with his face half-turned toward the crowd. It was Buck. His movements had been so swift, so well calculated, that Beasley found himself looking into the muzzle of the man’s heavy revolver before he could attempt to defend himself.
“Hold on!”
Buck’s voice rang out above the din of the barroom. Instantly he had the attention of the whole company. The girls stood, staring back at him stupidly, and the men saw the gun leveled at the saloon-keeper’s head. They saw more. They saw that Buck held another gun in his left hand, which was threatening the entire room. Most of them knew him. Some of them didn’t. But one and all understood the threat and waited motionless. Nor did they have to wait long.
“Gals,” said Buck sternly, “this racket’s played out.Ther’s been shootin’ to-night over the same thing. Wal, ther’s going to be more shootin’ if it don’t quit right here. If you leave this shanty to go across to the farm to molest the folks there, Beasley, here, is a dead man before you get a yard from the door.”
Then his glance shifted so that the saloon-keeper came into his focus, while yet he held a perfect survey of the rest of the men.
“Do you get me, Beasley?” he went on coldly. “You’re a dead man if those gals go. An’ if you send them to the farm after this—ever—I’ll shoot you on sight. Wal?”
Beasley knew when he was beaten. He had reckoned only on the Padre. He had forgotten Buck. However, he wouldn’t forget him in the future.
“You can put up your gun, Buck,” he said, with an assumption of geniality that deceived no one, and Buck least of all. “Quit your racket, gals,” he went on. Then he added with the sarcasm he generally fell back on in such emergencies: “Guess this gentleman feels the same as Curly—only he ain’t as—hasty.”
The girls went slowly back to their seats, and Buck, lowering his guns, quietly restored them both to their holsters.
Beasley watched him, and as he saw them disappear his whole manner changed.
“Now, Mister Buck,” he said, with a snarl, “I don’t guess I need either your dollars or your company on my premises. You’ll oblige me—that door ain’t locked.” And he pointed at it deliberately for the man to take his departure.
But Buck only laughed.
“Don’t worry, Beasley,” he said. “I’m here—till you close up for the night.”
And the enraged saloon-keeper had a vision of a smile at his expense which promptly lit the faces of the entire company.