CHAPTER XVIIITWO AMBUSHES
The clock at the new Verinder Building showed ten minutes past eleven as Jack Kilmeny took the Utah Junction road out of Goldbanks with his loaded ore wagon. It was a night of scudding clouds, through which gleamed occasionally a fugitive moon. The mountain road was steep and narrow, but both the driver and the mules were used to its every turn and curve. In early days the highgrader had driven a stage along it many a night when he could not have seen the ears of the bronchos.
His destination was the Jack Pot, a mine three miles from town, where intermittently for months he had been raising worthless rock in the hope of striking the extension of the Mollie Gibson vein. It was not quite true, as Bleyer had intimated, that his lease was merely a blind to cover ore thefts, though undoubtedly he used it for that purpose incidentally.
Bleyer had guessed shrewdly that Kilmeny would drive out to the Jack Pot, put up in the desertedbunk-house till morning, and then haul the ore down to the junction to ship to the smelter on the presumption that it had been taken from the leased property. This was exactly what Jack had intended to do. Apparently his purpose was unchanged. He wound steadily up the hill trail, keeping the animals at a steady pull, except for breathing spells. The miner had been a mule skinner in his time, just as he had tried his hand at a dozen other occupations. In the still night the crack of his whip sounded clear as a shot when it hissed above the flanks of the leaders without touching them.
He ran into the expected ambush a half mile from the mine, at a point where the road dipped down a wooded slope to a sandy wash.
"Hands up!" ordered a sharp voice.
A horseman loomed up in the darkness beside the wagon. A second appeared from the brush. Other figures emerged dimly from the void.
Jack gave his mules the whip and the heavy wagon plowed into the deep sand. Before the wheels had made two revolutions the leaders were stopped. Other men swarmed up the side of the wagon, dragged the driver from his seat, and flung him to the ground.
Even though his face was buried in the sand and two men were spread over his body, the captive was enjoying himself.
"This is no way to treat a man's anatomy—most unladylike conduct I ever saw," he protested.
He was sharply advised to shut up.
After the pressure on his neck was a little relieved, Jack twisted round enough to see that his captors were all masked.
"What is this game, boys—a hold-up?" he asked.
"Yes. A hold-up of a hold-up," answered one.
Three of the men busied themselves moving the ore sacks from his wagon to another that had been driven out of the brush. A fourth, whom he judged to be Bleyer, was directing operations, while the fifth menaced him with a revolver shoved against the small of his back.
The situation would have been a serious one—if it had not happened to be amusing instead. Kilmeny wanted to laugh at the bustling energy of the men, but restrained himself out of respect for what was expected of him.
"I'll have the law on you fellows," he threatened, living up to the situation. "You'd look fine behind the bars, Bleyer."
"All those sacks transferred yet, Tim?" barked the superintendent.
"Yep."
"Good. Hit the trail."
The wagon passed out of the draw toward Goldbanks. For some minutes the sound of the wheels grinding against the disintegrated granite of theroadbed came back to Jack and the two guards who remained with him.
"Hope this will be a lesson to you," said the superintendent presently. "Better take warning. Next time you'll go to the pen sure."
"Wait till I get you into court, Bleyer."
"What'll you do there?" jeered the other man. "You'd have a heluvatime swearing to him and making it stick. You're sewed up tight this time, Jack."
"Am I? Bet you a new hat that by this time to-morrow night you fellows won't be cracking your lips laughing."
"Take you. Just order the hat left at Goldstein's for the man who calls for it."
For an hour by the superintendent's watch Kilmeny was held under guard. Then, after warning the highgrader not to return to town before daybreak, the two men mounted and rode swiftly away. Jack was alone with his mules and his empty wagon.
He restrained himself no longer. Mirth pealed in rich laughter from his throat, doubled him up, shook him until he had to hang on to a wagon wheel for support. At last he wiped tears from his eyes, climbed into the wagon, and continued on the way to the Jack Pot. At intervals his whoop of gayety rang out boyishly on the night breeze. Again he whistled cheerfully. He was in the best of humorwith himself and the world. For he had played a pretty good joke on Bleyer and Verinder, one they would appreciate at its full within a day or two. He would have given a good deal to be present when they made a certain discovery. Would Moya smile when Verinder told her how the tables had been turned? Or would she think it merely another instance of his depravity?
The road wound up and down over scarred hillsides and through gorges which cut into the range like sword clefts. From one of these it crept up a stiff slope toward the Jack Pot. One hundred and fifty yards from the mine Jack drew up to give the mules a rest.
His lips framed themselves to whistle the first bars of a popular song, but the sound died stillborn. Sharply through the clear night air rang a rifle shot.
Jack did not hear it. A bolt of jagged lightning seared through his brain. The limp hands of the driver fell away from the reins and he fell to the ground, crumpling as a dry leaf that is crushed in the palm.
From the shadow of the bunk-house two men stole into the moonlight heavily like awkward beasts of prey. They crept stealthily forward, rifles in hand, never once lifting their eyes from the huddled mass beside the wagon.
The first looked stolidly down upon the white face and kicked the body with his heavy boot.
"By Goad, Dave, us be quits wi' Jack Kilmeny."
The other—it was Peale, the Cornish miner—had stepped on a spoke of the wheel and pulled himself up so that he could look down into the bed of the wagon. Now he broke out with an oath.
"The wagon's empty."
"What!" Trefoyle straightened instantly, then ran to see for himself. For a moment he could not speak for the rage that surged up in him. "The dommed robber has made fool of us'n," he cried savagely.
In their fury they were like barbarians, cursing impotently the man lying with a white face shining in the moonlight. They had expected to pay a debt of vengeance and to win a fortune at the same stroke. The latter they had missed. The disappointment of their loss stripped them to stark primeval savagery. It was some time before they could exult in their revenge.
"He'll interfere wi' us no more—not this side o' hell anyway," Peale cried.
"Not he. An' we'll put him in a fine grave where he'll lie safe."
They threw the body into the wagon and climbed to the seat. Peale drove along an unused road that deflected from the one running to the Jack Pot.
CHAPTER XIXMR. VERINDER IS TREATED TO A SURPRISE
The morning after the seizing of the ore Verinder came to breakfast in a mood so jubilant that he could not long keep to himself the cause of his exultation. Kilmeny and Farquhar were away on a hunting trip, and none of the ladies except Moya was yet up. He was especially eager to tell his news to her, because she had always been such an open defender of the highgrader. She gave him his opening very promptly, for she was anxious to know what had occurred.
"Has some distant connection passed away and left you a fortune, Mr. Verinder? Or have you merely found a new gold mine since I saw you last?" she asked.
"By Jove, you're a good guesser, Miss Dwight. I found a gold mine last night. Wonder if you could think where."
Her heart beat faster. "You're so pleased about it I fancy the quartz must have been sacked up for you ready for the smelter," she said carelessly.
Verinder flashed a quick look at her. "Eh, what? How's that?"
Moya opened her lips to confess what she had done, but the arrival of a waiter delayed this. Before he had left, Lady Farquhar entered and the girl's chance was temporarily gone.
"I was just telling Miss Dwight that we've found another gold mine, Lady Farquhar—and of all places in the world located in the bed of a wagon."
"In the bed of a wagon! How could that be?"
"Fact, 'pon my word! High-grade ore too, we fancy; but we'll know more about that when we hear from the assayer."
The matron intercepted the look of triumph—it was almost a jeer—that the mine owner flung toward Miss Dwight. She did not understand what he was talking about, but she saw that Moya did.
"If you'd tell us just what happened we'd be able to congratulate you more intelligently," the latter suggested, masking her anxiety.
"Jove, I wish I could—like to tell you the whole story. We pulled off a ripping surprise on one of your friends. But—the deuce of it is I'm sworn to secrecy. We played the highgraders' game and stepped a bit outside the law for once. Let it go at this, that the fellow had to swallow a big dose of his own medicine."
Moya pushed one more question home. "Nobody hurt, I suppose?"
"Only his feelings and his pocketbook. But I fancy one highgrader has learned that DobyansVerinder knows his way about a bit, you know."
The subject filled Moya's thoughts all day. Had Kilmeny after all failed to take advantage of her warning? Or had his opponents proved too shrewd for him? From what Verinder had told her she surmised that Jack had tried to reach the railroad with his ore and been intercepted. But why had he not changed his plans after her talk with him? Surely he was not the kind of man to walk like a lamb into a trap baited for him.
Late in the afternoon Moya, dressed in riding costume, was waiting on the hotel porch for India and her brother when she saw Verinder coming down the street. That he was in a sulky ill humor was apparent.
"Lord Farquhar and Captain Kilmeny came back a couple of hours ago," she said by way of engaging him in talk.
"Any luck?" he asked morosely and with obvious indifference.
"A deer apiece and a bear for the captain."
"That fellow Kilmeny outwitted us, after all," he broke out abruptly. "We've been had, by Jove! Must have been what Bleyer calls a plant."
"I don't understand."
"The rock we took from him was refuse stuff—not worth a dollar."
The girl's eyes gleamed. "Your gold mine was salted, then."
"Not even salted. He had gathered the stuff from some old dump."
"He must have profited by my warning, after all," Moya said quietly.
The little man's eyes narrowed. "Eh? How's that? Did you say your warning?"
In spite of herself she felt a sense of error at having played the traitor to her host. "Sorry. I didn't like to do it, but——"
"What is it you did?" he asked bluntly.
"I told Mr. Kilmeny that his plan was discovered."
"You—told him." He subdued his anger for the moment. "If it isn't asking too much—how did you know anything about it?"
She felt herself flushing with shame, but she answered lightly enough. "You shouldn't discuss secrets so near the breakfast-room, Mr. Verinder."
"I see. You listened ... and then you ran to your friend, the highgrader, with the news. That was good of you, Miss Dwight. I appreciate it—under the circumstances."
She knew he referred to the fact that she was his guest. To hear him put into words his interpretation of the thing she had done, with implications of voice and manner that were hateful, moved her to a disgust that included both him and herself.
"Thank you, Mr. Verinder—for all the kind things you mean and can't say."
She turned on her heel and walked to the end of the veranda. After a moment's thought he followed her.
"Have I said a word too much, Miss Dwight? You did listen to a private conversation you weren't meant to hear, didn't you? And you ran to your friend with it? If I'm wrong, please correct me."
"I daresay you're right. We'll let it go at that, if you please."
Verinder was irritated. Clearly in the right, he had allowed her to put him in the wrong.
"I'll withdraw listened, Miss Dwight. Shall we substitute overheard?"
Her angry eyes flashed into his cold, hard ones. "What would you expect me to do? You know what he did for Joyce and me. And he is Captain Kilmeny's cousin. Could I let him go to prison without giving even a warning?"
"Evidently not. So you sacrifice me for him."
"You think I wasn't justified?"
"You'll have to settle that with your conscience," he said coldly. "Don't thinkIwould have been justified in your place."
"You would have let him go to prison—the man who had fought for you against odds?"
"Does that alter the fact that he is a thief?" Verinder demanded angrily.
"It alters my relation to the fact—and it ought to alter yours. He did a great service to the womanyou are engaged to marry. Does that mean nothing to you?"
"The fellow was playing off his own bat, wasn't he? I don't see I owe him anything," the mine owner sulkily answered. "Truth is, I'm about fed up with him. He's a bad lot. That's the long and short of him. I don't deny he's a well-plucked daredevil. What of it? This town is full of them. There was no question of his going to prison. I intended only to get back some of the ore he and his friends have stolen from me."
"I didn't know that."
"Would it have made any difference if you had?"
She considered. "I'm not sure."
Captain Kilmeny and India emerged from the hotel and bore down upon them.
"All ready, Moya," cried India.
"Ready here." Moya knew that it must be plain to both Captain Kilmeny and his sister that they had interrupted a disagreement of some sort. Characteristically, she took the bull by the horns. "Mr. Verinder and I are through quarreling. At least I'm through. Are you?" she asked the mine owner with a laugh.
"Didn't know I'd been quarreling, Miss Dwight," Verinder replied stiffly.
"You haven't. I've been doing it all." She turned lightly to her betrothed. "They didn't sendup the pinto, Ned. Hope he hasn't really gone lame."
Verinder had been put out of the picture. He turned and walked into the lobby of the hotel, suddenly resolved to make a complaint to Lady Farquhar about the way Moya Dwight had interfered with his plans. He would show that young lady whether she could treat him so outrageously without getting the wigging she deserved.
Lady Farquhar listened with a contempt she was careful to veil. It was not according to the code that a man should run with the tale of his injuries to a young woman's chaperon. Yet she sympathized with him even while she defended Moya. No doubt if Captain Kilmeny had been at hand his fiancée would have taken the matter to him for decision. In his absence she had probably felt that it was incumbent on her to save his cousin from trouble.
The mine owner received Lady Farquhar's explanations in skeptical silence. In his opinion, Moya's interest in Jack Kilmeny had nothing to do with the relationship between that scamp and the captain. He would have liked to say so flatly, but he felt it safer to let his manner convey the innuendo. In her heart Lady Farquhar was of the same belief. She resolved to have a serious talk with Moya before night.
CHAPTER XXCOLTER TAKES A HAND
Moya combed her long rippling hair while Lady Farquhar laid down the law that hedges a young woman from the satisfaction of her generous impulses. For the most part the girl listened in silence, a flush burning through each of her dusky cheeks. There was nothing to be said that would avail. She might defend the thing she had done, but not the feelings that had inspired her action.
"It is all very well to be independent within limits, my dear, but young women of our class are subject to the penalties that go with our privileges. When I was a girl I rebelled but had to obey. So must you." Lady Farquhar interrupted herself to admire the vivid rebel she was admonishing. "What wonderful hair you have—so long and thick and wavy. It must take a great deal of care."
"Yes," Moya admitted absently.
She did not resent the rebuke Lady Jim had come to give her while she was undressing. No doubt she deserved it. She had been unmaidenly, and all for love of this light-hearted vagabond who didnot care the turn of a hand for her. All day her thoughts had been in chaotic ferment. At times she lashed herself with the whip of her own scorn because she cared for a self-confessed thief, for a man who lived outside the law and was not ashamed of it. Again it was the knowledge of her unwanted love that flayed her, or of the injustice to her betrothed in so passionate a feeling for another man. With all her strong young will she fought against this devouring flame that possessed her—and she knew that she fought in vain.
In the shipwreck of her self-respect she clung to one spar. Soon they would be on their way back to that well-ordered world where she would be entirely in the groove of convention. Her engagement to Captain Kilmeny would be announced. Surely among the many distractions of London she would forget this debonair scamp who had bewitched her.
"You should have come to me—or to India for that matter. She is his cousin and is in a different position from you. Don't you see that, my dear?" Lady Farquhar asked gently.
And again Moya said "Yes" wearily.
"James and I understand you—how impulsive you are—and how generous. But Mr. Kilmeny—and Mr. Verinder—what do you suppose they think?"
"I don't care what Mr. Verinder thinks." AndMoya began to coil her hair loosely for the night.
"But that's just it—a girlmustcare. She can't afford to allow anyone an opportunity to think unpleasant things about her. She has to guard her reputation very jealously."
"And I suppose I've been playing ducks and drakes with mine," Moya said, pushing home a hairpin.
"I don't say that, dear. What I say is that Mr. Kilmeny may misunderstand your interest in him."
"He may think I'm in love with him. Is that it?" flashed the girl.
"He might. Give a man's vanity the least chance and——"
A reckless impulse to hurt herself—the same which leads a man to grind on an aching tooth in heady rage—swept Moya like a flame.
"Then he would think the truth," she interrupted. "What's the use of denying it? I ... I'm in love with him."
"Moya." Lady Farquhar's protest came in a horrified gasp.
The young woman turned her slim body in the chair with supple grace so as to face her chaperon. Beneath the dark eyes spots of color burned through the tan.
"It's true. I've cared ... ever since we met him."
"And he—has he ever made love to you?"
"Never. He's thought only of Joyce. That's what makes it more shameless."
Lady Farquhar took a moment to absorb the unwelcome news. "I never dreamed it was as bad as this. Of course I knew he interested you a good deal, but——"
Moya could not keep scorn of herself out of her voice. "But you didn't think I was so lost to decency as to throw myself at his head. You see I am."
"Nonsense," cut in her chaperon with sharp common sense. "You're not the first girl that has fancied a man who won't do. It's imagination—a good deal of it. Make yourself forget him. That's all you can do."
"I can't do that. I've tried," confessed Moya miserably.
"Then try again—and again—and still again. Remember that you are engaged to a man worth a dozen of him. Call your pride to help you."
"It seems that I have none. I've told myself forty times that he's a highgrader and that doesn't help."
Her friend was alarmed. "You don't mean that you would marry a man who is a—a man who steals ore."
"No. I wouldn't marry him ... even if he wanted me—which he doesn't. I haven't fallen that far."
"Glad to hear you say that," answered Lady Farquhar with a sigh of relief. She took the girl in her arms and patted one of the shoulders over which the hair cascaded. "My dear, it's hard. You're intense and emotional. But you've got to—to buck up, as James says. You're brave—and you're strong-willed. Make a winning fight."
"What about ... Ned?"
"Does he suspect?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I think he does. But you know how generous he is. He never says anything, or avoids the subject of his cousin in any way." She added, after an instant: "Ned knows that I don't ... love him—that is, in one way. He says he is ready to wait till that comes."
"Ned Kilmeny is a man out of a million."
Moya nodded. "Yes. That's why this is so unfair to him. What ought I to do? Shall I break the engagement? That's what I want to do, but it will hurt him a good deal."
"Wait. Give yourself and him a chance. In a few days we'll be started home."
"That's what I've been telling myself. Everything here reminds me of—him. It will be different then, I try to think. But—down in my heart I don't think it will."
"And I know it will," the matron told her promptly. "Time, my dear, heals all our woes. Youth has great recuperative power. In a year youwill wonder how he ever cast such a spell over you."
Moya heard the last belated reveler pass down the corridor to his room before she fell asleep. When she awoke it was to see a long shaft of early sunshine across the bed.
She rose, took her bath, and dressed for walking. Her desire drew the steps of the young woman away from the busy street toward the suburb. She walked, as always, with the elastic resilience of unfettered youth. But the weight that had been at her heart for two days—since she had learned from Jack Kilmeny's lips that he was a highgrader—was still tied there too securely to be shaken away by the wonder of the glorious newborn day.
Returning to the hotel, she met a man on the porch whose face stirred instantly a fugitive memory. He came to her at once, a big leather-skinned man with the weatherbeaten look of the West.
"Aren't you the Miss Dwight I've heard Jack Kilmeny mention?"
"Yes. This is Mr. Colter, isn't it?"
He nodded, watching her with hard narrowed eyes. "Something's wrong. Can you tell me what it is? Jack's mules—two of them, anyhow—came back to the barn during the night with bits of broken harness still attached to them. Looks like there had been a runaway and the wagon had come to grief. The keeper of the livery stable says Belltook the wagon around to Jack's place and left it with him. He was seen driving out of town soon after. He has not been seen since."
Her heart flew to alarm. "You mean ... you think he has been hurt?"
"Don't know. He's not in town. That's a cinch. I've raked Goldbanks with a toothcomb. Where is he?"
"Couldn't he be at his mine?"
"I sent a boy out there. He's not at the Jack Pot."
"What is it that you think? Tell me," she cried softly.
"You're his friend, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"There's some talk around town that he was held up by Bleyer. I came up here to see him or Verinder. Foul play of some kind, that's my guess."
"But—you surely don't think that Mr. Bleyer or Mr. Verinder would ... hurt him."
The look of dogged resolution on the man's granite face did not soften. "They'll have to show me—and by God! if they did——"
Her mind flew with consternation to the attack upon Kilmeny that had been made by Bleyer. But Verinder had told her nobody had been hurt. Could they have taken the highgrader prisoner? Were they holding him for some purpose?
"Mr. Verinder gets up about this time usually," she said.
"I'm waiting for him. He said he would be down at once."
"Will you tell me anything you find out, please? I'll be on the veranda upstairs."
Colter joined her a quarter of an hour later. "I saw both Bleyer and Verinder. They've got something up their sleeve, but I don't think they know where Jack is or what has become of him. They pretended to think I was trying to put one over on them."
"What will you do now?"
"I'll go out to the Jack Pot myself. I've reason to believe he intended to go there."
"If you find out anything——"
"Yes, I'll let you know."
Moya went directly from Colter to Bleyer. The superintendent entered a curt denial to her implied charge.
"Miss Dwight, I don't know what you do or do not know. I see someone has been blabbing. But I'll just say this. When I last saw Jack Kilmeny he was as sound as I am this minute. I haven't the least idea where he is. You don't need to worry about him at all. When he wants to turn up he'll be on deck right side up. Don't ask me what his play is, for I don't know. It may be to get me andVerinder in bad with the miners. Just be sure of one thing: he's grandstanding."
She was amazingly relieved. "I'm so glad. I thought perhaps——"
"——that Mr. Verinder and I had murdered him. Thanks for your good opinion of us, but really we didn't," he retorted in his dryest manner.
She laughed. "I did think perhaps you knew where he was."
"Well, I don't—and I don't want to," he snapped. "The less I see of him the better I'll be satisfied."
The superintendent of the Verinder properties had found a note addressed to him in one of the sacks of quartz taken from Kilmeny. The message, genial to the point of impudence, had hoped he had enjoyed his little experience as a hold-up. To Bleyer, always a serious-minded man, this levity had added insult to injury. Just now the very mention of the highgrader's name was a red rag to his temper. It was bad enough to be bested without being jeered at by the man who had set a trap for him.
It was well on toward evening before Colter paid his promised visit to Miss Dwight. She found him waiting for her upon her return from a ride with Captain Kilmeny, Verinder, and Joyce.
Moya, as soon as she had dismounted, walked straight to him.
"What have you found out, Mr. Colter?"
"Not much. It rained during the night and wiped out the tracks of wagon wheels. Don't know how far Jack got or where he went, but the remains of the wagon are lying at the bottom of a gulch about two miles from the Jack Pot."
"How did it get there?"
"I wish you could tell me that. Couldn't have been a runaway or the mules would have gone over the edge of the road too." He stepped forward quickly as Verinder was about to pass into the hotel. "I want to have a talk with you."
The little man adjusted his monocle. "Ye-es. What about, my man?"
"About Jack Kilmeny. Where is he? What do you know? I'm going to find out if I have to tear it from your throat."
Verinder was no coward, but he was a product of our modern super-civilization. He glanced around hastily. The captain had followed Joyce into the lobby. Moya and he were alone on the piazza, with this big savage who looked quite capable of carrying out his threat.
"Don't talk demned nonsense," the mine owner retorted, flushing angrily.
Colter did not answer in words. The strong muscular fingers of his left hand closed on the right arm of Verinder just below the shoulder with a pressure excruciatingly painful. Dobyans found himself moving automatically toward the end of theporch. He had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out.
"Let me alone, you brute," he gasped.
Colter paid no attention until his victim was backed against the rail in a corner. Then he released the millionaire he was manhandling.
"You're going to tell me everything you know. Get that into your head. Or, by God, I'll wring your neck for you."
The Englishman had never before been confronted with such a situation. He was a citizen of a country where wealth hedges a man from such assaults. The color ebbed from his face, then came back with a rush.
"Go to the devil, you big bully," he flung out sharply.
Moya, taken by surprise at Colter's abrupt desertion of her, had watched with amazement the subsequent flare-up. Now she crossed the porch toward them.
"What are you doing, Mr. Colter?"
"None of your funeral, ma'am," the miner answered bluntly, not for a moment lifting his hard eyes from Verinder. "Better unload what you know. I've had a talk with Quint Saladay. I know all he knows, that Bleyer and you and him with two other lads held up Jack and took his ore away. The three of them left you and Bleyer guarding Jack. What did you do with him?"
"It's a bally lie. I didn't stay with Bleyer to guard him."
"That's right. You didn't. You came back with the others. But you know what Bleyer did. Out with it."
"I don't admit a word of what you say," said Verinder doggedly.
Colter had trapped him into a half admission, but he did not intend to say any more.
Moya spoke, a little timidly. "Wait a minute please, Mr. Colter. Let me talk with Mr. Verinder alone. I think he'll tell me what you want to know."
Jack's friend looked at her with sharp suspicion. Was she trying to make a dupe of him? Her candid glance denied it.
"All right. Talk to him all you like, but you'll do your talking here," he agreed curtly before he turned on his heel and walked away a few steps.
"You must tell him what he wants to know, Mr. Verinder," urged the young woman in a low voice. "Something has happened to his friend. We must help clear it up."
"I'm not responsible for what has happened to his friend. What do you want me to do? Peach on Bleyer, is that it?"
"No. Send for him and tell Mr. Colter the truth."
"I'll see him hanged and quartered first," he replied angrily.
"If you don't, I'll tell what I know. There's a life at stake," Moya cried, a trace of agitation in her voice.
"Fiddlesticks!" he shrugged. "The fellow's full of tricks. He worked one on us the other night. I'm hanged if I let him play me again."
"You must. I'll tell Captain Kilmeny and Lord Farquhar. I'll not let it rest this way. The matter is serious."
"I'm not going to be bullied into saying a word. That's the long and short of it," he repeated in disgust. "Let Bleyer tell the fellow if he wants to. I'll have nothing to do with it. We're not responsible for what has happened—if anything has."
"Then I'll go and get Mr. Bleyer."
"Just as you please. I'd see this ruffian at Halifax first, if you askme." The angry color flushed his face again as he thought of the insult to which he had been subjected.
To Colter Moya explained her purpose. He nodded agreement without words.
After two or three attempts she got the superintendent on the telephone at the Mollie Gibson mine and arranged with him that he was to come to the hotel at once. A few minutes later he drove up in his car.
Moya put the case to him.
Bleyer turned to his employer. "You want me to tell Colter what I know?"
"I don't care a turn of my hand whether you tell the fellow or not," drawled Verinder, ignoring the presence of Colter.
The superintendent peered at Moya in his nearsighted fashion over the glasses on his nose. "Can't see that it matters much, Miss Dwight. I'm not worrying a bit about Jack Kilmeny, but, if Colter and you are, I'm willing to tell what I know on condition that you keep the facts to yourselves."
"I'll keep quiet if you haven't injured Jack in any way," Colter amended.
"We haven't. He was sound as a new dollar when I left him Tuesday night. Want to hear the particulars?"
"That's what I'm here for," snapped Colter.
Bleyer told the whole story so far as he knew it.
CHAPTER XXISPIRIT RAPPING?
Farquhar and Captain Kilmeny left next day for another short hunting trip. The captain had offered to give it up, but Moya had urged upon him that it would not be fair to disappoint his companion. He had gone reluctantly, because he saw that his fiancée was worried. His own opinion was that his cousin Jack had disappeared for reasons of his own.
Colter did not relax in his search. But as the days passed hope almost died within him. Jack had plenty of enemies, as an aggressive fighter in a new country always must have. His friend's fear was that some of them had decoyed Kilmeny to his death. The suspicions of the miner centered upon Peale and Trefoyle, both because Jack had so recently had trouble with them and because they knew beforehand of his intention to remove the ore. But he could find no evidence upon which to base his feeling, though he and Curly, in company with a deputy sheriff, had put the Cornishmen through a grilling examination.
It had been understood that the young womenshould take a trip through the Never Quit before they left Goldbanks, but for one reason or another this had been postponed until after the captain and Farquhar had started on their final hunting expedition. The second afternoon after their departure was the one decided upon for the little adventure.
Verinder, with the extravagance that went hand in hand with an occasional astonishing parsimony, had ordered oilskin suits and waterproof boots made especially for his guests. A room was reserved for the young ladies at the mine, equipped for this one occasion to serve as a boudoir where they might dress in comfort.
The mine owner's guests donned, with a good deal of hilarious merriment, the short skirts, the boots, and the rubber helmets. The costumes could not have been called becoming, but they were eminently suited for the wet damp tunnels of the Never Quit.
After they had entered the cage it was a little terrifying to be shot so rapidly down into the blackness of the mine.
"Don't be afraid. It's quite safe," Bleyer told them cheerfully.
At the tenth level the elevator stopped and they emerged into an open space.
"We're going to follow this drift," explained the superintendent.
They seated themselves in ore cars and were wheeled into a cavern lighted at intervals by electricbulbs. Presently the cars slowed down and the occupants descended.
"This way," ordered Bleyer.
They followed in single file into a hot, damp tunnel, which dripped moisture in big drops from the roof upon a rough, uneven floor of stone and dirt where pools of water had occasionally gathered. The darkness increased as they moved forward, driven back by the candles of the men for a space scarce farther than they could reach with outstretched hands.
Moya, bringing up the rear, could hear Bleyer explain the workings to those at his heel. He talked of stopes, drifts, tunnels, wage scales, shifts, highgrade ore, and other subjects that were as Greek to Joyce and India. The atmosphere was oppressively close and warm, and the oilskins that Moya wore seemed to weigh heavily upon her. She became aware with some annoyance at herself that a faintness was stealing over her brain and a mistiness over her eyes. To steady herself she stopped, catching at the rough wall for support. The others, unaware that she was not following, moved on. With a half articulate little cry she sank to the ground.
When she came to herself the lights had disappeared. She was alone in the most profound darkness she had ever known. It seemed to press upon her so ponderably as almost to be tangible. The girl was frightened. Her imagination began toconjure all sorts of dangers. Of cave-ins and explosions she had heard and read a good deal. Anything was possible in this thousand-foot deep grave. In a frightened, ineffective little voice she cried out to her friends.
Instantly there came an answer—a faint tapping on the wall almost at her ear. She listened breathlessly, and caught again that faint far tap—tap—tap—tap—tap—tap—tap. Instinctively her hand went out, groping along the wall until it fell upon a pipe. Even as she touched this the sound came again, and along with it the faintest of vibrations. She knew that somebody at a distance was hitting the pipe with a piece of quartz or metal.
Stooping, she found a bit of broken rock. Three times she tapped the pipe. An answer came at once.
Tap—tap—tap—tap—tap—tap—tap!
She tried two knocks. Again the response of seven taps sounded. Four blows brought still seven. Why always seven? She did not know, but she was greatly comforted to know that her friends were in communication with her. After all she was not alone.
A light glimmered at the end of the tunnel and moved slowly toward her. Bleyer's voice called her name. Presently the whole party was about her with sympathetic questions and explanations.
She made light of her fainting attack, but Verinderinsisted on getting her back to the upper air in spite of her protests. He had discovered that Joyce was quite ready to return to the sunlight, now that her curiosity was satisfied. A very little of anything that was unpleasant went a long way with Miss Seldon, and there was something about this underground tomb that reminded her strongly of an immense grave.
At dinner Verinder referred to the attack of vertigo. "Feel quite fit again, Miss Dwight?"
"Quite, thank you." Moya was a little irritated at the reference, because she was ashamed of having given way to physical weakness. "It was nothing. I was a goose. That's all."
Bleyer, a guest for the evening, defended the young woman from her own scorn. "It often takes people that way the first time, what with the heat and the closeness. I once knew a champion pugilist to keel over while he was going through a mine."
"Were you afraid when you found yourself alone?" Joyce asked.
"I was until you tapped."
India looked puzzled. "Tapped. What do you mean?"
"On the pipe."
"What pipe?"
"The one that ran through the tunnel."
Miss Kilmeny shook her head. "I didn't see anybody tap. Perhaps one of us touched it by chance."
"No. That couldn't be. The tap came seven times together, and after I had answered it seven times more."
"Seven times?" asked Bleyer quickly.
"Yes—seven. But, if you didn't tap, who did?"
"Sure it wasn't imagination?" Verinder suggested.
"Imagination! I tell you it was repeated again and again," Moya said impatiently.
"Spirit rapping," surmised Joyce lightly. "It doesn't matter, anyhow, since it served its work of comforting Moya."
"It might have been some of the workmen," Lady Farquhar guessed.
"Must have been," agreed Bleyer. "And yet—we're not working that end of the mine now. The men had no business there. Odd that it was seven raps. That is a call for help. It means danger."
A bell of warning began to toll in Moya's heart. It rang as yet no clear message to her brain, but the premonition of something sinister and deadly sent a sinking sensation through her.
Verinder sat up with renewed interest. "I say, you know—spirit rapping. Weren't you telling me, Bleyer, that there was a big accident there some years ago? Perhaps the ghosts of some of the lost miners were sending a message to their wives. Eh, what?"
"The accident was in the Golden Nugget, an adjoiningmine. The property was pretty well worked out and has never been opened since the disaster."
The color had ebbed from Moya's lips. She was a sane young woman not given to nerves. But she had worried a great deal over the disappearance of Jack Kilmeny. This, coming on top of it, shook her composure. For she was fighting with the dread that the spirit of the man she loved had been trying to talk with her.
Joyce chattered gayly. "How weird! Moya, you must write an account of your experience for the Society for Psychical Research. Put me in it, please."
"Of course, it must have been some of the men, but I don't see——"
Moya interrupted the superintendent sharply. An intuition, like a flash of light, had illumined her brain. "Where does that pipe run, Mr. Bleyer?"
"Don't know. Maps of the workings at the office would show."
"Will you please find out?"
"Glad to look it up for you, Miss Dwight. I'm a little curious myself."
"I mean now—at once."
He glanced at her in quick surprise. Was she asking him to leave the dinner table to do it? Lady Farquhar saw how colorless Moya was and came to the rescue.
"My dear, you are a little unstrung, aren't you?"she said gently. "I think we might find something more cheerful to talk about. We always have the weather."
Moya rose, trembling. "No. I know now who called for help. It was Jack Kilmeny."
Verinder was the first to break the strained silence. "But that's nonsense, you know."
"It's the truth. He was calling for help."
"Where from? What would he be doing down in a mine?"
"I don't know.... Yes, I do, too," Moya corrected herself, voice breaking under the stress of her emotion. "He has been put down there to die."
"To die." Joyce echoed the words in a frightened whisper.
Dobyans laughed. "This is absurd. Who under heaven would put him there?"
A second flash of light burned in upon the girl. "That man, Peale—and the other ruffian. They knew about the shipment just as you did. They waylaid him ... and buried him in some old mine." Moya faced them tensely, a slim wraith of a girl with dark eyes that blazed. She had forgotten all about conventions, all about what they would think of her. The one thing she saw was Jack Kilmeny in peril, calling for help.
But Lady Farquhar remembered what Moya did not. It was her duty to defend her charge against the errant impulses of the heart, to screen themfrom the callous eyes of an unsympathetic world.
"You jump to conclusions, my dear. Sit down and we'll talk it over."
"No. He called for help. I'm going to take it to him."
Again Verinder laughed unpleasantly. Moya did not at that moment know the man was in existence. One sure purpose flooded her whole being. She was going to save her lover.
India wavered. She, too, had lost color. "But—you're only guessing, dear."
"You'll find it's true. We must follow that pipe and rescue him. To-night."
"Didn't know you were subject to nerve attacks, Miss Dwight," derided Verinder uneasily.
Moya put her hands in front of her eyes as if to shut out the picture of what she saw. "He's been there for five days ... starving, maybe." She shuddered.
"You're only guessing, Miss Dwight. What facts have you to back it?" Bleyer asked.
"We must start at once—this very hour." Moya had recovered herself and spoke with quiet decision. "But first we must find where the pipe leads."
Bleyer answered the appeal in Lady Farquhar's eyes by rising. He believed it to be a piece of hysterical folly, just as she did. But some instinct of chivalry in him responded to the call made upon him. He was going, not to save Kilmeny from animaginary death, but to protect the girl that loved him from showing all the world where her heart was.
"I'll be back inside of an hour—just as soon as I can trace that pipe for you, Miss Dwight," he said.
"After all, Moya may be right," India added, to back her friend.
"It's just possible," Bleyer conceded.