CHAPTER XXIITHE ACID TEST
Jack Kilmeny opened his eyes to find himself in darkness utter and complete except for a pinpoint of light gleaming from far above. His head was whirling and throbbing painfully. Something warm and moist dropped into his eyes, and when he put his hand up to investigate the cause he knew it must be blood from a wound.
Faintly the sound of voices and of harsh laughter drifted down to him. Presently this died away. The stillness was almost uncanny.
"Something laid me out, I reckon. Must have been a bad whack." His finger found a ridge above the temple which had been plowed through the thick curly hair. "Looks as though a glancing bullet hit me. Golden luck it didn't finish the job."
He moved. A sharp pain shot through his lower right leg. Trying to rise, he slipped down at once from a badly sprained ankle. Every muscle in his body ached, as if he had been jarred by a hard fall.
"Better have a look around first," he told himself.
Groping in his pocket, he found a match case and struck a light. What he saw made him shudder. From the ledge upon which he lay fell away a gulf, the bottom of which could be only guessed. His eyes, becoming accustomed to the darkness, made out that he was in some sort of shaft, thirty feet or more below the surface. Rotten from age, the timberings had slipped and become jammed. Upon some of these he was resting. The sprained ankle, by preventing him from moving, had saved him from plunging down the well.
He held out a silver dollar and dropped it. From the time the coin took to strike Jack judged he was a hundred feet from the bottom.
The flare of a second match showed him a wall ladder leading down, but unfortunately it did not extend above him except in rotting fragments. What had happened he could guess. Supposing him to be dead, his enemies had dropped the body down this deserted shaft. Not for a moment did he doubt who they were. The voices had been unmistakably Cornish, and even without that evidence he would have guessed Peale and his partner as the guilty ones.
Since he could not go up he went down, moving warily so as not to jar loose the timbers upon which he lay. Every rung of the ladder he tested with great care before he put his weight upon it. Each step of the journey down sent a throb of pain fromthe ricked ankle, even though he rested his weight on his hands while he lowered himself. From the last rung—it was by actual count the one hundred forty-third—he stepped to the ground.
Another match showed him a drift running from the foot of the shaft. Along this he dragged himself slowly, uncertain of direction but determined to find out what possibility of escape his prison offered. For two hundred yards the tunnel led forward and brought him up sharply at animpasse. A cave-in blocked farther advance.
"Check," Jack told himself aloud grimly.
He knew now that his situation was a very serious one, for he had been flung alive into a grave that offered only a slight prospect of escape. He was without food, effectually cut off from the surface of the earth, and none but those who had assaulted him knew that he was buried.
The alternatives that lay before him were plain. He might climb the ladder again to the timber ledge and keep calling for help, or he might attempt to dig a way over the cave-in with his hands and his pocketknife, trusting that the tunnel led to another shaft. The former was a chance pure and simple, and a slender one at that. It was not likely that anybody would pass the mouth of a deserted shaft far up in the hills at this season of the year. But it was quite within the probabilities that the tunnel led to some of the workings of a live property.Many miles of underground drifts were connected by intercepting stopes of adjoining mines. If he could force a way through the cave-in there might be safety beyond. To go moling into such a place without timbering would be a dangerous business, but the crisis was one that justified any risk.
He took stock of his assets. Fortunately he had bought at a lunch counter a ham sandwich to stay his appetite during the night trip. This was still in his pocket, badly mashed but still edible. Five cigars were in the case he carried and upon his person all told he found eleven matches. A little trickle of water ran through the tunnel and gave assurance that he would not die of thirst. His pocketknife was a serviceable one and he had plenty of physical strength.
Jack decided that he would eat half of the sandwich that day and reserve the rest for the second one. His cigars were precious luxuries to be indulged in once every twenty-four hours after he had knocked off work.
He attacked the cave-in with the cool energy that characterized him. Out of a piece of board he fashioned a kind of shovel with his knife. Bits of broken timbering lay at the foot of the shaft. These he dragged into the tunnel for fuel to feed a small fire which he built to give light for the work. All through the night and till noon the following day he dug among the fallen rocks and dirt,cleaning thisdébrisaway after he had loosened it with his bare hands.
The impact of the fall when he had been thrown down the shaft had jarred him greatly. With the slightest movement of the body his back and shoulders ached, sending shoots of pain in protest to his brain. The sprained ankle he had bound tightly in a wet handkerchief, but every time his weight rested on that leg he had to grit his teeth. But it was not in him to quit. He stuck to his job till he had done the shift set himself.
At noon he crawled back to the foot of the shaft. He was fagged to exhaustion. For half an hour he lay stretched on his back with every muscle relaxed.
Presently he cut from his coat the pocket that contained the sandwich and divided the mash of ham and bread into two parts. One of these he ate. The other he returned to the coat.
Favoring his ricked ankle as best he could, Jack climbed the wall ladder to the ledge upon which he had found himself lying the previous night. Five minutes' examination of the walls showed him that there was no chance to reach the top of the shaft unaided. He tested the jammed timbers to make sure they were secure before he put his weight upon them. During the next six hours he called aloud every few minutes to attract the attention of anyone who might chance to be passing near.
Toward evening he treated himself to his firstcigar, making the most of the comfort that it gave him. When the stub grew short he held it on the small blade of his knife so as not to miss a puff. What was left he wrapped in a pocket handkerchief for later use.
As the stars began to come out in the little patch of blue sky he could see just above his prison Jack lowered himself again to the foot of the shaft. Here he lay down a second time and within five minutes had fallen into a deep sleep.
About midnight he awakened and was aware at once of a ravenous hunger. He was still resolute to win a way out, though the knowledge pressed on him that his chances were slender at the best. Till morning he worked without a moment's rest. The fever in his ankle and the pain of the sprain had increased, but he could not afford to pay any attention to them. Blood from his scarred, torn hands ran down his wrists. Every muscle in his abused body ached. Still he stabbed with his knife into the earth that filled the tunnel and still he pulled great rocks back with his shovel. All his life he had fought for his own hand. He would not let himself believe fate had played so scurvy a trick as to lock him alive into a tomb closed so tightly that he could not pry a way out.
When his watch told him it was eight o'clock he staggered to the shaft again and lay down on his back to rest. Before climbing to the platform abovehe finished the sandwich. He was very hungry and could have eaten enough for two men had he been given the opportunity. Again for hours he called every few minutes at the top of his voice.
In his vest pocket were a pencil and a notebook used for keeping the accounts of the highgraders with whom he did business. To pass the time he set down the story of the crime which had brought him here and his efforts to free himself.
After darkness fell he let himself down to the foot of the shaft and slept. Either from hunger or from fever in his ankle he slept brokenly. He was conscious of a little delirium in his waking spells, but the coming of midnight found him master of himself, though a trifle lightheaded.
It was impossible to work as steadily as he had done during the two previous nights. Hunger and pain and toil were doing their best to wear out his strength. His limbs moved laggardly. Once he fell asleep in the midst of his labor. He dreamed of Moya, and after he awakened—as he presently did with a start—she seemed so near that it would scarce have surprised him if in the darkness his hands had come in contact with the soft flesh of her vivid face. Nor did it strike him as at all odd that it was Moya and not Joyce who was visiting him when he was in prison. Sometimes she came to him as the little girl of theVictorian, but more often the face he saw was the mocking one of theyoung woman, in which gayety overran the tender sadness of the big, dusky eyes beneath which tiny freckles had been sprinkled. More than once he clearly heard her whisper courage to him.
Next day the notes in his diary were more fragmentary.
"Broke my rule and smoked two cigars to-day. Just finished my fourth. Leaves one more. I drink a great deal. It helps me to forget I'm hungry. Find a cigar goes farther if I smoke it in sections. I chew the stubs while I'm working."Have tunneled in about seventeen feet. No sign that I'm near the end of the cave-in. There's a lot of hell in being buried alive."Think I'm losing my voice from shouting so much when I'm in the shaft. Gave it up to-day and let little Moya call for me. She's a trump. Wish she'd stay here all the time and not keep coming and going."
"Broke my rule and smoked two cigars to-day. Just finished my fourth. Leaves one more. I drink a great deal. It helps me to forget I'm hungry. Find a cigar goes farther if I smoke it in sections. I chew the stubs while I'm working.
"Have tunneled in about seventeen feet. No sign that I'm near the end of the cave-in. There's a lot of hell in being buried alive.
"Think I'm losing my voice from shouting so much when I'm in the shaft. Gave it up to-day and let little Moya call for me. She's a trump. Wish she'd stay here all the time and not keep coming and going."
The jottings on the fourth day show the increase of the delirium. Sometimes his mind appears to be quite clear, then it wanders to queer fancies.
"Last cigar gone. Got sick from eating the stub. Violent retchings. Kept falling asleep while working. Twenty-nine feet done—surelyreach the end to-morrow.... Another cave-in just after I crawled out from my tunnel. All my work wiped out. Moya, the little devil, laughed and said it served a highgrader right...."Have telegraphed for help. Can't manage alone. Couldn't make it up the shaft and had to give up the climb. Ordered a big breakfast at the Silver Dollar—steak and mushrooms and hot cakes. The telegraph wires run through pipe along floor of tunnel. Why don't the operator stay on his job? I tap my signals and get no answer."
"Last cigar gone. Got sick from eating the stub. Violent retchings. Kept falling asleep while working. Twenty-nine feet done—surelyreach the end to-morrow.... Another cave-in just after I crawled out from my tunnel. All my work wiped out. Moya, the little devil, laughed and said it served a highgrader right....
"Have telegraphed for help. Can't manage alone. Couldn't make it up the shaft and had to give up the climb. Ordered a big breakfast at the Silver Dollar—steak and mushrooms and hot cakes. The telegraph wires run through pipe along floor of tunnel. Why don't the operator stay on his job? I tap my signals and get no answer."
He began to talk to himself in a rambling sort of way. Sometimes he would try to justify himself for highgrading in jerky half-coherent phrases, sometimes he argued with Peale that he had better let him out. But even in his delirious condition he stuck to his work in the tunnel, though he was scarce able to drag himself about.
As the sickness grew on him, the lightheaded intervals became more frequent. In one of these it occurred to him that he had struck high grade ore and he filled his pockets with samples taken from the cave-in. He spent a good deal of time explaining to Moya patiently over and over again that the business of highgrading was justified by the conditions under which the miners lived. There was nosequence to his thoughts. They came in flashes without logical connection. It became, for instance, a firm obsession that the pipe running through the tunnel was a telegraph wire by means of which he could communicate with the outside world if the operator would only stay on duty. But his interest in the matter was intermittent.
It is suggestive of his condition that when Moya's answer came to his seven taps he took it quite as a matter of course.
"The son of a Greaser is back on the job at last," he said aloud without the least excitement. "Now, I'll get that breakfast I ordered."
He crawled back to the foot of the shaft in a childish, absurd confidence that the food he craved would soon be sent down to him. While he waited, Jack fell into light sleep where he lost himself in fancies that voiced themselves in incoherent snatches of talk.
CHAPTER XXIIICAPTAIN KILMENY RETIRES
A voice calling his name from the top of the shaft brought Jack Kilmeny back to consciousness. He answered.
A shout of joy boomed down to him in Colter's heavy bass. He could hear, too, the sweet troubled tones of a woman.
"Hurry, please, hurry.... Thank God, we're in time."
"Got that breakfast with you, little neighbor," Jack called up weakly. He did not need to be told that Moya Dwight was above, and, since she was there, of course she had brought him the breakfast that he had ordered from the Silver Dollar.
"Get back into the tunnel, Jack," Colter presently shouted.
"What for?"
"We're lowering someone to you. The timberings are rotten and they might fall on you. Get back."
"All right."
Five minutes later the rescuer reached the footof the shaft. He stood for a moment with a miner's lamp lifted above his head and peered into the gloom.
"Where away, Jack?"
The man was Ned Kilmeny. He and Lord Farquhar had returned to the hotel just after dinner. The captain had insisted—all the more because there was some danger in it—that he should be the man lowered to the aid of his cousin.
"Bring that breakfast?" Jack snapped, testily.
"Yes, old man. It's waiting up above. Brought some soup down with me."
"I ordered it two hours ago. What's been keeping you? I'm going to complain of the service."
The captain saw at once that Jack was lightheaded and he humored him.
"Yes, I would. Now drink this soup."
The imprisoned man drained the bucket to the last drop.
Ned loosened the rope from his own body and fastened it about that of his cousin. He gave the signal and Jack was hauled very carefully to the surface in such a way as not to collide with the jammed timbers near the top. Colter and Bleyer lifted the highgrader over the edge of the well, where he collapsed at once into the arms of his friend.
Moya, a flask in her hand, stooped over the sickman where he lay on the grass. Her fine face was full of poignant sympathy.
Kilmeny's mind was quite clear now. The man was gaunt as a famished wolf. Bitten deep into his face were the lines that showed how closely he had shaved death. But in his eye was the gay inextinguishable gleam of the thoroughbred.
"Ain't I the quitter, Miss Dwight? Keeling over just like a sick baby."
The young woman choked over her answer. "You mustn't talk yet. Drink this, please."
He drank, and later he ate sparingly of the food she had hastily gathered from the dinner table and brought with her. In jerky little sentences he sketched his adventure, mingling fiction with fact as the fever grew on him again.
Bleyer, himself a game man, could not withhold his admiration after he had heard Captain Kilmeny's story of what he had found below. The two, with Moya, were riding behind the wagon in which the rescued man lay.
"Think of the pluck of the fellow—boring away at that cave-in when any minute a million tons of rock and dirt might tumble down and crush the life out of him. That's a big enough thing. But add to it his game leg and his wound and starvation on top of that. I'll give it to him for the gamest fellow that ever went down into a mine."
"That's not all," the captain added quietly. "Hemust have tunneled in about twenty-five feet when the roof caved again. Clean bowled out as he was, Jack tackled the job a second time."
Moya could not think of what had taken place without a film coming over her eyes and a sob choking her throat. A vagabond and worse he might be, but Jack Kilmeny held her love beyond recall. It was useless to remind herself that he was unworthy. None the less, she gloried in the splendid courage of the man. It flooded her veins joyously even while her heart was full to overflowing with tender pity for his sufferings. Whatever else he might be, Jack Kilmeny was every inch a man. He had in him the dynamic spark that brought him smiling in his weakness from the presence of the tragedy that had almost engulfed him.
There was a little discussion between Colter and Captain Kilmeny as to which of them should take care of the invalid. The captain urged that he would get better care at the hotel, where Lady Farquhar and India could look after him. Colter referred the matter to Jack.
"I'm not going to burden Lady Farquhar or India. Colter can look out for me," the sick man said.
"It's no trouble. India won't be satisfied unless you come to the hotel," Moya said in a low voice.
He looked at her, was about to decline, andchanged his mind. The appeal in her eyes was too potent.
"I'm in the hands of my friends. Settle it any way you like, Miss Dwight. Do whatever you want with me, except put me back in that hell."
After a doctor had seen Jack and taken care of his ankle, after the trained nurse had arrived and been put in charge of the sick room, Captain Kilmeny made a report to Moya and his sister.
"He's gone to sleep already. The doctor says he'll probably be as well as ever in a week, thanks to you, Moya."
"Thanks to you, Ned," she amended.
"He sent to you this record of how he spent his time down there—said it might amuse you."
The Captain looked straight at her as he spoke.
"I'll read it."
"Do. You'll find something on the last page that will interest you. Now, I'm going to say good-night. It's time little girls were in bed."
He kissed his sister and Moya, rather to the surprise of the latter, for Captain Kilmeny never insisted upon the rights of a lover. There was something on his face she did not quite understand. It was as if he were saying good-by instead of good-night.
She understood it presently. Ned had written a note and pinned it to the last page of the little book. She read it twice, and then again in tears. It toldher that the soldier had read truly the secret her anxiety had flaunted in the face of all her friends.
"It's no go, dear girl. You've done your best, but you don't love me. You never will. Afraid there's no way left but for me to release you. So you're free again, little sweetheart."I know you won't misunderstand. Never in my life have I cared for you so much as I do to-night. But caring isn't enough. I've had my chance and couldn't win out. May you have good hunting wherever you go."
"It's no go, dear girl. You've done your best, but you don't love me. You never will. Afraid there's no way left but for me to release you. So you're free again, little sweetheart.
"I know you won't misunderstand. Never in my life have I cared for you so much as I do to-night. But caring isn't enough. I've had my chance and couldn't win out. May you have good hunting wherever you go."
The note was signed "Ned."
Her betrothed had played the game like the gentleman he was to a losing finish. She knew he would not whimper or complain, that he would meet her to-morrow cheerfully and easily, hiding even from her the wound in his heart. He was a better man than his cousin. She could not deny to herself that his gallantry had a finer edge. His sense of right was better developed and his courage quite as steady. Ned Kilmeny had won his V. C. before he was twenty-five. He had carried to a successful issue one of the most delicate diplomatic missions of recent years. Everybody conceded that he had a future. If Jack had never appeared on her horizon she would have married Ned and been to hima loving wife. But the harum-scarum cousin had made this impossible.
Why? Why had her roving heart gone out to this attractive scamp who did not want her love or care for it? She did not know. The thing was as unexplainable as it was inescapable. All the training of her life had shaped her to other ends. Lady Farquhar would explain it as a glamour cast by a foolish girl's fancy. But Moya knew the tide of feeling which raced through her was born not of fancy but of the true romance.
CHAPTER XXIVTWO IN A BUCKET
Jack heard the story of his rescue from India. He surprised her alone in the breakfast room by hobbling in one morning after the rest had gone.
She popped a question directly at him. "Did the doctor say you could get up?"
"Didn't ask him," he answered with a laugh, and dropped into a seat across the table.
Shaven and dressed in a clean freshly pressed suit, he looked a different man from the haggard grimy vagabond Captain Kilmeny had brought back with him three days earlier. The eyes were still rather sunken and the face a bit drawn, but otherwise he was his very competent and debonair self. His "Good mornin', India," was as cheery and matter of fact as if those five days of horror had never existed.
"Don't believe it will hurt you." Her bright eyes were warm in their approval of him. "You look a lot fitter than you did even yesterday. It's awfully jolly to see you around again, Cousin Jack."
"I'm enjoying it myself," he conceded. "Anything of importance in that covered dish over there?"
"Tell me all about it," she ordered, handing him the bacon. Then, with a shudder, she added: "Must have been rather awful down there."
"Bad enough," he admitted lightly.
"Tell me." She leaned forward, chin in hand.
"What's the use? Those fellows put me down. Your brother took me up. That's all."
"It isn't all. Ned says it is perfectly marvelous the way you dug that tunnel and escaped from being crushed, and then dug it again after it had caved."
"Couldn't lie down and quit, could I? A man in the hole I was can't pick and choose." He smiled lazily at her and took a muffin from a plate handed him by the waiter. "My turn to ask questions. I want the full story of how you guessed I was in the west shaft of the Golden Nugget."
"Haven't you heard? It was Moya guessed it—from the tapping on the pipe, you know."
"So I've been told. Now let's have the particulars." His eyes went arrow-straight into hers and rested there.
India told him. She knew that Ned would make a safer husband for Moya than this forceful adventurer. It was quite likely to be on the cards that he cared nothing for her friend. Indeed, his desperate flirtation with Joyce indicated as much.Moreover, Moya would not marry a man whom she could not respect, one who made his living by dishonest practices. But in spite of all these objections Miss Kilmeny told her cousin how Moya had fought for his life against ridicule and unbelief, regardless of what any of them might think of her.
He made one comment when she had finished. "So I have to thank Moya Dwight for my life."
"Moya alone. They laughed at her, but she wouldn't give up. I never saw anybody so stubborn. There's something splendid in her. She didn't care what any of us thought. The one thing in her mind was that she was going to save you. So Mr. Bleyer had to get up from dinner and find out from the maps where that pipe went. He traced it to the old west shaft of the Golden Nugget."
"And whatdidyou think?" he asked, watching her steadily.
"I admired her pluck tremendously."
"Did Verinder—and Bleyer—and Lady Farquhar?"
"How do I know what they thought?" flamed the girl. "If Mr. Verinder is cad enough——" She stopped, recalling certain obligations she was under to that gentleman.
"Why did she do it?"
She flashed a look of feminine scorn at him. "You'll have to ask Moya that—if you want to know."
He nodded his head slowly. "That's just what I'm going to do."
"You'll have more time to talk with her—now that Joyce is engaged and daren't flirt with you," his cousin suggested maliciously.
Though he tried to carry this off with a laugh, the color mounted to his face. "I've been several kinds of an idiot in my time."
"Don't you dare try any nonsense with Moya," her friend cried, a little fiercely.
"No," he agreed.
"She's not Joyce."
He had an answer for that. "I'd marry her to-morrow if she'd take me."
"You mean you...?"
"Yes. From the first day I met her again. And I didn't know it till I was down in that hell hole. Shall I tell you something?" He put his arms on the table and leaned toward her with shining eyes. "She was with me down there most of the time. Any time I stopped to listen I could hear her whisper courage in that low, sweet voice of hers."
"You know about her and Ned?"
"Yes."
"He's a better man than you are, Jack."
"Yes."
"But you won't let him have her."
"No, by God, not unless she loves him."
"She would have loved him if it hadn't been for you."
"You mean she loves me?"
"She won't marry you. She can't."
"Why not? Because I don't belong to her social set?"
"No. That would be reason enough for Joyce or me, but I don't think it would stop Moya."
"You mean—highgrading?"
"Yes."
Joyce interrupted further confidences by making her usual late appearance for breakfast. At sight of Kilmeny her eyes brightened. Life always became more interesting for her when a possible man was present. Instantly she came forward with a touch of reluctant eagerness that was very effective.
"I'm glad to see you up again—so glad, Mr. Kilmeny."
In the pretty breakfast gown which displayed her soft curves and the ripe roundness of throat and arm she made a picture wholly charming. If Jack was overpowered he gave no sign of it.
"Glad to meet you, Miss Seldon."
Her eyes rained sweet pity on him, a tenderness potent enough to disturb the serenity of any young man not in armor.
"We—we've been so worried about you."
He laughed, genially and without resentment."Awfully good of you. Shall I ring for the waiter?"
India rose. "I'm going riding with Ned and Moya," she explained.
Alone with the Westerner, Joyce felt her blood begin to quicken.
"Are you quite ... recovered?" she asked.
Their eyes met. In his there was a faint cynical smile of amusement.
"Quite."
She understood the double meaning in his words. Her lashes fell to the soft cheeks, then lifted again. "I thought perhaps there might be ... that you might still be...."
He shook his head vigorously. "It was only a dream. I can laugh at it now—and at myself for taking it seriously."
Joyce bit her lip with vexation. There was something not quite decent in so prompt a recovery from her charms. He did not appear to hold even any resentment.
Nor did he. Kilmeny had been brought too near the grim realities to hold any petty pique. He found this young woman still charming, but his admiration was tinctured with amusement. No longer did his imagination play upon her personality. He focused it upon the girl who had fought for his life against the ridicule and the suspicions of her friends. It was impossible for him to escape theallure of her fine sweet courage so gallantly expressed in every look and motion.
But Moya let him severely alone. Her pride was suffering because she had showed to all her little world too keen an interest in him. In her anxiety to repudiate any claim he might think she felt she had upon him the girl was scornfully indifferent to his advances. Almost rudely she rejected his gratitude.
"The man does not owe me anything. Can't he see that honors are easy?" she said impatiently to Lady Farquhar.
Jack Kilmeny was no quitter. He set that lean jaw of his and would not accept repulse. In four days now the Farquhar party was going to leave Goldbanks and he made the most of his time.
Moya never saw him coming toward her without having her pulses stirred, but her look met his always quietly and steadily. Not once did she give him a chance to see her alone. Even Lady Farquhar, who had been a severe critic of her vagaries, commended now her discretion. Jack rebelled against it in vain. He could not find a chance to speak. It was characteristic of him that he made one.
By shrewd maneuvering he arranged an expedition to the Silent Sam mine. The property itself was of no particular interest. The attractive feature was a descent in ore buckets from the shaft-house,perched far up on the edge of a precipitous cliff, to the mill in the valley below. This was made by means of heavy cables to which the buckets were suspended. After Jack had explained how the men rode back and forth by this means between the mill and the mine India was seized with the inspiration he had hoped for.
"Let's go down in the buckets, dear people."
Lady Farquhar protested and was overruled by a chorus of votes. The miner assured her that it was entirely safe. Reluctantly she gave permission for her flock to make the trip if they desired.
They rode on horseback to the mill. Jack paired with India, making no attempt to ride beside Moya, who brought up the rear with the captain. The Westerner, answering the questions of his cousin, was at his debonair best. Occasionally there drifted back to the couple in the rear fragmentary snatches of his talk. He was telling of the time he had been a mule skinner in New Mexico, of how he had ridden mail near Deming, and of frontier days at Tombstone. Casual anecdotes were sprinkled through his explanations to liven them. He spoke in the slurring drawl of the Southwest, which went so well with the brown lean face beneath the pinched-in felt hat and the well-packed vigor of the man.
"And what is 'bucking a sample'?" India wanted to know after one of his stories.
"You just pound some rock up and mix it to get a sample. Once when I was drag-driver of a herd in a round-up...."
Moya heard no more. She turned her attention resolutely to her companion and tried to detach her mind from the man in front. She might as well have tried to keep her heart from beating.
After they had arrived at the mill Jack quietly took charge of the disposition of the party. Verinder and Joyce were sent up in the first bucket. When this was halfway up to the mine the cable stopped to let another couple enter a bucket. Joyce, fifty feet up in the air, waved her hand to those below.
"You next, India," ordered her cousin.
The young woman stepped into the bucket. "I'm 'fraid," she announced promptly.
"No need to be. Captain, your turn."
The eyes of the two men met. Ned Kilmeny guessed instantly that the other had arranged this so as to get a few minutes alone with Moya. He took a place beside his sister immediately.
The cable did not stop again until the second pair of passengers had reached the mine.
Moya, followed by Jack, stepped into the basket, which began to rise steadily as it moved across the valley.
Kilmeny did not lose a minute.
"Why don't you let me see you alone? Why do you run away from me?" he demanded.
Little patches of color burned beneath the shadows of her eyes. A sound as of a distant surf began to beat in her ears.
"What nonsense! Why should I run from you?" she asked, meeting with difficulty the attack of his masterful gaze.
"Because you're afraid to let me tell you that I love you," he charged.
"Thought it was Joyce you ... fancied," she retorted quietly, her pulse hammering.
"So it was. I fancied her. I love you. I'm asking you to marry me."
"You don't have to ask me to marry you because you exaggerate the service I did you."
"I ask you because I love you."
"Thank you very much for the compliment. Sorry I must decline." She did not dare look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the mill far below.
"Why must you—since you love me?"
The telltale pink stained her cheeks. "You take that for granted, do you?"
"It's true, I believe. How can I make love to you as other men do? Lady Farquhar won't let me see you alone—even if you were willing to give me a chance. In two days you are going out of my life. I must speak the truth ... bluntly. I love you. It has been that way with me ever sinceyou came into my life again, little Moya. But I was blind and didn't see it till ... till I was alone in the mine with death."
"I ... am sorry."
"That is not enough. I'm going to have the truth. You saved my life. What for? It is yours ... if you will take it."
She looked straight at him. "I can't marry you."
"Why can't you? Can you say that you don't love me?"
In the full-charged silence that followed a stifling emotion raced through her blood. The excitement in her set a pulse beating in her throat. Womanlike, she evaded the issue.
"The cable has stopped. What has happened?"
"Nothing has happened. It has stopped because I arranged with the engineer at the hoist to have it stop. When I give the signal it will start again."
"But...."
He brushed aside her futile protest. "I'm going to have this out with you. Dare you tell me that you don't love me, Moya?"
He forced her to meet his eyes, and in that moment she felt weak and faint. The throb of passion beat tumultuously against her will.
"Please ... be generous. What will they think? Let us start," she begged.
"They will think something is wrong with the machinery. But it doesn't matter in the least whatthey think. It's my last chance, and I'll not give it up. You've got to answer me."
The point where the bucket had stopped was a hundred feet above the ground below. She looked down, and shuddered.
"It's so far down ... please."
"Then don't look down. Look at me, Moya. It won't take you a moment to answer me."
"I have. I said I couldn't marry you."
"Tell me that you don't love me and I'll give the signal."
"I ... don't."
"Look straight at me and say it."
She tried to look at him and repeat it, but her eyes betrayed the secret she was fighting to keep from him. The long lashes fell to the hot cheeks an instant too late.
His hand found hers. "My little Irish wild rose, all sweetness and thorns," he murmured.
Above the tumult of her heart she heard her voice say, as if it were that of a stranger, "It's no use ... I can't ... marry you."
"Because I'm a highgrader?"
She nodded.
"Do you think I'm worse than other men? Down in the bottom of your heart do you believe that?"
She smiled wanly. "Other men are not ... making love to me."
"Am I nothing but a thief to you?"
"I have told you that you are the man I ... love. Isn't that a good deal?"
The desire of her, pure as a flame, swept through him. "It's the greatest thing that ever came into my life. Do you think I'm going to let it end there? I'm going to fight for our happiness. I'm going to beat down the things that come between us."
"You can't. It's too late," she cried wistfully.
"It's never too late for love so long as we're both alive."
"Not for love, but...."
"You've got to see this as I see it, sweetheart. I'm a man—primitive, if you like. I've done wild and evil things—plenty of them. What of that? I slough them off and trample them down. The heart of me is clean, isn't it?"
"Yes."
To look at him was enough to clear away all doubt. He had the faults that go with full-blooded elemental life, but at bottom this virile American was sound.
"Well! Isn't that enough?"
The little movement of her hands toward him seemed to beg for pity. "Jack! I can't help it. Maybe I'm a little prig, but ... mustn't we guide our lives by principle and not by impulse?"
"Do I guide mine by impulse?"
"Don't you?" She hurried on to contradict, or at least to modify, her reluctant charge. "Oh, Iknow you are a great influence here. You're known all over the state. Men follow you wherever you lead. Why should I criticize you—I, who have done nothing all my life but lean on others?"
"Go ahead. When I ask you to marry me I invite your criticism."
"I have to take little steps and to keep in well-worn paths. I can't make laws for myself as you do. Those that have been made may be wrong, but I must obey them."
"Why? Why should you? If they're wrong, fight against them."
"I can't argue with you ... dear. But I know what I think right. Iwantto think as you do. Oh, you don't know how I long to throw my Puritan conscience overboard and just trust your judgment. I ... admire you tremendously. But I can't give in ... I can't."
The muscles stood out on his lean cheeks as he set his teeth. "You've got to, Moya. Our love has been foreordained. Do you think it is for nothing that we met again after all these years? You're mine—the one woman in the world I want and am going to have."
She shook her head sadly. "No ... no!"
"Is it the money I have made highgrading? Is that what stands between us? If I were able to come to you without a dollar but with clean hands—would you marry me then?"
He leaned toward her, eager, ardent, passionate, the color in his cheeks burning to a dull brick tint beneath the tan. Body and soul she swayed toward him. All her vital love of life, of things beautiful and good and true, fused in a crescendo of emotion.
"My dear ... my dear, I'm only a girl—and I love you." Somehow her hands were buried in the strong grip of his. "But ... I can't live on the profits of what I think is wrong. If it weren't for that ... Jack, I'd marry you if you were a pauper—and thank God for the chance."
He faced her doggedly. "I'm not a pauper. I've fought for my share of the spoils. You've been brought up in a hot-house. Out in the world a man wins because he's strong. Do you think it's all been play with me? By God, no! I've ridden night herd in a blizzard when the temperature was below zero. I've done my shift on the twelfth level of the Never Quit many a month. I've mushed in Alaska and fought against Castro in Venezuela. Do you think I'm going to give up my stake now I've won it at last?"
She looked at him tremulously. "I don't ask you to give it up. You'll have to decide that for yourself."
"Don't you see Ican'tgive it up? If I do, I lose you. How can I take care of you without money?"
"I'd do my best, Jack."
"You don't understand. It would be foryears—until I had made another start. I wouldn't let you give up everything unless I had something to offer. I wouldn't consider it."
"Isn't that putting pride before love, Jack? You know I have a little money of my own. We could live—in very decent poverty. I would love to feel that we were fighting ... together. We both know you'll win in the end. Wouldn't it be fine to work out your success in partnership? Dear, I'drathermarry you while you're still a poor man."
For a moment the vision of it tempted him, but he put the dream away. "No. It won't do. Of course I'm going to win out in the end, but it might take a dozen years to set me on Easy street. For a woman brought up as you have been poverty is hell."
"Then you think I'm only a doll," she flashed. "You want to put me back in that hot-house you mentioned. I'm just an ornament to dress up and look at and play with."
"I think you're a little tinder-box," he said, smiling ruefully.
"Don't you see how it is with me, Jack? I've always craved life. I've wanted to take hold of it with both hands and without gloves. But they would never let me. I've got my chance now ... if you really love me more than you do your pride and your money. I want to live close to the people—as you do."
"What did that suit cost you?" he asked abruptly.
"Don't remember. Twenty-five pounds, maybe. Why?"
"One hundred twenty dollars, say. And you need dozens of dresses in a season. I'll make a guess that it takes five thousand a year to clothe you. That is nearly twice as much as I'll earn altogether next year if I throw away my stake."
She waved his argument aside. "Stupid boy! I have dresses enough to last me for five years—if you'll let me be that poor man's wife. I can make them over myself later and still be the best dressed woman in camp."
From above came Captain Kilmeny's shout. "We telephoned down. The engineer has the trouble arranged."
The cable began to move.
"When shall I see you alone again, Moya?" Jack demanded.
"I don't know."
"I'm going to see you. We've got to fight this out. I'll not let Lady Farquhar keep me from seeing you alone. It's serious business."
"Yes," she admitted. "I'll tell Lady Jim. But ... there's no use in letting you think I'll give up. I can't."
"You've got to give up. That's all there is to it." His jaw was set like a vise.
The party above fell upon them as they landed.
"Were you frightened, Moya?" exclaimed Joyce above the chorus of questions.
"Just for a moment." Moya did not look at Jack. "Mr. Kilmeny told me it would be all right."
Jack's eyes danced. "I told her we would work out of the difficulty if she would trust me."
Moya blushed. It happened that Captain Kilmeny was looking directly at her when his cousin spoke.