CHAPTER IVI Take My Life in My Hands[image]fter breakfast on the day following the incident of the verandah I was journeying down town to post two letters, the Lost Cabin Mine still uppermost in my mind, when I came, at the turning into Baker Street, face to face with the man Donoghue. It was clear that he saw me,—he could not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting,—and I wondered if now he would have a word to say to me regarding the part I played on the preceding evening. Sure enough, he stopped; but there was only friendliness on his face and the heaviness of it and the sulkiness were hardly visible when he smiled.He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity, and said that he had to thank me for preventing what he called "an accident last night."I smiled at the word, for he spoke it so easily, as though the whole thing were a mere bagatelle to him. "It was right stupid of me," he said. "But Laughlin keeps such bad liquor! Canlan, too, had had too much of it, or he would never have tried to irritate me with his remark." I was trying to recollect the exact words of that remark which Donoghue classified as "irritating" when he interrupted my thoughts with: "The Apache Kid and me has quit the Laughlin House.""Yes, I did n't see you at breakfast there," said I."Was Canlan there?" he asked eagerly."Not while I was breakfasting, at any rate," I replied.He nursed his chin in his hand at that and stood pondering something. Then: "Quite so, quite so," he commented as though to himself. Then to me: "By the way, would you be so kind as to come down this evening to Blaine's? The Apache Kid asked me to try and see you and ask you if you would be good enough to come down.""Blaine's?" I asked. "Where is Blaine's?""Blaine, Blaine, Lincoln Avenue; near the corner of Twenty-second Street."It amazed me to hear of a Twenty-second Street in this city that boasted only one long street (Baker Street) and six streets running off it. But of course, a street is a street in a new city even though it can boast only of a house at either corner and has nothing between these corner houses but tree-stumps, or sand, or sage-bushes, and little boards thrust into the ground announcing: "This is a sure-thing lot. Its day will come very soon. See about it when it can be bought cheap from ——, Real Estate Agent, office open day and night."But Donoghue, seeing that I did not know the streets of the city by name, directed me:"You go right along Baker Street,—you know it, of course, the main street of this progressive burgh?—straight ahead west; turn down third on the right; look up at the store front there and you read 'H.B. Blaine. Makes you think o' Home and Mother.' It's a coffee-joint, you see. There 's a coffee urn in the window and two plates, one with crackers on it and t' other with doughnuts. You walk right in and ask for the Apache Kid—straight goods—no josh." He stopped to give emphasis to the rest and after that pause he said in a meaning tone: "And—you—will—hear—o' something to your advantage."He nodded sedately and, without giving me time to say anything in reply, moved off. You may be sure I pondered this invitation as I went along roaring Baker Street to the post-office. And I was indeed in two minds about it, uncertain whether to call in at Blaine's or not. Both the sheriff and Mrs. Laughlin had cautioned me against these men, and I had, besides, seen enough of them to know myself that they were not just all that could be desired. The word the sheriff had used regarding Apache Kid's nature, "deep," came into my mind, along with reflections on all his prevarications of the previous day. It occurred to me that it would be quite in keeping with him to pretend gratefulness to me, at the moment, for my interference, and to post up Donoghue to do the same, with the intention in his mind all the while of "getting me in a quiet corner," as the phrase is. I think I may be excused this judgment considering all the duplicity I had already seen him practise. A story that I had heard somewhere of a trap-door in a floor which opened and precipitated whoever stood upon it down into a hole among rats came into my head. Perhaps H. B. Blaine had such a trap-door in his floor. One could believe anything of half the men one saw here, with their blood-shot eyes, straggling hair, and cruel mouths. Still, I had felt real friendliness, no counterfeit, in both Apache Kid last night and Donoghue to-day.A wave of disgust at my cowardice and suspicion came over me to aid me toward the decision that my curiosity was already crying for and so, when the day wore near an end, I set forth—for Blaine's, the "coffee-joint."When I got the length of Baker Street I was to see another sight such as only the West could show. The phonographs, as usual, it being now evening, were all grumbling forth their rival songs at the stalls and open windows. The wonted din was in the air when suddenly an eddy began in the crowd on the opposite sidewalk. It was in front of one of the "toughest" saloons in town, and out of that eddy darted a man, hatless, and broke away pell-mell along the street. Next moment the saloon door swung again, and after him there went running another fellow, with a tomahawk in his hand, his hair flying behind him as he ran, his legs straddled wide to prevent him tripping up on his great spurs. Where the third party in this scene sprang from I cannot tell. I only know that he suddenly appeared on the street, habited in a blue serge suit, with a Stars-and-Stripes kerchief round his slouch hat in place of a band, and a silver star on his breast. It was my friend the portly, fatherly, stern sheriff."Stop, you!" he cried.But he with the tomahawk paid no heed, and out shot the sheriff's leg and tripped the man up. The tomahawk flew from his hand and buried itself almost to the end of the handle in the dust of the road."Stop, you!" cried the sheriff again to the other fellow, who was still posting on. But the fugitive gave only a quick glance over his shoulder and accelerated his speed. It looked as though he would escape, when down flew the sheriff's hand to his belt, then up above his head. He thrust out his chin vindictively, down came his revolver hand in a half-circle and—it was just as though he pointed at the flying man with his weapon—"flash!" The man took one step more, but not a second. His leg was shot, and he fell. A waggon had stopped on the roadway, the teamster looking on, and him the sheriff immediately pressed into service. The man of the tomahawk rose, and, at a word from the man of law-and-order, climbed into the waggon; he of the shot leg was assisted to follow; the sheriff mounted beside them, and with a brief word to the teamster away went the waggon in a cloud of dust, and whirled round the corner to the court-house. And then the crowd in the street moved on as usual, the talk buzzed, the cigar smoke crept overhead."Would n't that jar you?" said a voice in my ear, and turning I found Donoghue by my side. "Just toddling down to Blaine's?""Yes," I said, and fell in step with him.Certainly this little incident I had witnessed on the way reassured me to the extent of making me think that if I was to be shot in the "coffee-joint," there was a lively sheriff in the town, and unless my demise was kept unconscionably quiet he would be by the way of making inquiries.With no trepidation at all, then, on reading the sign "H. B. Blaine. Makes you think of Home and Mother," I followed Donoghue into the sweet-scented "joint" with the gleaming coffee urn in the window.He nodded to the gentleman who stood behind the doughnut-heaped counter—H. B. Blaine, I presumed—who jerked his head towards the rear of the establishment."Step right in, Mr. Donoghue," he said. "Apache Kid is settin' there."CHAPTER VI Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense[image]t was at once evident that I was not to be murdered in H. B. Blaine's place, and also evident that I had been invited to meet Apache Kid to hear some matter that was not for all to hear; for immediately on our entering the little rear room he flung aside a paper he had been reading and leaped to his feet to meet us. He put a hand on Donoghue's shoulder and the other he extended to me."We'll not talk here," he said. "Walls have ears:" and so we all turned about and marched out again."Going out for a strowl?" asked Blaine."Yes," said Apache. "Fine night for a strowl." And we found ourselves on the street down which we turned and walked in silence.Suddenly Apache Kid slowed down and swore to himself."I should n't have said that!" he remarked angrily."Said what?" Donoghue interrogated."O! mocked Blaine like that—said we were going for a strowl.""What do you mean?" asked Donoghue, whose ear did not seem very acute.Apache looked at him with a relieved expression."Well, that's hopeful," he said. "Perhaps Blaine would n't catch it either. Still, still, I should n't have mocked him. You noticed, I bet?" he said to me."Strowl?" I inquired.He sighed."There 's no sense in trying to make fun of anything in a man's clothes or talk or manner. Besides, it's excessively vulgar, excessively vulgar.""Here 's an interesting 'bad man,'" I mused; but there was no more said till we won clear of the town, quite beyond the last sidewalks that stretched and criss-crossed among the rocks and sand, marking out the prospective streets. There, on a little rising place of sand and rocks, we sat down.It was a desolate spot. A gentle wind was blowing among the dunes and the sand was all moving, trickling down here and piling up there. Being near sunset the cicadi had disappeared and the evening light falling wan on the occasional tufts of sage-brush gave them a peculiar air of desolation. Donoghue pulled out a clasp-knife and sat progging in the sand with it, and then Apache Kid jerked up his head and smiled on me, a smile entirely friendly. And suddenly as he looked at me his face became grave."Have you had supper yet?" he asked."No," I said. "It's early yet."He looked at me keenly and then: "You 'll excuse me remarking on your appearance, but you look extraordinarily tired.""Oh," said I, lightly, "I have not been feeling just up to the scratch and—well, I thought I 'd try the fasting cure."He hummed to himself and dived a hand into his trousers pocket and held out a five-dollar bill under my nose."There," he said, "go and eat and don't lie any more. I 've been there myself—when I was new to the country and could n't get into its ways."There was something of such intense warm-heartedness behind the peremptory tones (while Donoghue turned his face aside, running the sand between his fingers and looking foolishly at it) that to tell you the truth, I found the tears in my eyes before I was aware. But this sign of weakness Apache Kid made pretence not to observe."We 'll wait here for you till you get fed," said he, examining the back of his hand."No, no," I answered hastily, "I had rather hear what you have to say just now." Thank him for his kindness I could not, for I felt that thanks would but embarrass him. "To tell you the truth, the mere knowledge that I need not go to bed hungry is sufficient.""Well," said he, looking up when my voice rang firm. "The fact is, I am going to offer you a job; but it is a job you might not care to take unless you were hard pressed; so you will please consider that a loan, not a first instalment, and the fact of settling it must not influence."This was very fairly spoken and I felt that I should say something handsome, but he gave me no opportunity, continuing at once: "Donoghue here and I are wanting a partner on an expedition that we are going on. We 're very old friends, we two, but for quite a little while back we had both been meditating going on this expedition separately. Fact is, we are such very old friends and know each other's weaknesses so well that, though we both had the idea of the expedition in our heads, we did n't care about going together."All this he spoke as much to Donoghue as to me, with a bantering air; and one thing at least I learned from this—the reason why these two had not done as Laughlin thought the natural thing for them to do, namely, to go out together, heedless of Canlan. For I had no doubt whatever that the expedition was to the Lost Cabin Mine. That was as clear as the sun. Further observation of their natures, if further observation I was to have, might explain their long reluctance to "go partners" on the venture, a reluctance now evidently overcome."Get to your job," growled Donoghue, "and quit palaver."It was evident that Apache Kid was determined not to permit himself to be irritated, for he only smiled on Donoghue's snarl and turned to me: "My friend Donoghue and I," said he, "it is necessary to explain, are such very old friends that we can cordially hate each other.""At times," interjected Donoghue."Yes; upon occasion," said Apache Kid. "To you, new to this country, such a state of things between friends may be scarcely comprehensible, but——" and Apache Kid stopped."It's them mountains that does it," said Donoghue, with a heavy frown."Them mountains, as Donoghue says; that's it. It's queer how the mountains, when you get among them, seem to creep in all round you and lock you up. It does n't take long among them with a man to know whether you and he belong to the same order and breed. There are men who can never sleep under the same blanket; yes, never sleep on the same side of the fire; never, after two days in the hills, ride side by side, but must get space between them."His eyes were looking past me on things invisible to me, looking in imagination, I suppose, on his own past from which he spoke."And if you don't like your partner, you know it then," Donoghue said. "You go riding along and if he speaks to you, you want him to shut it. And if he don't speak, you ask him what in thunder he's broodin' about. And you look for him to fire up at you then, and if he don't, you feel worse than ever and go along with just a little hell burning against him in here," and he tapped his chest. "You could turn on him and eat him; yes siree, kill him with your teeth in his neck.""This is called the return to Nature," said Apache Kid, calmly."Return to hell!" cried Donoghue, and Apache Kid inclined his head in acquiescence. He seemed content to let Donoghue now do the talking."Apache and me has come to an agreement, as he says, to go out on the trail, and though we 've chummed together a heap——""In the manner of wolves," said Apache, with a half sneer."Yes," said Donoghue, "a good bit like that, too. Well, but on this trail we can't go alone. It's too all-fired far and too all-fired lonely."His gaze wandered to the mountains behind the town and Apache took up the discourse."You see the idea? We want a companion to help us to keep the peace. Foolish—eh? Well, I don't blame you if you don't quite understand. You 're new here. You 've never been in the mountains, day in day out, with a man whose soul an altogether different god or devil made; with a man that you fervently hope, if there's any waking up after the last kick here, you won't find in your happy hunting-ground beyond. You won't have to come in between and hold us apart, you know. The mere presence of a third party is enough."He looked on me keenly a space and added:"Somehow I think that you will do more than keep off the bickering spirit. I think you 'll establish amicable relations."It was curious to observe how the illiterate Donoghue took his partner's speech so much for granted."What's amicable?" he said."Friendly," said Apache Kid."Amicable, friendly," said Donoghue, thoughtfully. "Good word, amicable.""The trip would be worth a couple of hundred dollars to you," said Apache, with his eyes on mine. "And if we happened to be out over two months, at the rate of a hundred a month for the time beyond.""Well, that's straight enough talk, I guess," said Donoghue. "Is the deal on?"My financial condition itself was such as to preclude any doubt. Had I been told plainly that it was to the Lost Cabin Mine we were going and been offered a share in it I would, remembering Apache Kid and Donoghue of the verandah, as I may put it, in distinction from Apache Kid and Donoghue of to-night—well, I would have feared that some heated sudden turn of mind of one or the other or both of these men might prevent me coming into my own. Donoghue especially had a fearsome face to see. But there was no such suggestion. I was offered two hundred dollars and, now that the night fell and the silence deepened and the long range of hills gloomed on us, I thought I could understand that the presence of a third man might be well worth two hundred dollars to two men of very alien natures among the silence and the loneliness that would throw them together closely whether they would or not."The deal is on," I said.We shook hands solemnly then and Donoghue looked toward Apache Kid as though all the programme was not yet completed. Apache Kid nodded and produced a roll of bills. The light was waning and he held them close to him as he withdrew one."That'll make us square again," he said, handing me the roll. "I 've kept off a five; so now we 're not obliged to each other for anything."And then, as though to seal the compact and bear in upon me a thought of the expedition we were going upon, the sun disappeared behind the western hills and from somewhere out there, in the shadows and deeper shadows of the strange piled landscape, came a long, faint sound, half bay, half moan. It was the dusk cry of the mountain coyotes; and either the echo of it or another cry came down from the hills beyond the city, only the hum of which we heard there. And when that melancholy cry, or echo, had ended, a cold wind shuddered across the land; all that loneliness, that by day seemed to lure one ever with its sunlit peaks and its blue, meditative hollows, seemed now a place of terrors and strange occurrences; but the lure was still there, only a different lure,—a lure of terror and darkness instead of romance and sunlight.CHAPTER VIFarewell to Baker City[image]e all came to our feet then, Apache Kid carefully flicking the sand from his clothing."Now," he said, "that settles us. We 're quits." And we all walked slowly and silently back in company toward the city. When we came to Blaine's "coffee-joint" Apache Kid stopped, and told me he would see me later in the evening at the Laughlin House to arrange about the starting out on our venture. Donoghue wanted him to go on with him, but Apache Kid said he must see Blaine again before leaving the city."I desire to leave a good impression of myself behind me," he said with a laugh. "I should like Blaine to feel sorry to hear of my demise when that occurs, and as things stand I don't think he 'd care, to use the language of the country, a continental cuss."So saying, with a wave of his hand, he entered Blaine's.At Baker Street corner Donoghue stopped."I 'll be seeing you two days from now," he said."Do we not start for two days then?" I asked."O, Apache Kid will see you to-night and make all the arrangements about pulling out. So-long, just now."So I went on to my hotel and, thus rescued from poverty on the very day that I had the first taste of it, I felt very much contented and cheered, and it was with a light and hopeful heart that I wandered out, after my unusually late supper, along the waggon road as far as the foothill woods and back, breathing deep of the thin air of night and rejoicing in the starlight.When I returned to the hotel there was a considerable company upon the rear verandah, as I could see from quite a distance—dim, shadowy forms sprawled in the lounge chairs with the yellow-lit and open door behind shining out on the blue night, and over them was the lamp that always hung there in the evenings, where the parrot's cage hung by day.When I came on to the verandah I picked out Apache Kid at once.A man who evidently did not know him was saying:"What do you wear that kerchief for, sir, hanging away down your neck that way?"There were one or two laughs of other men, who thought they were about to see a man quietly baited. But Apache Kid was not the man to stand much baiting, even of a mild stamp.I think few of the men there, however, understood the nature that prompted him when he turned slowly in his chair and said:"Well, sir, I wear it for several reasons.""Oh! What's them?""Well, the first reason is personal—I like to wear it."There was a grin still on the face of the questioner. He found nothing particularly crushing in this reply, but Apache went on softly: "Then again, I wear it so as to aid me in the study of the character of the men I meet.""O! How do you work that miracle?""Well, when I meet a man who does n't seem to see anything strange in my wearing of the kerchief I know he has travelled a bit and seen the like elsewhere in our democratic America. Other men look at it and I can see they think it odd, but they say nothing. Well, that is a sign to me that they have not travelled where the handkerchief is used in this way, but I know that they are gentlemen all the same."There was a slight, a very slight, exulting note in his voice and I saw the faces of the men on the outside of the crowd turn to observe the speaker. I thought the man who had set this ball a-rolling looked a trifle perturbed, but Apache was not looking at him. He lay back in his chair, gazing before him with a calm face. "Then again," he said leisurely, as though he had the whole night to himself, "if I meet a man who sees it and asks why I wear it, I know that he is the sort of man about whom people say here,—in the language of the country,—'Don't worry about him; he 's a hog from Ontario and never been out of the bush before!'"There was a strained silence after these words. Some of the more self-reliant men broke it with a laugh. The most were silent."I'm a hog—eh? You call me a hog?" cried the man, after looking on the faces of those who sat around. I think he would have swallowed Apache Kid's speech without a word of reply had it not been spoken before so large an audience."I did not say so," said Apache Kid, "but if I were you, I would n't make things worse by getting nasty. I tried to josh a man myself this afternoon, and do you know what I did? I called in on him to-night to see whether he had savveyed that I had been trying to josh him. I found out that he had savveyed, and do you know what I did? I apologised to him——""D' ye think I 'm going to apologise for askin' you that question?""You interrupt me," said Apache Kid. "I apologised to him, I was going to say, like a man. As to whether I think you are going to apologise or not—no."He turned and scrutinised the speaker from head to toe and back again."No," he repeated decidedly. "I should be very much surprised if you did.""By Moses!" cried the man. "You take the thing very seriously. I only asked you——" and his voice grumbled off into incoherence."Yes," said Apache Kid. "I have a name for being very serious. Perhaps I did answer your question at too great length, however."He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and broke out with such a peal of laughter, as he looked at him, that every one else followed suit; and the "josher," with a crestfallen look, rose and went indoors.I was still smiling when Apache Kid came over to me."Could you be ready to go out to-morrow at noon on the Kettle River Gap stage?" he asked quietly."Certainly," said I. "We don't start from here, then?""No. That's to say, we don't leave the haunts of men here. It is better not, for our purpose. Have you seen Canlan to-night?"I told him no, but that I had been out for my evening constitutional and not near the city."He does n't seem to be at this hotel to-night. I must go out and try to rub shoulders with him if he's in town. If I see him anywhere around town, I may not come back here to-night. If I don't see him, I 'll look in here later in the hope of rubbing against him. So if you don't see me again to-night, you 'll understand. To-morrow at noon, the Kettle River Gap stage."But neither Apache Kid nor Canlan put in an appearance all evening, and so I judged that elsewhere my friend had "rubbed against" Canlan.I was astonished to find on the morrow that I had, somewhere within me, a touch of fondness for Baker City, after all, despitefully though it had used me."You should stay on a bit yet," said Mrs. Laughlin, when I told her I was going. "You can't expect just to fall into a good job right away on striking a new town.""I should never have come here," I explained, "had it not been that I had a letter to a gentleman who was once in the city. The fact is, my people at home did not like the thought of me going out on speck, and the only man in the country I knew was in Baker City. But he had moved on before I arrived.""And where do you think of going now?" she asked.I evaded a direct answer, and yet answered truthfully:"Where I wanted to go was into a ranching country. Mining never took my fancy. I believe there are some ranches on the Kettle River.""Oh, a terrible life!" she cried out. "They 're a tough lot, them Kettle River boys. They 're mostly all fellows that have been cattle-punching and horse-wrangling all their lives. They come from other parts where the country is getting filled up with grangers and sheepmen. I reckon it's because they feel kind o' angry at their job in life being kind o' took from them by the granger and the sheepmen that they 're so tough. Oh! they 're a tough lot; and they 've got to be, to hold their own. Why, only the other day there a flock o' sheep came along on the range across the Kettle. There was three shepherds with them, and a couple of Colonel Ney's boys out and held them up. The sheep-herders shot one, and the other went home for the other boys, all running blood from another shot, and back they went, and laid out them three shepherds—just laid them out, my boy (d'ye hear?)—and ran the whole flock o' sheep over into a cañon one atop the other. Ney and the rest only wants men that can look after their rights that way——"How long she might have continued, kindly enough, to seek to dissuade me, I do not know. But I was forced to interrupt her and remind her I should lose the stage."Yes," she said, "I might just have kept my mouth shut and saved my breath. You lads is all the same. But mind what I say," she cried after me, "you should stay on here and rustle yourself a good job. You 're just going away to 'get it in the neck.' Maybe you 'll come back here again, sick and sorry. But seein' you 're going, God bless you, my lad!" and I was astonished to see her green eyes moist, and a soft, tender light on her lean, freckled face."So-long, then, lad, and good luck to you," said her better half. "If you strike into Baker City again—don't forget the Laughlin House."I was already in the street, half turning to hear their parting words, and with a final wave I departed, and (between you and me) there was a lump in my throat, and I thought that the Laughlin House was not such a bad sort of place at all to tarry in.In Baker Street, at the very corner, I saw Apache Kid advancing toward me, but he frowned to me and, when he raised his hand to his mouth to remove his cigar, for a brief moment he laid a finger on his lip, and as he passed me, looking on the ground and walking slowly, he said: "You go aboard the stage yourself and go on."There was no time to say more in passing, and I wondered what might be the meaning of this. But when I came to where the stage-coach stood, there was Canlan among the little knot of idlers who were watching it preparing for the road. He saw me when I climbed aboard, and, stepping forward, held out his hand. "Hullo, kid," he said, "pulling out?""Yes," said I."Goin' to pastures green?"I nodded."Well, I want to thank you. I bin keepin' my eyes open for you since that night. I want to thank you for that service you done me. Any time you want a——" but I did not catch his last words. The driver had mounted the box, gathered up the "ribbons," sprung back the brake, and with a sudden leap forward we were off in a whirl of dust. I nodded my head vigorously to Canlan, glad enough to see that he was only anxious to be friendly and to thank me for the service I had rendered him instead of embarrassing me with questions as to my destination.Away we went along Baker Street and shot out of the town, and there, just at the turning of the road, was Apache Kid by the roadside, and he stood aside to let the horses pass. The driver looked over his shoulder to make sure that he got on safely, but there was no need to stop the horses, for with a quick snatch Apache Kid leapt aboard and sat down, hot, and breathing a little short, beside me.CHAPTER VIIThe Man with the Red Head[image]f two incidents that befell on the journey to Camp Kettle, I must tell you; of the first because it showed me Apache Kid's bravery and calm; and that the first of these two noteworthy incidents befell at the "Rest Hotel" where we had "twenty minutes for supper" while the monster head-lamps were lit for the night journey; for between Baker City and Camp Kettle there was one "all-night division," as it was called.Apache Kid, after getting into the stage, sat silent for a much longer time than it took him to regain his wind. The high speed of travel with which we started was not kept up all the way, needless to say, such bursts being spectacular affairs for departures and arrivals. But with our six horses we nevertheless made good travel.Occasional trivialities of talk were exchanged between the travellers—there were three others besides ourselves—and Apache Kid gave no indication by his manner that he and I were in any way specially connected. It was amusing indeed how he acted the part of one making friendly advances to me as though to a mere fellow-voyager, including me in his comments on the road, the weather, the coyotes that stood watching us passing with bared teeth and ugly grin. Later, when one of the others fell asleep and the remaining two struck up a conversation, he remarked:"Well, that was a hot run I had. Whenever I turned the far corner of Baker Street I took to my heels, doubled back behind the block, and sprinted the whole length of the town. I had to tell another lie, however, for I saw Canlan in Baker Street, just when I was thinking of getting aboard the stage. The driver was in having a drink before starting and, so as to prevent him raising questions about my blanket-roll lying in the stage and me not being there, I told him I had forgotten something at this end of the town and that I would run along and get the business done, and he could pick me up in passing. Lucky he did n't come out then or he would have wondered at the direction I took. You had n't turned up, you see, and I knew I must let you know that it was all right."He paused and added: "But from to-day, no more lying. I don't want when I come into this kingdom of mine to feel that I've got it at the expense of a hundred cowardly prevarications."He sat considering a little while."If Canlan should by any chance get wind of our departure and follow up——" he began, and then closed his teeth sharply."What then?" I asked."He 'd be a dead man," said he, "and a good riddance to the world.""I 'd think murder worse than lying," said I."Tut, tut!" said he. "You look at this from a prejudiced standpoint. Donoghue and I are going out to a certain goal. We 've arranged to win something for ourselves. Well, we 're not going to win it with humbugging and lying. Where speech would spoil—we 'll be silent; otherwise we 're going to walk up like men and claim what's coming to us, to use the phrase of the country. Heavens! When I think of what I 've seen, and been, and done, and then think of all this crawling way of going about anything—it makes me tired, to use the——" and he muttered the rest as though by force of habit but knowing it quite unnecessary to say.There was nothing startling on our journey till the incident befell which I promised to tell you. It was when we came to the Rest House, a two-storey frame house, with a planking built up in front of it two storeys higher, with windows painted thereon in black on a white background, making it look, from the road, like a four-storey building.When we dismounted there one of the men on the coach said to the proprietor, who had come out to the door: "What's the colour of your hash slinger? Still got that Chink?""I 've still got the Chinaman waiter, sir," replied the proprietor, in a loud, determined voice, "and if you don't like to have him serve you—well you can——""I intend to," said the man, a big, red-faced, perspiring fellow with bloodshot eyes. "I intend to. I 'll do the other thing, as you were about to say;" and he remained seated in the coach, turning his broad back on the owner of the Rest Hotel."I won't eat here, either," said Apache Kid to me, "not so much from desiring in Rome to do as the Romans do, as because I likewise object to the Chink, as he is called. You see, he works for what not even a white woman of the most saving kind could live upon. But there is such a peculiarly fine cocktail to be had in this place that I cannot deny myself it. Come," and we passed wide around the heels of four restive cow ponies that were hitched at the door, with lariats on their saddle-pommels and Winchester rifles in the side-buckets."Some cowboys in here," said Apache Kid, "up from Ney's place likely, after strayed stock," and he led the way to the bar, and seemed rather aggrieved for a moment that I drew the line at cocktails.When we entered the bar-room I noticed a man who turned to look at us remain gazing, not looking away as did the others. Instead, he bored Apache Kid with a pair of very keen grey eyes.Apache evidently was known to the barman, who chatted to him easily while concocting the drink of which I had heard such a good account, and both seemed oblivious to the other occupants of the room. A flutter of air made me look round to the door again. Apache Kid had said no word of Donoghue, but I remembered Donoghue's remark as to seeing me later, in a day or two, and half expected him to appear here. But the door was not opening to a newcomer. Instead, the man who had cast so keen a look on my friend was going out, and as he went he glanced backwards toward Apache Kid again.I stepped up to Apache Kid and said: "I don't like the manner of that man who went out just now. I'm sure he means mischief of some kind. He gave you a mighty queer look.""What was he like?" Apache asked, and I described him, but apparently without waking any memory or recognition in Apache's mind."Who was that who went out?" he asked, turning to the barman."Did n't observe, sir," was the reply."O! Thought I knew his——" Apache Kid began, and then said suddenly, as though annoyed at himself: "No, I 'm damned if I did—did n't think anything of the kind. Did n't even see him."The barman smiled, and as Apache Kid moved along the counter away from us to scrutinise an announcement posted on the wall, said quietly: "He don't look as if he hed bin drinkin' too much. Strange how it affects different men; some in the face, some in the legs. Some keep quite fresh looking, but when they talk they just talk no manner of sense at all."I could have explained what was "wrong" with Apache Kid, but it was not necessary. Instead, I stepped back and took my seat with what the barman called, with a slight sneer, my "soft drink."Apache Kid turned about and leant upon the counter. He sipped his cocktail with evident relish, and suddenly the door flew open. Those in the room were astonished, for the newcomer had in his grasp one of those heavy revolvers,—a Colt,—and he was three paces into the room and had his weapon levelled on Apache Kid before we had recovered from our surprise."Well!" he cried, "I have you now!" and behind him in the doorway, the door being slightly ajar, I caught a glimpse of the man who had gone out so surreptitiously a few moments before.Apache Kid's eyes were bright, but there seemed no fear on his face; I could see none."You have me now," he said quietly.The man behind the gun, a tall fellow with close-cropped red hair, lowered his revolver hand."I 've waited a while for this," he said."Yes," said Apache Kid. "To me it is incomprehensible that a man's memory should serve so long; but you have the drop on me." Here came a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it was a forced smile; but to smile at all in such a pass I thought wonderful. "You have the drop on me, Jake,—in the language of the country."The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then."You can come away with that old gag of yourn about the language o' the country, and you right up against it like this? No, Apache Kid, I can't—say!" he broke off, "are you heeled?"And I thought to myself: "In the language of the country that means, 'are you armed?'""I am not," said Apache, lightly.The red-headed man—he looked like a cattleman, for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs to his high-heeled boots—sent his revolver down with a jerk into the holster at his hip."I can't do it," he said. "You 're too gritty a man for me to put out that way."There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was gone.A long sigh filled the room."A gritty man, right enough," said one man near by. "A pair of gritty men, I 'm thinking."Apache Kid drained his glass, and I heard him say to the barman:"Well, he 's no coward. A coward would have shot whenever he stepped in at the door, and given me no chance. And even if he had n't done that," he continued, arguing the thing aloud, in a way I had already recognised as natural to him, as though he must scrutinise and diagnose everything, "even if he had made up his mind to let me off, he would have backed out behind his gun for fear of me. No, he 's not a coward.""But you told him you were n't heeled," said the barman."Oh! But I might have been lying," said Apache Kid, and frowned."He was n't lying, I bet," said the man near me. "A cool man like that there don't lie. It's beneath him to lie."But Apache Kid did not seem to relish the gaze of the room, and turned his back on it and on me, leaning his elbows on the bar again and engaging in talk with the barman, who stood more erect now, I thought, and held his head higher, with the air of a man receiving some high honour.And just then, "All aboard!" we heard the stage-driver intone at the door.When we came forth again there were only two horses before the hotel."The red-headed man and his friend are gone," thought I, as I climbed to my place, and away we lumbered through the night, the great headlights throwing their radiance forward on the road in overlapping cones that sped before us, the darkness chasing us up behind.
CHAPTER IV
I Take My Life in My Hands
[image]fter breakfast on the day following the incident of the verandah I was journeying down town to post two letters, the Lost Cabin Mine still uppermost in my mind, when I came, at the turning into Baker Street, face to face with the man Donoghue. It was clear that he saw me,—he could not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting,—and I wondered if now he would have a word to say to me regarding the part I played on the preceding evening. Sure enough, he stopped; but there was only friendliness on his face and the heaviness of it and the sulkiness were hardly visible when he smiled.
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He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity, and said that he had to thank me for preventing what he called "an accident last night."
I smiled at the word, for he spoke it so easily, as though the whole thing were a mere bagatelle to him. "It was right stupid of me," he said. "But Laughlin keeps such bad liquor! Canlan, too, had had too much of it, or he would never have tried to irritate me with his remark." I was trying to recollect the exact words of that remark which Donoghue classified as "irritating" when he interrupted my thoughts with: "The Apache Kid and me has quit the Laughlin House."
"Yes, I did n't see you at breakfast there," said I.
"Was Canlan there?" he asked eagerly.
"Not while I was breakfasting, at any rate," I replied.
He nursed his chin in his hand at that and stood pondering something. Then: "Quite so, quite so," he commented as though to himself. Then to me: "By the way, would you be so kind as to come down this evening to Blaine's? The Apache Kid asked me to try and see you and ask you if you would be good enough to come down."
"Blaine's?" I asked. "Where is Blaine's?"
"Blaine, Blaine, Lincoln Avenue; near the corner of Twenty-second Street."
It amazed me to hear of a Twenty-second Street in this city that boasted only one long street (Baker Street) and six streets running off it. But of course, a street is a street in a new city even though it can boast only of a house at either corner and has nothing between these corner houses but tree-stumps, or sand, or sage-bushes, and little boards thrust into the ground announcing: "This is a sure-thing lot. Its day will come very soon. See about it when it can be bought cheap from ——, Real Estate Agent, office open day and night."
But Donoghue, seeing that I did not know the streets of the city by name, directed me:
"You go right along Baker Street,—you know it, of course, the main street of this progressive burgh?—straight ahead west; turn down third on the right; look up at the store front there and you read 'H.B. Blaine. Makes you think o' Home and Mother.' It's a coffee-joint, you see. There 's a coffee urn in the window and two plates, one with crackers on it and t' other with doughnuts. You walk right in and ask for the Apache Kid—straight goods—no josh." He stopped to give emphasis to the rest and after that pause he said in a meaning tone: "And—you—will—hear—o' something to your advantage."
He nodded sedately and, without giving me time to say anything in reply, moved off. You may be sure I pondered this invitation as I went along roaring Baker Street to the post-office. And I was indeed in two minds about it, uncertain whether to call in at Blaine's or not. Both the sheriff and Mrs. Laughlin had cautioned me against these men, and I had, besides, seen enough of them to know myself that they were not just all that could be desired. The word the sheriff had used regarding Apache Kid's nature, "deep," came into my mind, along with reflections on all his prevarications of the previous day. It occurred to me that it would be quite in keeping with him to pretend gratefulness to me, at the moment, for my interference, and to post up Donoghue to do the same, with the intention in his mind all the while of "getting me in a quiet corner," as the phrase is. I think I may be excused this judgment considering all the duplicity I had already seen him practise. A story that I had heard somewhere of a trap-door in a floor which opened and precipitated whoever stood upon it down into a hole among rats came into my head. Perhaps H. B. Blaine had such a trap-door in his floor. One could believe anything of half the men one saw here, with their blood-shot eyes, straggling hair, and cruel mouths. Still, I had felt real friendliness, no counterfeit, in both Apache Kid last night and Donoghue to-day.
A wave of disgust at my cowardice and suspicion came over me to aid me toward the decision that my curiosity was already crying for and so, when the day wore near an end, I set forth—for Blaine's, the "coffee-joint."
When I got the length of Baker Street I was to see another sight such as only the West could show. The phonographs, as usual, it being now evening, were all grumbling forth their rival songs at the stalls and open windows. The wonted din was in the air when suddenly an eddy began in the crowd on the opposite sidewalk. It was in front of one of the "toughest" saloons in town, and out of that eddy darted a man, hatless, and broke away pell-mell along the street. Next moment the saloon door swung again, and after him there went running another fellow, with a tomahawk in his hand, his hair flying behind him as he ran, his legs straddled wide to prevent him tripping up on his great spurs. Where the third party in this scene sprang from I cannot tell. I only know that he suddenly appeared on the street, habited in a blue serge suit, with a Stars-and-Stripes kerchief round his slouch hat in place of a band, and a silver star on his breast. It was my friend the portly, fatherly, stern sheriff.
"Stop, you!" he cried.
But he with the tomahawk paid no heed, and out shot the sheriff's leg and tripped the man up. The tomahawk flew from his hand and buried itself almost to the end of the handle in the dust of the road.
"Stop, you!" cried the sheriff again to the other fellow, who was still posting on. But the fugitive gave only a quick glance over his shoulder and accelerated his speed. It looked as though he would escape, when down flew the sheriff's hand to his belt, then up above his head. He thrust out his chin vindictively, down came his revolver hand in a half-circle and—it was just as though he pointed at the flying man with his weapon—"flash!" The man took one step more, but not a second. His leg was shot, and he fell. A waggon had stopped on the roadway, the teamster looking on, and him the sheriff immediately pressed into service. The man of the tomahawk rose, and, at a word from the man of law-and-order, climbed into the waggon; he of the shot leg was assisted to follow; the sheriff mounted beside them, and with a brief word to the teamster away went the waggon in a cloud of dust, and whirled round the corner to the court-house. And then the crowd in the street moved on as usual, the talk buzzed, the cigar smoke crept overhead.
"Would n't that jar you?" said a voice in my ear, and turning I found Donoghue by my side. "Just toddling down to Blaine's?"
"Yes," I said, and fell in step with him.
Certainly this little incident I had witnessed on the way reassured me to the extent of making me think that if I was to be shot in the "coffee-joint," there was a lively sheriff in the town, and unless my demise was kept unconscionably quiet he would be by the way of making inquiries.
With no trepidation at all, then, on reading the sign "H. B. Blaine. Makes you think of Home and Mother," I followed Donoghue into the sweet-scented "joint" with the gleaming coffee urn in the window.
He nodded to the gentleman who stood behind the doughnut-heaped counter—H. B. Blaine, I presumed—who jerked his head towards the rear of the establishment.
"Step right in, Mr. Donoghue," he said. "Apache Kid is settin' there."
CHAPTER V
I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense
[image]t was at once evident that I was not to be murdered in H. B. Blaine's place, and also evident that I had been invited to meet Apache Kid to hear some matter that was not for all to hear; for immediately on our entering the little rear room he flung aside a paper he had been reading and leaped to his feet to meet us. He put a hand on Donoghue's shoulder and the other he extended to me.
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"We'll not talk here," he said. "Walls have ears:" and so we all turned about and marched out again.
"Going out for a strowl?" asked Blaine.
"Yes," said Apache. "Fine night for a strowl." And we found ourselves on the street down which we turned and walked in silence.
Suddenly Apache Kid slowed down and swore to himself.
"I should n't have said that!" he remarked angrily.
"Said what?" Donoghue interrogated.
"O! mocked Blaine like that—said we were going for a strowl."
"What do you mean?" asked Donoghue, whose ear did not seem very acute.
Apache looked at him with a relieved expression.
"Well, that's hopeful," he said. "Perhaps Blaine would n't catch it either. Still, still, I should n't have mocked him. You noticed, I bet?" he said to me.
"Strowl?" I inquired.
He sighed.
"There 's no sense in trying to make fun of anything in a man's clothes or talk or manner. Besides, it's excessively vulgar, excessively vulgar."
"Here 's an interesting 'bad man,'" I mused; but there was no more said till we won clear of the town, quite beyond the last sidewalks that stretched and criss-crossed among the rocks and sand, marking out the prospective streets. There, on a little rising place of sand and rocks, we sat down.
It was a desolate spot. A gentle wind was blowing among the dunes and the sand was all moving, trickling down here and piling up there. Being near sunset the cicadi had disappeared and the evening light falling wan on the occasional tufts of sage-brush gave them a peculiar air of desolation. Donoghue pulled out a clasp-knife and sat progging in the sand with it, and then Apache Kid jerked up his head and smiled on me, a smile entirely friendly. And suddenly as he looked at me his face became grave.
"Have you had supper yet?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It's early yet."
He looked at me keenly and then: "You 'll excuse me remarking on your appearance, but you look extraordinarily tired."
"Oh," said I, lightly, "I have not been feeling just up to the scratch and—well, I thought I 'd try the fasting cure."
He hummed to himself and dived a hand into his trousers pocket and held out a five-dollar bill under my nose.
"There," he said, "go and eat and don't lie any more. I 've been there myself—when I was new to the country and could n't get into its ways."
There was something of such intense warm-heartedness behind the peremptory tones (while Donoghue turned his face aside, running the sand between his fingers and looking foolishly at it) that to tell you the truth, I found the tears in my eyes before I was aware. But this sign of weakness Apache Kid made pretence not to observe.
"We 'll wait here for you till you get fed," said he, examining the back of his hand.
"No, no," I answered hastily, "I had rather hear what you have to say just now." Thank him for his kindness I could not, for I felt that thanks would but embarrass him. "To tell you the truth, the mere knowledge that I need not go to bed hungry is sufficient."
"Well," said he, looking up when my voice rang firm. "The fact is, I am going to offer you a job; but it is a job you might not care to take unless you were hard pressed; so you will please consider that a loan, not a first instalment, and the fact of settling it must not influence."
This was very fairly spoken and I felt that I should say something handsome, but he gave me no opportunity, continuing at once: "Donoghue here and I are wanting a partner on an expedition that we are going on. We 're very old friends, we two, but for quite a little while back we had both been meditating going on this expedition separately. Fact is, we are such very old friends and know each other's weaknesses so well that, though we both had the idea of the expedition in our heads, we did n't care about going together."
All this he spoke as much to Donoghue as to me, with a bantering air; and one thing at least I learned from this—the reason why these two had not done as Laughlin thought the natural thing for them to do, namely, to go out together, heedless of Canlan. For I had no doubt whatever that the expedition was to the Lost Cabin Mine. That was as clear as the sun. Further observation of their natures, if further observation I was to have, might explain their long reluctance to "go partners" on the venture, a reluctance now evidently overcome.
"Get to your job," growled Donoghue, "and quit palaver."
It was evident that Apache Kid was determined not to permit himself to be irritated, for he only smiled on Donoghue's snarl and turned to me: "My friend Donoghue and I," said he, "it is necessary to explain, are such very old friends that we can cordially hate each other."
"At times," interjected Donoghue.
"Yes; upon occasion," said Apache Kid. "To you, new to this country, such a state of things between friends may be scarcely comprehensible, but——" and Apache Kid stopped.
"It's them mountains that does it," said Donoghue, with a heavy frown.
"Them mountains, as Donoghue says; that's it. It's queer how the mountains, when you get among them, seem to creep in all round you and lock you up. It does n't take long among them with a man to know whether you and he belong to the same order and breed. There are men who can never sleep under the same blanket; yes, never sleep on the same side of the fire; never, after two days in the hills, ride side by side, but must get space between them."
His eyes were looking past me on things invisible to me, looking in imagination, I suppose, on his own past from which he spoke.
"And if you don't like your partner, you know it then," Donoghue said. "You go riding along and if he speaks to you, you want him to shut it. And if he don't speak, you ask him what in thunder he's broodin' about. And you look for him to fire up at you then, and if he don't, you feel worse than ever and go along with just a little hell burning against him in here," and he tapped his chest. "You could turn on him and eat him; yes siree, kill him with your teeth in his neck."
"This is called the return to Nature," said Apache Kid, calmly.
"Return to hell!" cried Donoghue, and Apache Kid inclined his head in acquiescence. He seemed content to let Donoghue now do the talking.
"Apache and me has come to an agreement, as he says, to go out on the trail, and though we 've chummed together a heap——"
"In the manner of wolves," said Apache, with a half sneer.
"Yes," said Donoghue, "a good bit like that, too. Well, but on this trail we can't go alone. It's too all-fired far and too all-fired lonely."
His gaze wandered to the mountains behind the town and Apache took up the discourse.
"You see the idea? We want a companion to help us to keep the peace. Foolish—eh? Well, I don't blame you if you don't quite understand. You 're new here. You 've never been in the mountains, day in day out, with a man whose soul an altogether different god or devil made; with a man that you fervently hope, if there's any waking up after the last kick here, you won't find in your happy hunting-ground beyond. You won't have to come in between and hold us apart, you know. The mere presence of a third party is enough."
He looked on me keenly a space and added:
"Somehow I think that you will do more than keep off the bickering spirit. I think you 'll establish amicable relations."
It was curious to observe how the illiterate Donoghue took his partner's speech so much for granted.
"What's amicable?" he said.
"Friendly," said Apache Kid.
"Amicable, friendly," said Donoghue, thoughtfully. "Good word, amicable."
"The trip would be worth a couple of hundred dollars to you," said Apache, with his eyes on mine. "And if we happened to be out over two months, at the rate of a hundred a month for the time beyond."
"Well, that's straight enough talk, I guess," said Donoghue. "Is the deal on?"
My financial condition itself was such as to preclude any doubt. Had I been told plainly that it was to the Lost Cabin Mine we were going and been offered a share in it I would, remembering Apache Kid and Donoghue of the verandah, as I may put it, in distinction from Apache Kid and Donoghue of to-night—well, I would have feared that some heated sudden turn of mind of one or the other or both of these men might prevent me coming into my own. Donoghue especially had a fearsome face to see. But there was no such suggestion. I was offered two hundred dollars and, now that the night fell and the silence deepened and the long range of hills gloomed on us, I thought I could understand that the presence of a third man might be well worth two hundred dollars to two men of very alien natures among the silence and the loneliness that would throw them together closely whether they would or not.
"The deal is on," I said.
We shook hands solemnly then and Donoghue looked toward Apache Kid as though all the programme was not yet completed. Apache Kid nodded and produced a roll of bills. The light was waning and he held them close to him as he withdrew one.
"That'll make us square again," he said, handing me the roll. "I 've kept off a five; so now we 're not obliged to each other for anything."
And then, as though to seal the compact and bear in upon me a thought of the expedition we were going upon, the sun disappeared behind the western hills and from somewhere out there, in the shadows and deeper shadows of the strange piled landscape, came a long, faint sound, half bay, half moan. It was the dusk cry of the mountain coyotes; and either the echo of it or another cry came down from the hills beyond the city, only the hum of which we heard there. And when that melancholy cry, or echo, had ended, a cold wind shuddered across the land; all that loneliness, that by day seemed to lure one ever with its sunlit peaks and its blue, meditative hollows, seemed now a place of terrors and strange occurrences; but the lure was still there, only a different lure,—a lure of terror and darkness instead of romance and sunlight.
CHAPTER VI
Farewell to Baker City
[image]e all came to our feet then, Apache Kid carefully flicking the sand from his clothing.
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"Now," he said, "that settles us. We 're quits." And we all walked slowly and silently back in company toward the city. When we came to Blaine's "coffee-joint" Apache Kid stopped, and told me he would see me later in the evening at the Laughlin House to arrange about the starting out on our venture. Donoghue wanted him to go on with him, but Apache Kid said he must see Blaine again before leaving the city.
"I desire to leave a good impression of myself behind me," he said with a laugh. "I should like Blaine to feel sorry to hear of my demise when that occurs, and as things stand I don't think he 'd care, to use the language of the country, a continental cuss."
So saying, with a wave of his hand, he entered Blaine's.
At Baker Street corner Donoghue stopped.
"I 'll be seeing you two days from now," he said.
"Do we not start for two days then?" I asked.
"O, Apache Kid will see you to-night and make all the arrangements about pulling out. So-long, just now."
So I went on to my hotel and, thus rescued from poverty on the very day that I had the first taste of it, I felt very much contented and cheered, and it was with a light and hopeful heart that I wandered out, after my unusually late supper, along the waggon road as far as the foothill woods and back, breathing deep of the thin air of night and rejoicing in the starlight.
When I returned to the hotel there was a considerable company upon the rear verandah, as I could see from quite a distance—dim, shadowy forms sprawled in the lounge chairs with the yellow-lit and open door behind shining out on the blue night, and over them was the lamp that always hung there in the evenings, where the parrot's cage hung by day.
When I came on to the verandah I picked out Apache Kid at once.
A man who evidently did not know him was saying:
"What do you wear that kerchief for, sir, hanging away down your neck that way?"
There were one or two laughs of other men, who thought they were about to see a man quietly baited. But Apache Kid was not the man to stand much baiting, even of a mild stamp.
I think few of the men there, however, understood the nature that prompted him when he turned slowly in his chair and said:
"Well, sir, I wear it for several reasons."
"Oh! What's them?"
"Well, the first reason is personal—I like to wear it."
There was a grin still on the face of the questioner. He found nothing particularly crushing in this reply, but Apache went on softly: "Then again, I wear it so as to aid me in the study of the character of the men I meet."
"O! How do you work that miracle?"
"Well, when I meet a man who does n't seem to see anything strange in my wearing of the kerchief I know he has travelled a bit and seen the like elsewhere in our democratic America. Other men look at it and I can see they think it odd, but they say nothing. Well, that is a sign to me that they have not travelled where the handkerchief is used in this way, but I know that they are gentlemen all the same."
There was a slight, a very slight, exulting note in his voice and I saw the faces of the men on the outside of the crowd turn to observe the speaker. I thought the man who had set this ball a-rolling looked a trifle perturbed, but Apache was not looking at him. He lay back in his chair, gazing before him with a calm face. "Then again," he said leisurely, as though he had the whole night to himself, "if I meet a man who sees it and asks why I wear it, I know that he is the sort of man about whom people say here,—in the language of the country,—'Don't worry about him; he 's a hog from Ontario and never been out of the bush before!'"
There was a strained silence after these words. Some of the more self-reliant men broke it with a laugh. The most were silent.
"I'm a hog—eh? You call me a hog?" cried the man, after looking on the faces of those who sat around. I think he would have swallowed Apache Kid's speech without a word of reply had it not been spoken before so large an audience.
"I did not say so," said Apache Kid, "but if I were you, I would n't make things worse by getting nasty. I tried to josh a man myself this afternoon, and do you know what I did? I called in on him to-night to see whether he had savveyed that I had been trying to josh him. I found out that he had savveyed, and do you know what I did? I apologised to him——"
"D' ye think I 'm going to apologise for askin' you that question?"
"You interrupt me," said Apache Kid. "I apologised to him, I was going to say, like a man. As to whether I think you are going to apologise or not—no."
He turned and scrutinised the speaker from head to toe and back again.
"No," he repeated decidedly. "I should be very much surprised if you did."
"By Moses!" cried the man. "You take the thing very seriously. I only asked you——" and his voice grumbled off into incoherence.
"Yes," said Apache Kid. "I have a name for being very serious. Perhaps I did answer your question at too great length, however."
He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and broke out with such a peal of laughter, as he looked at him, that every one else followed suit; and the "josher," with a crestfallen look, rose and went indoors.
I was still smiling when Apache Kid came over to me.
"Could you be ready to go out to-morrow at noon on the Kettle River Gap stage?" he asked quietly.
"Certainly," said I. "We don't start from here, then?"
"No. That's to say, we don't leave the haunts of men here. It is better not, for our purpose. Have you seen Canlan to-night?"
I told him no, but that I had been out for my evening constitutional and not near the city.
"He does n't seem to be at this hotel to-night. I must go out and try to rub shoulders with him if he's in town. If I see him anywhere around town, I may not come back here to-night. If I don't see him, I 'll look in here later in the hope of rubbing against him. So if you don't see me again to-night, you 'll understand. To-morrow at noon, the Kettle River Gap stage."
But neither Apache Kid nor Canlan put in an appearance all evening, and so I judged that elsewhere my friend had "rubbed against" Canlan.
I was astonished to find on the morrow that I had, somewhere within me, a touch of fondness for Baker City, after all, despitefully though it had used me.
"You should stay on a bit yet," said Mrs. Laughlin, when I told her I was going. "You can't expect just to fall into a good job right away on striking a new town."
"I should never have come here," I explained, "had it not been that I had a letter to a gentleman who was once in the city. The fact is, my people at home did not like the thought of me going out on speck, and the only man in the country I knew was in Baker City. But he had moved on before I arrived."
"And where do you think of going now?" she asked.
I evaded a direct answer, and yet answered truthfully:
"Where I wanted to go was into a ranching country. Mining never took my fancy. I believe there are some ranches on the Kettle River."
"Oh, a terrible life!" she cried out. "They 're a tough lot, them Kettle River boys. They 're mostly all fellows that have been cattle-punching and horse-wrangling all their lives. They come from other parts where the country is getting filled up with grangers and sheepmen. I reckon it's because they feel kind o' angry at their job in life being kind o' took from them by the granger and the sheepmen that they 're so tough. Oh! they 're a tough lot; and they 've got to be, to hold their own. Why, only the other day there a flock o' sheep came along on the range across the Kettle. There was three shepherds with them, and a couple of Colonel Ney's boys out and held them up. The sheep-herders shot one, and the other went home for the other boys, all running blood from another shot, and back they went, and laid out them three shepherds—just laid them out, my boy (d'ye hear?)—and ran the whole flock o' sheep over into a cañon one atop the other. Ney and the rest only wants men that can look after their rights that way——"
How long she might have continued, kindly enough, to seek to dissuade me, I do not know. But I was forced to interrupt her and remind her I should lose the stage.
"Yes," she said, "I might just have kept my mouth shut and saved my breath. You lads is all the same. But mind what I say," she cried after me, "you should stay on here and rustle yourself a good job. You 're just going away to 'get it in the neck.' Maybe you 'll come back here again, sick and sorry. But seein' you 're going, God bless you, my lad!" and I was astonished to see her green eyes moist, and a soft, tender light on her lean, freckled face.
"So-long, then, lad, and good luck to you," said her better half. "If you strike into Baker City again—don't forget the Laughlin House."
I was already in the street, half turning to hear their parting words, and with a final wave I departed, and (between you and me) there was a lump in my throat, and I thought that the Laughlin House was not such a bad sort of place at all to tarry in.
In Baker Street, at the very corner, I saw Apache Kid advancing toward me, but he frowned to me and, when he raised his hand to his mouth to remove his cigar, for a brief moment he laid a finger on his lip, and as he passed me, looking on the ground and walking slowly, he said: "You go aboard the stage yourself and go on."
There was no time to say more in passing, and I wondered what might be the meaning of this. But when I came to where the stage-coach stood, there was Canlan among the little knot of idlers who were watching it preparing for the road. He saw me when I climbed aboard, and, stepping forward, held out his hand. "Hullo, kid," he said, "pulling out?"
"Yes," said I.
"Goin' to pastures green?"
I nodded.
"Well, I want to thank you. I bin keepin' my eyes open for you since that night. I want to thank you for that service you done me. Any time you want a——" but I did not catch his last words. The driver had mounted the box, gathered up the "ribbons," sprung back the brake, and with a sudden leap forward we were off in a whirl of dust. I nodded my head vigorously to Canlan, glad enough to see that he was only anxious to be friendly and to thank me for the service I had rendered him instead of embarrassing me with questions as to my destination.
Away we went along Baker Street and shot out of the town, and there, just at the turning of the road, was Apache Kid by the roadside, and he stood aside to let the horses pass. The driver looked over his shoulder to make sure that he got on safely, but there was no need to stop the horses, for with a quick snatch Apache Kid leapt aboard and sat down, hot, and breathing a little short, beside me.
CHAPTER VII
The Man with the Red Head
[image]f two incidents that befell on the journey to Camp Kettle, I must tell you; of the first because it showed me Apache Kid's bravery and calm; and that the first of these two noteworthy incidents befell at the "Rest Hotel" where we had "twenty minutes for supper" while the monster head-lamps were lit for the night journey; for between Baker City and Camp Kettle there was one "all-night division," as it was called.
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Apache Kid, after getting into the stage, sat silent for a much longer time than it took him to regain his wind. The high speed of travel with which we started was not kept up all the way, needless to say, such bursts being spectacular affairs for departures and arrivals. But with our six horses we nevertheless made good travel.
Occasional trivialities of talk were exchanged between the travellers—there were three others besides ourselves—and Apache Kid gave no indication by his manner that he and I were in any way specially connected. It was amusing indeed how he acted the part of one making friendly advances to me as though to a mere fellow-voyager, including me in his comments on the road, the weather, the coyotes that stood watching us passing with bared teeth and ugly grin. Later, when one of the others fell asleep and the remaining two struck up a conversation, he remarked:
"Well, that was a hot run I had. Whenever I turned the far corner of Baker Street I took to my heels, doubled back behind the block, and sprinted the whole length of the town. I had to tell another lie, however, for I saw Canlan in Baker Street, just when I was thinking of getting aboard the stage. The driver was in having a drink before starting and, so as to prevent him raising questions about my blanket-roll lying in the stage and me not being there, I told him I had forgotten something at this end of the town and that I would run along and get the business done, and he could pick me up in passing. Lucky he did n't come out then or he would have wondered at the direction I took. You had n't turned up, you see, and I knew I must let you know that it was all right."
He paused and added: "But from to-day, no more lying. I don't want when I come into this kingdom of mine to feel that I've got it at the expense of a hundred cowardly prevarications."
He sat considering a little while.
"If Canlan should by any chance get wind of our departure and follow up——" he began, and then closed his teeth sharply.
"What then?" I asked.
"He 'd be a dead man," said he, "and a good riddance to the world."
"I 'd think murder worse than lying," said I.
"Tut, tut!" said he. "You look at this from a prejudiced standpoint. Donoghue and I are going out to a certain goal. We 've arranged to win something for ourselves. Well, we 're not going to win it with humbugging and lying. Where speech would spoil—we 'll be silent; otherwise we 're going to walk up like men and claim what's coming to us, to use the phrase of the country. Heavens! When I think of what I 've seen, and been, and done, and then think of all this crawling way of going about anything—it makes me tired, to use the——" and he muttered the rest as though by force of habit but knowing it quite unnecessary to say.
There was nothing startling on our journey till the incident befell which I promised to tell you. It was when we came to the Rest House, a two-storey frame house, with a planking built up in front of it two storeys higher, with windows painted thereon in black on a white background, making it look, from the road, like a four-storey building.
When we dismounted there one of the men on the coach said to the proprietor, who had come out to the door: "What's the colour of your hash slinger? Still got that Chink?"
"I 've still got the Chinaman waiter, sir," replied the proprietor, in a loud, determined voice, "and if you don't like to have him serve you—well you can——"
"I intend to," said the man, a big, red-faced, perspiring fellow with bloodshot eyes. "I intend to. I 'll do the other thing, as you were about to say;" and he remained seated in the coach, turning his broad back on the owner of the Rest Hotel.
"I won't eat here, either," said Apache Kid to me, "not so much from desiring in Rome to do as the Romans do, as because I likewise object to the Chink, as he is called. You see, he works for what not even a white woman of the most saving kind could live upon. But there is such a peculiarly fine cocktail to be had in this place that I cannot deny myself it. Come," and we passed wide around the heels of four restive cow ponies that were hitched at the door, with lariats on their saddle-pommels and Winchester rifles in the side-buckets.
"Some cowboys in here," said Apache Kid, "up from Ney's place likely, after strayed stock," and he led the way to the bar, and seemed rather aggrieved for a moment that I drew the line at cocktails.
When we entered the bar-room I noticed a man who turned to look at us remain gazing, not looking away as did the others. Instead, he bored Apache Kid with a pair of very keen grey eyes.
Apache evidently was known to the barman, who chatted to him easily while concocting the drink of which I had heard such a good account, and both seemed oblivious to the other occupants of the room. A flutter of air made me look round to the door again. Apache Kid had said no word of Donoghue, but I remembered Donoghue's remark as to seeing me later, in a day or two, and half expected him to appear here. But the door was not opening to a newcomer. Instead, the man who had cast so keen a look on my friend was going out, and as he went he glanced backwards toward Apache Kid again.
I stepped up to Apache Kid and said: "I don't like the manner of that man who went out just now. I'm sure he means mischief of some kind. He gave you a mighty queer look."
"What was he like?" Apache asked, and I described him, but apparently without waking any memory or recognition in Apache's mind.
"Who was that who went out?" he asked, turning to the barman.
"Did n't observe, sir," was the reply.
"O! Thought I knew his——" Apache Kid began, and then said suddenly, as though annoyed at himself: "No, I 'm damned if I did—did n't think anything of the kind. Did n't even see him."
The barman smiled, and as Apache Kid moved along the counter away from us to scrutinise an announcement posted on the wall, said quietly: "He don't look as if he hed bin drinkin' too much. Strange how it affects different men; some in the face, some in the legs. Some keep quite fresh looking, but when they talk they just talk no manner of sense at all."
I could have explained what was "wrong" with Apache Kid, but it was not necessary. Instead, I stepped back and took my seat with what the barman called, with a slight sneer, my "soft drink."
Apache Kid turned about and leant upon the counter. He sipped his cocktail with evident relish, and suddenly the door flew open. Those in the room were astonished, for the newcomer had in his grasp one of those heavy revolvers,—a Colt,—and he was three paces into the room and had his weapon levelled on Apache Kid before we had recovered from our surprise.
"Well!" he cried, "I have you now!" and behind him in the doorway, the door being slightly ajar, I caught a glimpse of the man who had gone out so surreptitiously a few moments before.
Apache Kid's eyes were bright, but there seemed no fear on his face; I could see none.
"You have me now," he said quietly.
The man behind the gun, a tall fellow with close-cropped red hair, lowered his revolver hand.
"I 've waited a while for this," he said.
"Yes," said Apache Kid. "To me it is incomprehensible that a man's memory should serve so long; but you have the drop on me." Here came a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it was a forced smile; but to smile at all in such a pass I thought wonderful. "You have the drop on me, Jake,—in the language of the country."
The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then.
"You can come away with that old gag of yourn about the language o' the country, and you right up against it like this? No, Apache Kid, I can't—say!" he broke off, "are you heeled?"
And I thought to myself: "In the language of the country that means, 'are you armed?'"
"I am not," said Apache, lightly.
The red-headed man—he looked like a cattleman, for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs to his high-heeled boots—sent his revolver down with a jerk into the holster at his hip.
"I can't do it," he said. "You 're too gritty a man for me to put out that way."
There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was gone.
A long sigh filled the room.
"A gritty man, right enough," said one man near by. "A pair of gritty men, I 'm thinking."
Apache Kid drained his glass, and I heard him say to the barman:
"Well, he 's no coward. A coward would have shot whenever he stepped in at the door, and given me no chance. And even if he had n't done that," he continued, arguing the thing aloud, in a way I had already recognised as natural to him, as though he must scrutinise and diagnose everything, "even if he had made up his mind to let me off, he would have backed out behind his gun for fear of me. No, he 's not a coward."
"But you told him you were n't heeled," said the barman.
"Oh! But I might have been lying," said Apache Kid, and frowned.
"He was n't lying, I bet," said the man near me. "A cool man like that there don't lie. It's beneath him to lie."
But Apache Kid did not seem to relish the gaze of the room, and turned his back on it and on me, leaning his elbows on the bar again and engaging in talk with the barman, who stood more erect now, I thought, and held his head higher, with the air of a man receiving some high honour.
And just then, "All aboard!" we heard the stage-driver intone at the door.
When we came forth again there were only two horses before the hotel.
"The red-headed man and his friend are gone," thought I, as I climbed to my place, and away we lumbered through the night, the great headlights throwing their radiance forward on the road in overlapping cones that sped before us, the darkness chasing us up behind.