308
“No,” he said; “you can’t. I’ve had a hard hit of my own for a long time now. I’m a-goin’ to try to heal it. I’m goin’ away on what may be a short, or a long, long trail.” His voice dropped until it was scarcely audible. “I’m goin’ away to keep goin’ till I find The Lily. And when I find her, I’ll come back, and bring her with me, if she’ll come.”
He turned his back toward them, unbuttoned the flap of his flannel shirt, and reached inside. He drew out a sheet of paper wrapped in an old silk handkerchief, as if it were a priceless possession to be carefully preserved, and held it toward them. He did not look at either of them as he spoke.
“I got that a long time ago,” he said; “but somehow I could never say anything about it to any one. And I reckon you’re the only two in the world that’ll ever see it. Read it and give it back to me when––when you come down the mountain.”
He turned and stalked away over the trail, his feet planting themselves firmly, as he had walked through life with firmness.
They watched him go, and opened the letter, and read, in a high, strong handwriting:
309
Dear Mr. Mathews: I am writing you of business, for one thing, and because I feel that I must, for another. I have paid for a tombstone suitable for Bells Park, whom I esteemed more than I have most men. And I have paid for its delivery to you, knowing that you will have it mounted in place. So you must pay nothing for it in any form, as I wish to stand all the expense in memory of an old and tried friend. I have left Goldpan for good and all, and all those old associations of my life. I am starting over again, to make a good and clean fight, in clean surroundings. I am sick to death of all that has made up my life. I am bitter, knowing that I was handicapped from the start. My father educated me because it was easier to have me in a boarding school in all my girlhood than to have me with him. I never knew my mother. I had no love bestowed upon me in my girlhood. When I came of age my father, who was an adventurer of the discredited gentleman type, gave me to a friend of his. I learned a year after I had been married that I had been sold to my husband––God save the mark! I tried to be patient when he dragged me from camp to camp, and I want to say that whatever else I have been, I have been good. You understand me, I hope, because I am defending myself to you, the only living being for whose esteem I care. I have had two happy moments in my life––one when the news was brought me that my husband had shot himself across a gambling table, and the second when you faced me that night after Bells Park was killed, alone there in the street after your partner had310gone on, and said: “Lily, it hurts you as it does me. You’re on the level, little pal. I want to stop long enough to tell you I believe in you.” Then you went on, and I shall not see you again.I am writing this from a place I shall leave before it starts to you. You could not find me if you had the desire, and so I say to you that which perhaps I never should have said, if we had remained in sight of each other in the Blue Mountains. You are the only man I have ever met who made me heartsick because I was not worthy of him, and could not aspire to his level. You are the only man I have ever loved so much that it was an ache. You are the only man who told me by the look in his eyes, that he thought my life unworthy, and accused me without words every time we met. I am through with it, and if it will do you any good to know that your reproaches have done more than anything else to cause me to begin all over again, and live a different life, I want you to have that satisfaction. And this shall be my only good-by.Lily Meredith.
Dear Mr. Mathews: I am writing you of business, for one thing, and because I feel that I must, for another. I have paid for a tombstone suitable for Bells Park, whom I esteemed more than I have most men. And I have paid for its delivery to you, knowing that you will have it mounted in place. So you must pay nothing for it in any form, as I wish to stand all the expense in memory of an old and tried friend. I have left Goldpan for good and all, and all those old associations of my life. I am starting over again, to make a good and clean fight, in clean surroundings. I am sick to death of all that has made up my life. I am bitter, knowing that I was handicapped from the start. My father educated me because it was easier to have me in a boarding school in all my girlhood than to have me with him. I never knew my mother. I had no love bestowed upon me in my girlhood. When I came of age my father, who was an adventurer of the discredited gentleman type, gave me to a friend of his. I learned a year after I had been married that I had been sold to my husband––God save the mark! I tried to be patient when he dragged me from camp to camp, and I want to say that whatever else I have been, I have been good. You understand me, I hope, because I am defending myself to you, the only living being for whose esteem I care. I have had two happy moments in my life––one when the news was brought me that my husband had shot himself across a gambling table, and the second when you faced me that night after Bells Park was killed, alone there in the street after your partner had310gone on, and said: “Lily, it hurts you as it does me. You’re on the level, little pal. I want to stop long enough to tell you I believe in you.” Then you went on, and I shall not see you again.
I am writing this from a place I shall leave before it starts to you. You could not find me if you had the desire, and so I say to you that which perhaps I never should have said, if we had remained in sight of each other in the Blue Mountains. You are the only man I have ever met who made me heartsick because I was not worthy of him, and could not aspire to his level. You are the only man I have ever loved so much that it was an ache. You are the only man who told me by the look in his eyes, that he thought my life unworthy, and accused me without words every time we met. I am through with it, and if it will do you any good to know that your reproaches have done more than anything else to cause me to begin all over again, and live a different life, I want you to have that satisfaction. And this shall be my only good-by.
Lily Meredith.
For a long time Joan stood holding the letter in her hands, and then, as if fathoming its cry of loneliness, clutched it tightly to her breast.
“He will find her!” she said. “I know it! He must! It wouldn’t be kind of heaven to keep her from him. And he loved her all the time!”
Far across the peaks of the Blue Mountains the last rays of the sunset went out, as an311extinguished torch. A bird near by cheeped sleepily, and the new night was coming to its own. Throbbing, rumbling, and grinding in a melody softened by distance, the roar of the Rattler’s mills became audible, as it brought the yellow gold, glistening and beautiful, from its sordid setting of earth. In the camp of the Croix d’Or a chorus was wafted faintly up as men sitting in the dusk sang: “Hearts that are brave and true, my lads, hearts that are brave and true!”
Silently, arm in arm, they gave a last lingering look at the shaft, the peak above, and turned down the trail to the camp which seemed all aglow with rosy light.
THE END
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