ON the very day following Roderick Warfield’s departure from Keokuk there appeared in one of the morning newspapers an item of intelligence that greatly surprised and shocked the banker, Allen Miller. It announced the death of the wife of his old friend General John Holden, of Quincy, Illinois, and with the ghoulish instincts of latter-day journalism laid bare a story of financial disaster that had, at least indirectly, led to the lady’s lamented demise. It set forth how some years before the General had invested practically the whole of his fortune in a western smelter company, how the minority stockholders had been frozen out by a gang of financial sharps in Pennsylvania, and how Mrs. Holden’s already enfeebled health had been unable to withstand the blow of swift and sudden family ruin. The General, however, was bearing his sad bereavement and his monetary losses with the courage and fortitude that had characterized his military career, and had announced his intention of retiring to a lonely spot among the mountains of Wyoming where his daughter, the beautiful and accomplished Gail Holden, owned a half section of land which had been gifted to her in early infancy by an unde, a prominent business man in San Francisco. Allen Miller was sincerely grieved over the misfortunes that had so cruelly smitten a life-long friend. But what momentarily stunned him was the thought that Gail Holden was the very girl designated, in mind at least, by himself and his wife as a desirable match for Roderick. And because the latter had not at once fallen in with these matrimonial plans, there had been the bitter quarrel, the stinging words of rebuke that could never be recalled, and the departure of the young man, as he had told his aunt, to places where they would never hear of him unless and until he had made his own fortune in the world.
As the newspaper dropped from his hands, the old banker uttered a great groan—he had sacrificed the boy, whom in his heart he had cherished, and still cherished, as a son, for a visionary scheme that had already vanished into nothingness like a fragile iridescent soap-bubble. For obviously Gail Holden, her only possessions an impoverished father and a few acres of rocky soil, was no longer eligible as the bride of a future bank president and leader in the financial world. The one crumb of consolation for Allen Miller was that he had never mentioned her name to Roderick—that when the sponge of time came to efface the quarrel the whole incident could be consigned to oblivion without any humiliating admission on his side. For financial foresight was the very essence of his faith in himself, his hold over Roderick, and his reputation in the business world.
The afternoon mail brought detailed news of General Holden’s speculative venture and downfall. Allen Miller’s correspondent was a lawyer friend in Quincy, who wrote in strict confidence but with a free and sharply pointed pen. It appeared that Holden’s initial investment had been on a sound basis. He had held bonds that were underlying securities on a big smelting plant in Wyoming, in the very district where his daughter’s patch of range lands was situated. It was during a visit to the little ranch that the general’s attention had been drawn to the great possibilities of a local smelter, and he had been the main one to finance the proposition and render the erection of the plant possible. At this stage a group of eastern capitalists had been attracted to the region, and there had come to be mooted a big consolidation of several companies, an electric lighting plant, an aerial tramway, a valuable producing copper mine and several other different concerns that were closely associated with the smelting enterprise.
In the days that followed a Pennsylvanian financier with a lightning rod education, by the name of W. B. Grady had visited Holden at his Quincy home, partaken of his hospitality, and persuaded him to exchange his underlying bonds for stock in a re-organized and consolidated company.
By reputation this man Grady was already well known to Allen Miller as one belonging to the new school of unscrupulous stock manipulators that has grown up, developed, flourished and waxed fat under the blighting influence and domination of the Well Known Oil crowd. This new school of financiers is composed of financial degenerates, where the words “honor,” “fair dealing” or the “square deal” have all been effectually expunged—marked off from their business vocabulary and by them regarded as obsolete terms. Grady was still a comparatively young man, of attractive manners and commanding presence, with the rapacity, however, of a wolf and the cunning of a fox. He stood fully six feet, and his hair, once black as a raven’s, was now streaked with premature gray which was in no way traceable to early piety. But to have mentioned his name even in a remote comparison to such a respectable bird as the raven rendered an apology due to the raven. It was more consistent with the eternal truth and fitness of things to substitute the term “vulture”—to designate him “a financial vulture,” that detestable bird of prey whose chief occupation is feasting on carrion and all things where the life has been squeezed out by the financial octopus, known as “the system.”
It developed, according to Banker Miller’s correspondent, that no sooner had General Holden given up his underlying bonds of the smelter company and accepted stock, than foreclosure proceedings were instituted in the U. S. District Court, and the whole business closed out and sold and grabbed by Grady and a small coterie of financial pirates no better than himself. And all this was done many hundreds of miles away from the home of the unsuspecting old general, who until it was too late remained wholly ignorant and unadvised of the true character of the suave and pleasant appearing Mr. Grady whose promises were innumerable, yet whose every promise was based upon a despicable prevarication.
And thus it was when the affairs of General Holden were fairly threshed out, that Allen Miller discovered his old friend had been the prey of a financial vampire, one skilled in sharp practice and whose artful cunning technically protected him from being arrested and convicted of looting the victim of his fortune. Holden had fallen into the hands of a highwayman as vicious as any stage robber that ever infested the highways of the frontier. The evidence of the fellow’s rascality was most apparent; indeed, he was in a way caught redhanded with the goods as surely as ever a sheep-killing dog was found with wool on its teeth.
To the credit of Allen Miller, he never hesitated or wavered in his generosity to anyone he counted as a true and worthy friend. That very evening Mrs. Miller departed for Quincy, to offer in person more discreetly than a letter could offer any financial assistance that might be required to meet present emergencies, and at the same time convey sympathy to the husband and daughter in their sad bereavement.
“Lois, my dear,” the banker had said to his wife, “remain a few days with them if necessary. Make them comfortable, no matter what the expense. If they had means they wouldn’t need us, but now—well, no difference about the why and wherefore—you just go and comfort and help them materially and substantially.”
It was in such a deed as this that the true nobility of Allen Miller’s character shone forth like a star of the brightest magnitude—a star guaranteeing forgiveness of all his blunders and stupid attempts to curb the impulsive and proud spirit of Roderick War-field Yet sympathy for Gail and her father in no way condoned their poverty to his judgment as a man of finance or reinstated the girl as an eligible match for the young man. He would have been glad of tidings of Roderick—to have him home again and the offensive matrimonial condition he had attached to his offer of an appointment in the bank finally eliminated.
But there was no news, and meanwhile his wife had returned from her mission, to report that the Holdens, while sincerely grateful, had declined all offers of assistance. As Mrs. Miller described, it was the girl herself who had declared, with the light of quiet self-reliance in her eyes, that by working the ranch in Wyoming as she proposed to work it there would be ample provision for her father’s little luxuries and her own simple needs.
So Allen Miller put Gail Holden out of mind. But he had many secret heartaches over his rupture with Roderick, and every little stack of mail matter laid upon his desk was eagerly turned over in the hope that at last the wanderer’s whereabouts would be disclosed.
STELLA RAIN belonged to one of the first families of Galesburg. Their beautiful home, an old style Southern mansion, painted white with green shutters, was just across from the college campus ground. It was the usual fate of seniors about to pass out of Knox College to be in love, avowedly or secretly, with this fair “college widow.” She was petite of form and face, and had a beautiful smile that radiated cheerfulness to the scores of college boys. There was a merry-come-on twinkle in her eyes that set the hearts of the young farmer lad students and the city chaps as well, in tumultuous riot. Beneath it all she was kind of heart, and it was this innate consideration for others that caused her to introduce all the new boys and the old ones too, as they came to college year after year, to Galesburg’s fairest girls. She was ready to fit in anywhere—a true “college widow” in the broadest sense of the term. Her parents were wealthy and she had no greater ambition than to be a queen among the college boys. Those who knew her best said that she would live and die a spinster because of her inability to select someone from among the hundreds of her admirers. Others said she had had a serious affair of the heart when quite young. But that was several years before Roderick Warfield had come upon the scene and been in due course smitten by her charms. How badly smitten he only now fully realized when, after nearly a year of absence, he found himself once again tête-à-tête with her in the old familiar drawing-room of her home.
There had been an hour of pleasant desultory conversation, the exchange of reminiscences and of little sympathetic confidences, a subtly growing tension in the situation which she had somewhat abruptly broken by going to the piano and dashing off a brilliant Hungarian rhapsody.
“And so you are determined to go West?” she inquired as she rose to select from the cabinet another sheet of music.
“Yes,” replied Roderick, “I’m going far West. I am going after a fortune.”
“How courageous you are,” she replied, glancing at him over her shoulder with merry, twinkling eyes, as if she were proud of his ambition.
“Stella,” said Roderick, as she returned to the piano, where he was now standing.
“Yes?” said she, looking up encouragingly.
“Why; you see, Stella—you don’t mind me telling you—well, Stella, if I find the lost gold mine—”
“If you find what?” she exclaimed.
“Oh, I mean,” said Roderick in confusion, “I mean if I find a fortune. Don’t you know, if I get rich out in that western country—”
“And I hope and believe you will,” broke in Stella, vivaciously.
“Yes—I say, if I do succeed, may I come back for you—yes, marry you, and will you go out there with me to live?”
“Oh, Roderick, are you jesting now? You are just one of these mischievous college boys trying to touch the heart of the little college widow.” She laughed gaily at him, as if full of disbelief.
“No,” protested Roderick, “I am sincere.”
Stella Rain looked at him a moment in admiration. He was tall and strong—a veritable athlete. His face was oval and yet there was a square-jawed effect in its moulding. His eyes were dark and luminous and frank, and wore a look of matureness, of determined purpose, she had never seen there before. Finally she asked: “Do you know, Roderick, how old I am?”
As Roderick looked at her he saw there was plaintive regret in her dark sincere eyes. There was no merry-come-on in them now; at last she was serious.
“Why, no,” said Roderick, “I don’t know how old you are and I don’t care. I only know that you appeal to me more than any other woman I have ever met, and all the boys like, you, and I love you, and I want you for my wife.”
“Sit down here by my side,” said Stella. “Let me talk to you in great frankness.”
Roderick seated himself by her side and reaching over took one of her hands in his. He fondled it with appreciation—it was small, delicate and tapering.
“Roderick,” she said, “my heart was given to a college boy when I was only eighteen years old. He went away to his home in an eastern state, and then he forgot me and married the girl he had gone to school with as a little boy—during the red apple period of their lives. It pleased his family better and perhaps it was better; and it will not please your family, Roderick, if you marry me.”
“My family be hanged,” said Roderick with emphasis. “I have just had a quarrel with my uncle, Allen Miller, and I am alone in the world. I have no family. If you become my wife, why, we’ll—. we’ll be a family to ourselves.”
Stella smiled sadly and said: “You enthusiastic boy. How old are you, Roderick?”
“I am twenty-four and getting older every day.” They both laughed and Stella sighed and said: “Oh, dear, how the years are running against us—I mean running against me. No, no,” she said, half to herself, “it never can be—it is impossible.”
“What,” said Roderick, rising to his feet, and at the same moment she also stood before him—“What’s impossible? Is it impossible for you to love me?”
“No, not that,” said Stella, and he noticed tears in her eyes. “No, Roderick,” and she stood before him holding both his hands in hers—“Listen,” she said, “listen!”
“I am all attention,” said Roderick.
“I will tell you how it will all end—we will never marry.”
“Well, I say we shall marry,” said Roderick. “If you will have me—if you love me—for I love you better than all else on earth.” He started to take her in his arms and she raised her hand remonstratingly, and said: “Wait! Here is what I mean,” and she looked up at him helplessly. “I mean,”—she was speaking slowly—“I mean that you believe today, this hour, this minute that you want me for your wife.”
“I certainly do,” insisted Roderick, emphatically.
“Yes, but wait—wait until I finish. I will promise to be your wife, Roderick—yes, I will promise—if you come for me I will marry you. But, oh, Roderick,”—and there were tears this time in her voice as well as in her eyes—“You will never come back—you will meet others not so old as I am, for I am very, very old, and tonight I feel that I would give worlds and worlds if they were mine to give, were I young once again. Of course, in your youthful generosity you don’t know what the disparagement of age means between husband and wife, when the husband is younger. A man may be a score of years older than a woman and all will be well—if they grow old together. It is God’s way. But if a woman is eight or ten years older than her husband, it is all different. No, Roderick, don’t take me in your arms, don’t even kiss me until I bid you good-by when you start for that gold’ mine of yours”—and as she said this she tried to laugh in her old way.
“You seem to think,” said Roderick in a half-vexed, determined tone, “that I don’t know my own mind—that I do not know my own heart. Why, do you know, Stella, I have never loved any other girl nor ever had even a love affair?”
She looked at him quickly and said: “Roderick, that’s just the trouble—you do not know—you cannot make a comparison, nor you won’t know until the other girl comes along. And then, then,” she said wearily, “I shall be weighed in the balance and found wanting, because—oh, Roderick, I am so old, and I am so sorry—” and she turned away and hid her face in her hands. “I believe in you and I could love you with all my strength and soul. I am willing—listen Roderick,” she put up her hands protectingly, “don’t be impatient—I am willing to believe that you will be constant—that you will come back—I am willing to promise to be your wife.”
“You make me the happiest man in the world,” exclaimed Roderick, crushing her to him with a sense of possession.
“But there is one promise I am going to ask you to make,” she said.
“Yes, yes,” said he, “I will promise anything.”
“Well, it is this: If the other girl should come along, don’t fail to follow the inclination of your heart, for I could not be your wife and believe that the image of another woman was kept sacredly hidden away in the deep recesses of your soul. Do you understand?” There was something in her words—something in the way she spoke them—something in the thought, that struck Roderick as love itself, and it pleased him, because love is unselfish. Then he remembered that as yet he was penniless—it stung him. However, the world was before him and he must carve out a future and a fortune. It might take years, and in the meantime what of Stella Rain, who was even now deploring her many years? She would be getting older, and her chances, perhaps, for finding a home and settling down with a husband would be less and less.
But he knew there was no such thought of selfishness on her part—her very unselfishness appealed to him strongly and added a touch of chivalry to his determination.
Stella Rain sank into a cushioned chair and rested her chin upon one hand while, reaching to the piano keys with the other, she thrummed them softly. Roderick walked back and forth slowly before her in deep meditation. At last he paused and said: “I love you, I will prove I am worthy. There is no time to lose. The hour grows late. I have but an hour to reach my hotel, get my luggage and go to the depot I am going West tonight I will come for you within one year, provided I make my fortune; and I firmly believe in my destiny. If not—if I do not come—I will release you from your betrothal, if it is your wish that I do so.”
Stella Rain laughed more naturally, and the old “come-on” twinkling was in her eyes again as she said: “Roderick, I don’t want to be released, because I love you very, very much. It is not that—it’s because—well, no difference—if you come, Roderick,” and she raised her hand to him from the piano—“if you come, and still want me to be your wife, I will go with you and live in the mountains or the remotest corner of the earth.”
He took her hand in both his own and kissed it tenderly. “Very well, Stella,—you make it plain to me. But you shall see—you shall see,” and he looked squarely into her beautiful eyes.
“Yes,” she said, rising to her feet, “we shall see, Roderick, we shall see. And do you know,” the twinkling was now gone from her eyes once more and she became serious again—“do you know, Roderick, it is the dearest hope of my life that you will come? But I shall love you just as much as I do now, Roderick, if for any cause—for whatever reason—you do not come. Do you understand?”
“But,” interposed Roderick, “we are betrothed, are we not?”
She looked at him and said, smiling half sadly: “Surely, Roderick, we are betrothed.”
He put his big strong hands up to her cheeks, lifted her face to his and kissed her reverently. Then with a hasty good-by he turned and was gone.
As Roderick hurried across the old campus he felt the elation of a gladiator. Of course, he would win in life’s battle, and would return for Stella Rain, the dearest girl in all the world. The stars were twinkling bright, the moon in the heavens was in the last quarter—bright moon and stars, fit companions for him in his all-conquering spirit of optimism.
AS the train rumbled along carrying Roderick back to Burlington, he was lost in reverie and exultation. He was making plans for a mighty future, into which now a romance of love was interwoven as well as the romance of a mysterious gold mine awaiting rediscovery in some hidden valley among rugged mountains. Yes; he would lose no further time in starting out for Wyoming. The winning of the one treasure meant the winning of the other—the making of both his own. As he dreamed of wealth unbounded, there was always singing in his heart the name of Stella Rain.
Next day he was aboard a westbound train, booked for Rawlins, Wyoming, where, as his father’s letter had directed, he was likely to find the old frontiersman, Jim Rankin; perhaps also the other “cronies” referred to by name, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest At Omaha a young westerner boarded the train, and took a seat in the Pullman car opposite to Roderick. In easy western style the two fell into conversation, and Roderick soon learned that the newcomer’s name was Grant Jones, that he was a newspaper man by calling and resided in Dillon, Wyoming, right in the midst of the rich copper mines.
“We are just over the mountain,” explained Jones, “from the town of Encampment, where the big smelter is located.”
As the train sped along and they became better acquainted, Grant Jones pointed out to Roderick a dignified gentleman with glasses and a gray mustache occupying a seat well to the front of the car, and told him that this particular individual was no other than the “Boss of Montana”—Senator “Fence Everything” Greed. Jones laughed heartily at the name.
“Of course, he is the U. S. Senator from Montana,” continued Jones, soberly, “and his name is F. E. Greed. His enemies out in Montana will be highly pleased at the new name I have given him—’Fence Everything,’ because he has fenced in over 150,000 acres of Government land, it is claimed, and run the actual home-settlers out of his fenced enclosures while his immense herds of cattle trampled under foot and ate up the poor evicted people’s crops. Oh, he’s some ‘boss,’ all right, all right.”
“Why,” exclaimed Roderick, “that’s lawlessness.”
Grant Jones turned and looked at Roderick and said: “The rich are never lawless, especially United States Senators—not out in Montana. Why, bless your heart, they say the superintendent of his ranch is on the payroll down at Washington at $1800 a year.
“Likewise the superintendent of the electric lighting plant which Senator Greed owns, as well as the superintendent of his big general store, are said to be on the government payroll.
“It has also been charged that his son was on the public payroll while at college. Oh, no, it is not lawless; it is just a dignified form of graft. Of course,” Jones went on with arched eyebrows, “I remember one case where a homesteader shot one of the Senator’s fatted cattle—fine stock, blooded, you know. It was perhaps worth $100. Of course the man was arrested, had a ‘fair trial’ and is now doing time in the penitentiary. In the meantime, his wife and little children have been sent back East to her people. You see,” said Jones, smiling, “this small rancher, both poor in purse and without influence, was foolish enough to lose his temper because five or six hundred head of Senator Greed’s cattle were driven by his cowboys over the rancher’s land and the cattle incidentally, as they went along, ate up his crops. Little thing to get angry about, wasn’t it?” and Jones laughed sarcastically.
“Well, don’t the state conventions pass resolutions denouncing their U. S. Senator for such cold-blooded tyrannizing methods?”
“If the state of Montana,” replied Grant Jones, “should ever hold a state convention of its representative people—the bone and sinew of its sovereign citizens, why, they would not only retire Senator Greed to private life, but they would consign him to the warmer regions.”
“You surprise me,” replied Roderick. “I supposed that every state held conventions—delegates you know, from each county.”
“They think they do,” said Jones, winking one eye, “but they are only ratification meetings. The ‘Boss,’”he continued, nodding his head towards Senator Greed, “has his faithful lieutenants in each precinct of every county. His henchmen select the alleged delegates and when they all get together in a so-called state convention they are by pre-arrangement program men. The slate is fixed up by the ‘Boss’ and is duly ratified without a hitch. Therefore instead of being a convention representing the people it is a great big farce—a ratification picnic where ‘plums’ are dealt out and the ears of any who become fractious duly cuffed.”
At Grand Island in the afternoon, during a stop while engines were changed, Roderick left the train and stretched his legs by walking up and down the depot platform. Here he saw Grant Jones in a new rôle. Notwithstanding Jones was in rough western garb—khaki Norfolk coat, trousers to match, and leather leggings—yet he was the center of attraction for a bevy of young ladies. Two of these in particular were remarkable for their beauty; both had the same burnished golden hair and large brown eyes; they were almost identical in height and figure, petite and graceful, dressed alike, so that anyone at a first glance would have recognized them to be not only sisters but doubtless twins.
When the train was about ready to start, these two girls bade adieu to their numerous friends and permitted Grant Jones with all the gallantry of a Beau Brummel to assist them onto the car.
Later Grant Jones took great pains to assure Roderick that it was a pleasure to introduce him to the Misses Barbara and Dorothy Shields—“Two of our’ mountain wild flowers,” Grant said, laughing pleasantly, “who reside with their people way over south in the Wyoming hills, not far from Encampment, on one of the biggest cattle ranges in the state.”
Roderick, already captivated by the whole-souled, frank manner of Grant Jones, now found himself much interested in the beautiful twin sisters as well. Hour followed hour in bright and sprightly conversation, and soon the tenderfoot who had been inclined to condole with himself as a lonely stranger among strangers was feeling quite at home in the great western world of hospitable welcome and good comradeship.
At an early hour next morning Grant Jones, the Shields girls and a dozen other people left the train at the little town of Walcott. They extended hearty invitations for Roderick to come over to southern Wyoming to see the country, its great mines and the big smelter. “If you pay us a visit,” said Grant Jones, laughing, “I’ll promise you a fine big personal in theDillon Doublejack, of which mighty organ of public opinion I have the honor to be editor.”
Roderick, with a bow of due reverence for his editorial majesty and a bright smile for the sisters, promised that he likely would make the trip before very long. Then he swung himself onto the already moving train and continued his westward journey to Rawlins.
IT was seven o’clock the same morning when Roderick left the train at Rawlins.
The raw, cold wind was blowing a terrific gale, the streets were deserted save for a few half drunken stragglers who had been making a night of it, going the rounds of saloons and gambling dens.
A bright-faced lad took charge of the mail bags, threw them into a push cart and started rumbling away up the street. Warfield followed and coming up with him inquired for a hotel.
“Right over there is the Ferris House,” said the young fellow, nodding his head in the direction indicated.
As Roderick approached the hotel he met a grizzled keen-eyed frontiersman who saluted him with a friendly “Hello, partner, you be a stranger in these yere parts, I’m assoomin’.”
“Yes, I just arrived on this morning’s train.”
“Waal, my handle is Jim Rankin. Been prospectin’ the range hereabouts nigh thirty years; uster be sheriff of this yere county when people wuz hostile a plenty—have the best livery stable today in Wyomin’, and always glad to see strangers loiterin’ ‘round and help ‘em to git their bearin’s if I can be of service—you bet I am.”
Thus early had Roderick encountered his father’s old friend. He was delighted, but for the present kept his own counsel. A more fitting time and place must be found to tell the reason of his coming.
“Thank you,” he contented himself with saying as he accepted the frontiersman’s hand of welcome; “glad to meet you, Mr. Rankin.”
“Here, boy,” shouted the latter to an attache of the hotel, “take care of this yere baggage; it belongs to this yere gentleman, a dangnation good friend uv mine. He’ll be back soon fur breakfast. Come on, stranger, let’s go over to Wren’s. I’m as dry as a fish.”
Roderick smiled and turning about, accompanied his new discovery down the street to Wren’s. As they walked along Rankin said: “Here’s my barn and here’s the alley. We’ll turn in here and get into Wren’s by the back door. I never pester the front door. Lots uv fellers git a heap careless with their artillery on front steps that are docile ‘nuff inside.” As they passed through a back gate, Jim Rankin, the typical old-time westerner, pushed his hat well back on his head, fished out of his pocket a pouch of “fine cut” tobacco, and stowing away a large wad in his mouth began masticating rapidly, like an automobile on the low gear. Between vigorous “chaws” he observed that the sun would be up in a “minute” and then the wind would go down. “Strange but true as gospel,” he chuckled—perhaps at his superior knowledge of the West—“when the sun comes up the wind goes down.”
He expectorated a huge pit-tew of tobacco juice at an old ash barrel, wiped his iron gray mustache with the back of his hand, pushed open the back door of the saloon and invited Roderick to enter.
A fire was burning briskly in a round sheet iron stove, and a half dozen wooden-backed chairs were distributed about a round-topped table covered with a green cloth.
Rankin touched a press button, and when a white-aproned waiter responded and stood with a silent look of inquiry on his face the frontiersman cleared his throat and said: “A dry Martini fur me; what pizen do you nominate, partner?”
“Same,” was Roderick’s rather abbreviated reply as he took in the surroundings with a furtive glance.
As soon as the waiter retired to fill the orders, Roderick’s new found friend pulled a coal scuttle close to his chair to serve as a receptacle for his tobacco expectorations, and began: “You see, speakin’ wide open like, I know all these yere fellers—know ‘em like a book. Out at the bar in front is a lot uv booze-fightin’ sheep herders makin’ things gay and genial, mixin’ up with a lot uv discharged railroad men. Been makin’ some big shipments uv sheep east, lately, and when they get tumultuous like with a whole night’s jag of red liquor under their belt, they forgit about the true artickle uv manhood and I cut ‘em out. Hope they’ll get away afore the cattle men come in from over north, otherwise there’ll be plenty uv ugly shootin’. Last year we made seven new graves back there,” and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “seven graves as a result uv a lot uv sheep herders and cow punchers tryin’ to do the perlite thing here at Wren’s parlors the same night They got to shootin’ in a onrestrained fashion and a heap careless. You bet if I wuz sheriff uv this yere county agin I’d see to it that law and order had the long end uv the stick—though I must allow they did git hostile and hang Big Nose George when I wuz in office,” he added after a pause. Then he chuckled quietly to himself, for the moment lost in retrospection.
Presently the waiter brought in the drinks and when he retired Rankin got up very cautiously, tried the door to see if it was tightly shut. Coming back to the table and seating himself he lifted his glass, but before drinking said: “Say, pard, I don’t want to be too presumin’, but what’s your handle?”
Roderick felt that the proper moment had arrived, and went straight to his story.
“My name is Roderick Warfield. I am the son of John Warfield with whom I believe you had some acquaintance a number of years ago. My father is dead, as you doubtless may have heard—died some fourteen years since. He left a letter for me which only recently came into my possession, and in the letter he spoke of three men—Jim Rankin, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest.”
As Roderick was speaking, the frontiersman reverently returned his cocktail to the table.
“Geewhillikins!” he exclaimed, “you the son uv John Warfield! Well, I’ll be jiggered. This just nachurly gits on my wind. Shake, young man.” And Jim Rankin gave Roderick’s hand the clinch of a vise; “I’m a mighty sight more than delighted to see you, and you can count on my advice and help, every day in the week and Sundays thrown in. As you’re a stranger in these parts, I’m assoomin’ you’ll need it a plenty, you bet. Gee, but I’m as glad to see you as I’d be to see a brother. Let’s drink to the memory uv your good father.”
He again lifted his cocktail and Roderick joined him by picking up a side glass of water.
“What?” asked Rankin, “not drinkin’ yer cocktail? What’s squirmin’ in yer vitals?”
“I drink nothing stronger than water,” replied Roderick, looking his father’s old friend squarely in the eyes. Thus early in their association he was glad to settle this issue once and for all time.
“Shake again,” said Rankin, after tossing off his drink at a single swallow and setting down his empty glass, “you sure ‘nuff are the son uv John Warfield. Wuz with him off and on fur many a year and he never drank spirits under no circumstances. You bet I wuz just nachurly so dangnation flabbergasted at meetin’ yer I got plumb locoed and sure did fergit. Boney and Tom and me often speak uv him to this day, and they’ll be dangnation glad to see you.”
“So you’re all three still in the ring?” queried Roderick with a smile.
“Bet yer life,” replied Rankin sturdily. “Why, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest and me have been chums fur nigh on to thirty years. They’re the best scouts that ever hunted in the hills. They’re the chaps who put up my name at the convenshun, got me nominated and then elected me sheriff of this yere county over twenty-five years ago. Gosh but I’m certainly glad to see yer and that’s my attitood.” He smiled broadly.
“Now, Warfield,” he continued, “what yer out here fur? But first, hold on a minute afore yer prognosticate yer answer. Just shove that ‘tother cocktail over this way—dangnation afeerd you’ll spill it; no use letting it go to waste.”
“I’ve come,” replied Roderick, smiling and pushing the cocktail across to Jim Rankin, “to grow up with the country. A young fellow when he gets through college days has got to get out and do something, and some way I’ve drifted out to Wyoming to try and make a start. I have lots of good health, but precious little money.”
Jim Rankin drank the remaining cocktail, pulled his chair a little closer to Roderick’s and spoke in a stage whisper: “You know, I’m assoomin’, what yer father was huntin’ fur when he got hurt?”
Roderick flushed slightly and remained silent for a moment. Was it possible that his father’s old friend, Jim Rankin, knew of the lost mine? Finally he replied: “Well, yes, I know in a general way.”
“Don’t speak too dangnation loud,” enjoined Rankin. “Come on and we’ll hike out uv this and go into one uv the back stalls uv my livery stable. This’s no place to talk about sich things—even walls have ears.”
As they went out again by the back door the morning sun was looking at them from the rim of the eastern hills. Side by side and in silence they walked along the alley to the street, then turned and went into a big barn-like building bearing a sign-board inscribed: “Rankin’s Livery, Feed and Sale Stable.”
Although there was not a soul in sight, Rankin led his new acquaintance far back to the rear of the building. As they passed, a dozen or more horses whinnied, impatient for their morning feed.
Cautiously and without a word being spoken they went into an empty stall in a far corner, and there in a deep whisper, Rankin said: “I know the hull shootin’ match about that ‘ere lost gold mine, but Tom and Boney don’t—they’ve been peevish, good and plenty, two or three different times thinkin’ I know’d suthin’ they didn’t. Not a blamed thing does anybody know but me, you bet I went with your father on three different trips, but we didn’t quite locate the place. I believe it’s on Jack Creek or Cow Creek—maybe furder over—don’t know which, somewhere this side or t’other side of Encampment River. You kin bet big money I kin help a heap—a mighty lot But say nothin’ to nobody—specially to these soopercilious high-steppin’ chaps ‘round here—not a dangnation word—keep it mum. This is a razzle-dazzle just ‘tween you an’ me, young man.”
A silence followed, and the two stood there looking at each other. Presently Roderick said: “I believe I’ll go over to the hotel and get some breakfast; this western air gives one a ravenous appetite.”
Then they both laughed a little as if anxious to relieve an embarrassing situation, and went out to the street together. Jim knew in his heart he had been outclassed; he had shown his whole hand, the other not one single card.
“All right,” Rankin finally said, as if an invitation had been extended to him. “All right, I’ll jist loiter along with yer over to’rd the hotel.”
“At another time,” observed Roderick, “we will talk further about my father’s errand into this western country.”
“That’s the dope that sure ‘nuff suits me, Mr. War-field,” replied Rankin. “Whatever you say goes. Yer can unbosom yerself to me any time to the limit. I’ve got a dozen good mining deals to talk to you about; they’re dandies—a fortune in every one uv ‘em—’a bird in every shell,’ I might say,” and Rankin laughed heartily at his happy comparison. “Remember one thing, Warfield,”—he stopped and took hold of the lapel of Roderick’s coat, and again spoke in a whisper—“this yere town is full uv ‘hot air’ merchants. Don’t have nuthin’ to do with ‘em—stand pat with me and I’ll see by the great horn spoon the worst you get will be the best uv everythin’ we tackle. Well, so long until after breakfast; I’ll see you later.” And with this Rankin turned and walked briskly back to his stables, whistling a melody from the “Irish Washerwoman” as he went along.
Arriving at his stables he lighted a fire in a drumshaped stove, threw his cud of tobacco away and said: “Hell, I wish this young Warfield had money. I’ve got a copper prospect within three mile uv this here town that’ll knock the spots out uv the Ferris-Haggerty mine all holler. Geewhillikins, it’ll jist nachur-ally make all the best mines in Wyomin’ look like small-sized Shetland ponies at a Perch’ron draft horse show. You bet that’s what I’ve got.”
After feeding his horses he came back to the livery barn office, now quite warm and comfortable, pulled up an old broken backed chair, sat down and lit his pipe. After a few puffs he muttered half aloud: “Expect I’m the only man in Wyomin’ who remembers all the early hist’ry and traditions about that cussed lost mine. I’ve hunted the hills high and low, north, south, east and west, and dang my buttons if I can imagine where them blamed nuggets came from. And my failure used to make me at times a plenty hostile and peevish. John Warfield brought three of ‘em out with him on his last trip. He gave Tom one, Boney one and me one.”
Thrusting his hand into his pocket Rankin produced a native nugget of gold, worn smooth and shiny, and looked at it long in silent meditation. It was a fine specimen of almost pure gold, and was worth perhaps five and twenty dollars.
Presently the old frontiersman brought his fist down with a startling thump on his knee and said aloud: “I’ll be blankety-blanked if I don’t believe in that dangnation fairy story yet. You bet I do, and I’ll help John Warfield’s boy find it, by the great horn spoon I will, if it takes every horse in the stable.”
Jim Rankin relit his pipe, smoked vigorously and thought. The power of silence was strong upon him. The restless spirit of the fortune hunter was again surging in his blood and awaking slumbering half-forgotten hopes—yes, tugging at his heart-strings and calling to him to forsake all else and flee to the hills.
Rankin was a character, a representative of the advance band of sturdy trail-blazers of the West—tender-hearted as a child, generous to a fault, ready to divide his last crust with a friend, yet quick to resent an injury, and stubborn as a bullock when roused to self-defense. There was nothing cunning about him, nothing of greed and avarice, no spirit of envy for the possession of things for the things’ sake. But for him there was real joy in the mad pursuit of things unattainable—a joy that enthralled and enthused him with the fervor of eternal youth. His was the simple life of the hills, loving his few chums and turning his back on all whom he disliked or mistrusted.
Other men and greater men there may be, but it was men of Jim Rankin’s type that could build, and did build, monuments among the wild western waste of heat-blistered plains and gaunt rock-ribbed mountains, men who braved the wilderness and there laid the first foundation stones of a splendid civilization—splendid, yet even now only in its first beginnings, a civilization that means happy homes and smiling fields where before all was barrenness and desolation.