CHAPTER IIITHE AWAKENING OF SCIPIO
At noon the camp began to rouse. The heavy eyes, the languid stretch, the unmeaning contemplation of the noontide sunlight, the slow struggles of a somnolent brain. These things were suggested in the gradual stirring of the place to a ponderous activity. The heavy movement of weary diggers as they lounged into camp for their dinner had no suggestion of the greedy passion which possessed them. They had no lightness. Whatever the lust for gold that consumed them, all their methods were characterized by a dogged endeavor which took from them every particle of that nervous activity which belongs to the finely tempered business man.
The camp was a single row of egregious dwellings, squat, uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and “gambling hell” which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. It was a mere shelter, a rough perch for the human carrion lusting for the orgy of gold which the time-worn carcass of earth should yield. What had these people to do with comfort or refinement? What had they to do with those things calculated to raise the human mind to a higher spiritual plane? Nothing. All that might come later, when, their desires satisfied, the weary body sick and aching, sends fearful thoughts ahead towards the drab sunset awaiting them. For the moment the full tide of youth is still running strong. Sickness and death have no terrors. The fine strength of powerful bodies will not allow the mind to focus such things.
Out of the rugged hills backing the camp the gold-seekers struggle to their resting-place. Here, one man comes clambering over the rough bowlder-strewn path at the base of a forest-clad hill. Here, an atom of humanity emerges from the depths of a vast woodland that dwarfs all but the towering hills. Another toils up a steep hillside from the sluggish creek. Another slouches along a vague, unmade trail. Yet another scrambles his way through a low, dense-growing scrub which lines the sides of a vast ravine, the favored locality of the gold-seeker.
So they come, one by one, from every direction radiating about the building, which is Minky’s store. Their faces are hard. Their skin is tanned to a leathery hue, and is of a texture akin to hide. They are silent, thoughtful men, too. But their silence is of the vast world in which they delve, and their thought is the thought of men absorbed in their quest. No, there is no lightness, even in their happiest moments. To be light, an intelligent swiftness of brain is needed. And these derelicts have little of such. Although, when Minky’s spirit has circulated its poison through their veins, they are sometimes apt to assume a burlesque of it.
Now the camp is wide awake. But it is only the wakefulness of the mother who is roused by the hungry crying of her infant. It will slumber again when appetites have been duly appeased.
The milk of human kindness is soured by the intense summer heat. The men are “grouchy.” They jostle harshly as they push up to Minky’s counter for the “appetizers” they do not need. Their greetings are few, and mostly confined to the abrupt demand, “Any luck?” Then, their noon-day drink gulped down, they slouch off into the long, frowsy dining-room at the back of the store, and coarsely devour the rough fare provided by the buxom Birdie Mason, who is at once the kindliest and worst caterer imaginable.
This good-natured soul’s position was not as enviable as one might reasonably have supposed. The only woman in a camp of men, any one of whom might reasonably strike a fortune in five minutes. The situation suggests possibilities. But, alas, Birdie was just a woman, and, in consequence, from a worldly point of view, her drawbacks were many. She was attractive––a drawback. She was given to a natural desire to stand first with all men––another drawback. She was eminently sentimental––a still greater drawback. But greatest of all she was a sort of public servant in her position as caterer, and, as such, of less than no account from the moment the “beast” had been satisfied.
She had her moments, moments when the rising good-nature of her customers flattered her, when she was fussed over, and petted, as men are ever ready to treat an attractive member of the opposite sex. But these things led nowhither, from a point of view of worldly advantage, and, being just a woman, warm-hearted, uncalculating and profoundly illogical, she failed to realize the pitfalls that lay before her, the end which, all unsuspecting, she was steadily forging towards.
Scipio, like the rest, came into camp for his dinner. His way lay along the bank of the creek. It was cooler here, and, until he neared his home, there were no hills up which to drag his weary limbs. He had had, as usual, an utterly unprofitable morning amidst the greasy ooze of his claim. Yet the glitter of the mica-studded quartz on the hillside, the bright-green and red-brown shading of the milky-white stone still dazzled his mental sight. There was no wavering in his belief. These toilsome days were merely the necessary probation for the culminating achievement. He assured himself that gold lay hidden there. And it was only waiting for the lucky strike of his pick. He would find it. It was just a matter of keeping on.
In his simple mind he saw wonderful visions of all that final discovery. He dreamt of the day when he should be able to install his beautiful Jessie in one of those up-town palaces in New York; when an army of servants should anticipate her every desire; when the twins should be launched upon the finest academies the country possessed, to gorge their young minds to the full with all that which the minds of the children of earth’s most fortunate must be stored. He saw his Jessie clad in gowns which displayed and enhanced all those beauties with which his devoted mind endowed her. She should not only be his queen, but the queen of a social world, which, to his mind, had no rival. And the happiness of such dreams was beyond compare. His labor became the work of a love which stimulated his puny muscles to a pitch which carried him beyond the feeling of any weariness. For himself he wanted nothing. For Jessie and the twins the world was not great enough as a possession.
And was she not worth it? Were they not worth it? Look at her, so splendid! How she bore with him and all his petty, annoying ways! Her disposition was not of this earth, he told himself. Would any other woman put up with his ill-humors, his shortcomings? He realized how very trying he must be to any bright, clever woman. He was not clever, and he knew it, and it made him pity Jessie for the lot he had brought her to.
And the twins. Vada was the image of her mother. The big, round, brown eyes, the soft, childish mouth, the waving brown hair. And Jamie. He had her eyes, too, and her nose, and her beautiful coloring. What a mercy of Providence neither of them resembled him. But, then, how could they, with such a mother? How it delighted him to think that he was working for them, for her. A thrill of delight swept over him, and added a spring to his jaded step. What mattered anything else in the world. He was to give them all that which the world counted as good. He, alone.
But it was not yet. For a moment a shadow crossed his radiant face as he toiled up the hill to his hut. It was gone in a moment, however. How could it stay there with his thought gilded with such high hopes? It was not yet, but it would come––must come. His purpose was invincible. He must conquer and wrench this wealth which he demanded from the bosom of the hard old earth. And then––and then––
“Hello, kiddies,” he cried cheerily, as his head rose above the hilltop and his hut and the two children, playing outside it, came into his view.
“Pop-pa!” shrieked Vada, dropping a paper full of loose dirt and stones upon her sprawling brother’s back, in her haste to reach her diminutive parent.
“Uh!” grunted Jamie, scrambling to his feet and tottering heavily in the same direction.
There was a curious difference in the size and growth of these twins. Probably it utterly escaped the adoring eyes of their father. He only saw the reflected glory of their mother in them. Their resemblance to her was all that really mattered to him, but, as a matter of fact, this resemblance lay chiefly in Vada. She was like her mother in an extraordinary degree. She was well-grown, strong, and quite in advance of her years, in her speech and brightness of intellect. Little Jamie, while he possessed much of his mother in his face, in body was under-sized and weakly, and his mind and speech, backward of development, smacked of his father. He was absolutely dominated by his sister, and followed her lead in everything with adoring rapture.
Vada reached her father and scrambled agilely up into his work-soiled arms. She impulsively hugged his yellow head to her cheeks with both her arms, so that when Jamie came up he had to content himself by similarly hugging the little man’s left knee, and kissing the mud-stains on his trousers into liquid patches.
But Scipio was impartial. He sat Vada down and picked her brother up. Then, taking the former’s hand in his horny clasp, bore the boy towards the house.
“You found any gold?” inquired Vada, repeating a question she had so often heard her mother put.
“’Es any––dold?” echoed Jamie, from his height above Scipio’s head.
“No, kiddies,” the man replied, with a slight sigh.
“Oh,” said Vada. But his answer had little significance for her.
“Where’s your momma?” inquired Scipio, after a pause.
“Momma do hoss-ridin’,” replied Jamie, forestalling his sister for once.
“Yes,” added Vada. “She gone ridin’. An’ they’ll come an’ take us wher’ ther’s heaps an’ heaps o’ ’piders, an’––an’ bugs an’ things. He said so––sure.”
“He? Who?”
They had reached the hut and Scipio set Jamie on the ground as he put his question.
“The dark man,” said Vada readily, but wrinkling her forehead struggling for the name.
“Uh!” agreed Jamie. “Mister Dames.”
Just for a moment a sharp question lit Scipio’s pale eyes. But the little ones had no understanding of it. And the next moment, as their father passed in through the doorway, they turned to the sand and stone castle they had been laboriously and futilely attempting to mold into some shape.
“Now you bring up more stones,” cried Vada authoritatively. “Run along, dear,” she added patronizingly, as the boy stood with his small hands on his hips, staring vacantly after his father.
Scipio gazed stupidly about the living-room. The slop-stained table was empty. The cookstove fire was out. And, just for a second, the thought flashed through his mind––had he returned too early for his dinner? No, he knew he had not. It was dinner-time all right. His appetite told him that.
For the moment he had forgotten what the children had told him. His simple nature was not easily open to suspicion, therefore, like all people of slow brain, this startling break in the routine of his daily life simply set him wondering. He moved round the room, and, without being aware of his purpose, lifted the curtain of turkey red, which served as a door to the rough larder, and peered in. Then, as he let the curtain fall again, something stirred within him. He turned towards the inner room, and his mild voice called––
“Jess.”
His answer was a hollow echo that somehow jarred his nerves. But he called again––
“Jess.”
Again came the echo. Then Vada’s small face appeared round the door-casing.
“Mom-ma gone hoss-ridin’,” she reminded him.
For an instant Scipio’s face flushed. Then it paled icily under its tan. His brain was struggling to grasp something which seemed to be slowly enveloping him, but which his honest heart would not let him believe. He stared stupidly at Vada’s dirty face. Then, as the child withdrew to her play, he suddenly crossed the room to the curtained bedroom doorway. He passed through, and the flimsy covering fell to behind him.
For a space the music of childish voices was the only sound to break the stillness. The hum of buzzing insects seemed to intensify the summer heat. For minutes no movement came from the bedroom. It was like the dread silence before a storm.
A strange sound came at last. It was something between a moan and the pained cry of some mild-spirited animal stricken to death. It had no human semblance, and yet––it came from behind the dingy print curtain over the bedroom doorway.
A moment later the curtain stirred and the ghastly face of Scipio suddenly appeared. He moved out into the living-room and almost fell into the Windsor chair which had last been occupied by his wife. A sheet of notepaper was in his shaking hand, and his pale eyes were staring vacantly at it. He was not reading. He had read. And that which he had read had left him dazed and scarcely comprehending. He sat thus for many minutes. And not once did he stir a muscle, or lift his eyes from their fixed contemplation.
A light breeze set the larder curtain fluttering. Scipio started. He stared round apprehensively. Then, as though drawn by a magnet, his eyes came back to the letter in his hand, and once more fixed themselves upon the bold handwriting. But this time there was intelligence in his gaze. There was intelligence, fear, despair, horror; every painful emotion was struggling for uppermost place in mind and heart. He read again carefully, slowly, as though trying to discover some loophole from the horror of what was written there. The note was short––so short––there was not one spark of hope in it for the man who was reading it, not one expression of feeling other than selfishness. It was the death-blow to all his dreams, all his desire.
“I’ve gone away. I shall never come back. I can’t stand this life here any longer. Don’t try to find me, for it’s no use. Maybe what I’m doing is wicked, but I’m glad I’m doing it. It’s not your fault––it’s just me. I haven’t your courage, I haven’t any courage at all. I just can’t face the life we’re living. I’d have gone before when he first asked me but for my babies, but I just couldn’t part with them. Zip, I want to take them with me now, but I don’t know what Jim’s arrangements are going to be. I must have them. I can’t live without them. And if they don’t go with us now you’ll let them come to me after, won’t you? Oh, Zip, I know I’m a wicked woman, but I feel I must go. You won’t keep them from me? Let me have them. I love them so bad. I do. I do. Good-by forever.“Jessie.”
“I’ve gone away. I shall never come back. I can’t stand this life here any longer. Don’t try to find me, for it’s no use. Maybe what I’m doing is wicked, but I’m glad I’m doing it. It’s not your fault––it’s just me. I haven’t your courage, I haven’t any courage at all. I just can’t face the life we’re living. I’d have gone before when he first asked me but for my babies, but I just couldn’t part with them. Zip, I want to take them with me now, but I don’t know what Jim’s arrangements are going to be. I must have them. I can’t live without them. And if they don’t go with us now you’ll let them come to me after, won’t you? Oh, Zip, I know I’m a wicked woman, but I feel I must go. You won’t keep them from me? Let me have them. I love them so bad. I do. I do. Good-by forever.
“Jessie.”
Mechanically Scipio folded the paper again and sat grasping it tightly in one clenched hand. His eyes were raised and gazing through the doorway at the golden sunlight beyond. His lips were parted, and there was a strange dropping of his lower jaw. The tanning of his russet face looked like a layer of dirt upon a super-whited skin. He scarcely seemed to breathe, so still he sat. As yet his despair was so terrible that his mind and heart were numbed to a sort of stupefaction, deadening the horror of his pain.
He sat on for many minutes. Then, at last, his eyes dropped again to the crushed paper, and a quavering sigh escaped him. He half rose from his seat, but fell back in it again. Then a sudden spasm seized him, and flinging himself round he reached out his slight, tanned arms upon the dirty table, and, his head dropping upon them, he moaned out the full force of his despair.
“I want her!” he cried. “Oh, God, I want her!”
But now his slight body was no longer still. His back heaved with mute sobs that had no tears. All his gentle soul was torn and bleeding. He had not that iron in his composition with which another man might have crushed down his feelings and stirred himself to a harsh defense. He was just a warm, loving creature of no great strength beyond his capacity for human affection and self-sacrifice. And for the time at least, his sufferings were beyond his control.
In the midst of his grief two little faces, and two pairs of round, wondering eyes appeared in the doorway. Two small infantile minds worked hard at the sight they beheld. Vada, whose quickness of perception was so much in advance of her brother’s, murmured in his ear––
“Sleep.”
“Uh, seep,” nodded the faithful boy.
Then four little bare feet began to creep into the room. Four big brown eyes shone with gleeful anticipation. Four chubby arms were outstretched as though claiming the victim of their childish prank. Vada led, but Jamie was close behind. They stole in, their small feet making not the slightest sound as they tiptoed towards the stricken man. Each, thrilling with excitement, was desperately intent upon frightening him.
“Boo-h!” cried Vada, her round eyes sparkling as she reached Scipio’s side.
“Bo-oh!” echoed Jamie a second later, chuckling and gurgling a delight he had no other means of expressing at the moment.
Scipio raised his haggard face. His unsmiling eyes, so pale and unmeaning, stared stupidly at the children. And suddenly the merry smile died out of the young faces, and an odd contraction of their brows suggested a dawning sympathy which came wholly from the heart.
“You’se cryin’, poppa,” cried Vada impulsively.
“Uh,” nodded the boy.
And thereupon great tears welled up into their sympathetic eyes, and the twins wept in chorus. And somehow the tears, which had thus far been denied the man, now slowly and painfully flooded his eyes. He groped the two children into his arms, and buried his face in the soft wavy hair which fell in a tangle about the girl’s head.
For some moments he sat thus, something of his grief easing in the flood of almost womanish tears. Until, finally, it was Jamie who saved the situation. His sobs died out abruptly, and the boy in him stirred.
“Me want t’ eat,” he protested, without preamble.
The man looked up.
“Eat?” he echoed vaguely.
“Yes. Dinner,” explained Vada, whose tears were still flowing, but who never failed as her little brother’s interpreter.
There was a moment’s pause while Scipio stared down at the two faces lifted so appealingly to his. Then a change came into his expressionless eyes. A smoldering fire began to burn, which seemed to deepen their weakly coloring. His drawn face seemed to gather strength. And somehow even his straw-colored hair, so scanty, ill-grown and disheveled, looked less like the stubble it so much resembled. It was almost as though a latent, unsuspected strength were rousing within him, lifting him from the slough of despair by which he was so nearly submerged. It was as though the presence of his twins had drawn from him an acknowledgment of his duty, a sense which was so strongly and incongruously developed in his otherwise uncertain character, and demanded of him a sacrifice of all personal inclination. They were her children. Yes, and they were his. Her children––her children. And she was gone. They had no one to look to, no one to care for them now, but––him.
He sprang to his feet.
“Why, yes, kiddies,” he said, with a painful assumption of lightness. “You’re needing food sure. Say, I guess we won’t wait for your momma. We’ll just hand her an elegant surprise. We’ll get dinner ourselves.”
Jamie gurgled his joyous approval, but Vada was more intelligible.
“Bully!” she cried. “We’ll give her a surprise.” Then she turned to Jamie. “Surprise is when folks do things that other folks don’t guess you’re going to, dear,” she explained, to his utter confusion.
Scipio went to the larder and gathered various scraps of food, and plates, and anything that seemed to him as being of any possible use in a meal. He re-kindled the fire in the cookstove and made some coffee. That he understood. There was no sign of his despair about him now. Perhaps he was more than usually silent, but otherwise, for the time at least, he had buried his trouble sufficiently deeply out of sight, so that at any rate the inquiring eyes of the happy children could see nothing of it.
They, too, busied themselves in the preparation. Vada dictated to her father with never flagging tongue, and Jamie carried everything he could lift to and fro, regardless of whether he was bringing or taking away. Vada chid him in her childishly superior way, but her efforts were quite lost on his delicious self-importance. Nor could there be any doubt that, in his infantile mind, he was quite assured that his services were indispensable.
At last the meal was ready. There was nearly everything of which the household consisted upon the table or in close proximity to it. Then, when at last they sat down, and Scipio glanced over the strange conglomeration, his conscience was smitten.
“Seems to me you kiddies need bread and milk,” he said ruefully. “But I don’t guess there’s any milk.”
Vada promptly threw herself into the breach.
“On’y Jamie has bread an’ milk, pop-pa. Y’see his new teeth ain’t through. Mine is. You best cut his up into wee bits.”
“Sure, of course,” agreed Scipio in relief. “I’ll get along down to Minky’s for milk after,” he added, while he obediently proceeded to cut up the boy’s meat.
It was a strange meal. There was something even tragic in it. The children were wildly happy in the thought that they had shared in this wonderful surprise for their mother. That they had assisted in those things which childhood ever yearns to share in––the domestic doings of their elders.
The man ate mechanically. His body told him to eat, and so he ate without knowing or caring what. His distraught mind was traveling swiftly through the barren paths of hopelessness and despair, while yet he had to keep his children in countenance under their fire of childish prattle. Many times he could have flung aside his mask and given up, but the babyish laughter held him to an effort such as he had never before been called upon to make.
When the meal was finished Scipio was about to get up from his chair, but Vada’s imperious tongue stayed him.
“We ain’t said grace,” she declared complainingly.
And the man promptly dropped back into his seat.
“Sure,” he agreed helplessly.
At once the girl put her finger-tips together before her nose and closed her eyes.
“Thank God for my good dinner, Amen, and may we help fix up after?” she rattled off.
“Ess,” added Jamie, “tank Dod for my dood dinner, Amen, me fix up, too.”
And with this last word both children tumbled almost headlong from the bench which they were sharing. Nor had their diminutive parent the heart to deny their request.
The next hour was perhaps one of the hardest in Scipio’s life. Nothing could have impressed his hopeless position upon him more than the enthusiastic assistance so cordially afforded him. While the children had no understanding of their father’s grief, while with every heart-beat they glowed with a loving desire to be his help, their every act was an unconscious stab which drove him until he could have cried aloud in agony.
And it was a period of catastrophe. Little Vada scalded her hand and had to be petted back to her normal condition of sunny smiles. Jamie broke one of the few plates, and his tears had to be banished by assurances that it did not matter, and that he had done his father a kindness by ridding him of such an ugly plate. Then Vada stumbled into the garbage pail and had to be carefully wiped, while Jamie smeared his sparse hair with rancid dripping and insisted he was “Injun,” vociferously proclaiming his desire to “talp” his sister.
But the crowning disaster came when he attempted to put his threat into execution. He seized a bunch of her hair in his two chubby hands and began to drag her round the room. Her howls drew Scipio’s attention from his work, and he turned to find them a struggling heap upon the floor. He dashed to part them, kicked over a bucket of drinking water in his well-meant hurry, and, finally, had to rescue them, both drenched to the skin, from the untimely bath.
There was nothing for it but to strip off all their clothes and dress them up in their nightgowns, for as yet he had no knowledge of their wardrobe, and send them out to get warm in the sun, while he dried their day-clothes at the cookstove.
It was the climax. The man flung himself into a chair and buried his face in his hands. The mask had dropped from him. There was no longer any need for pretense. Once more the grief and horror of his disaster broke through his guard and left him helpless. The whole world, his life, everything was engulfed in an abyss of black despair.
He was dry-eyed and desperate. But now somehow his feelings contained an emotion that the first shock of his loss had not brought him. He was no longer a prey to a weak, unresisting submission, the grief of a tortured gentle heart. There was another feeling. A feeling of anger and resentment which slowly grew with each moment, and sent the hot blood surging furiously to his brain. Nor was this feeling directed against Jessie. How could it be? He loved her so that her cruel desertion of him appeared to be a matter for which he was chiefly to blame. Yes, he understood. He was not the husband for her. How could it be otherwise? He had no cleverness. He had always been a failure. No, his anger was not against Jessie. It was the other. It was the man who had robbed him of all he cared for in the world.
His anger grew hotter and hotter. And with this growing passion there came an absolute revulsion of the motive force that had always governed him. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to hurt this man, Lord James. And his simple mind groped for a means to carry out his desire. He began to think more quickly and clearly, and the process brought him a sort of cold calmness. Again his grief was thrust out of his focus, and all his mental energy was concentrated upon his desire. And he conjured up a succession of pictures of the tortures and sufferings he desired for this villain who had so wronged him.
But the pictures were too feeble and wholly inadequate to satisfy. So gentle was his nature, that, even stirred as he was, he could not conceive a fitting punishment for so great an offense. He felt his own inadequacy, his own feebleness to cope with the problem before him, and so he sat brooding impotently.
It was all useless. And as the minutes slipped by his anger began to die out, merging once more into the all-absorbing grief that underlay it. He was alone. Alone! He would never see her again. The thought chilled him to a sudden nervous dread. No, no, it was not possible. She would come back. She must come back. Yes, yes. She was his Jessie. His beautiful Jessie. She belonged to him. And the children. She loved them. How she loved them. They were theirs. Yes, she would come back. Maybe she would come back at supper-time. She would understand by then. Because she was good, and––and kind, and––No, no, Fate could never be so cruel as to take her from him.
He rose and paced the floor with nervous, uneven strides. He plunged his hand into his coat pocket and drew out the letter again. He re-read it, with hot eyes and straining thought. Every word seemed to sear itself upon his poor brain, and drive him to the verge of distraction. Why? Why? And he raised his bloodshot eyes to the roof of his hut, and crushed the paper in one desperate hand.
Then suddenly he started. His pale eyes took on a furtive frightened expression. He glanced fearfully round the room as though someone was in hiding to surprise his inspiration. Yes, that was it. Why not? He was not afraid. He was afraid of no one. Yes, yes, he had the means. He must make the opportunity. She was his. No one else had a right to her. It was justifiable. It was no more than justice.
He moved towards the inner room. He was less furtive now. His purpose had startled him at first, but now he was convinced it was right. To a man of his character his resolve once taken there was only one thing to do––to carry it out.
He passed into the bedroom, and, in a few moments, reappeared. Now he was bearing something in his hand. He held it carefully, and in his eyes was something like terror of what he held. The thing he carried was an old-fashioned revolver. It was rusty. But it had a merciless look about it. He turned it up gingerly. Then he opened the breach, and loaded all the six chambers. Then he carefully bestowed it in his coat pocket, where it bulged obtrusively.
Now he moved to the open doorway, and somehow his original furtiveness had returned to him. Here he paused as the voice of the twins reached and held him. They were still playing in the sun, banking up the sand and stones in their futile attempt at castle building. He breathed hard, as though summoning up all his decision. Then he spoke.
“Say, kiddies,” he said firmly. “I’ll be right back at supper.”
And he moved out without another look in their direction, and walked off in the direction of Minky’s store.
CHAPTER IVSCIPIO BORROWS A HORSE
Scipio found an almost deserted camp after floundering his way over the intricate paths amongst the refuse-heaps.
The miners had departed to their claims with a punctuality that suggested Trades Union principles. Such was their existence. They ate to live; they lived to work, ever tracking the elusive metal to the earth’s most secret places. The camp claimed them only when their day’s work was done; for the rest, it supported only their most urgent needs.
Sunny Oak, lounging on a rough bench in the shadiest part of the veranda facing Minky’s store, raised a pair of heavy eyelids, to behold a dejected figure emerge from amidst the “dumps.” The figure was bearing towards the store in a dusty cloud which his trailing feet raised at every step. His eyes opened wider, and interested thought stirred in his somnolent brain. He recognized the figure and wondered. Scipio should have been out on his claim by this time, like the rest.
The lean long figure of the lounger propped itself upon its elbow. Curiously enough, lazy as he was, the smallest matter interested him. Had he suddenly discovered a beetle moving on the veranda he would have found food for reflection in its doings. Such was his mind. A smile stole into his indolent eyes, a lazy smile which spoke of tolerant good-humor. He turned so that his voice might carry in through the window which was just behind him.
“Say, Bill,” he cried, “here’s Zip comin’ down the trail.”
As though his announcement were sufficient to rouse an equal interest in those inside the store, he returned again to his contemplation of the approaching figure.
“What’s he doin’ around camp this hour?” inquired a harsh voice from beyond the window.
“Guess I ain’t a lightnin’ calc’lator,” observed Sunny, without withdrawing his gaze.
“Nope,” came the prompt retort from the invisible speaker; “guess it ’ud keep you busy trackin’ a fun’ral.”
“Which don’t need contradiction! I’m kind o’ makin’ holiday these times. Guess you ain’t never heerd tell o’ the ‘rest cure’?”
A rough laugh broke on the drowsy atmosphere.
“Sunny’s overworked just now,” said another voice, amidst the rattle of poker chips.
“Wher’ you bin workin’, Sunny?” inquired the harsh voice of the man addressed as Bill.
“Workin’!” cried the loafer, with good-natured scorn. “Say, I don’t never let a hobby interfere with the bizness of life.”
A half-smothered laugh answered him. Even the exigencies of a poker hand could not quite crush out the natural humor of these men, who always followed on the golden trail of the pioneers.
“Say, what’s your bizness?” demanded another voice presently.
“Restin’!” the man on the veranda answered easily.
The shuffle of cards and rattle of chips came with a snigger. And the answering lazy smile of Sunny Oak was good to see. It lit his unshaven face from his unwashed brow to his chin. And to an onlooker it might well have appeared a pity that an intense bodily indolence should so dominate his personality. He looked vastly capable, both mentally and physically.
But his eyes never left the on-coming Scipio. The little man moved with bowed head and trailing footsteps. The utter dispiritedness of his gait stirred even the self-centered watcher. But Scipio saw nothing of Sunny Oak. He saw nothing of anything but the despairing picture in his own mind. The ramshackle shanties which lined one side of the trail were passed unheeded. The yapping of the camp dogs at the unusual sight of so deplorable a figure at this hour of the day was quite unnoticed by him. The shelving rise of attenuated grassland which blocked the view of Suffering Creek on his left never for a moment came into his focus. His eyes were on the trail ahead of him, and never more than a few feet from where he trod. And those eyes were hot and staring, aching with their concentration upon the hideous picture which filled his brain.
As Scipio drew near Sunny Oak further bestirred himself, which was a concession not often yielded by that individual to anyone. He sat up, and his smile broadened. Then it faded out as he beheld the usually mild expression of the yellow-haired prospector now so set and troubled.
“Gee!” he murmured in an undertone. Then, with an evident effort, he offered a greeting.
“Ho, you, Zip! Drawn a blank way up ther’ on your mudbank?”
Scipio looked up in a dazed fashion. Then he halted and seemed to pull himself together. Finally he spoke.
“Howdy?” he said in a mechanical sort of way.
“Guess I’m a heap better,” responded Sunny, with twinkling eyes.
Scipio gazed up at the store in a bewildered way. He saw the great letters in which Minky’s name and occupation were inscribed on its pretentious front, and it seemed to bring back his purpose to his distracted mind. Instantly the other’s words became intelligible to him, and his native kindliness prompted him.
“You been sick?” he demanded.
“Wal, not rightly sick, but––ailin’.” Sunny’s smile broadened till a mouthful of fairly decent teeth showed through the fringe of his ragged mustache.
“Ailin’?”
“Yep. Guess I bin overdoin’ it.”
“It don’t do, working too hard in the heat,” said Scipio absently.
“Sure,” replied Sunny. “It’s been a hard job avoidin’ it. Ther’s allus folk ready to set me workin’. That’s just the way o’ things. What I need is rest. Say, you ain’t workin’?”
Scipio started.
“No. I’m looking for Wild Bill.”
Sunny Oak jerked his head backwards in the direction of the window.
“Guess he’s at work––in ther’.”
“Thanks.”
Scipio mounted the veranda and passed along to the door of the store. Sunny’s eyes followed him, but he displayed no other interest. With ears and brain alert, however, he waited. He knew that all he required to know would reach him through a channel that was quite effortless to himself. Again he stretched himself out on the bench, and his twinkling eyes closed luxuriously.
Minky’s store was very little different from other places of its kind. He sold everything that could possibly be needed in a newly started mining camp. He did not confine himself to hardware and clothing and canned goods, but carried a supply of drugs, stationery and general dry goods, besides liquor in ample quantities, if of limited quality. There was rye whisky, there was gin, and there was some sort of French brandy. The two latter were in the smallest quantities. Rye was the staple drink of the place.
The walls of the store were lined with shelves on every side, and the shelves were full, even overflowing to a piled-up confusion of goods which were stacked around on the floor. In the somewhat limited floor-space there were tables and benches which could be used for the dual purpose of drink and cards. But wherein Minky’s store was slightly out of the usual was the fact that he was not a Jew, and adopted no Jewish methods of trading. He was scrupulously honest with his customers, and fairly moderate in his charges, relying on this uncommon integrity and temperateness of disposition to make personal liking the basis of his commercial success.
It was perhaps a much further-sighted policy than one would suppose. Several men had endeavored to start in the store business in opposition to him, but in each case their enterprise had proved an utter failure. Not a man in the place would trade elsewhere. Minky was just “Minky,” whom they liked and trusted. And, what was much more to the point, who was ever ready to “trust” them.
Wild Bill was at the poker table with Minky, Sandy Joyce and Toby Jenks when Scipio entered the place. He was a gambler out and out. It was his profession. He was known as Wild Bill of Abilene, a man whose past was never inquired into by even the most youthful newcomer, whose present was a thing that none ever saw sufficient reason to question, and whose future suggested nothing so much as the general uncertainty of things human. He was a man of harsh exterior and, apparently, harsh purpose. His eyes were steely and his tongue ironical; he possessed muscles of iron and a knowledge of poker and all its subtleties that had never yet failed him. He was a dead shot with a pistol, and, in consequence, fear and respect were laid at his feet by his fellow-townsmen. He was also Minky’s most treasured friend.
Sandy Joyce had to his credit a married past, which somehow gave him a certain authority in the place. He was expected to possess a fund of wisdom in matters worldly, and he did his best to live up to this demand. He was also, by the way, an ex-cowpuncher suffering from gold fever, and between whiles played poker with Wild Bill until he had lost the result of his more regular labors. He was a slight, tall, bright-eyed man of thirty, with an elaborate flow of picturesque language. He was afraid of no man, but all women.
Toby Jenks was as short and squat as his friends were long and thin. He was good-tempered, and spent large remittances which reached him at regular intervals in the lulls which occurred in his desultory search for gold.
Minky, a plain, large man of blunt speech and gruff manners, looked up swiftly as Scipio entered, and a moment later three more pairs of eyes were fixed inquiringly upon the newcomer.
“Struck color?” inquired Minky, with his gruffest cordiality.
“No.”
Scipio’s entire attitude had distinctly undergone a change since Sunny Oak’s lazy eyes first discovered his approach. Where before the hopelessness of despair had looked out from every line of his mild face, now his mouth was set obstinately, and a decided thrust to his usually retiring chin became remarkable. Even his wispy hair had an aggression in the manner in which it obtruded from under the brim of his slouch hat. His eyes were nearly defiant, yet there was pleading in them, too. It was as if he were sure of the rightness of his purpose, but needed encouragement in its execution.
For the moment the poker game was stopped, a fact which was wholly due to the interest of the steely eyes of Wild Bill.
“Layin’ off?” inquired the gambler, without a moment’s softening.
“Guess you’re passin’ on that mud lay-out of yours,” suggested Sandy, with a laugh.
Scipio shook his head, and his lips tightened.
“No. I want to borrow a good horse from Bill here.”
The gambler set down the cards he had been shuffling. The statement seemed to warrant his action. He sat back in his chair and bit a chew of tobacco off a black plug. Minky and the others sat round and stared at the little man with unfeigned interest.
“You’re needin’ a hoss?” demanded Bill, without attempting to disguise his surprise. “What for?”
Scipio drew a hand across his brow; a beady sweat had broken out upon it.
“Oh, nothing to bother folk with,” he said, with a painful attempt at indifference. “I’ve got to hunt around and find that feller, ‘Lord’ James.”
A swift glance flashed round the table from eye to eye. Then Sunny Oak’s voice reached them from beyond the window––
“Guess you’ve a goodish ways to travel.”
“Time enough,” said Scipio doggedly.
“What you need to find him for?” demanded Wild Bill, and there was a change in the glitter of his fierce eyes. It was not that they softened, only now they had the suggestion of an ironical smile, which, in him, implied curiosity.
Scipio shifted his feet uneasily. His pale eyes wandered to the sunlit window. One hand was thrust in his jacket pocket, and the fingers of it fidgeted with the rusty metal of the gun that bulged its sides. This pressure of interrogation was upsetting the restraint he was putting on himself. All his grief and anger were surging uppermost again. With a big effort, which was not lost upon his shrewd audience, he choked down his rising emotion.
“Oh, I––I’d like to pay him a ‘party call,’” he blurted out.
Minky was about to speak, but Wild Bill kept him silent with a sharp glance. An audible snigger came from beyond the window.
“Guess you know jest wher’ you’ll locate him?” inquired the gambler.
“No, but I’m going to find him, sure,” replied Scipio doggedly. Then he added, with his eyes averted, “Guess I shan’t let up till I do.”
There was a weak sparkle in the little man’s eyes.
“What’s your game?” rasped Bill curiously.
“Oh, just nothin’.”
The reply caused a brief embarrassed pause. Then the gambler broke it with characteristic force.
“An’ fer that reason you’re––carryin’ a gun,” he said, pointing at the man’s bulging pocket.
Sandy Joyce ceased stacking his “chips”; Toby squared his broad shoulders and drained an already empty glass. Minky blinked his astonishment, while Wild Bill thrust his long legs out and aggressively pushed his hat back on his head. It was at that moment that curiosity overcame Sunny Oak’s habitual indolence, and his face appeared over the window-sill.
“He’s stole from me,” said Scipio in a low tone.
“What’s he stole?” demanded the gambler savagely.
“My wife.”
The stillness of the room remained unbroken for some moments. Actions came far easier to these men than mere words. Scipio’s words had a paralyzing effect upon their powers of speech, and each was busy with thoughts which they were powerless to interpret into words. “Lord” James was a name they had reason to hate. It was a name synonymous with theft, and even worse––to them. He had stolen from their community, which was unforgivable, but this––this was something new to them, something which did not readily come into their focus. Wild Bill was the first to recover himself.
“How d’you know?” he asked.
“She wrote telling me.”
“She went ’cos she notioned it?” inquired Sandy.
“He’s stole her––he’s stole my Jessie,” said Scipio sullenly.
“An’ you’re goin’ to fetch her back?” Bill’s question whipped the still air.
“Sure––she’s mine.”
Scipio’s simplicity and single-mindedness brought forth a sigh of intense feeling from his hearers.
“How?” Wild Bill’s method of interrogation had a driving effect.
“She’s mine, an’––I’m going to get her back.” There was pity at the man’s obstinate assertion in every eye except Wild Bill’s.
“Say, Zip, he’ll kill you,” said the gambler, after a pause.
“She’s my wife. She’s mine,” retorted Scipio intensely. “An’ I’ll shoot him dead if he refuses to hand her over.”
“Say,” the gambler went on, ignoring the man’s protest––the idea of Scipio shooting a man like James was too ludicrous––“you’re up agin a bad proposition, sure. James has stole your––wife. He’s stole more. He’s a stage-robber.”
“A cattle-thief,” broke in Sandy.
“A ‘bad man’ of the worst,” nodded Minky.
“He’s all these, an’ more,” went on Bill, scowling. “He’s a low-down skunk, he’s a pestilence, he’s a murderer. You’re goin’ to hunt him back ther’ to his own shack in the foothills with his gang of toughs around him, an’ you’re goin’ to make him hand back your wife. Say, you’re sure crazy. He’ll kill you. He’ll blow your carkis to hell, an’ charge the devil freightage for doin’ it.”
There was a look of agreement in the eyes that watched Scipio’s mild face. There was more: there was sympathy and pity for him, feelings in these men for which there was no other means of expression.
But Scipio was unmoved from his purpose. His underlip protruded obstinately. His pale eyes were alight with purpose and misery.
“He’s stole my––Jessie,” he cried, “an’ I want her back.” Then, in a moment, his whole manner changed, and his words came with an irresistible pleading. Hard as was the gambler, the pathos of it struck a chord in him the existence of which, perhaps, even he was unaware.
“You’ll lend me a horse, Bill?” the little man cried. “You will, sure? I got fifty dollars saved for the kiddies’ clothes. Here it is,” he hurried on, pulling out a packet of bills from his hip pocket. “You take ’em and keep ’em against the horse. It ain’t sufficient, but it’s all I got. I’ll pay the rest when I’ve made it, if your horse gets hurted. I will, sure. Say,” he added, with a happy inspiration, “I’ll give you a note on my claim––ha’f of it. You’ll do it? You––”
Bill’s face went suddenly scarlet. Something made him lower his eyelids. It was as though he could not look on that eager face unmoved any longer. Somehow he felt in a vague sort of way that poor Scipio’s spirit was altogether too big for his body. Bigger by far than that of those sitting there ready to deride his purpose, and crush it to a weak yielding such as, in their minds, was the only possible thing for a man of his like.
“You set them bills right back in your dip,” he cried, with a savageness that was only a mask to his real feelings; “I don’t need ’em. You ken get right out to the barn an’ have your pick o’ my plugs, an’ anythin’ you need else. Guess you best take the black mare. She’ll carry you all day for a week, sure, an’ then laff at you. Get right on, an’––an’––good luck!”
There are actions performed in every man’s life for which he can never account, even to himself. Such was the act Wild Bill performed at that moment. Gambling was his living, but his horses were a passion with him. He possessed, perhaps, some of the finest in the country, and he worshiped them. He had never been known to lend a horse to his best friend, and no one but himself had ever been allowed to feed or groom them. He was prouder of them than a father might be of his firstborn son, and as careful of them as any doting mother. Therefore his assent to Scipio’s request was quite staggering to his companions. Nor did he know why he did it, and a furious anger followed immediately upon this unusual outburst of good-nature.
Scipio was profuse in his thanks. But he was cut short with a violence that seemed quite unnecessary. For the moment, at least, Bill hated the little man almost as much as he hated this “Lord” James he was setting out in search of.
After that no word passed until Scipio had left the store for the barn. Bill sat wrapt in moody thought, his fierce eyes lowered in contemplation of his well-shod feet. His cards were forgotten, the men around him were forgotten. Sandy and the storekeeper were watching his harsh face in wonder, while Toby’s head was turned in the direction of the departing man. It was Sunny Oak from his post at the window who finally broke the silence.
“Guess you gone plumb ‘bug,’ Bill,” he said, with an amiable grin. Then, as only a flicker of a smile from the others answered him, and Bill ignored his charge altogether, he hurried on, “You’re helpin’ that misguided feller to a dose of lead he’ll never have time to digest. If ever Zip runs foul of James, he’ll blow him to hell as sure––as ther’s allus work for those as don’t need it. An’, wot’s more, you’ll never set eyes on your black mare agin, ’less it’s under James’ saddle. You’re sure ‘bug.’ You oughter be seen to.”
It was only Sunny Oak who would have dared to say so much to the gambler. But then, for some unstated reason, Sunny was a privileged person on Suffering Creek. Nobody paid much attention to the manner in which he allowed his tongue to run on, and, besides, he was too lazy to be afraid of anybody.
Bill looked round.
“You’re side-tracked,” he observed contemptuously. “James won’t shoot Jessie’s husband. Maybe he’ll kick him out, maybe he’ll roast him bad, and tongue-lash him. Anyways, every man’s got to play his own hand. An’––it’s good to see him playin’ hard, win or lose. But Zip’ll git back, sure. An’ he’ll bring my mare with him. Go to sleep, Sunny; your thinkin’-pan’s nigh hatched out.”
“I don’t guess he’ll ever get alongside James,” observed Minky thoughtfully. “We’ve all looked for him a piece. We know he’s got a shanty back in the foothills, but I don’t seem to remember hearin’ of anybody findin’ it. I don’t guess Zip’s wise to where it is.”
Bill’s eyes lit with a curious fire.
“Guess Zip’ll find him,” he said quietly. “Maybe it’ll take him time––”
“An’,” cried Sunny, “how’s them pore kiddies to live meanwhiles?”
The loafer fired his little bomb with the desired effect. The men had no answer for some moments. And gradually all eyes fixed themselves upon Bill’s face, as though acknowledging his leadership. He answered the challenge in characteristic fashion.
“Guess we’ll turn Sunny loose to wet-nurse ’em.”
An announcement which set Sunny plunging headlong to his own defense.
“Say, ain’t ther’ no sort o’ peace for a feller as needs rest? You’re all mighty smart settin’ folks to work. But this is your game, Bill, an’ it’s up to you to put it thro’. I ’low you’d make an elegant wet-nurse––so soft and motherish.”
But Bill had had enough, and turned upon the face at the window in his most savage manner.
“See here,” he cried, with fierce irony, “we’ve all know’d you since Sufferin’ Creek was Sufferin’ Creek, an’ nobody ain’t never kicked. But it’s kind o’ ne’ssary for every feller around these parts to justify ’emselves. Get me? You need ‘justifyin’.’ Wal, I guess you’ll see to them kiddies till Zip comes back. It’s going to be your work seein’ they don’t get fixed into any sort o’ trouble, an’ when Zip gets back you’ll hand ’em over clean an’ fixed right. Get that? I’m payin’ for their board, an’ I’m payin’ you a wage. An’ you’re goin’ to do it, or light right out o’ here so quick your own dust’ll choke you.”
“Here, here!” cried Toby, with a delighted laugh.
Sandy grinned into the loafer’s angry face, while Minky nodded an unsmiling approval.
“Gee, you beat hell for nerve!” cried Sunny.
“Guess I ken do better. I ken beat you,” retorted Bill contemptuously. “You’ll do it, or––you ken start gettin’ out now,” he added.
Sunny realized his position by the expression of the other men’s faces, and, quickly resuming his good-humored plaint, he acquiesced with a grumble.
“Gee! but it’s a tough world,” he complained, dropping back on to his bench hurriedly, lest fresh demands should be made upon him, and just in time to witness Scipio leading a beautiful black mare up to the tying-post.
The men in the store turned out at the sound of horse’s hoofs, and stood gathered on the veranda. Bill’s keen eyes were fixed regretfully on the shining sides of his favorite animal. She was a picture of lean muscle and bone, with a beautiful small head, and ears that looked little larger than well-polished mussel-shells. She stood pawing the ground impatiently while Scipio tied her to the post, and she nuzzled his ribs playfully with her twitching lips in the most friendly spirit. But Bill’s eyes were suddenly arrested by the manner in which she was saddled and bridled. Poor Scipio had blundered in a hopeless fashion.
Other eyes, too, had seen the blunder, and Sandy Joyce suddenly pointed.
“Mackinaw! Jest get that,” he cried.
“By Gee!” laughed Sunny.
But Wild Bill cut them all short in a surprising manner.
“Say, guess you fellers ain’t never made no sort o’ mistakes––any o’ you. You’re laffin’ a heap. Quit it, or––” His eyes flashed dangerously. Then, as the men became silent, he darted across to where Scipio was still fumbling with the neck rope.
The little man’s attempt at saddling, under any other circumstances, would have brought forth Bill’s most scathing contempt. The saddle was set awry upon an ill-folded blanket. It was so far back from the mare’s withers that the twisted double cinchas were somewhere under her belly, instead of her girth. Then the bit was reversed in her mouth, and the curb-strap was hanging loose.
Bill came to his rescue in his own peculiar way.
“Say, Zip,” he cried in a voice that nothing could soften, “I don’t guess you altered them stirrups to fit you. I’ll jest fix ’em.” And the little man stood humbly by while he set to work. He quickly unfastened the cinchas, and set the blanket straight. Then he shifted the saddle, and refastened the cinchas. Then he altered the stirrups, and passed on to the mare’s bridle––Scipio watching him all the while without a word. But when the gambler had finished he glanced up into his lean face with an almost dog-like gratitude.
“Thanks, Bill,” he said. “I never done it before.”
“So I guessed.” And the gambler’s words, though wholly harsh, had no other meaning in them. Then he went on, as Scipio scrambled into the saddle, “You don’t need to worry any ’bout things here. Your kiddies’ll be seen to proper till you get back, if you’re on the trail a month.”
Scipio was startled. He had forgotten his twins.
“Say––you––”
But Bill wanted no thanks or explanations.
“We’re seein’ to them things––us, an’ that all-fired lazy slob, Sunny Oak. Ther’ won’t be no harm––” He flicked the restive mare, which bounded off with the spring of a gazelle. “Ease your hand to her,” he called out, so as to drown Scipio’s further protestations of gratitude, “ease your hand, you blamed little fule. That’s it. Now let her go.”
And the mare raced off in a cloud of dust.