184XXI.CARSON’S BLANK PAGES IN LIFE.
When Carson left the cabin he followed the winding trail that led to the valley below. The road to Saguache showed the hoofprints of a prospector’s outfit, and the marks of a sleigh leading to Del Norte. The glare of the sun on the reflected snow was blinding and he drew his hat down over his eyes. He was thinking of his worthless life since leaving college. Once he had builded lofty hopes of future doings in the world, but he had allowed himself to drift; his ship of fate had gone wherever the strongest tide wind carried. He saw now that he might have marked out some honorable career and piloted his course toward it. Others of his class in college were in a fair way to make their mark in the world. Why was it not so with him? It was born in him, as it had185been in his father, to choose the wild life of the frontier in preference to holding the presidency of a bank in Atlanta. He felt that the world in its wildest freedom was his for his pleasure. The cords of restraint which society demanded were to him the fetters of a tyrant ruler, and so, as Sampson broke the green withes which bound him, Carson broke the laws of society––nay civilization, and married a squaw according to the ceremony of her people. He repented the act to some extent, and then cast his cares aside, with the comforting knowledge that the world was too busy a place for people to give themselves much concern over his affairs. Long ago he realized that if he threw himself into the swirl of humanity and allowed himself to become a part of its motives and its emotions, that it would require a herculean effort to attain a position where he could look over the heads of other men. That position, he argued, was not worth the life-long effort required. Withal, he could not bring himself to quite understand186why he had married Mary Greenwater, unless that she possessed some occult power and gained control over forces of his nature which he did not understand. True, there was but little or no obligation to the ceremony. It held good in the Cherokee Indian nation, that government within a government. Outside that limited space of ground it was null and void. He was a free man under the laws of his own government. Yet that act, of his own creation, somehow seemed to stand over him like a Frankenstein with an uplifted axe.
The snow was deep, and as he plodded along with these thoughts running through his mind, he heard a cry. Glancing backwards he saw a horse drawing a sleigh, plunging madly down the road. The reins were held by a woman, frantically urging the horse forward. Some distance behind four huge mountain lions were in hot pursuit, their heavy bodies crouching and springing forward many feet at a leap. Carson took in the situation at a glance and, raising his hand as a signal to the girl187in the sleigh to rein in, he sprang into the vehicle as she passed. The momentary pause had given the beasts a chance to gain, when, drawing his revolver, he fired at the foremost and sent it rolling in the snow. Another shot and a second lion paused with a mighty roar. At this the other two turned and fled in the opposite direction.
Carson now took the reins and stopped the horse. The animal was trembling with fright, while the girl was calm but pale.
“Rather a close shave, eh, Sis?”
“Truly,” she replied, “how fortunate you were here. I was driving to Del Norte when I met the lions. They were gamboling in the snow like kittens. When I turned Bess, they pursued. I want the one you have just killed, I want to have him mounted to remember today,––and––and––you.”
“By all means, Miss, you shall have it, but where are you going now?”
“Back to Saguache after this fright. Poor Old Bess could not have stood the188race much farther. See how she trembles. I am the niece of Mr. Amos. My name is Annie Amos. I have friends in Del Norte, whom I intended to visit. I shall wait now until I have an escort.”
“Ah––my name is Carson––Jack Carson. I was going to Saguache to see Mr. Amos, the assayer, to have him test a jug handle,––er, that is, to have the jug handle test him. I don’t mean that; I mean our mine is named the Jug Handle, I will get it right after awhile, and I want him to make a test of the ore.”
“Confound it,” he thought as he turned the horse, “I haven’t the sense of a jackrabbit to make a break like that.”
One of the lions lay pawing the snow in its death struggle and as Carson came near, it reared itself as if to make one last leap. Its eyes gleamed in savage yellow, foam fell in flecks from its mouth, while a tiny stream of crimson stained the snow. Carson’s weapon spit fire and the creature rolled over motionless. He dragged the carcass to the end of the sleigh and, lifting189it upon the edge of the box, made it fast.
“If you are going to Saguache to see my uncle, I fear you will be disappointed as he left this morning for an absence of several days.”
“That does not matter as I have other business anyway. Most any time will do, as I am in town quite often. We would better not drive so fast. Your horse is in a foam.”
Carson was fast becoming interested in the girl at his side. Her calm poise, after the exciting adventures with the mountain lions, surprised him. Other women would have been hysterical, but here by his side sat a girl not yet out of her teens, as calm and collected as a veteran soldier after the battle. And Amos, the man he was going to see and intended to kill if he proved to be the villain he suspected him to be, was her uncle.
The white billows rose rank on rank on the distant mountains, while the snow of the valley shrunk visibly away, leaving the grey rocks naked and protuberant.
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The newly-made acquaintances chatted gaily as the horse jogged along.
“I was thinking of your remark awhile ago,” said Carson, “that you would go to Del Norte tomorrow if you had an escort, and as I have some time to idle away it would give me pleasure to drive you over.”
“It would give me equal pleasure to have you do so,” she replied with admirable frankness, “that is, if you are going there anyway.”
“I may need to purchase some new implements with which to work the Aberdeen––I mean the Jug Handle mine,” he explained. “I have heard of a new drill they are working over there and it may be just the thing for the formation we are now in.”
“I see,” said the girl, as a mischievous smile flitted about her lips, “and I am very glad you will accompany me. I shall make you acquainted with some of my very dear friends.”
Carson was forgetting his millions in the mine and letting his mind wander to the expected joys of entertaining and being191entertained by people of real worth once more. He felt returning pride, and then the thought of the Frankenstein with the uplifted axe made him groan inwardly. But pshaw! she did not know––never would know, and what people do not know will not hurt them, he reasoned.
He felt an increasing admiration for the girl beside him. They were alone in the wide expanse of valley and had known each other only an hour, yet this girl was willing to trust to his honor and manhood. And be it said for Carson, as it may be said for thousands of other men on the American frontier, he would have yielded his life rather than betray that sacred trust. Instances like this are common in the West.
As they drove down the main street of Saguache, the passers looked curiously at the pair in the sleigh and at the dead lion strapped behind. When they stopped in front of the postoffice, a crowd gathered around the sleigh. A supple figure edged through the crowd and addressed the girl:
“Kill it all by yourself, Annie?”
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The familiarity with which he spoke nettled the girl, and she turned her head without answering. The supple figure felt the rebuff and all the more because others noticed it. He stood his ground, however, until Carson returned and when he saw his face he quickly drew out of sight.
“Tomorrow at seven,” said Carson, as he bade her good-bye at her house.
Carson went to his hotel with a lighter heart than he had had for months. He lit a cigar and sat by the window, then felt for something in his pocket, and threw it in the wood-box. “There are other jug handles,” he said to himself.
He walked the streets aimlessly until supper. He retired early and tried to sleep, but his thoughts ran wild on the events of the day. He could think of no one except Annie. It was still early in the night, when he arose from a restless bed and went out on the streets. Lights blazed from the Lone Tree saloon, and as he entered he saw a crowd about the faro table. The sudden exclamations of many voices193told that some one was winning heavily. He pressed forward through the crowd and saw the form of a woman. When she partially turned her face, he felt his heart give a great throb, and he fled into the street.
The remainder of the night he walked through the crunching snow, while the silent stars seemed to gaze with tearful eyes upon him in this, the greatest misery he had ever known. He walked several miles out of town to avoid meeting anyone he knew and then presented himself at the Amos residence.
“I believe it is seven o’clock, Miss Annie,” he said, when she answered his call.
“Yes, and I am ready,” was the cheerful answer.
194XXII.A VOICE FROM CENTURIES PAST.
Buchan was ready to throw the lever of his engine and roll out of Tucson, when a messenger handed him a packet bearing the postmark of Peru. The missive showed signs of age, and, having traveled much, had reached its destination at last. He tossed it into his tool box and an hour later when speeding over the scorched deserts of Arizona, he opened the packet. The letter was dated at Truxillo and read:
“Dear Don Juan––I have been ill for many months, and I feel that my end is drawing nigh, but before I go I want to do something for you. I have heard how Don Rodrigo so justly met his end, and with this knowledge I die easier. You are young and strong, with a long life of usefulness ahead, and I feel that in entrusting to you a family secret, I am only doing that which195I would have done had Felicita lived. She was the last of our house and the heritage of our family belonged to her. As it is, I make you my heir to the valuable papers handed down to me from my ancestors. May they prove to you a blessing. Would that I had more to give you. May the blessings of the Virgin ever rest upon you.“Julian.”
“Dear Don Juan––I have been ill for many months, and I feel that my end is drawing nigh, but before I go I want to do something for you. I have heard how Don Rodrigo so justly met his end, and with this knowledge I die easier. You are young and strong, with a long life of usefulness ahead, and I feel that in entrusting to you a family secret, I am only doing that which195I would have done had Felicita lived. She was the last of our house and the heritage of our family belonged to her. As it is, I make you my heir to the valuable papers handed down to me from my ancestors. May they prove to you a blessing. Would that I had more to give you. May the blessings of the Virgin ever rest upon you.
“Julian.”
Accompanying the letter was a parchment scroll, dated Lima, 1752. It read:
“I, Jean Maldonado, do write of my extraordinary adventures in Nueva Espanola, wherein I was duly appointed the Commander of an expedition to the land of Quivera, in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, in the service of his excellency, the viceroy of Santa Fe. A barbarian told us he would lead us unto a land to the far north, where shops blazed with jewels and common cooking vessels were made of gold; that the metal was so common as to be of no value. The king of this city took his noonday meals beneath a golden canopy,196hung with tinkling silver bells. There was a sea upon which this king rode in a canoe, which would carry twenty horses. Upon its prow was an idol of beaten gold. The canoe was fitted with sumptuous cushions, upon which the monarch took his siestas, to the music made by dancing maidens with bells and castanets. Fish as large as horses abounded, and sweet fruit bigger than a soldier’s helmet grew upon the trees. The monarch who ruled over this land was long-bearded, white-haired, and wore robes of bright-hued, rich stuffs, and slept in a garden where trees were hung with a thousand bells, which made exquisite music when shaken by the wind. And this king worshipped the golden image of a woman, the Queen of Heaven, and ate from gold and silver bowls, of which the dais he sat upon was made. He spoke with vast assurance and said he would conduct us thither whenever we should follow.
“We journeyed northward many leagues over mountains and came to a wide valley197watered by a stream. Farther on were high mountains and we named them Sangre de Christo and marked three mountains ‘Spanish Peaks’ on our map, that we might not miss our way. One day a pious soldier saw the barbarian with his face in a pool of water, talking with the devil. After that we were suspicious. After many days’ journey we found the city, but alas, it was mud huts, and the only metal was a copper plate around the old chief’s neck and by which he sat great store. There were no golden vessels, no image of the Virgin, no golden dais and no silver bells.
“The wicked barbarian then said he had led us into the desert to die. Our soldiers were wroth and I ordered him hanged on a considerable tree, to let him know there was a God in heaven and a King in Spain.
“We turned our steps backward after we had set up a cross, and journeyed into the valley. Now there were many oxen come into the valley of the figure and color of our bulls, but their horns were not so198great. They had a great bunch upon their fore shoulders and more hair upon their fore parts than on their hind parts. They had a horse’s mane upon their backbone and much hair from the knees downward. They had great tufts of hair hanging from their foreheads and it seemeth that they had beards, because of the great store of hair at their chins and throats. In some respects they resembled a lion, and in some others the camel. They pushed with their horns, and they overtook and killed horses. Finally, it was a foul and fierce beast of countenance.
“We have stayed close to the mountains where we could flee to the rocks if they pursued us. We were crossing the mountain, when we came upon a spring near unto a huge cliff that sat on the edge like a platter. We camped here many days until the bulls left the valley. Some distance from the rock like a platter, Casteanda found gold in a white rock, which we did beat up and saved much pure gold. Casteanda journeyed to Santa Fe and returned199with more donkeys, and we loaded upon them much unbeaten rock. We all then journeyed back to Santa Fe, for the barbarians were angry at our intrusion and we went in haste, leaving more gold in the white rock than would load a ship’s boat. I cut in the rock, high up, the words:
“‘Jean Maldonado.“‘Commander of an Expedition, reached this place, 1750.’
“All this, so that the subjects of Spain might know this country belonged to His Majesty.
“We journeyed back to Santa Fe after many days of hardships and we found a new Viceroy had been appointed and he demanded our gold. This we were loath to give up, and after selling it to a trader for the coin of the realm, we started across the country for New Orleans, knowing well not to go south for the new Viceroy would pursue us and take the gold.
“We journeyed along the banks of a considerable river by night and hid ourselves by day. We saw many thousands of ferocious200bulls grazing, and when they ran the noise was like thunder and it made us afraid. We crossed many rivers and finally came to a country of wooded hills where the Barbarians were thick and ferocious.
“The Barbarians pursued us and we hid our gold and records in a cave and rolled a stone over the hole and fled. They killed nearly all of our expedition and our mules. Baptiste was sorely wounded in the breast with an arrow and notwithstanding we bled him copiously, he died.
“The treatment given us by the Barbarians irritated us exceedingly and we fell upon them with swords when they were not in great numbers.
“We came to a river whose waters were red, like unto the color of the tiles on the houses of Seville, and after journeying along its banks for many nights, we came unto the River of the Holy Ghost, which DeSoto discovered and here we found safety.
“While all these things were new in my201mind I made another map in order that I might take another expedition to the mine when the Viceroy grew rich from the spoils of office and would trouble us no more. But he did write unto the people of Spain that I would be hanged upon my return to Santa Fe, therefore I desisted in returning. Being extremely irritated at his conduct I sought my fortune in Peru, until such time when he should be called to heaven, which call even now, in my old age, has not yet been made, over which misfortune I have sorely grieved.”
Accompanying this document was a map with the Sangre de Christo range, the Spanish Peaks, the River, Valley and flat cliff on edge, plainly marked. The distance from Santa Fe and the mountain passes was clearly indicated.
A month later Buchan was transferred on a run out of Santa Fe where the hand of Fate and Chance again took part. He received a letter from Mr. Robinson who had joined a surveying party and had fallen ill at Saguache. The letter implored202him to come, if he ever expected to see him alive. True to his old time friendship, he lost no time in reaching his bedside. Mr. Robinson lingered a few weeks and died. This was more sad news for Hattie in her far-away home, amid the Santa Lucia mountains. She alone remained of the happy family who had gone to Arequipa with fond hopes for the future beneath those sunny skies.
I, the writer, had been with Carson a few days before prospecting in the Sangre de Christo mountains, when by chance we rested at the spring beside the peculiar shaped cliff. I noticed that Carson was interested in the surroundings, but I thought nothing of it at the time. The formation of the cliff appealed to my fancy, and I chanced to mention it to Buchan one day when he became excited and asked to be shown its whereabouts.
Together with Carson we visited the spot. Being an old prospector, I soon discovered formations that looked like pay ore. My years of experience in these203mountains had taught me that a man might work a lifetime and gain nothing, and again from the outcroppings of a stone at grass roots he might develop a mine worth a million dollars.
Carson and Buchan were sanguine over our prospects, too much so, I thought, for men who had no experience in mining.
I located the claim so as to include the cliff and spring and when I made out the registration papers, I said: “Gentlemen, what shall we call the mine?”
“Name it the Maldonado,” said Carson.
“What!” exclaimed Buchan, turning an ashen paleness.
“The Major Domo,” replied Carson, looking somewhat abashed.
“Name it the Aberdeen,” said Buchan. “I like to hear that name spoken, it was my old home in Scotland.”
204XXIII.THE TWO OLD BLACK CROWS.
Amos sat in the little back room of Rayder’s office in Denver. His beady black eyes glistened beneath his beetle brows. A pleased expression shone on his thin face, drawn in wrinkles like stained parchment. Rayder was out, but had left instructions for him to wait. As he sat there his eye caught sight of something interesting on Rayder’s desk. The door was closed and he was alone. He leaned forward and took up some slips of paper for closer inspection. They were certificates of assay from Pendleton. The pleased look vanished as he noted Amos No. 1, Amos No. 2, Amos No. 3, and so on for a dozen or more slips. Rayder did not trust him, and had had the sample of ore assayed by Pendleton for corroboration.
“He does not even believe in honesty205among thieves,” he mused, as he carefully replaced the papers. Then the pleased look came back to his face.
“All the better,” he thought. “He will deal now and it is my time to strike before the iron cools.”
He drew his chair further back from the desk, and pretended to be reading a newspaper when he heard Rayder coming.
“Just the man I have been wanting to see,” said Rayder, extending his hand, “how is everything in Saguache and how is Annie?”
“Annie is handsome as ever, but there is a new assayer coming to town next month and I understand he is on the dead square, and what we do we have got to do all-fired quick. How is this for an eye-opener?” He took from his pocket several lumps of shining ore.
“Sylvanite,” exclaimed Rayder. “What does it run?”
“Eighty ounces to the ton. There is a quarter of a million dollars on the dump206and the fellows think it is copper and pyrites of iron.”
“How would it do to contest the claim?”
“Dangerous business, they have taken to killing claim jumpers. One was shot last week, and this outfit will shoot, no mistake. It is better to buy them out for a song. They are about broke anyway. They believe everything I tell them, have a child-like confidence in me, same as everybody has. I tell you, Rayder, I stand at the top in the estimation of everybody, and all we have got to do is to have the buyer on the ground, and when they come in with their next samples I will prove to them their values have run out, show them some rich stuff from down the valley and like all others of their class, they will stampede.”
“That sounds good, but tell me more of Annie, did she appreciate the cloak I sent her for a Christmas present?”
“Appreciate it! I should say she did. She just worships it because it came from you, and say, she has your photograph on207the wall where she can see it all the time. She just dotes on that picture. I tell her there is the chance of her life, a fine house, fine clothes, a chance to go abroad and cultivate her musical talent, become a great singer and meet dukes and lords and crowned heads. Why, the girl is just crazy over you, and I believe she would marry you even if you did not have a cent. It is like marrying December to May, you sixty and she nineteen, pretty and vivacious––warm up your old bones, eh?”
Rayder’s eyes shone and he stroked his beard with delight. “Charley,” he called to his office boy, “bring up a quart of whisky, some lemons and sugar.”
“Sweet creature, I love thee,” said Amos a few minutes later, holding up a half goblet of whisky. “You do the proper thing in setting out these kind of glasses; puts me in mind of my old home down in Texas, where we never drink out of anything smaller than a tin cup or a gourd.”
“Here is to Annie and Rayder––may208your posterity become presidents and wives of presidents.”
“Drink hearty,” said Rayder, emptying his glass, which he had filled to the fullness of Amos’ out of compliment.
“Charley, bring up a box of perfectos,” he shouted. “You may then lock up and go home.”
The glasses were again drained and the two black crows chattered until the streets were growing quiet for the night. Supper was forgotten in the love feast of Amos and Rayder.
“Do you know, Amos, I always did love you just like a brother?”
“Here, too, Rayder, you know the first time we saw each other, I sez to myself––I sez––there is a man that would stick to a friend through thick and thin.”
“You are that kind of a man yourself, Amos, is the reason you have a good opinion of me. I never had a friend in distress yet that I didn’t help him out.”
“That’s right, Rayder, that’s right. Them’s the qualities that go to make up209nature’s noblemen. Lord, if I had a known you years ago we’d a bin millionaires––my knowledge of mines and your sagacity. That’s what counts, and you never fail in your estimate of men, either. Lord, you was born under lucky stars.
“Take another drink, Rayder, take a cistern full. ’Taint often we meet on auspicious occasions like this, and we won’t go home ’till mornin,’ and we won’t go home ’till morning, hic––hurrah for Annie, Rayder, and a million outer the mine.”
“An’ she shame short of share of prosperity to my brother Amos,” and Rayder took another drink.
“Shay, Rayder, you come and go home with me and hang around a day or two until you buy the mine and play sweet with Annie, an’ the night of the weddin’ we’ll hev a dance and send you away on your bridal tour in a blaze of glory.”
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it, Amos, an’ then we’ll be almost brothers ’cordin’ ter law, anyway.”
“Shay, Rayder, did I tell ye I had a210little mix up with a woman, an’ I’m scared to death ’fear old woman ’ill find it out. I got ’ter square the deal or I’m a goner and stuff’s all off, want yer to let me take ten thousand fer few days, got ter blow a lot o’ money on weddin’, too, yer see.”
“All right, Amos, youse’s square a man’s ever met. I’ll let ye hev it.”
“Good, thet’s relief; sooner I get it easier mind’ll be. Nuthin’ like ’mediate action to relieve man’s mind, you know. Let’s take nuther drink and ye can write th’ check with steadier hand.”
Rayder swallowed another drink while Amos fumbled about the desk until he found Rayder’s check book.
“Bet ye can’t spell ten without making a crook. There now, if you can write thousand as well you’re a peachareno. Bully, now write Silas Rayder at the bottom. You’re a brother in fact, Rayder, an’ I love ye better as any brother. Shay, let’s hev nuther bottle.”
And Amos pocketed the check and quietly slipped down stairs, to the saloon and was211back with another quart before Rayder had roused from his drunken stupor. He poured out another half goblet of whisky.
“Shay, Rayder, de ye know about story of Guvner of North Carolina sed to Guvner of South Carolina, to effet an’ words, it was long time between drinks?”
“An’ that was a damn shame Guvner hed to wait, ought to had you along an’ famous epigram ed never been born.”
Half an hour later Rayder was stretched upon the lounge in the little back office, dead to the world. Amos sat by the window sobering up until the grey of the morning. The sleeping man roused, and Amos gave him another half goblet of whisky followed by a sip of water. He had drawn the blinds and left the coal-oil lamp burning when it grew light, lest the sleeping man should arouse and discover it was daylight.
When the office boy came, he cautioned him not to awaken Rayder. He then crossed over to the bank, called for the face payment of the check in gold coin. He took the money to the Wells Fargo Express company’s office and expressed it to his wife in Saguache.
THE AREGUIPENA. (Page 56)
THE AREGUIPENA. (Page 56)
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Rayder was sleeping when he returned. He placed the check book in its accustomed place in the desk, destroyed all evidence of the night’s debauch and left a note on the desk saying: “My dear Rayder, I have been suddenly called home by the illness of my wife. Come to Saguache as soon as you can make it convenient. Amos.”
When Rayder awoke it was four o’clock in the afternoon. His head was in a whirl and every muscle was twitching. He called Charley and sent for a doctor. The doctor saw the trouble at a glance. He called a hack and accompanied Rayder to his home.
“This will never do, Mr. Rayder. You have drank much whisky in your time and it has become a poison to your system. Do not look for me to get you out of this in less time than four weeks.”
213XXIV.THE RECKLESS HAND OF FATE.
The day was fair when Carson left Saguache with pretty Annie Amos seated beside him in the sleigh. Although he had spent the night in fearful anxiety, walking the streets, he now felt such a relief over getting out of town, undiscovered by Mary Greenwater, that he was bubbling over with high spirits. In the presence of Annie his better nature stood outward and he even surprised himself with his quick sallies of wit and repartee. Annie was charmed with his presence, and as the two chatted gaily, they did not notice the lowering clouds about the Spanish Peaks, until a strong wind began to raise and soon one of those sudden storms so common to the region was coming in all its fury. In a short while it became a raging blizzard. The214snow drifted in blinding swirls, so dense that the horse’s head could not be seen.
Carson had experienced the blizzard on the range and knew the only safe course was to let the horse have the reins, and trust to its animal instinct to find a shelter. He drew the robes securely about Annie and endeavored to allay her fears, although conscious of the peril they were in. The horse was plodding its way through the snow-drifts and it was evident that the animal would soon become exhausted. The blizzard might last all night, or it might continue for three days. On those trackless wastes in such a storm death by freezing was almost certain, unless they reached a place of shelter. The hours dragged by. He kept up an incessant talking with Annie, lest she should fall into the fatal sleep. The girl was quick to perceive his tender care, and in full apprehension of their danger, felt a growing confidence in the man beside her. She knew that he fully realized their peril and admired him for his efforts to conceal his fears from her.
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It was growing darker and the horse was moving with feeble steps. Carson was at the point of giving vent to his fears, when the animal stopped. He left the sleigh, and upon going to the horse’s head, found they were beside a cabin. His heart gave a great leap of joy and he called exultantly to Annie.
The cabin was deserted, but, praise Providence, it was shelter. The door swung open on its hinges. There was a fireplace with some half-burned logs in a heap of ashes. When Annie was securely inside, he brought in the robes from the sleigh and next unhitched the horse and brought the animal inside the cabin. This made Annie’s heart leap with joy; she had not considered how they would protect the horse, and this humane act on the part of Carson gave her the most implicit confidence in the man. There is nothing to fear from a man who is so kind to animals, was her mental comment.
Soon there was a blazing fire on the hearth. Some poles were found by the216door. These Carson dug from the snow and brought inside. He had no axe with which to cut them, and in the emergency, he laid the ends together in the fire slantwise from the chimney, and as they burned away, he shoved the logs forward. The wind screamed in wildest fury, while the snow drifted in through the rough clapboard roof.
Until now no thought had been given to the lunch which Annie had prepared for the trip. She brought it out from among the wraps and when Carson gave the horse a buttered biscuit as his share of the meal, she watched the act with a thrill of gladness. The blazing logs gave warmth and light, and the man and woman sat and talked throughout the long watches of the night, while the snow drifted and the wind screamed and roared, making the loose clapboards of the roof creak and groan.
There these two, thrown together by the reckless hand of fate, told incidents of their lives and won the love and sympathy of each other. A new song was born in217Carson’s breast. For a moment he seemed to remember a former life; somewhere out in the wide, white waste and hush of infinite space, where they had known each other and now their souls imprisoned in forms of clay, they had met by chance and renewed an old affinity.
As she told him the simple story of her life, he listened with ever-increasing interest. An orphan at an early age, she had since lived in the home of her Uncle Amos. Everything had gone well until the last year, when her uncle brought Rayder to their home and insisted that she should regard him as a suitor for her hand. Rayder, old and grey, had dyed his whiskers and tried to appear boyish. His intentions were well enough––he would give her all she would ask that money could purchase––but she could not love the man and could never think of becoming his wife. Amos, her uncle, was a man of avarice and greed. He insisted that it was a duty she owed him for his fatherly care in bringing her up. He dwelt on the advantages it would218be to him in his old age and that it would be only right for her to help him in this way. He had appealed to her generous nature and sought to make her believe this sacrifice on her part would be just and right. Amos’ wife had taken the same view of the matter and urged that the wedding should be at an early date. Annie, alone in the world, had no one to whom she could go for counsel. Some of the coarse women of the mining camp who came to their home thought her the most fortunate of girls to have a suitor as rich as Rayder, and ridiculed the idea of her refusing to accept the greatest opportunity of her life. Some of their husbands were rough, uncouth men, who cared nothing for the luxuries of a home, spent most of their money and time drinking and gambling at the Lone Tree, and they gauged conditions as they were with themselves. They were honest-hearted women of the frontier who believed they were doing the girl a kindness. It was not through bravery that she was cool and collected, yesterday, in the219presence of death from the lions, she told him, but because she had almost made up her mind that she did not care. Death had lost its terrors in the contemplation of impending fate.
He did not tell her of the burden of his heart. He did not feel that he dared to ask for sympathy. At that hour he would have given ten years of his life to undo his marriage with Mary Greenwater by the ancient custom of the Swiftest Horse. He knew the Indian woman and knew that she intended to kill him and yet he felt helpless, powerless. He did tell the girl beside him that he, too, was alone in the world and hoped to merit the love of a good woman and that his every act in life should go to prove his sincerity. And so, amid the wild scenes of the night, they talked.
At noon the following day, the storm abated and when the flurries of snow had ceased they saw the town of Del Norte well down on the plain.
Annie was received at the home of her friends with delight and when she told them220of her recent adventures, they gave expression to heartfelt joy for Annie’s safety, and called Carson a hero.
Carson did not leave Del Norte for six weeks. Meanwhile, Annie visited her friends. When the two were not together in the cozy parlor at Annie’s host’s, Carson kept close in his room at the hotel. He wanted to delay the meeting with Mary Greenwater as long as possible. If she was only a man,––ah, that would be different! It would then be knife to knife, or bullet to bullet––he would not shrink. But she was a woman, an educated Indian woman upon whom society had some claim, and she had some claim upon it.
Annie promised to become his wife and it was arranged that she should return to her uncle’s home, and as soon as he could arrange his affairs at the mine they would go to an eastern state. He first intended, however, to make a clean breast of the Mary Greenwater affair, and trust his fate to her love for him.
When he reached the foot of the Sangre221de Christo range, through the great depths of snow, he saw the fearful havoc of the snow slide and noted the slanting position of the edgewise cliff. Thinking it was of but recent occurrence, he hurried to Saguache and gave the alarm that two of his companions were buried beneath the mountain of snow.
In no place in the world does an appeal for help meet with a quicker response than among the pioneers of the west. The news flew over the town like wildfire that two miners were imprisoned in a snow slide. A relief party was organized at once and Carson led them to the base of the range.
Mary Greenwater saw Carson organizing the relief, she stood within a few feet of him unobserved, and could have shot him, but she knew better than shoot a man in the act of aiding the distressed. The crowd would hang her, woman or no woman, and she knew it. Some other time than this––she would wait.
222XXV.CORDS OF LOVE ARE STRONG.
Hattie Judson sat by the window overlooking the green wheat fields of the Los Ossis valley. The bells in the old mission were calling the humble worshippers of the valley, just as they had done for more than one hundred and forty years. She watched the blue haze of the valley growing denser in the shadows of the evening. She heard the low boom of a signal gun roll up from the sea. It was from the coast steamer in the open roadstead, the signal she was listening for in the hope that it would bring her a letter––the letter for which she had been waiting for six weeks.
The shadows from the coast hills crept up the valley, and the stars shone, when the whistle of the little narrow-gauge engine announced its arrival from the port. She put on her wraps and went to the postoffice and waited a good long hour before the mail was distributed. There was nothing223in her box except the San Francisco paper. And yet she felt intuitively there must be some news. She returned to her home with a vague feeling of dread and lit the parlor lamp. Mechanically she scanned the headlines of the paper when her eye caught the line:
“Imprisoned Miners in Snow-slide;Relief Party Working Night and Day.”
“Saguache, Colo.––Word reached here last night that John Buchan and James Winslow, miners working a claim on the Sangre de Christo range, were buried in their cabin beneath a snow slide. It is believed the men are alive although there seems to be small hope of rescuing them on account of an overhanging cliff which may topple at any moment, with the melting snows and crush them out of existence. Rescue parties are at work night and day.”
The room seemed to whirl and grow dark as she finished reading. Tears came to her eyes and she cried aloud. The members of the family came to find the cause of her outcry and found her in a flood of224tears. They read the dispatch and knew the cause. The paper was two days old from San Francisco. What could she do? She must know at once. She went to the telegraph office and sent a message of inquiry to the mayor of Saguache. It was twelve o’clock when the message came: “Lines all down in San Luis valley.” There was a telegraph line to San Louis Obispo, but no coast line railroad nearer than Paso Robles Hot Springs, sixty miles inland. It would be three days before there was another steamer for San Francisco. She felt that if she waited the suspense would kill her. She must go to Saguache.
In the grey of the morning she was seated beside a driver in a light running rig behind the swiftest pair of horses in the town. The northern express was due at noon and the distance of sixty miles must be made. The fleet animals climbed the mountain slopes and crossed the divide of the Santa Lucia range, and went speeding through the beautiful Santa Marguerite225valley with its carpet of green, enlivened with splashes of yellow from the wild mustard blossoms. Across the swift flowing ford of the Salinis river, through deep ravines and mountain gorges, and over miles and miles of sun-baked sand and dreary waste of stunted cactus and sagebrush, the horses sped.
The scorched winds of the desert caught up the sands and hurled them hot into their faces and stung them like tiny sparks.
Dripping with foam the horses were reined up at the depot platform in just five hours and fifty minutes from the time of starting––a record that stands in San Louis Obispo today as the best ever made, and that too by a big-hearted western man who did it only to aid a woman in distress.
The train sped over miles of brown and parched desert, studded with a growth of palms that rattled in the sultry wind like dried sunflower stalks. The scenes were scarcely noticed by Hattie as she sat in the coach busied with her own thoughts. The train was an express but it seemed to her226to creep along. The rumble of the wheels clanking on the iron rails seemed to say: “You’ll be too late, you’ll be too late.”
At Sacramento there was a wait of four hours for the east bound express, and Hattie sat in the depot where she could watch the clock, tick, tock, tick, tock––swinging the pendulum in these moments of suspense and waiting. Those monotonous sounds persistently repeated the single theme, seconds were born and ushered into eternity with the slow swing of the pendulum; every tick brought the time of starting nearer, but the pendulum swung so slow.
Those four hours watching the clock were the most tedious of her life. When the time was drawing nigh and the waiting passengers were stirring about, the man in the ticket office came out and wrote upon the blackboard, “East bound Express two hours late.”
Again the slow swinging pendulum sent a torrent of woe to the unhappy girl, and when the train rolled into the yards she felt as though she had lived within sound of that clock for a year.
227
The green valley changed to the red earth of the foothills, still showing signs of the gold hunters of 1849. The puffing and wheezing of the engine told they were climbing steep grades, and soon they were in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The train entered the forty-two mile snow shed and when half way through struck a hand car, derailing the engine.
It was day without, but dark within the sheds. A kindly woman with her daughter occupied the berth opposite Hattie. She noticed the troubled look on the girl’s face and from that time on until they separated at Cheyenne, did everything she could to make the journey pleasant. But there was the ever present suspense and doubt.
It was ten hours before the train was again under way, but they had lost the right of way on the road and were compelled to make frequent stops on the sidings to allow other trains to pass.
As the train skirted the Great Salt Lake with its bleak and desolate islands of rock rising in silhouette against the cold grey228skies, Hattie compared the scene to the feeling of utter desolation within her soul.
A storm was raging on the Laramie plains and when the snow plow, driven by the tremendous force of an extra engine in front, stuck fast in the snow, she began to have some conception of the mighty force of an avalanche, and the difficulty of reaching imprisoned men beneath its weight.
The railroad ended at a little station in the San Luis valley and then followed many miles of staging in a crowded coach. Everywhere the girl met with the most profound respect and attention from fellow passengers. She was always given the best seat in the coach, and otherwise made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Such was the gallantry of these men of the frontier to the girl who was traveling alone.
At the last stage station before reaching Saguache, she heard men talking of the imprisoned miners in the Sangre de Christo mountains, but she was unable to learn229any of the particulars other than that the relief party was still working. When, at last, she alighted at the hotel in Saguache her first question was concerning the imprisoned men. They will have them out in a few days if nothing happens was the assurance given by the landlady. “They are alive, we know, for we can see the smoke coming out from under the rock.”
The two men under the snow slide had been the talk of the town for days. Every day a new party went to the scene to relieve those who had worked the day and night before, tunneling up the steep mountain side through snow of an unknown depth.
When Hattie reached the tunnel she begged to be allowed to go to the end of it where the men were working. She was assisted up the mountain side by willing hands and when she reached the workers one of them said: “The boys are all right for we can hear their voices.”
It was then she gave an exclamation of joy, and when Buchan said to me in the cabin, “It seems that I hear her voice,” he was right.