The Twins of Suffering Creek
by Ridgwell Cullum · English · Gutenberg #29638 · 627,558 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Twins of Suffering Creek
Author: Ridgwell Cullum
Release date: August 8, 2009 [eBook #29638]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK ***
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE ONE-WAY TRAIL
THE TRAIL OF THE AXE
THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE
THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS
[Illustration: "Say--Jessie," he breathed hotly, "you're--you're fine!"]
THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
BY
RIDGWELL CULLUM
AUTHOR OF
"THE ONE-WAY TRAIL," "THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1912, by
George W. Jacobs & Company
TO
MY TWO LITTLE CHUMS
CHRIS AND RIDGE
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
CONTENTS
I POTTER'S CLAY 9
II THE HARVEST OF PASSION 23
III THE AWAKENING OF SCIPIO 37
IV SCIPIO BORROWS A HORSE 54
V HUSBAND AND LOVER 69
VI SUNNY OAK PROTESTS 87
VII SUNNY OAK TRIES HIS HAND 94
VIII WILD BILL THINKS HARD--AND HEARS NEWS 108
IX THE FORERUNNER OF THE TRUST 116
X THE TRUST 124
XI STRANGERS IN SUFFERING CREEK 136
XII THE WOMAN 142
XIII BIRDIE AND THE BOYS 154
XIV BIRDIE GIVES MORE ADVICE 167
XV THE TRUST AT WORK 177
XVI ZIP'S GRATITUDE 188
XVII JESSIE'S LETTER 196
XVIII ON THE ROAD 205
XIX A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION 216
XX HOW THE TRUST BOUGHT MEDICINE 225
XXI SCIPIO MAKES PREPARATIONS 236
XXII SUNDAY MORNING IN SUFFERING CREEK 240
XXIII A BATH AND-- 247
XXIV --A BIBLE TALK 259
XXV WILD BILL FIRES A BOMB 267
XXVI WILD BILL INSPECTS HIS CLAIM 274
XXVII SUSPENSE 285
XXVIII JAMES 296
XXIX THE GOLD-STAGE 304
XXX ON THE SPAWN CITY TRAIL 316
XXXI THE BATTLE 325
XXXII A MAN'S LOVE 335
XXXIII THE REASON WHY 346
XXXIV THE LUCK OF SCIPIO 353
XXXV HOME 363
THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
CHAPTER I
POTTER'S CLAY
Scipio moved about the room uncertainly. It was characteristic of him.
Nature had given him an expression that suggested bewilderment, and,
somehow, this expression had got into his movements.
He was swabbing the floor with a rag mop; a voluntary task, undertaken
to relieve his wife, who was lounging over the glowing cookstove,
reading a cheap story book. Once or twice he paused in his labors, and
his mild, questioning blue eyes sought the woman's intent face. His
stubby, work-soiled fingers would rake their way through his
straw-colored hair, which grew sparsely and defiantly, standing out at
every possible unnatural angle, and the mop would again flap into the
muddy water, and continue its process of smearing the rough boarded
floor.
Now and again the sound of children's voices floated in through the
open doorway, and at each shrill piping the man's pale eyes lit into a
smile of parental tenderness. But his work went on steadily, for such
was the deliberateness of his purpose.
The room was small, and already three-quarters of it had been
satisfactorily smeared, and the dirt spread to the necessary
consistency. Now he was nearing the cookstove where the woman sat.
"I'd hate to worry you any, Jess," he said, in a gentle, apologetic
voice, "but I'm right up to this patch. If you'd kind of lift your
feet, an' tuck your skirts around you some, guess you could go right
on reading your fiction."
The woman looked up with a peevish frown. Then something like a
pitying smile warmed her expression. She was a handsome creature, of a
large, somewhat bold type, with a passionate glow of strong youth and
health in every feature of her well-shaped face. She was taller than
her diminutive husband, and, in every detail of expression, his
antithesis. She wore a dress with some pretensions to display, and
suggesting a considerable personal vanity. But it was of the tawdry
order that was unconvincing, and lacked both refinement and tidiness.
Scipio followed up his words with a glance of smiling amiability.
"I'm real sorry--" he began again.
But she cut him short.
"Oh, bother!" she exclaimed; and, thrusting her slippered feet upon
the stove, tucked her skirts about her. Then, utterly ignoring him,
she buried herself once more in her book.
The mop flapped about her chair legs, the water splashed the stove.
Scipio was hurrying, and consequently floundering. It was his endeavor
not to disturb his wife more than was necessary.
Finally he wrung out his mop and stood it outside the door in the sun.
He emptied his bucket upon the few anæmic cabbages which grew in an
untidy patch at the side of the hut, and returned once more to the
room.
He glanced round it with feeble appreciation. It was a hopeless sort
of place, yet he could not detect its shortcomings. The rough,
log-built walls, smeared with a mud plaster, were quite unadorned.
There was one solitary opening for a window, and in the center of the
room was a roughly manufactured table, laden with the remains of
several repasts. Breakfast was the latest, and the smell of coffee and
fried pork still hung about the room. There were two Windsor chairs,
one of which his wife was occupying, and a ramshackle food cupboard.
Then there were the cookstove and a fuel box, and two or three iron
pots hanging about the walls.
Out of this opened a bedroom, and the rough bedstead, with its tumbled
blankets, was in full view where Scipio stood. Although the morning
was well advanced the bed was still unmade. Poor as the place was, it
might, in the hands of a busy housewife, have presented a very
different appearance. But Jessie was not a good housewife. She hated
the care of her little home. She was not a bad woman, but she had no
sympathy with the harshnesses of life. She yearned for the amplitude
to which she had been brought up, and detested bitterly the pass to
which her husband's incapacity had brought her.
When she had married Scipio he had money--money that had been left to
him for the purpose of embarking in business, a purpose he had
faithfully carried out. But his knowledge of business was limited to
the signing of checks in favor of anyone who wanted one, and, as a
consequence, by the time their twins were three years old he had
received an intimation from the bank that he must forthwith put them
in credit for the last check he had drawn.
Thus it was that, six months later, the thirty or forty inhabitants of
Job's Flat on Suffering Creek--a little mining camp stowed away in the
southwest corner of Montana, almost hidden amongst the broken
foothills of the Rocky Mountains--basking in the sunshine of a Sunday
afternoon haze, were suddenly startled by the apparition of a small
wagon, driven by a smaller man with yellow hair, bearing down upon
them. But that which stirred them most surely was the additional sight
of a handsome girl, sitting at his side, and, crowded between them on
the seat, a pair of small children.
Scipio, in a desperate effort to restore his fortunes, and set his
precious family once more on a sound financial basis, had come in
search of the gold which report said was to be had on Suffering Creek
for the trouble of picking it up.
This vision startled Suffering Creek, which, metaphorically, sat up
and rubbed its eyes. Here was something quite unaccustomed. The
yellow-haired fragment of humanity at the end of the reins was like
nothing they had ever seen; the children were a source of wondering
astonishment; but the woman--ah! There was one woman, and one woman
only, on Suffering Creek until Jessie's arrival, and she was only the
"hash-slinger" at Minky's store.
The newcomer's face pleased them. Her eyes were fine, and full of
coquetry. Her figure was all that a woman's should be. Yes, the camp
liked the look of her, and so it set out to give Scipio a hearty
welcome.
Now a mining camp can be very cordial in its rough way. It can be
otherwise, too. But in this case we have only to do with its
cordiality. The men of Suffering Creek were drawn from all sorts and
conditions of society. The majority of them lived like various grades
of princes when money was plentiful, and starved when Fortune frowned.
There were men amongst them who had never felt the softer side of
life, and men who had been ruthlessly kicked from that downy couch.
There were good men and scoundrels, workers and loafers; there were
men who had few scruples, and certainly no morals whatever. But they
had met on a common ground with the common purpose of spinning
fortune's wheel, and the sight of a woman's handsome face set them
tumbling over each other to extend the hand of friendship to her
husband.
And the simple-minded Scipio quickly fell into the fold. Nor was it
long before his innocence, his mildness, his never-failing
good-nature got hold of this cluster of ruffians. They laughed at
him--he was a source of endless amusement to them--but they liked him.
And in such men liking meant a great deal.
But from the first Scipio's peculiar nature, and it was peculiar, led
him into many grievous mistakes. His mind was full of active purpose.
He had an enormous sense of responsibility and duty to those who
belonged to him. But somehow he seemed to lack any due sense of
proportion in those things which were vital to their best interests.
Ponderous thought had the effect of turning his ideas upside down,
leaving him with but one clear inspiration. He must do. He must
act--and at once.
Thus it was he gave much consideration to the selection of the site of
his house. He wanted a southern aspect, it must be high up, it must
not be crowded amongst the other houses. The twins needed air. Then
the nearer he was to the creek, where the gold was to be found, the
better. And again his prospecting must tap a part of it where the
diggers had not yet "claimed." There were a dozen and one things to be
considered, and he thought of them all until his gentle mind became
confused and his sense of proportion completely submerged.
The result was, he settled desperately upon the one site that common
sense should have made him avoid. Nor was it until the foundations of
the house had been laid, and the walls were already half their full
height, that he realized, from the desolation of refuse and garbage
strewn everywhere about him, that his home was overlooking the camp
"dumps."
However, it was too late to make any change, and, with characteristic
persistence, he completed his work and went into residence with his
wife and the twins.
The pressure of work lessened, he had a moment in which to look
around. And with the thought of his twins on his mind, and all his
wife had once been accustomed to, he quickly realized the necessity of
green vegetables in his _ménage_. So he promptly flew to the task of
arranging a cabbage patch. The result was a foregone conclusion. He
dug and planted his patch. Nor was it until the work was completed
that it filtered through to his comprehension that he had selected the
only patch in the neighborhood with a heavy underlay of gravel and
lime stone.
But his crowning effort was his search for gold. There are
well-established geological laws governing the prospector's craft
which no experienced gold-seeker ever departs from. These were all
carefully explained to him by willing tongues. Then, after poring over
all he had learned, and thought and searched for two days and two
nights, he finally discovered a spot where no other prospector had
staked the ground.
It was a curious, gloomy sort of patch, nearly half-a-mile up the
creek from the camp, and further in towards the mountains. Just at
this spot the banks of the creek were high, there was an unusual
blackness about the soil, and it gave out a faint but unrecognizable
odor, that, in the bright mountain air, was quite pleasant. For
several hundred yards the ground of this flat was rankly spongy, with
an oozy surface. Then, beyond, lay a black greasy-looking marsh, and
further on again the hills rose abruptly with the facets of
auriferous-looking soil, such as the prospector loves to contemplate.
Scipio pondered. And though the conditions outraged all he had been
told of the craft he was embarking upon, he plunged his pick into this
flat, and set to work with characteristic good-will.
The men of the camp when they discovered his venture shook their heads
and laughed. Then their laugh died out and their hard eyes grew
serious. But no one interfered. They were all seeking gold.
This was Scipio's position on Suffering Creek, but it does not tell
half of what lay somewhere in the back of his quaintly-poised mind. No
one who knew him failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a
love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his
girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were
the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees
of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of
his peculiar mind.
No matter what the toil of his claim, he always seemed to find leisure
and delight in saving his wife from the domestic cares of their home.
And though weary to the breaking-point with his toil, and consumed by
a hunger that was well-nigh painful, when food was short he never
seemed to realize his needs until Jessie and the children had eaten
heartily. And afterwards no power on earth could rob him of an hour's
romp with the little tyrants who ruled and worshiped him.
Now, as he stood before the littered table, he glanced out at the sun.
The morning was advancing all too rapidly. His eyes drifted across to
his wife. She was still reading. A light sigh escaped him. He felt he
should be out on his claim. However, without further thought he took
the boiler of hot water off the stove and began to wash up.
It was the clatter of the plates that made Jessie look up.
"For goodness' sake!" she exclaimed, with exasperation. "You'll be
bathing the children next. Say, you can just leave those things alone.
I've only got a bit more to read to the end of the chapter."
"I thought maybe it 'ud help you out some. I--"
"You give me a pain, you sure do," Jessie broke in. "You get right out
and hustle gold, and leave things of that sort to others."
"But I don't mind doing it, truth I don't," Scipio expostulated
mildly. "I just thought it would save you--"
Jessie gave an artificial sigh.
"You tire me. Do you think I don't know my work? I'm here to do the
chores--and well I know it. You're here to do a man's work, same as
any other man. You get out and find the gold, I can look after the
house--if you can call it a house," she added contemptuously.
Her eyes were quite hopeless as she let them wander over the
frowsiness in the midst of which she sat. She was particularly
discontented this morning. Not only had her thoughts been rudely
dragged back from the seductive contemplation of the doings of the
wealthy ones as the dime fiction-writer sees them, but there was a
feeling of something more personal. It was something which she hugged
to her bosom as a priceless pearl of enjoyment in the midst of a
barren, rock-bound life of squalor.
The sight of him meandering about the room recalled these things.
Thoughts, while they troubled her, yet had power to stimulate and
excite her; thoughts which she almost dreaded, but which caused her
exquisite delight. She must get rid of him.
But as she looked about the room something very like dismay assailed
her. There were the hated household duties confronting her; duties she
was longing to be free of, duties which she was tempted to abandon
altogether, with everything else that concerned her present sordid
life.
But Scipio knew none of this. His unsuspicious nature left him utterly
blinded to the inner workings of her indolent, selfish spirit, and was
always ready to accept blame for her ill-humors. Now he hurriedly
endeavored to make amends.
"Of course you can, Jess," he said eagerly. "I don't guess there's
another woman around who can manage things like you. You don't never
grumble at things, and goodness knows I couldn't blame you any, if
you did. But--but ther' seems such a heap to be done--for you to do,"
he went on, glancing with mild vengefulness at the litter. "Say," he
cried, with a sudden lightening and inspiration, "maybe I could buck
some wood for you before I go. You'll need a good fire to dry the
kiddies by after you washened 'em. It sure wouldn't kep me long."
But the only effect of his persistent kindliness was to further
exasperate his wife. Every word, every gentle intention on his part
made her realize her own shortcomings more fully. In her innermost
heart she knew that she had no desire to do the work; she hated it,
she was lazy. She knew that he was far better than she; good, even
noble, in spite of his mental powers being so lamentably at fault. All
this she knew, and it weakly maddened her because she could not rise
above herself and show him all the woman that was so deeply hidden
under her cloak of selfishness.
Then there was that other thought, that something that was her secret.
She had that instinct of good that made it a guilty secret. Yet she
knew that, as the world sees things, she had as yet done no great
harm.
And therein lay the mischief. Had she been a vicious woman nothing
would have troubled her, but she was not vicious. She was not even
less than good in her moral instincts. Only she was weak, hopelessly
weak, and so all these things drove her to a shrewish discontent and
peevishness.
"Oh, there's no peace where you are," she cried, passionately flinging
her book aside and springing to her feet. "Do you think I can't look
to this miserable home you've given me? I hate it. Yes, I hate it all.
Why I married you I'm sure I don't know. Look at it. Look round you,
and if you have any idea of things at all what can you see but a
miserable hog pen? Yes, that's it, a hog pen. And we are the hogs. You
and me, and--and the little ones. Why haven't you got some 'get up'
about you? Why don't you earn some money, get some somehow so we can
live as we've been used to living? Why don't you do something, instead
of pottering around here trying to do chores that aren't your work,
an' you can't do right anyway? You make me mad--you do indeed. But
there! There's no use talking to you, none whatever!"
"I'm sorry, Jess. I'm real sorry you feel like this."
Scipio left the table and moved to the cupboard, into which he
mechanically began to stow the provender. It was an unconscious action
and almost pathetic in its display of that kindly purpose, which,
where his wife was concerned, was never-failing. Jessie saw, angry as
she was, and her fine eyes softened. Perhaps it was the maternal
instinct underlying the selfishness that made her feel something akin
to a pitying affection for her little husband.
She glanced down at the boiler of water, and mechanically gathered
some of the tin plates together and proceeded to wash them.
"I'm kind of sorry, Zip," she said. "I just didn't mean all that.
Only--only it makes me feel bad seeing all this around, and you--you
always trying to do both a man's and a woman's work. Things are bad
with us, so bad they seem hopeless. We're right here with two kiddies
and--and ourselves, and there's practically no money and no prospects
of there being any. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to do
something desperate. It makes me hate things--even those things I've
no right to hate. No, no," as the man tried to stop her, "don't you
say anything. Not a word till I've done. You see, I mayn't feel like
talking of these things again. Maybe I shan't never have a chance of
talking them again."
She sighed and stared out of window.
"I want you to understand things as I see them, and maybe you'll not
blame me if I see them wrong. You're too good for me, and I--I don't
seem grateful for your goodness. You work and think of others as no
other man would do. You don't know what it is to think of yourself.
It's me, and the children first with you, and, Zip--and you've no call
to think much of me. Yes, I know what you'd say. I'm the most perfect
woman on earth. I'm not. I'm not even good. If I were I'd be glad of
all you try to do; I'd help you. But I don't, and--and I just don't
seem able to. I'm always sort of longing and longing for the old days.
I long for those things we can never have. I think--think always of
folks with money, their automobiles, their grand houses, with lots and
lots of good things to eat. And it makes me hate--all--all this. Oh,
Zip, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm not good. But I'm not, and I--I--"
She broke off and dashed the back of her hand across her eyes in time
to wipe away the great tears that threatened to roll down her rounded
cheeks. In a moment Scipio was at her side, and one arm was thrust
about her waist, and he seized one of her hands.
"You mustn't to cry," he said tenderly, as though she were a child.
"You mustn't, Jess--truth. You ain't what you're saying. You ain't
nothing like it. You're dear and good, and it's 'cause you're that
good and honest you're saying all these things. Do you think I don't
know just how you're suffering? Do you? Why, Jess, I know just
everything about you, and it nigh breaks my heart to think of all I've
brought you to. It ain't you, Jess, it's me who's bad. It's me who's a
fool. I hain't no more sense than a buck rabbit, and I ain't sure a
new-littered pup couldn't put me to sleep for savvee. Now don't you go
to crying. Don't you indeed. I just can't bear to see those beautiful
eyes o' yours all red and running tears. And, say, we sure have got
better prospects than you're figgering. You see, I've got a claim
there's no one else working on. And sure there's minerals on it.
Copper--or leastways it looks like copper, and there's mica, an'
lots--an' lots of stuff. I'll sure find gold in that claim. It's just
a matter of keepin' on. And I'm going to. And then, when we find it,
what a blow-out we'll have. We'll get automobiles and houses, and--and
we'll have a bunch of sweet corn for supper, same as we had at a hotel
once, and then--"
But the woman had suddenly drawn away from his embrace. She could
stand no more of her little husband's pathetic hopes. She knew. She
knew, with the rest of the camp, the hopelessness of his quest, and
even in her worst moments she had not the heart to destroy his
illusions. It was no good, the hopelessness of it all came more than
ever upon her.
"Zip dear," she said, with a sudden, unwonted tenderness that had
something strangely nervous in it, "don't you get staying around here
or I'll keep right on crying. You get out to your work. I'm feeling
better now, and you've--you've made things look kind of brighter," she
lied.
She glanced out of window, and the height of the sun seemed suddenly
to startle her. Her more gentle look suddenly vanished and one of
irritability swiftly replaced it.
"Now, won't you let me help you with all these things?" Scipio
coaxed.
But Jessie had seemingly quite forgotten her moment of tenderness.
"No," she said sharply. "You get right out to work." Then after a
pause, with a sudden warming in her tone, "Think of Jamie and Vada.
Think of them, and not of me. Their little lives are just beginning.
They are quite helpless. You must work for them, and work as you've
never done before. They are ours, and we love them. I love them.
Yes"--with a harsh laugh--"better than myself. Don't you think of me,
Zip. Think of them, and work for them. Now be off. I don't want you
here."
Scipio reluctantly enough accepted his dismissal. His wife's sudden
nervousness of manner was not hidden from him. He believed that she
was seriously upset, and it pained and alarmed his gentle heart. But
the cause of her condition did not enter into his calculations. How
should it? The reason of things seemed to be something which his mind
could neither grasp nor even inquire into. She was troubled, and
he--well, it made him unhappy. She said go and work, work for the
children. Ah, yes, her thoughts were for the children, womanly,
unselfish thoughts just such as a good mother should have. So he went,
full of a fresh enthusiasm for his work and for his object.
Meanwhile Jessie went on with her work. And strangely enough her
nervousness increased as the moments went by, and a vague feeling of
apprehension took hold of her. She hurried desperately. To get the
table cleared was her chief concern. How she hated it. The water grew
cold and greasy, and every time she dipped her cloth into it she
shuddered. Again and again her eyes turned upon the window surveying
the bright sunlight outside. The children playing somewhere beyond the
door were ignored. She was even trying to forget them. She heard their
voices, and they set her nerves jangling with each fresh peal of
laughter, or shrill piping cry.
At last the last plate and enameled cup was washed and dried. The
boiler was emptied and hung upon the wall. She swabbed the table
carelessly and left it to dry. Then, with a rush, she vanished into
the inner room.
The moments passed rapidly. There was no sound beyond the merry games
of the twins squatting out in the sun, digging up the dusty soil with
their fat little fingers. Jessie did not reappear.
At last a light, decided step sounded on the creek side of the house.
It drew nearer. A moment or two later a shadow flitted across the
window. Then suddenly a man's head and shoulders filled up the
opening. The head bent forward, craning into the room, and a pair of
handsome eyes peered curiously round.
"Hi!" he cried in a suppressed tone. "Hi! Jessie!"
The bedroom curtain was flung aside, and Jessie, arrayed carefully in
her best shirtwaist and skirt, suddenly appeared in the doorway. Her
eyes were glowing with excitement and fear. But her rich coloring was
alight with warmth, and the man stared in admiration. Yes, she was
very good to look upon.
CHAPTER II
THE HARVEST OF PASSION
For one passionate moment the woman's radiant face held the gaze of
the man. He was swayed with an unwholesome hunger at the sight of her
splendid womanhood. The beautiful, terrified eyes, so full of that
allurement which ever claims all that is vital in man; the warm
coloring of her delicately rounded cheeks, so soft, so downy; the
perfect undulations of her strong young figure--these things caught
him anew, and again set raging the fire of a reckless, vicious
passion. In a flash he had mounted to the sill of the window-opening,
and dropped inside the room.
"Say--Jessie," he breathed hotly. "You're--you're fine."
His words were almost involuntary. It was as though they were a mere
verbal expression of what was passing through his mind, and made
without thought of addressing her. He was almost powerless in his
self-control before her beauty. And Jessie's conscience in its weakly
life could not hold out before the ardor of his assault. Her eyelids
lowered. She stood waiting, and in a moment the bold invader held her
crushed in his arms.
She lay passive, yielding to his caresses for some moments. Then of a
sudden she stirred restlessly. She struggled weakly to free herself.
Then, as his torrential kisses continued, sweeping her lips, her eyes,
her cheeks, her hair, something like fear took hold of her. Her
struggles suddenly became real, and at last she stood back panting,
but with her young heart mutely stirred to a passionate response.
Nor was it difficult, as they stood thus, to understand how nature
rose dominant over all that belonged to the higher spiritual side of
the woman. The wonderful virility in her demanded life in the full
flood of its tide, and here, standing before her, was the embodiment
of all her natural, if baser, ideals.
The man was a handsome, picturesque creature bred on lines of the
purer strains. He had little enough about him of the rough camp in
which she lived. He brought with him an atmosphere of cities, an
atmosphere she yearned for. It was in his dress, in his speech, in the
bold daring of his handsome eyes. She saw in his face the high
breeding of an ancient lineage. There was such a refinement in the
delicate chiseling of his well-molded features. His brows were widely
expressive of a strong intellect. His nose possessed that wonderful
aquilinity associated with the highest type of Indian. His cheeks were
smooth, and of a delicacy which threw into relief the perfect model of
the frame beneath them. His clean-shaven mouth and chin suggested all
that which a woman most desires to behold in a man. His figure was
tall and muscular, straight-limbed and spare; while in his glowing
eyes shone an irresistible courage, a fire of passion, and such a
purpose as few women could withstand. And so the wife of Scipio
admitted her defeat and yielded the play of all her puny arts, that
she might appear sightly in his eyes.
But she only saw him as he wished her to see him. He showed her the
outward man. The inner man was something not yet for her to probe. He
was one of Nature's anachronisms. She had covered a spirit which was
of the hideous stock from which he sprang with a gilding of
superlative manhood.
His name was James, a name which, in years long past, the Western
world of America had learned to hate with a bitterness rarely equaled.
But all that was almost forgotten, and this man, by reason of his
manner, which was genial, open-handed, even somewhat magnificent,
rarely failed, at first, to obtain the good-will of those with whom he
came into contact.
It was nearly nine months since he first appeared on Suffering Creek.
Apparently he had just drifted there in much the same way that most of
the miners had drifted, possibly drawn thither out of curiosity at the
reports of the gold strike. So unobtrusive had been his coming that
even in that small community he at first passed almost unobserved. Yet
he was full of interest in the place, and contrived to learn much of
its affairs and prospects. Having acquired all the information he
desired, he suddenly set out to make himself popular. And his
popularity was brought about by a free-handed dispensation of a
liberal supply of money. Furthermore, he became a prominent devotee at
the poker table in Minky's store, and, by reason of the fact that he
usually lost, as most men did who joined in a game in which Wild Bill
was taking a hand, his popularity increased rapidly, and the
simple-minded diggers dubbed him with the dazzling sobriquet of "Lord
James."
It was during this time that he made the acquaintance of Jessie and
her husband, and it was astonishing how swiftly his friendship for the
unsuspicious little man ripened.
This first visit lasted just three weeks. Then, without warning, and
in the same unobtrusive way as he had come, he vanished from the
scene. For the moment Suffering Creek wondered; then, as is the way of
such places, it ceased to wonder. It was too busy with its own affairs
to concern itself to any great extent with the flotsam that drifted
its way. Scipio wondered a little more than the rest, but his twins
and his labors occupied him so closely that he, too, dismissed the
matter from his mind. As for Jessie, she said not a word, and gave no
sign except that her discontent with her lot became more pronounced.
But Suffering Creek was not done with James yet. The next time he came
was nearly a month later, just as the monthly gold stage was preparing
for the road, carrying with it a shipment of gold-dust bound for Spawn
City, the nearest banking town, eighty miles distant.
He at once took up his old position in the place, stayed two weeks,
staked out a claim for himself, and pursued his intimacy with Scipio
and his wife with redoubled ardor.
Before those two weeks were over somehow his popularity began to wane.
This intimacy with Scipio began to carry an ill-flavor with the men of
the place. Somehow it did not ring pleasantly. Besides, he showed a
fresh side to his character. He drank heavily, and when under the
influence of spirits abandoned his well-polished manners, and
displayed a coarseness, a savage truculence, such as he had been
careful never to show before. Then, too, his claim remained unworked.
The change in public opinion was subtle, and no one spoke of it. But
there was no regret when, finally, he vanished again from their midst
in the same quiet manner in which he had gone before.
Then came the catastrophe. Two weeks later a gold stage set out on its
monthly journey. Sixty miles out it was held up and plundered. Its two
guards were shot dead, and the driver mortally wounded. But
fortunately the latter lived long enough to tell his story. He had
been attacked by a gang of eight well-armed horsemen. They were all
masked, and got clear away with nearly thirty thousand dollars' worth
of gold.
In the first rush of despairing rage Suffering Creek was unable to
even surmise at the identity of the authors of the outrage. Then Wild
Bill, the gambler, demanded an accounting for every man of the camp on
the day of the tragedy. In a very short time this was done, and the
process turned attention upon Lord James. Where was he? The question
remained unanswered. Suspicions grew into swift conviction. Men asked
each other who he was, and whence he came. There was no answer to any
of their inquiries at first. Then, suddenly, news came to hand that
the gang, no longer troubling at concealment, was riding roughshod
over the country. It was a return to the régime of the "bad man," and
stock-raiding and "hold-ups," of greater or less degree, were being
carried on in many directions with absolute impunity; and the man
James was at the head of it.
It was a rude awakening. All the old peace and security were gone. The
camp was in a state of ferment. Every stranger that came to the place
was eyed askance, and unless he could give a satisfactory account of
himself he had a poor chance with the furious citizens. The future
dispatch of gold became a problem that exercised every mind, and for
two months none left the place. And this fact brought about a further
anxiety. The gang of robbers was a large one. Was it possible they
might attempt a raid on the place? And, if so, what were their chances
of success?
Such was the position at Suffering Creek, and the nature of the threat
which hung over it. One man's name was in everybody's mind. His
personality and doings concerned them almost as nearly as their search
for the elusive gold which was as the breath of life to them.
And yet Lord James was in no way deterred from visiting the
neighborhood. He knew well enough the position he was in. He knew well
enough all its possibilities. Yet he came again and again. His visits
were paid in daylight, carefully calculated, even surreptitiously
made. He sought the place secretly, but he came, careless of all
consequences to himself. His contempt for the men of Suffering Creek
was profound and unaffected. He probably feared no man.
And the reason of his visits was not far to seek. There was something
infinitely more alluring to him at the house on the dumps than the
gold which held the miners--an inducement which he had neither wish
nor intention to resist. He reveled in the joy and excitement of
pursuing this wife of another man, and had the camp bristled with an
army of fighting men, and had the chances been a thousand to one
against him, with him the call of the blood would just as surely have
been obeyed. This was the man, savage, crude, of indomitable courage
and passionate recklessness.
And Jessie was dazzled, even blinded. She was just a weak, erring
woman, thrilling with strong youthful life, and his dominating nature
played upon her vanity with an ease that was quite pitiful. She was
only too ready to believe his denials of the accusations against him.
She was only too ready to--love. The humility, devotion, the goodness
of Scipio meant nothing to her. They were barren virtues, too
unexciting and uninteresting to make any appeal. Her passionate heart
demanded something more stimulating. And the stimulant she found in
the savage wooing of his unscrupulous rival.
Now the man's eyes contemplated the girl's ripe beauty, while he
struggled for that composure necessary to carry out all that was in
his mind. He checked a further rising impulse, and his voice sounded
almost harsh as he put a sharp question.
"Where's Zip?" he demanded.
The girl's eyelids slowly lifted. The warm glow of her eyes made them
limpid and melting.
"Gone out to his claim," she said in a low voice.
The other nodded appreciatively.
"Good."
He turned to the window. Out across the refuse-heaps the rest of the
camp was huddled together, a squalid collection of huts, uninspiring,
unpicturesque. His glance satisfied him. There was not a living soul
in view; not a sound except the prattle of the children who were
still playing outside the hut. But the latter carried no meaning to
him. In the heat of the moment even their mother was dead to the
appeal of their piping voices.
"You're coming away now, Jess," the man went on, making a movement
towards her.
But the girl drew back. The directness of his challenge was startling,
and roused in her a belated defensiveness. Going away? It sounded
suddenly terrible to her, and thrilled her with a rush of fear which
set her shivering. And yet she knew that all along this--this was the
end towards which she had been drifting. The rich color faded from her
cheeks and her lips trembled.
"No, no," she whispered in a terrified tone. For the moment all that
was best in her rose up and threatened to defeat his end.
But James saw his mistake. For a second a flash of anger lit his eyes,
and hot resentment flew to his lips. But it found no expression.
Instead, the anger died out of his eyes, and was replaced by a fire of
passion such as had always won its way with this girl. He moved
towards her again with something subtly seductive in his manner, and
his arms closed about her unresisting form in a caress she was
powerless to deny. Passive yet palpitating she lay pressed in his
arms, all her woman's softness, all her subtle perfume, maddening him
to a frenzy.
"Won't you? I love you, Jessie, so that nothing else on earth counts.
I can't do without you--I can't--I can't!"
His hot lips crushed against hers, which yielded themselves all too
willingly. Presently he raised his head, and his eyes held hers.
"Won't you come, Jess? There's nothing here for you. See, I can give
you all you wish for: money, a fine home, as homes go hereabouts. My
ranch is a dandy place, and," with a curious laugh, "stocked with some
of the best cattle in the country. You'll have horses to ride, and
dresses--See! You can have all you want. What is there here? Nothing.
Say, you don't even get enough to eat. Scipio hasn't got more backbone
in him than to gather five cents when it's raining dollars." He kissed
her upturned face again, and the warm responsive movement of her lips
told him how easy his task really was.
But again she pressed him back, so that he held her only at arms'
length. Her swimming eyes gazed long and ardently into his.
"It isn't that, Jim," she said earnestly; "it isn't that. Those things
don't count. It's--it's you. I--I don't want dresses. I don't want the
money. I--I--want you."
Then she started, terrified again.
"But, Jim, why did you come up to this hut?" she cried. "Why didn't
you wait for me down in the bush at the river, as usual? Oh, Jim, if
anybody sees you they'll shoot you down like a dog--"
"Dog, eh?" cried the man, with a ringing laugh. "Let 'em try. But
don't you worry, Jess. No one saw me. Anyway, I don't care a curse if
they did."
"Oh, Jim!"
Then she nestled closer to him for a moment of passionate silence,
while he kissed her, prolonging the embrace with all the fire with
which he was consumed. And after that she spoke again. But now it was
the mother that would no longer be denied, even in the midst of her
storm of emotion.
"But I--I can't leave them--the little ones. I can't, I can't!" she
cried piteously. "Jim, I love you. God knows how badly I love you, but
I--I love them, too. They are mine. They are part of me, and--and I
can't do without them. No--no. I can't go--I won't go," she hurried
on, without conviction. "I can't. I want my babies--my little boy and
girl. You say you love me. I know you love me. Then take them with us,
and--and I'll do as you wish. Oh, I'm wicked, I know. I'm wicked, and
cruel, and vile to leave Scipio. And I don't want to, but--but--oh,
Jim, say you'll take them, too. I can never be happy without them. You
can never understand. You are a man, and so strong." He drew her to
him again, and she nestled close in his arms. "You don't know what it
is to hear a child's voice, and know that it is part of you, your
life, one little tiny atom beginning all over again. No, no--I must
have them."
She slowly drew herself away, watching his handsome face, half
fearfully, half eagerly. She knew in her heart that she was waiting
for his verdict, and, whatever it might be, she would have to abide by
it. She knew she must do as he wished, and that very knowledge
gladdened her, even in spite of her maternal dread of being parted
from her babies.
She saw his expression change. She saw the look of perplexity in the
sudden drawing together of his finely marked brows, she saw the
half-angry impatience flash into his eyes, she saw this again replaced
with a half-derisive smile. And each emotion she read in her own way,
molding it to suit and fall in with her own desires, yet with a
willing feeling that his decision should be paramount, that she was
there to obey him.
He slowly shook his head, and a curious hardness set itself about his
strong mouth.
"Not now," he said. "I would, but it can't be done. See here, Jess,
I've got two horses hidden away down there in the bush beside the
creek--one for you, and one for me. We can't fetch those kiddies along
with us now. It wouldn't be safe, anyhow. We've got sixty-odd miles to
ride through the foothills. But see, I'll fetch 'em one day, after, if
you must have 'em. How's that?"
"But they'll never let you," cried Jessie. "The whole camp will be up
in arms when they know I've gone. You don't know them, Jim. They're
fond of Zip, and they'll stand by him."
James laughed contemptuously.
"Say, Jess," he cried, "you come right along with me now. And if
you need those kiddies, not all Suffering Creek--no, nor hell
itself--shall stop me bringing 'em along to you." Then he chuckled
in an unpleasant manner. "Say, it would tickle me to death to set
these mutton-headed gophers jumping around. You'll get those kiddies
if you need 'em, if I have to blow hell into this mud-heap of a
city."
Jessie's eyes glowed at the man's note of savage strength and
confidence. She knew he could and would do as he said, and this very
fact yielded her to him more surely than any other display could have
done. It was this wonderful daring, this reckless, savage manhood that
had originally won her. He was so different from all others, from her
puny husband. He swept her along and dazzled her. Her own virility
cried out for such a mate, and no moral scruples could hope to stay so
strong a tide of nature.
"You'll do it?" she cried fervently. Then she nodded joyously. "Yes,
yes, you'll do it. I know it. Oh, how good you are to me. I love you,
Jim."
Again she was in his arms. Again his kisses fell hot and fast upon her
glowing face. Nature was rushing a strong flood tide. It was a moment
that could have no repetition in their lives.
They stood thus, locked in each other's arms, borne along by a passion
that was beyond their control--lost to all the world, lost to all
those things which should have mattered to them. It was the fervid
outpouring of two natures which had nothing that was spiritual in
them. They demanded the life of the senses, and so strong was the
desire that they were lost to all else.
Then suddenly in the midst of their dream came the disturbing patter
of small feet and the joyous, innocent laughter of infantile glee. Two
tiny mud-stained figures rushed at the doorway and fell sprawling into
the hut. They were on their feet again in a moment, laughing and
crowing out their delight. Then, as the man and woman sprang apart,
they stood round-eyed, wondering and gaping.
Jamie and Vada paused only till the grown-up eyes were turned in their
direction, then their chorus broke out in one breath.
"We got fi' 'piders--"
"An' two bugs!"
The important information was fairly shrieked, to the accompaniment of
dancing eyes and flushed cheeks.
Jessie gasped. But her emotion was not at the news so rudely broken.
It was the breaking of the spell which had held her. Just for one
horrific moment she stood staring helplessly at the innocent picture
of her four-year-old twins, beautiful in spite of their grimy
exterior, beautiful as a Heaven-inspired picture to the mother.
The man smiled. Nor was it an unpleasant smile. Perhaps, somewhere in
his savage composition, he had a grain of humor; perhaps it was only
the foolish smile of a man whose wits are not equal to so incongruous
a situation.
"They're most ev'ry color," piped Vada, with added excitement.
"Uh!" grunted Jamie in agreement. "An' the bugs has horns."
But the man had recovered himself. The interruption had brought with
it a realization of the time he had spent in the hut.
"You'd best go and find more," he said. "There's heaps outside." Then
he turned to Jessie. "Come on. We must be going. Have you got the
things you need ready?"
But the mother's eyes were on the small intruders. Something was
gripping at her heart, and somehow it felt like four small and dirty
hands.
"Wher' you goin'?" demanded Vada, her childish curiosity roused, and
all her beautiful spiders forgotten for the moment.
Her question remained unanswered, leaving the room in ominous silence.
Then Jamie's treble blundered into its midst, dutifully echoing his
sister's inquiry.
"'Es, wher' you doin'?"
The man's eyes were narrowly watching the woman's face. He noted the
tremulous lips, the yearning light in her eyes. In a moment he was
answering the children, lest their innocent words should upset his
plans.
"Say, your momma's going for a horse-ride. She's just going right out,
and I'm going to show her a dandy place where she can fetch you, so
you can catch heaps an' heaps of bugs and spiders. She's just wanting
you to stop right here and catch more bugs, till I come along and
fetch you."
"O--oh!" cried Vada, prolonging her exclamation gleefully. "Say, can't
us go now?"
"Me do too," murmured her faithful shadow.
One quick glance at the mother's face and the man spoke again.
"Not now, kiddies. I'll come and fetch you. Run along." Then he turned
swiftly upon Jessie. "Where's your bundle?" he asked in his usual
masterful manner.
And her reply came in a tone of almost heart-broken submission.
"In there," she said, with a glance at the inner room.
The man gave her no time to add anything more. He felt the ground he
was treading was more than shaky. He knew that with the coming of
these children a tremendous power was militating against him--a power
which would need all his wits to combat. He passed into the inner
room, and returned in a moment with the girl's bundle. And with his
return one glance showed him how nearly his plans were upset. Jessie
was clasping Jamie in her arms, kissing him hungrily, tears streaming
down her cheeks, while, out of sheer sympathy, little Vada was
clinging to her mother's skirts, her small face buried in amongst
them, sobbing as though her heart would break.
In a moment he was at her side. This was not a time when any drastic
methods could serve him, and he adopted the only course which his
shrewd sense told him would be likely to avail. Gently but firmly he
took the boy out of her arms.
"You want him to go with us?" he said kindly. "Very well. Maybe we're
doing wrong--I mean, for his sake. Anyhow, I'll carry him, and then
I'll come back for Vada. It's not good. It's too hard on him, carrying
him all that distance--too dangerous. Still, I want you to be happy,
Jess. I'd do anything for that, even--even at his expense. So--"
"No--no!" cried the mother, carried away by the fear he expressed so
subtly, and warmed by his carefully expressed sympathy. "Don't take
any notice of me. I'm foolish--silly. You're right--he--he couldn't
make the journey with us. No, no, we--won't--take him now. Set him
down, Jim. I'll go now, and you'll--you'll come back for them. Yes,
yes, let's go now. I--I can't stay any--longer. I've left a letter for
Zip. Swear I shall have them both. You'll never--never break your
word? I think I'd--die without them."
"You shall have them. I swear it." The man spoke readily enough. It
was so easy to promise anything, so long as he got her.
But his oath brought neither expression of gratitude nor comment. The
woman was beyond mere words. She felt that only flight could save her
from breaking down altogether. And, thus impelled, she tore herself
from the presence of the children and rushed out of the hut. The
horses were down at the creek, and thither she sped, lest her purpose
should fail her.
James followed her. He felt that she must not be left by herself to
think. But at the door he paused and glanced keenly around him. Then
he breathed a sigh of relief. Not a living soul was to be seen
anywhere. It was good; his plans had worked out perfectly.
He set Jamie down, and, all unconscious of the little drama being
played round his young life, the child stretched out a chubby hand in
the direction of the soap-box he and his sister had been playing
with.
"'Piders," he observed laconically.
Vada rushed past him to inspect their treasures, her tears already
dried into streaks on her dirty little cheeks.
"An' bugs," she cried gleefully, squatting beside the box.
They had forgotten.
* * * * *
The man hurried away down towards the creek, bearing the pitiful
bundle of woman's raiment. The girl was ahead, and, as she again came
into his view, one thought, and one thought only, occupied his mind.
Jessie was his whole world--at that moment.
He, too, had forgotten.
"They've runned away," cried Vada, peering into the box.
"Me don't like 'piders," murmured Jamie definitely.
Vada's great brown eyes filled with tears. Fresh rivulets began to run
down the muddy channels on her downy cheeks. Her disappointment found
vent in great sobbing gulps.
Jamie stared at her in silent speculation. Then one little fat hand
reached out and pushed her. She rolled over and buried her wet face in
the dusty ground and howled heart-brokenly. Then Jamie crawled close
up beside her, and, stretching himself out, wept his sympathy into the
back of her gaping frock.
CHAPTER III
THE 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."
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 IV
SCIPIO 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.
CHAPTER V
HUSBAND AND LOVER
Where all the trail-wise men of Suffering Creek and the district had
failed, Scipio, the incompetent, succeeded. Such was the ironical
pleasure of the jade Fortune. Scipio had not the vaguest idea of
whither his quest would lead him. He had no ideas on the subject at
all. Only had he his fixed purpose hard in his mind, and, like a
loadstone, it drew him unerringly to his goal.
There was something absolutely ludicrous in the manner of his search.
But fortunately there are few ready to laugh at disaster. Thus it was
that wherever he went, wherever he paused amongst his fellows in
search of information he was received perfectly seriously, even when
he told the object of his search, and the story of its reason.
An ordinary man would probably have hugged such a story to himself. He
would have resorted to covert probing and excuse in extracting
information. But then it is doubtful if, under such circumstances, his
purpose would have been so strong, so absolutely invincible as
Scipio's. As it was, with single-minded simplicity, Scipio saw no
reason for subterfuge, he saw no reason for disguising the tragedy
which had befallen him. And so he shed his story broadcast amongst the
settlers of the district until, by means of that wonderful prairie
telegraphy, which needs no instruments to operate, it flew before him
in every direction, either belittled or exaggerated as individual
temperament prompted.
At one ranch the news was brought in from the trail by a hard-faced
citizen who had little imagination, but much knowledge of the
country.
"Say, fellers," he cried, as he swung out of the saddle at the
bunkhouse door, "ther's a tow-headed sucker on the trail lookin' fer
the James outfit. Guess he wants to shoot 'em up. He's a sawed-off
mutt, an' don't look a heap like scarin' a jack-rabbit. I told him he
best git back to hum, an' git busy fixin' his funeral right, so he
wouldn't have no trouble later."
"Wher's he from?" someone asked.
"Sufferin' Creek," replied the cowpuncher, "an' seems to me he's got
more grit than savvee."
And this opinion was more or less the general one. The little man rode
like one possessed, and it was as well that of all his six treasured
horses Wild Bill had lent him his black beauty, Gipsy. She was quite
untiring, and, with her light weight burden, she traveled in a spirit
of sheer delight.
At every homestead or ranch Scipio only paused to make inquiries and
then hurried on. The information he received was of the vaguest. James
or some of his gang were often seen in the remoter parts of the lower
foothills, but this was all. At one farm he had a little better luck,
however. Here he was told that the farmer had received an intimation
that if he wished to escape being burnt out he must be prepared to
hand over four hundred dollars when called upon by the writer to do
so; and the message was signed "James."
"So ye see," said the farmer--a man named Nicholls--despondently,
"he's som'eres skulkin' around hyar."
"Seems like it," acquiesced Scipio.
Then, of a sudden, a suspicion flashed through the other's mind, and
the man-hunter spent an uncomfortable few seconds.
"Say, you're lookin' fer him?" the farmer questioned harshly. Then he
leant forward, his eyes lighting with sudden anger. "If I tho't you
was--"
But Scipio's mild blue eyes, and his simple reply had a pacific effect
at once.
"I'm looking for him because he's stole my wife. And I'm goin' on
chasin' till I find him."
There was such mild sincerity in his visitor's manner that it was
impossible for the farmer to retain his suspicion.
"What you goin' to do about that four hundred?" inquired Scipio
later.
"He'll get no dollars out o' me. I ain't got 'em," replied Nicholls
hopelessly. Then his temper rose. "But I'm just goin' to sleep with a
gun to my hand, an' he'll get it good an' plenty, if he shoots the
life out of me, an' burns every stick I got, after."
Scipio nodded sympathetically.
"I'd feel that ways," he said. "Well, I guess I'll be gettin' on. My
mare'll be fed an' rested by this. Thanks for the feed. Guess I'll
hunt around this district a piece. Maybe I'll find--"
But suddenly the farmer awoke from the contemplation of his own
troubles and eyed the diminutive figure of his guest wonderingly, as
he stood up to go.
"Say," he observed critically, "guess you must be bustin' with grit
chasin' this feller."
Scipio shook his head.
"No," he said, with a wan smile. "But he's got--my wife."
"Ah."
And there was a world of understanding in the man's monosyllable.
Five minutes later the man-hunter was on the trail again. It was the
afternoon of the second day of his quest. He was saddle-sore and
weary, but his purpose knew no weakening. Gipsy was going fresh and
strong, and though she had already traveled probably a hundred miles
in her rider's aimless wanderings, she moved as though she was out for
a morning's exercise on a liberal diet of oats.
True to his intention Scipio scoured the district with an excess of
enthusiasm which carried him far, and sundown found him amongst the
beehive hummocks which form the approach to the greater hills. Up and
down these wonderful grassy dunes he roamed searching a resting-place
for himself and his mare. There was nothing of the sort in sight,
nothing but the endless series of grassy knolls, and the dividing
hollows which might conceal anything, from a ranch house to an
outlying cattle station. And finally he abandoned all hope of
shelter.
He had certainly lost himself. But, even so, he was not greatly
concerned. Why should he be? What did it matter? He knew that if the
worst came to the worst his mare could eat her fill of grass, and, for
himself, sleep in the open had no terrors. Of food for himself he had
not even begun to think. So he rode on until the last blaze of the
setting sun dropped behind the sky-line.
He was descending into a hollow, something deeper than usual. Hope ran
high that it was one of those hidden breaks, which, at intervals,
cross the sea of grassy dunes, and mark a mountain waterway. Nor was
he disappointed. A few moments later, to his delight, he found himself
gazing into the depths of one of the many rivulets trickling its
shallow way between low cut banks. Promptly he made up his mind that
it was the place for him to camp.
At the water's edge he scrambled out of the saddle and began to seek a
place where his mare could drink. It was a little difficult, for the
banks were sharp, and the bushes plentiful, and he had wandered at
least a hundred yards in his search for an opening when a human voice
abruptly hailed him from the far side of the stream. He looked across
without answering, and, to his intense surprise, beheld a horseman on
the opposite bank. The man, judging by his appearance, was a
cowpuncher, and, to Scipio's simple mind, was, like himself,
benighted.
"Hello," he replied at last, after a thoughtful stare.
The man was eyeing the yellow-headed figure with no very friendly
eyes, but this fact was lost upon Scipio, who saw in him only a fellow
man in misfortune. He saw the lariat on the horn of the saddle, the
man's chapps, his hard-muscled broncho pony gazing longingly at the
water. The guns at the man's waist, the scowling brow and shifty eyes
passed quite unobserved.
"Wher' you from?" demanded the man sharply.
"Suffering Creek," replied Scipio readily.
"Guess you've come quite a piece," said the other, after a considering
pause.
"I sure have."
"What you doin' here?"
The man's inquiry rapped out smartly. But Scipio had no suspicion of
anybody, and answered quite without hesitation.
"I'm huntin' a man called James. You ain't seen him?"
But the man countered his question with another.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Scipio--and yours?"
In the dying light the man's saturnine features seemed to relax for a
moment into something like a smile. But he spoke at once.
"Come right over," he invited. "Guess my name's Abe--Abe Conroy. I'm
out chasin' cattle." And the fact that he finished up with a
deliberate laugh had no meaning at all for his companion.
Scipio gladly accepted the invitation, and, in response to the man's
instructions, moved farther along the stream until he came to a
shelving in the bank where his mare could climb down. He crossed
over, letting his horse drink by the way, and a few moments later was
at his new acquaintance's side.
The stranger's mood seemed to have entirely changed for the better by
the time Scipio came up. His smile was almost amiable, and his manner
of speech was comparatively jocular.
"So you're chasin' that crook, James," he said easily. "Queer, ain't
it?"
"What?"
"Why, he's run off a bunch of our stock. Leastways, that's how I'm
guessin'. I'm makin' up to his place right now to spy out things. I
was jest waitin' fer the sun to go. Y'see we're organizin' a vigilance
party to run--Say, I'd a notion fer a moment you was one of his
gang."
But Scipio disclaimed the honor promptly.
"No. I just need to find him. I'm needin' it bad."
"Wot fer?"
For once the man-hunter hesitated. A quite unaccountable feeling gave
him a moment's pause. But he finally answered frankly, as he always
answered, with a simple directness that was just part of him.
"He's stole my wife," he said, his eyes directly gazing into the
other's face.
"Gee, he's a low-down skunk," declared the other, with a curse. But
the ironical light in his eyes quite escaped his companion's
understanding.
Scipio was full of his good fortune in falling in with a man who knew
of James' whereabouts. A dozen questions sprang into his mind, but he
contented himself with stating his intention.
"I'll ride on with you," he said.
"What, right up to James' lay-out?"
"Sure. That's wher' I'm makin'."
For a moment the man calling himself Conroy sat gazing out at the
afterglow of the setting sun. His whole appearance was ill-favored
enough to have aroused distrust in anybody but a man like Scipio. Now
he seemed to be pondering a somewhat vexed question, and his brows
were drawn together in a way that suggested anything but a clear
purpose. But finally he seemed to make up his mind to a definite
course. He spoke without turning to his companion, and perhaps it was
for the purpose of hiding a lurking derisive smile.
"If you're set on makin' James' shanty, you best come right along.
Only"--he hesitated for the barest fraction of a second--"y'see, I'm
out after this cattle racket, an' I guess I owe it to my folks to git
their bizness thro' without no chance of upset. See?"
Scipio nodded. He saw the man's drift, and thought it quite splendid
of him.
"Now, I got to spy out things," the man went on, "an' if you get right
up ther' first it'll likely upset things fer me--you goin' ther' to
hold him up as it were." His smile was more pronounced. "Now I guess
I'll show you where his lay-out is if you'll sure give me your promise
to let me hunt around fer ha'f-an-hour around his corrals--'fore you
butt in. Then I'll get right back to you an' you can go up, an'--shoot
him to hell, if you notion that fancy."
Scipio almost beamed his thanks. The man's kindness seemed a noble
thing to him.
"You're a real bully fellow," he said. "Guess we'll start right now?"
The man turned and his shrewd eyes fixed themselves piercingly on the
little man's face.
"Yes," he said shortly, "we'll get on."
He led the way, his horse slightly in advance of the mare, and for
some time he made no attempt to break the silence that had fallen. The
twilight was rapidly passing into the deeper shadows of night, but he
rode amongst the hills as though he were traveling a broad open trail.
There was no hesitation, no questioning glance as to his direction.
He might have been traveling a trail that he had been accustomed to
all his life. At last, however, he glanced round at his companion.
"Say, what you goin' to do when--you get there?" he asked.
"Fetch my wife back," replied Scipio earnestly.
"What'll James be doin'?"
"He can't keep her--she's mine."
"That's so. But--if he notions to keep her?"
Scipio was silent for some moments. His pale eyes were staring
straight ahead of him out into the growing darkness.
"Maybe, I'll have to shoot him," he said at last, as though there
could be no question about the matter.
The man nodded.
"Got useful guns?" he inquired casually.
"Got one."
"Ah, what is it? Magazine?"
Scipio pulled his antique possession out of his pocket and handed it
over for the man's inspection.
"It's all right," he said. "Guess the sights ain't good over a
distance, but at close range it'll make a nasty hole."
Conroy took the weapon in his hand. His keen eyes noted the age of the
pattern. He also saw the battered condition of the sights, and the
clumsy, rusted, protruding hammer. It was six-chambered, and he knew
that it must be all of forty years old. One of the earliest pattern
revolvers. The sight of it filled him with cruel amusement, but he
kept a serious face.
"I 'lows that should bring James to his senses," he observed, as he
handed it back to its owner.
Scipio read his answer as approval, and warmed towards him.
"I'd say so," he said, returning his antiquity to his pocket. "You
see, a gun's li'ble to rattle a feller like James. A man who can get
around when a feller's back's turned, an' make love to his wife, ain't
much of a man, is he? I mean he hasn't much grit. He's a coward sure.
If he'd got grit he wouldn't do it. Well, that's how I figger 'bout
this James. He's mean, an' a cowardly dog. I don't guess I'll have to
use that gun, but I jest brought it along to scare him to his senses,
if he needs it. Maybe though he won't need it when he sees me come
along--y'see, I'm Jessie's husband--guess that'll fix him sure."
"Guess you got James sized up good," observed the man, with his eyes
fixed ahead. "No, I don't see you'll need that gun."
They rode on, Scipio's spirits rising with every yard they traveled.
He knew he was nearing his wife with every passing moment. He had no
doubts, no fears. So long as he could reach her side he felt that all
would be well. In spite of her letter it never entered his head that
she cared for the man she had gone off with. He blamed James, and it
was no mere figure of speech when he said that he believed he had
"stolen" her. He believed such to be the case. He believed she had
gone unwillingly. In his mind it was a case of abduction. Again and
again he thanked Providence that he had fallen in with this man,
Conroy. He was a good fellow, he told himself, a good friend. And his
ideas were so coincident with his own about James.
They were approaching the higher hills. Towering, broken crags loomed
ahead darkly in the gathering gloom. The vast riven facets cut the
sky-line, and black patches of pine forests, and spruce, gave a
ghostly, threatening outlook. They must have been riding over two
hours when Scipio realized they were passing over a narrow cattle
track on the summit of a wooded hill. Then presently their horses
began a steep shelving descent which required great caution to
negotiate. And as they proceeded the darkness closed in upon them,
until they appeared to be making an almost precipitate descent into a
vast black pit. There was no light here at all except for the stars
above, for the last glow of twilight was completely shut off by the
great wall they were now leaving behind them.
No word was spoken. Each man was busy with his horse, and the animals
themselves were stumbling and floundering as they picked their
uncertain way. A quarter of an hour of this went by, then, suddenly,
ahead, still farther down the slope, two or three dim lights shone up
at them like will-o'-the-wisps. They seemed to dance about before
Scipio's eyes as they rode. Nor, as he pointed them out to his
companion, did he realize that this peculiarity was due to the motion
of his mare under him.
"Yep," replied Conroy dryly. "Them's James' lights."
"He's got a large place," said Scipio, with some awe in his tone.
"He sure has," agreed Conroy, smiling in the darkness. "He's got the
biggest an' best-stocked ranch in Montana."
"You say he's a--cattle thief?" Scipio was struggling to get things
into proper focus.
"He sure is." And Conroy's tone of satisfaction had the effect of
silencing further comment by his companion.
A few moments later the descent was completed, and the soft grass
under her feet set Gipsy dancing to get on, but Conroy pulled up.
"Here," he said authoritatively, "you set right here while I get on
an' get thro' with my business. I'll come along back for you."
Without demur Scipio waited, and his companion vanished in the
darkness. The little man had entered into an agreement, and had no
desire, in spite of his eagerness to be doing, of departing from the
letter of it. So he possessed himself in what patience he could until
Conroy's return.
The soft pad of the retiring horse's hoofs on the thick grass died
away. And presently one of the twinkling lights ahead was abruptly
shut out. The horseman had intervened on Scipio's line of vision. Then
the yellow gleam as suddenly reappeared, and the last sign of Conroy
passed. The waiting man watched with every faculty alert. His ears and
eyes straining for the least unusual sound or sight. But there was
none forthcoming.
Then he began to think. He began to consider the situation. He began
to picture to himself something of the scene that he hoped would
shortly take place between himself and the man James. It was the first
time he had thought of the matter deliberately, or attempted to
estimate its possibilities. Hitherto he had been too torn by his
emotions to consider anything in detail. And, even now, so imbued was
he with the right of his cause that he only saw his own point of view,
which somehow made James a mere plaything in his hands.
He found himself dictating his will upon the thief in firm tones. He
demanded his wife without heat, but with the knowledge of the power of
his gun lying behind his words. He felt the restraint he would use. He
would not bully. Who was he to bully after having had Jessie restored
to him? James should be dealt with as gently as his feelings would
permit him. Yes, thank God, he had no actual desire to hurt this man
who had so wronged him. The man was foolish, and he could afford to be
generous, having had Jessie restored to him. No, he would try hard to
forgive him. It would be a tremendous struggle, he knew, yet he felt,
with Jessie restored to him, he ought to make the effort. Somehow,
even now, he almost felt sorry for so misguided a--
But his reflections were suddenly cut short by the sound of horses'
hoofs returning, and, a moment later, Conroy loomed up in the
darkness. He came quite close up before he spoke, and then it was
almost in a whisper.
"I've located things," he said, with an air of deep satisfaction.
"Guess we'll make Mr. 'Lord' James hunt his hole 'fore we're thro'
with him. I figger a rawhide fixed neat about his neck'll 'bout meet
his case. An' say, I've news fer you. Ther's some o' his boys around.
He's jest right in ther' wher' you ken see that biggish light," he
went on, pointing at the illuminated square of a window. "I see him
through an open door round back. He's lyin' on a heap o' blankets
readin' a book. Ef you git along now you'll get him wher' you need
him, an'--an' I wouldn't take no chances. Get a drop on him from
outside the door, an'--wal, guess a feller like you'll know what to do
after that. I'm gettin' back to home."
Scipio glowed. He felt he could have hugged this good-natured
stranger. But he did not altogether agree with the man's suggestion of
getting the drop on James. He felt it would hardly be playing the
game. However, he intended to be guided by circumstances.
"Thanks, friend," he said, in his simple fashion. "You must let me
call you that," he went on eagerly. "You see, you've done something
for me to-night I can't never forget. Maybe you've got a wife of your
own, and if so you'll sure understand."
"Can't rightly say I've got a--wife," the man replied, "but I ken
understan' all right. James is low--doggone low," he added. And his
face was turned well away so that he could grin comfortably without
fear of the other seeing it.
"Well, so long," said Scipio hastily. "Seeing I shan't see you here
when I get back, I'd just like to thank you again."
"So long," replied the other. "An' you needn't to thank me too much."
Scipio urged his mare forward, and the man sat looking after him. And
somehow his face had lost something of its satisfied expression.
However, he sat there only a moment. Presently he lifted his reins
and set his horse at a canter in the direction of one of the more
distant lights.
"He's a pore fule," he muttered, "but it's a lousy trick anyways."
Thus he dismissed the matter from his mind with a callous shrug.
In the meantime Scipio neared the house from which shone the larger
light. As he drew towards it he saw its outline against the starlight.
It was a large, two-storied frame house of weather-boarding, with a
veranda fronting it. There were several windows on the hither side of
it, but light shone only in one of them. It was by this light the
horseman saw a tie-post some yards from the house. And without
hesitation he rode up to it, and, dismounting, secured his mare. Then,
following Conroy's directions, he proceeded on foot to the back of the
house where he was to find an open door. He turned the angle of the
building. Yes, the door was there all right, but whereas Conroy had
said that James was lying on his blankets reading, he now discovered
that the doorway was filled by that handsome thief's presence.
Before he realized what had happened, Scipio found himself in the full
glare of the light from the doorway, and James was smiling down upon
his yellow head with a curious blending of insolence and curiosity.
"I was wondering when you'd get around," he said, without shifting his
position. Then, as Scipio made no answer, he bestirred himself. "Come
right in," he added, and, lounging out of the doorway, he dropped back
into the room. "You'll find things a bit untidy," he went on calmly,
"you see I'm making changes in my domestic arrangements. This is
temporary, I guess. However, if you don't just mind that, why--come
right in."
The man's whole manner was one of good-humored indifference. There was
an unruffled assurance about him that was quite perfect, if studied.
Scipio's presence there seemed the last thing of concern to him. And
the effect of his manner on his visitor entirely upset all the
latter's preconceived intentions. Astonishment was his first feeling.
Then a sudden diffidence seized him, a diffidence that was nearly akin
to fear of his rival. But this passed in a moment, and was instantly
replaced by a hot rush of blood through his small body. All his
pictured interview died out of his recollections, and, in place of
that calmness with which he had intended to meet the man, he found his
pulses hammering and hot anger mounting to his head. The commonest of
human passions stirred in him, and he felt it would be good to hurt
this man who had so wronged him.
"Where's my wife?" he demanded, with a sudden fierceness.
"Oh--it's that. Say, come right in?"
James was still smiling pleasantly. This time Scipio accepted the
invitation without thought of trap or anything else. He almost
precipitated himself into the room.
Nor in his fury did he observe his surroundings. He had no eyes for
the furnishings, the cheap comfort with which he was surrounded. And
though, as James had said, the place was untidy, he saw nothing and
none of it. His eyes were on the man; angry, bloodshot eyes, such eyes
as those of a furiously goaded dog, driven into a corner by the cruel
lash of a bully's whip.
"Yes, that's it. Wher's my wife?" Scipio demanded threateningly.
"You've stole her, and taken her from me. I've come to take her
back."
The force of his demands was tinged with the simplicity of a naturally
gentle disposition. And maybe, in consequence, something of their
sting was lost. The forceful bluster of an outraged man, determined
upon enforcing his demands, would probably have stirred James to
active protest, but, as it was, he only continued to smile his
insolence upon one whom he regarded as little better than a harmless
worm.
"One moment," he said, with an exasperating patience, "you say I stole
her. To have stolen her suggests that she was not willing to come
along. She came with me. Well, I guess she came because she fancied
it. You say you're going to take her back. Well," with a shrug, "I
kind of think she'll have something to say about going back."
For a moment Scipio stood aghast. He glanced about him helplessly.
Then, in a flash, his pale-blue eyes came back to the other's face.
"She's mine, I tell you! Mine! Mine! Mine!" he cried, in a frenzy of
rage and despair. "She's mine by the laws of God an' man. She's mine
by the love that has brought our kiddies into the world. Do you hear?
She's mine by every tie that can hold man and wife together. An'
you've stole her. She's all I've got. She's all I want. She's just
part of me, and I can't live without her. Ther's the kiddies to home
waitin' for her, and she's theirs, same as they are hers--and mine. I
tell you, you ain't going to keep her. She's got to come back." He
drew a deep breath to choke down his fury. "Say," he went on, with a
sudden moderating of his tone and his manner, taking on a pitiful
pleading, "do you think you love her? You? Do you think you know what
love is? You don't. You can't. You can't love her same as I do. I love
her honest. I love her so I want to work for her till I drop. I love
her so there's nothin' on earth I wouldn't do for her. My life is
hers. All that's me is hers. I ain't got a thought without her. Man,
you don't know what it is to love my Jessie. You can't, 'cos your
love's not honest. You've taken her same as you'd take any woman for
your pleasure. If I was dead, would you marry her? No, never, never,
never. She's a pastime to you, and when you've done with her you'd
turn her right out on this prairie to herd with the cattle, if ther'
wasn't anywher' else for her to go." Then his voice suddenly rose and
his fury supervened again. "God!" he cried fiercely. "Give me back my
wife. You're a thief. Give her back to me, I say. She's mine, d'you
understand--mine!"
Not for an instant did the smile on James' face relax. Maybe it became
more set, and his lips, perhaps, tightened, but the smile was there,
hard, unyielding in its very setness. And when Scipio's appeal came to
an end he spoke with an underlying harshness that did not carry its
way to the little man's distracted brain.
"She wouldn't go back to you, even if I let her--which I won't," he
said coldly.
The man's words seemed to bite right into the heart of his hearer.
Nothing could have been better calculated to goad him to extremity. In
one short, harsh sentence he had dashed every hope that the other
possessed. And with a rush the stricken man leapt at denial, which was
heartrending in its impotence.
"You lie!" he shouted. The old revolver was dragged from his pocket
and pointed shakingly at his tormentor's head. "Give her back to me!
Give her back, or--"
James' desperate courage never deserted him for an instant. And Scipio
was never allowed to complete his sentence. The other's hand suddenly
reached out, and the pistol was twisted from his shaking grasp with as
little apparent effort as though he had been a small child.
Scipio stared helpless and confused while James eyed the pattern of
the gun. Then he heard the man's contemptuous laugh and saw him pull
the trigger. The hammer refused to move. It was so rusted that the
weapon was quite useless. For a moment the desperado's eyes sought the
pale face of his would-be slayer. A devilish smile lurked in their
depths. Then he held out the pistol for the other to take, while his
whole manner underwent a hideous change.
"Here, take it, you wretched worm," he cried, with sudden savagery.
"Take it, you miserable fool," he added, as Scipio remained unheeding.
"It wouldn't blow even your fool brains out. Take it!" he reiterated,
with a command the other could no longer resist. "And now get out of
here," he went on mercilessly, as Scipio's hand closed over the
wretched weapon, "or I'll hand you over to the boys. They'll show you
less mercy than I do. They're waiting out there," he cried, pointing
at the door, "for my orders. One word from me and they'll cut the
liver out of you with rawhides, and Abe Conroy'll see it's done right.
Get you right out of here, and if ever you come squealing around my
quarters again I'll have you strung up by your wretched neck till
you're dead--dead as a crushed worm--dead as is your wife, Jessie, to
you from now out. Get out of here, you straw-headed sucker, get right
out, quick!"
But the tide of the man's fury seemed to utterly pass the little man
by. He made no attempt to obey. The pistol hung in his tightly
gripping hand, and his underlip protruded obstinately.
"She's mine, you thief!" he cried. "Give her back to me."
It was the cry of a beaten man whose spirit is unquenchable.
But James had finished. All that was worst in him was uppermost now.
With eyes blazing he stepped to the door and whistled. He might have
been whistling up his dogs. Perhaps those who responded were his dogs.
Three men came in, and the foremost of them was Abe Conroy.
"Here," cried James, his cruel eyes snapping, "take him out and set
him on his horse, and send him racing to hell after m'squitoes. And
don't handle him too easy."
What happened to him after that Scipio never fully understood. He had
a vague memory of being seized and buffeted and kicked into a state of
semi-unconsciousness. Nor did he rouse out of his stupor, until, sick
and sore in every limb, his poor yellow head aching and confused, he
found himself swaying dangerously about in the saddle, with Gipsy,
racing like a mad thing, under his helpless legs.
CHAPTER VI
SUNNY OAK PROTESTS
Wild Bill was gazing out across the camp dumps. His expression
suggested the contemplation of a problem of life and death, and a
personal one at that. Sandy Joyce, too, bore traces suggestive of the
weightiest moments of his life. Toby Jenks stood chewing the dirty
flesh of a stubby forefinger, while the inevitable smile on Sunny
Oak's face made one think of a bright spring morning under cover of a
yellow fog.
"How am I to see to them pore kiddies?" the latter was complaining.
"I've had to do with cattle, an' mules, an' even hogs in my time, but
I sure don't guess you ken set them bits o' mites in a brandin'
corral, nor feed 'em oats an' hay, nor even ladle 'em swill for
supper, like hogs. Fer other things, I don't guess I could bile a bean
right without a lib'ry o' cook-books, so how I'm to make 'em elegant
pap for their suppers 'ud beat the Noo York p'lice force. An' as fer
fixin' their clothes, an' bathing 'em, why, it 'ud set me feelin' that
fulish you wouldn't know me from a patient in a bug-house. It makes me
real mad, folks is allus astin' me to get busy doin' things. I'm that
sick, the sight of a ha'f-washened kid 'ud turn my stummick to bile,
an' set me cacklin' like a hen with a brood o' ducklings she can't no
ways account fer. You'se fellers are a happy lot o' Jonahs to a man as
needs rest."
"You're sure doing the cacklin' now," observed Bill contemptuously.
"Maybe he's layin' eggs," murmured Toby vaguely.
The men were standing on the veranda, gathered round the bench on
which Sunny Oak was still resting his indolent body. And the subject
of their discourse was Scipio's two children. The father had ridden
off on his search for James, and the responsibility of his twins was
weighing heavily on those left behind.
"Kind o' handy ladlin' it out to folks," said Sunny, grinning lazily.
"But, with all your brightness, I don't guess any o' you could mother
them kiddies. No, it's jest 'send Sunny along to see to 'em.' That
bein' said, you'll git right back to your poker with a righteous
feelin' which makes it come good to rob each other all you know. Psha!
You ain't no better'n them lousy birds as lays eggs sizes too big, an'
blames 'em on to some moultin' sparrer that ain't got feathers 'nuff
to make it welcome at a scratchin' bee."
Sunny's flow was a little overwhelming, and perhaps there was just
enough truth in his remarks to make it unadvisable for the others to
measure wits with him. Anyway, he received no reply. Bill continued to
gaze out at Scipio's hut in a way that suggested great absorption,
while Toby had not yet lunched sufficiently off his tattered
forefinger. Sandy was the only one of the three apparently alive to
the true exigencies of the case, and Sunny addressed himself more
exclusively to him.
"Say," he went on, his good-humored eyes smiling cunningly up into the
widower's face, "I've heerd tell that you once did some pore
unsuspicious female the dirty trick of marryin' her. Mebbe you'll sure
hev' notions 'bout kiddies an' such things. Now, if Wild Bill had come
along an' pushed a shootin'-iron into your map, an' said you'll handle
Zip's kiddies--wal, I ask you, wot 'ud you ha' done?"
"Told him to git his head cooled some," retorted Sandy promptly.
"Ah, guess you bin saved a heap o' trouble," murmured Sunny. "But if
you hadn't said that--which you said you would ha' said--an' you'd
got busy as he suggested--wal, what then?"
Sandy cleared his throat, and, in his sudden interest, Toby deferred
the rest of his meal.
"Wal, I'd ha' gone right up to the shack an' looked into things."
Sandy's first effort seemed to please him, and, hitching his moleskin
trousers up deliberately, he proceeded with some unction--
"Y'see, ther' ain't nothin' like gettin' a look around. Then you kind
o' know wher' you are. You sure need to know wher' you are 'fore you
get busy proper. It's most like everything else. If you get on the
wrong trail at the start, it's li'ble to lead you wher' you don't want
to go. What I says is, hit the right trail at the start, then you got
a chance o' gettin' thro' right, which, I take it, is an elegant way
o' doin' most things. Wal, havin' located the right trail--"
"We're talkin' o' Zip's twins," murmured Sunny gently.
"Sure, that's where I'm gettin' to--"
"By trail?" inquired Toby seriously.
"Say, you make me tired," retorted Sandy angrily.
"Best quit the trail, then," said Sunny.
"Go to blazes!" cried Sandy, and promptly relapsed into moody
silence.
At that moment Bill turned from his contemplation of the house beyond
the dumps and fixed his fierce eyes on Sunny's grinning face.
"Here, you miser'ble hoboe," he cried, "get right up out of that, and
hump across to Zip's shack. You're doin' enough gassin' fer a female
tattin' bee. Your hot air makes me want to sweat. Now, them kiddies'll
need supper. You'll jest ast Minky fer all you need, an' I pay. An'
you'll see things is fixed right for 'em."
Sunny lurched reluctantly to his feet. He knew the gambler far too
well to debate the point further. He had made his protest, which had
been utterly ineffective, so there was nothing left him but to obey
the fiercely uttered mandate.
But Sandy Joyce felt that somehow his first effort on behalf of the
children had missed fire, and it was his duty not to allow himself to
be ousted from the council. So he stayed the loafer with a word.
"Say, you'll be knowin' how to feed 'em?" he inquired gravely.
Sunny's eyes twinkled.
"Wal, mebbe you ken give me pointers," he retorted, with apparent
sincerity.
"That's how I was figgerin'," said Sandy cordially. He felt better now
about his first effort. "Y'see, Minky's stock is limited some; ther'
ain't a heap o' variety, like. An' kiddies do need variety. Y'see,
they're kind o' delicate feeders, same as high-bred hosses, an' dogs
an' things. Now, dogs need diff'rent meat every day, if you're goin'
to bring 'em up right. A friend o' mine sure once told me that meat,
good meat, was the best feed fer prize dogs, an' he was a feller that
won a heap o' prizes. He had one, Boston bull, I--"
"'ll I need to git dog-biscuit for them kiddies?" inquired Sunny
sarcastically.
"Say, you make me sick," cried Sandy, flushing angrily.
"Guess that's how you'll make them kiddies," interposed Toby.
Sandy glanced viciously from one to the other. Then, assuming
a superiority that scarcely hid his chagrin, he ignored the
interruptions.
"You best ast Minky fer some dandy canned truck," he said decisively,
deliberately turning his back on Toby Jenks. "Mebbe a can o' lobster
an' one o' them elegant tongues stewed in jelly stuff, an' set in a
glass bowl. Y'see, they kids needs nourishin', an' that orter fix
them 'bout right. I don't know 'bout them new sides o' sow-belly
Minky's jest had in. Seems to me they'll likely need teeth eatin'
that. Seein' you ain't a heap at fixin' beans right, we best cut that
line right out--though I 'lows there's elegant nourishin' stuff in 'em
for bosses. Best get a can o' crackers an' some cheese. I don't guess
they'll need onions, nor pickles. But a bit o' butter to grease the
crackers with, an' some molasses an' fancy candy, an' a pound o' his
best tea seems to me 'bout right. After that--"
"Some hoss physic," broke in Toby, recommencing the chewing of his
forefinger.
But Wild Bill's fierce eyes were on Sandy, and the erstwhile married
man felt their contempt boring into his very soul. He was held silent,
in spite of his anger against the broad-shouldered Toby, and was
possessed of a feeling that somehow his second effort had been no more
successful than his first. And forthwith the impression received
confirmation in a sudden explosion from Wild Bill.
"Jumpin' mackinaw!" he cried, with a force calculated to crush
entirely the remnants of Sandy's conceit. "You'd sure shame a crazy
sheep fer intellect." Then he added, with withering sarcasm, "Say,
don't you never leave your mouth open more'n two seconds at a time, or
you'll get the flies in it, an'--they'll start nestin'."
Then without pause he turned on Sunny and delivered his ultimatum.
"Get busy," he ordered in a tone there was no denying.
And somehow Sunny found himself stirring far more rapidly than suited
his indolent disposition.
Having thoroughly disturbed the atmosphere to his liking, Bill left
the veranda without another look in his companions' direction, and his
way took him to the barn at the back of the store.
The gambler was a man of so many and diverse peculiarities that it
would be an impossibility to catalogue them with any degree of
satisfactoriness. But, with the exception of his wholesale piratical
methods at cards--indeed, at any kind of gambling--perhaps his most
striking feature was his almost idolatrous worship for his horses. He
simply lived for their well-being, and their evident affection for
himself was something that he treasured far beyond the gold he so
loved to take from his opponents in a gamble.
He possessed six of these horses, each in its way a jewel in the
equine crown. Wherever the vagaries of his gambler's life took him his
horses bore him thither, harnessed to a light spring cart of the
speediest type. Each animal had cost him a small fortune, as the price
of horses goes, and for breed and capacity, both in harness and under
saddle, it would have been difficult to find their match anywhere in
the State of Montana. He had broken and trained them himself in
everything, and, wherever he was, whatever other claims there might be
upon him, morning, noon and evening he was at the service of his
charges. He gloried in them. He reveled in their satin coats, their
well-nourished, muscular bodies, in their affection for himself.
Now he sat on an oat-bin contemplating Gipsy's empty stall, with a
regret that took in him the form of fierce anger. It was the first
time since she had come into his possession that she had been turned
over to another, the first time another leg than his own had been
thrown across her; and he mutely upbraided himself for his folly, and
hated Scipio for having accepted her services. Why, he asked himself
again and again, had he been such an unearthly fool? Then through his
mind flashed a string of blasphemous invective against James, and with
its coming his regret at having lent Gipsy lessened.
He sat for a long time steadily chewing his tobacco. And somehow
he lost all desire to continue his poker game in the store. His
whole mind had become absorbed by thoughts of this James, and though
he, personally, had never suffered through the stage-robber's
depredations, he found himself resenting the man's very existence.
There were no ethical considerations in his mind. His inspiration
was purely personal. And though he did not attempt to reduce his
hatred to reason, nor to analyze it in any way, the truth of its
existence lay in the fact of a deadly opposition to this sudden
rise to notoriety of a man of strength, and force of character
similar, in so many respects, to his own. Perhaps it was mere
jealousy; perhaps, all unknown to himself, there was some deeper
feeling underlying it. Whatever it was, he had a strong sympathy
with Scipio, and an unconquerable desire to have a hand in the
smoothing out of the little man's troubles.
He did not leave the barn, and scarcely even took his eyes off Gipsy's
empty stall, until nearly sundown. Then, as he heard the voices of
returning prospectors, he set to work on his evening task of grooming,
feeding, watering and bedding down his children for the night.
CHAPTER VII
SUNNY OAK TRIES HIS HAND
In the meantime Sunny Oak was executing his orders with a care for
detail quite remarkable in a man of his excessive indolence. It was a
curious fact, and one that told a great deal of his own character, as
well as that of the gambler. His implicit obedience to Wild Bill's
orders was born of a deeper knowledge of that individual than was
possessed by most of his comrades in Suffering Creek. Maybe Minky, who
was Bill's most intimate friend, would have understood. But then Sunny
Oak possessed no such privilege. He knew Bill through sheer
observation, which had taught him to listen when the gambler spoke as
he would listen to a man in high authority over him--or to a man who,
without scruple, held him helpless under an irresistible threat. Which
power it was inspired his obedience he did not pause to consider. He
simply accepted the fact that when Bill ordered he preferred to
obey--it was so much easier.
"Hoboe"--the local term for one suffering from his indolent malady--as
he was, Sunny Oak was a man of some character. Originally this cloak
of indolence in which he wrapped himself had been assumed for some
subtle reason of his own. It was not the actual man. But so long had
he worn it now that he had almost forgotten the real attributes
enshrouded in its folds. As a matter of fact, he was very much a man,
and a "live" man, too. He really possessed an extraordinary energy
when he chose to exercise it. But it was generally his habit to push
his interest aside for the easier course of indifference. However, his
capacity was none the less there.
His other possessions, too, were excellent in their way, although he
had encouraged the germ of rust in a deplorable degree. His
good-nature would not be denied, and was obvious to all. But an
extremely alert mind, an infinite resource of keen, well-trained
thought, a profound love of the beautiful, a more commonplace physical
courage supported by the rarer moral courage, he contrived to keep
well hidden from the vulgar gaze.
These were some of the features so long concealed under the folds of
his cloak of indolence that even he had almost forgotten their
existence. Thus it was, in all seriousness, he cried out bitterly in
protest when an attempt was made to lift the covering and lay bare the
man beneath it. And his lamentations were perfectly genuine.
After leaving the store with a sack of provisions over his shoulder he
grumbled his way across the dumps to Scipio's house. He cursed the
weight he was forced to carry, and anathematized the man who had
driven him to so bestir himself. He lamented over this waste of his
precious energies, he consigned Scipio and his children to eternity,
and metaphorically hurled Jessie headlong to the depths of the
uttermost abyss of the nether-world. But he went on. In spite of his
foulest language and vilest epithets, it was his full intention to do
his best for the children.
What he found on entering Scipio's hut set his small eyes twinkling
again. His unclean face creased up into a grin, and, softly tiptoeing
to a far corner of the room, he deposited his sack with the greatest
care. Then he stood up, and his eyes fixed themselves on a curious
heap under the table. It was a tumbled pile of pale blue, dirty white,
with a four-legged dash of yellow. And out of the heap he made the
forms of two small sleeping children, each hugging in their arms an
extremity of a yellow cur pup, also sound asleep, in the shaft of
sunlight which flooded in through the open doorway.
Sunny rubbed his eyes and thought hard, nor did he find the process
irksome. From the miserable camp pup he glanced at the grubby face of
Jamie. Then his eyes passed on to Vada's pretty but equally dirty
features. And swift action at once followed his thought. He glanced at
the dying fire in the cookstove, and saw the small clothes hanging on
the chair in front of it. He felt them; they were quite dry. Then he
tried the kettle on the stove; it still had water in it. Then he went
to the fuel-box; yes, there was fuel.
Now with his fingers he replenished the fire, and noiselessly
re-filled the kettle. Then he removed the clothes and put the chair
aside. The children still slept on. He further investigated the
resources of Scipio's _ménage_. He found a wash-bowl and soap and a
towel, three things he rarely sought for any purposes of his own.
Then, after looking into the cupboard, he shook his head. It was
deplorably bare of all but uncleanliness. And it was the former that
caused his headshake, not the latter. With some pride he re-stocked
the shelves with the liberal purchases he had made at Bill's expense.
He had provided everything that a man's mind could conceive as being
necessary for the interior of healthy childhood. True, he had made no
provision for a yellow pup.
By this time the kettle was boiling, and it served him as a signal. In
a harsh, untuneful voice he began to chant an old coon-ditty. The
effect of his music was instantaneous as regards the more sensitive
ears of the pup. Its eyes opened, and it lifted its head alertly.
Then, with a quick wriggle, he sat up on his hind quarters, and,
throwing his lean, half-grown muzzle in the air, set up such a howl of
dismay that Sunny's melody became entirely lost in a jangle of
discords. He caught up his empty sack and flung it at the wailing
pup's head. It missed its aim, and in a moment the twins had joined in
their yellow friend's lament.
Sunny never quite understood the real cause of that dismal
protest--whether it was the sight of him, his doleful singing, or the
flinging of the sack. All he knew was that it was very dreadful, and
must be stopped as quickly as possible. So, to that end, he began to
cajole the children, while he surreptitiously let fly a kick at the
pup.
"Say, you bonny kids, you ain't scairt o' poor Sunny Oak," he cried,
while a streak of yellow flashed in the sunlight and vanished through
the door, a departure which brought with it renewed efforts from the
weeping children. "It's jest Sunny Oak wot nobody'll let rest," he
went on coaxingly. "He's come along to feed you supper. Say," he
cried, laboring hard for inspiration, "it's such a bully supper.
Ther's molasses, an' candy, an'--an' lob-ster!"
Whether it was the smacking of his lips as he dwelt on the last word,
or whether it was merely the fact that their fright was passing,
matters little; anyhow, the cries of the twins died out as suddenly as
they began, and their eyes, big and round, gazed wonderingly up at
Sunny's unkempt face.
"Who's you, ugly man?" asked Vada at last, her brain working more
quickly than her brother's.
"'Ess--ug'y man," added Jamie unmeaningly.
Sunny's hand went up to his face, and he scratched amongst his sparse
beard as though to test the accuracy of the accusation. Then he
grinned sheepishly.
"Guess I'm jest an ugly fairy that wants to be kind to two lonesome
kiddies," he beamed.
"O--oh! You'se a fairy?" said Vada doubtfully.
"'Ess," nodded Jamie, thrilling with wonderment, and eyeing him
critically.
Elated with his success, Sunny went on warmly--
"Yep. Jest a fairy, an' I bro't a heap o' good grub fer you kiddies t'
eat."
But Vada's small brain was following out its own train of thought, and
passed the food question by.
"Awful ugly," she said, half to herself.
"'Ess," muttered Jamie abstractedly.
"Mebbe," said Sunny, with a laugh. "Wal, if you crawl right out o'
there an' git around, I got things fixed so we'll hev' a bully time."
But his proposition hadn't the effect he hoped. Instead of moving,
Jamie suddenly beat his head with his little clenched fists.
"Me wants yaller pup," he cried, and forthwith howled afresh.
Again Sunny realized his helplessness, and, glancing about for further
inspiration, caught sight of an inquiring yellow head peering
furtively in through the doorway.
"Why, ther' he is," he cried, vainly hoping to pacify the child. Then
he began at once a clumsy encouragement of the dog. "Here, you yeller
feller," he cried, flicking his fingers coaxingly. "Come along! Gee,
you're a pretty feller. Hi! come along here."
But the dog made no attempt to move, and Sunny began to lose patience.
"Come along, pups," he cried, with increasing force. "Come on, you
miser'ble rat. Don't stan' ther' waggin' your fool tail like a
whisk-broom. Say, you yaller cur, I'll--" He started to fetch the
creature, but in a twinkling it had fled, to the accompaniment of a
fresh outburst from Jamie.
"I tho't you was a fairy," protested Vada. "Fairies ken do most
anything. You're jest an ugly ole man."
Sunny stood up and drew the back of his hand across his perspiring
forehead. He was worried. The fairy business was played out, and he
felt that he must begin again. Children were by no means as easy to
handle as he had thought. He racked his brains, and suddenly bethought
him of another move.
In spite of Jamie's whimpering, he went to the cupboard and produced a
tin of molasses. This he carefully opened in full view of Vada's
questioning eyes. Jamie had also become silent, watching him intently.
He dug his finger into the sticky contents and drew it out. Then he
licked his finger with tremendous enjoyment.
"Bully," he muttered, apparently ignoring the children.
Instantly Vada was on her knees, crawling from under the table,
followed closely by her faithful shadow. She came cautiously up to
Sunny's side and stood up.
"M'lasses?" she inquired, and her eyes spoke volumes.
"O-oh!" muttered Jamie, scrambling to his feet beside her holding up
one fat hand.
Sunny, without replying, allowed them to dip their fingers into the
pot and taste the molasses. He felt that the moment was critical, and
he would not risk words which might easily set them scuttling back to
their stronghold.
His strategy was successful. Up came the hands again, and he knew he
had won their confidence. He allowed them another dip into the pot,
and then began the business in hand.
"We'll save the rest fer bimeby," he said decidedly. "Meanwhiles we'll
fix things right."
"Wot things?" inquired Vada.
"M'lasses," said Jamie, with tearful eyes.
Again Sunny felt the crisis, but he carried the situation with a firm
hand.
"Bimeby, laddie," he said cheerfully. "Meanwhiles we'll jest have a
wash all round."
And forthwith he set the wash-bowl ready and filled it with warm
water. Then, after some consideration and trouble, having discovered a
rag which had been used in the household "wash-up," and a piece of
soap, he prepared to start on little Vada. But she instantly
protested.
"You first, Mister Fairy," she said cheerfully. "My poppa allus washes
first. Then we has his water."
"'Ess," agreed Jamie.
And, to his disgust, Sunny was forced to an unwilling ablution, which,
by strategy, he had hoped to escape. However, the ordeal was manfully
borne, and his reward was quite worth his trouble. Vada promptly
exclaimed when she saw his face emerge from the dirty towel, shining
with grease off the house-flannel.
"You'se a fairy, sure," she cried, clapping her hands and dancing
about gleefully. "On'y fairies can change theirselves. You'se a
pretty, pretty man--now. Now, Jamie dear. You next," she added, with
feminine assurance. And with clumsy but willing enough hands Sunny Oak
contrived to cleanse his charges.
By the time his task was accomplished perfect good-will reigned all
round, and the climax was reached when the yellow pup returned of its
own accord, and was promptly hugged to Jamie's affectionate little
bosom.
The next thing was to prepare the children's supper. This was a far
more serious matter for the loafer. But he finally achieved it, having
learnt, by the process of cross-questioning the girl, what was usual
and therefore expected. However, it was not without some difficulty
that he succeeded in providing an adequate meal, which consisted of
bread and milk, with bread and molasses as a sort of dessert. For
himself, he was forced to fare off a tin of lobster and tea. Still,
his difficulties were not of much consequence so long as the children
were satisfied. And any bother to himself was his own fault, in having
relied for a moment on Sandy Joyce's ideas of a menu.
Supper over and the table cleared, he decided on further catechizing
little Vada on points that still were a mystery to him. So, with Jamie
busy on the floor endeavoring to solve the mystery of the pup's
wagging tail, he lit his pipe and took Vada on his knee. He
endeavored to recall incidents of his own childhood; to remember
something of his own early routine. But somehow nothing was very
clear.
He had washed the children and given them food. Those things seemed to
him to be perfectly sound. Well, what next? It was a little difficult.
He glanced at the sun. Surely bed would be quite in order. Bed--ah,
yes, that was a happy thought. He remembered now, when he was young he
always used to get himself into trouble purposely so they would send
him to bed. But with this thought came the regretful recollection that
his predilection for bed was quickly discovered, and his further
penalties took the form of the buckle end of his father's waist-belt.
However, he put the proposition with much tact.
"Say, kiddies," he began, "how soon does your momma put you to bed?"
Vada shook her wise little head.
"Momma don't. Poppa does."
"And when's that?" he inquired, driving at his point deliberately.
"When momma says."
Vada was fastening and unfastening the man's dirty waistcoat with
great interest.
"An' when does your momma say it?" Sunny persisted.
"When poppa's done the chores."
"Ah!"
He felt himself on the wrong tack, and cast about for a fresh line of
argument.
"Guess you kiddies like bed some," he hazarded doubtfully.
"Me like m'lasses," piped Jamie, who had managed to get the pup's tail
over his shoulder, and was hanging on to it with both hands. Vada
shrieked as the pup began to yelp.
"Oh, look at Jamie," she cried. "He's pulling Dougal's tail right out.
You're a naughty, naughty boy."
"Not naughty," protested Jamie, pulling harder.
Sunny reached down and released the mongrel, who promptly turned round
and licked the boy's face. Jamie fought him with his little clenched
fists, and finally began to cry.
Again Sunny went to the rescue, and with some difficulty peace was
restored. Then he went back to his subject.
"Guess we'll hev to go to bed right now," he suggested, with an air of
authority.
"Momma ain't back," said Vada, her eyes round and wondering.
"She'll be right along presently," lied Sunny.
"'Ess," declared Jamie, "an'--an'--we go find 'piders an'--an' bugs."
Vada nodded.
"Lots an' lots."
"That's to-morrow," said Sunny, taking his cue wonderingly.
"Poppa ain't back neither," protested Vada.
"He's gone visitin'," said Sunny. "Maybe he'll be late. Guess he's
havin' a hand at poker down at the store."
Sunny was getting uncomfortably hot. Lies came easily enough to him in
the ordinary way, but with these poor children it was somehow
different.
"Poppa don't play poker," defended Vada. "On'y wicked men does."
"'Ess," agreed Jamie.
"That's so." Sunny felt himself on dangerous ground.
He smoked on thoughtfully for some moments. He felt that a desperate
move was required, and considered how best to make it. Finally he
resolved that he must assert his authority. So, setting Vada on the
ground, he stood up.
"Bed," he said, with a great assumption of finality.
Vada's eyes rolled ominously, and a pucker came to her little sunburnt
brow. Jamie offered no preliminary, but howled at once. And when,
after the slightest hesitation, Vada joined in his lament, Sunny's
distress became pitiable. However, he managed to ease his feelings by
several well-directed mental curses at Wild Bill's head, and all those
others concerned in reducing him to his present position. And with
this silently furious outburst there came a brain-wave of great
magnitude.
"First in bed sure gets most m'lasses," he cried, darting to the
cupboard door and holding the well-smeared pot up above his head.
The children's cries ceased, and for a second they stood staring up at
him. Then, like a pair of rabbits, they turned and ran for the
bedroom, vanishing behind the curtain amidst shrieking excitement.
Sunny followed them with the molasses and a handful of crackers.
They were both on the bed when he passed into the room, huddling down
under a couple of cotton blankets. The man glanced round him. On the
other side of the room was the big bed where their father and mother
slept. Both beds were unmade, and the room was littered with feminine
garments in a manner that suggested the mother's hasty flight.
Hardened as he was, the sight and all it suggested depressed him. But
he was not allowed much time for reflection. Two childish voices
shrieked at him at once.
"Me first!" they cried in one breath.
And Sunny ladled them out molasses and crackers to their hearts'
content. When they had eaten all he thought good for them Vada
scrambled to her knees.
"Prayers," she said, and clasped her hands before her face.
Jamie wobbled up to her side and imitated her. And Sunny stood by
listening wonderingly to something that brought back a world of
recollection to him. It brought him more. It laid before him a mental
picture of his present manhood which somehow nauseated him. But he
stood his ground till the final "Amens," then he hustled the twins
almost roughly into the blankets, and, having extracted a promise from
them not to leave the bed again until he returned, hurried out of the
room.
He stood for a moment in the living-room. He was in a doubt that
almost confused him. Mechanically he looked at the stove. The fire was
quite safe. The window was secure. Then he moved to the door. There
was a lock to it and a key. He passed out, and, locking the door
behind him, removed the key.
"Gee!" he exclaimed, drinking in a breath of the evening air, "five
minutes more o' that an' I'd 'a' bin singin' funeral hymns over my
past life. Gee!"
* * * * *
Ten minutes later he was in Wild Bill's hut down at the camp, and had
finished his account of his adventures.
"Say," he finished up peevishly, "ther's things a feller can do, an'
things he sure can't. I tell you right here I ain't learned how to
cluck to my chicks, an' I ain't never scratched a worm in my life. I
'low I'm too old to git busy that ways now. If you're goin' to raise
them kids fer Zip while he's away, it'll need a committee o' us
fellers. It's more'n one feller's job--much more. It needs a wummin."
Bill listened patiently until his deputy had aired his final
grievance. His fierce eyes had in them a peculiar twinkle that was
quite lost on Sunny in his present mood. However, when the injured man
had finished his tale of woe the gambler stretched his long legs out,
and lolled back in his chair with a fresh chew of tobacco in his
mouth.
"You ain't done too bad," he said judicially. "That m'lasses racket
was a heap smart. Though--say, you'll get around ther' come sun-up
to-morrer, an' you'll fix 'em right all day. Maybe Zip'll be back
later. Anyways, you'll fix 'em."
"Not on your life--" began Sunny, in fierce rebellion. But Bill cut
him short.
"You'll do it, Sunny," he cried, "an' don't you make no mistake."
The man's manner was irresistibly threatening, and Sunny was beaten
back into moody silence. But if looks could have killed, Bill's
chances of life were small indeed.
"Guess you're off duty now," the gambler went on icily. "You're off
duty till--sun-up. You're free to get drunk, or--what in hell you
like."
Sunny rose from his seat. His rebellious eyes were fiercely alight as
he regarded his master.
"May your soul rot!" he cried venomously. And with this final impotent
explosion he slouched out of the hut.
"Dessay it will," Bill called after him amiably. "But it ain't started
yet."
But his jibe was quite lost on the angry Sunny, for he had left him
with the haste of a man driven to fear of whither his anger might
carry him.
Left alone, Wild Bill chuckled. He liked Sunny, but despised his mode
of life with all the arrogant superiority of a man of great force,
even if of indifferent morals. He had no patience with a weakened
manhood. With him it was only strength that counted. Morality was only
for those who had not the courage to face a mysterious future
unflinchingly. The future concerned him not at all. He had no fears of
anybody or anything, either human or superhuman. Death offered him no
more terrors than Life. And whichever was his portion he was ready to
accept it unquestioningly, unprotestingly.
He allowed the hoboe time to get well clear of his shack. Then he
stood up and began to pace the room thoughtfully. A desperate frown
depressed his brows until they met over the bridge of his large thin
nose. Something was working swiftly, even passionately, in his brain,
and it was evident that his thoughts were more than unpleasant to
himself. As the moments passed his strides became more aggressive, and
his movements were accompanied by gesticulations of a threatening
nature with his clenched fists.
At last he paused in his walk, and dropped again into his chair. Here
he sat for a long while. Then, of a sudden, he lifted his head and
glanced swiftly about his bare room. Finally he sprang to his feet and
crushed his slouch hat on his head, and, crossing over to the oil-lamp
on the table, blew it out. Then he passed out into the night, slamming
and locking the door behind him.
The night was dark, and the moon would not rise for at least another
hour. The air was still laden with the heat of the long summer's day,
and it hummed with the music of stirring insect life. He strode along
the trail past the store. He glanced at the lighted windows longingly,
for he had an appointment for a game in there that night. But he
passed on.
As he came to the camp dumps he paused for a moment to take his
bearings. Then he continued his way with long, decided strides, and in
a few minutes the dim outline of Scipio's house loomed up before him.
He came close up, and walked slowly round it. At one window he paused,
listening. There was not a sound to be heard outside. At the window of
the bedroom he listened a long time. No, he could not even hear the
children breathing.
At last he reached the door which Sunny had locked. He cautiously
tried the handle, and the sound brought a whimper from the yellow pup
within. He cursed the animal softly under his breath and waited,
hoping the wretched creature would settle down again. He heard it
snuff at the foot of the door, and then the soft patter of its feet
died away, and he knew that the poor thing had satisfied itself that
all was well.
He smiled, and sat down at the foot of the door. And, with his knees
drawn up into his arms, he prepared for his long vigil. It was the
posting of the night sentry over Scipio's twins.
CHAPTER VIII
WILD BILL THINKS HARD--AND HEARS NEWS
Wild Bill stretched himself drowsily. It was noon. He knew that by the
position of the patch of sunlight on the floor, which he gazed at with
blinking eyes. Presently he reached out his long arms and clasped his
hands behind his head. He lay there on his stretcher bed, still very
sleepy, but with wakefulness gaining ascendancy rapidly. He had
completed two successive nights of "sentry-go" over Scipio's twins,
never reaching his blankets until well after sun-up.
For some minutes he enjoyed the delicious idleness of a still brain.
Then, at last, it stirred to an activity which once again set flowing
all the busy thought of his long night's vigil. Further rest became
impossible to a man of his temperament, and he sprang from his
blankets and plunged his face into a bucket of fresh water which stood
on an adjacent bench. In five minutes he was ready for the business of
the day.
It was to be a day of activity. He felt that. Yet he had made no
definite plans. Only all his thoughts of the previous night warned him
that something must be done, and that it was "up to him to get busy."
A long wakeful night is apt to distort many things of paramount
interest. But the morning light generally reduces them to their proper
focus. Thus it is with people who are considered temperamental. But
Bill had no such claims. He was hard, unimaginative, and of keen
decision. And overnight he had arrived at one considerable decision.
How he had arrived at it he hardly knew. Perhaps it was one of those
decisions that cannot be helped. Certain it was that it had been
arrived at through no definite course of reasoning. It had simply
occurred to him and received his approval at once. An approval, which,
once given, was rarely, if ever, rescinded. This was the man.
He had first thought a great deal about Scipio. He felt that the time
had come when his fate must be closely inquired into. The blundering
efforts of Sunny Oak were so hopelessly inadequate in the care of the
children, that only the return of their father could save them from
some dire domestic catastrophe.
Sunny apparently meant well by them. But Bill hated well-meaning
people who disguised their incompetence under the excellence of their
intentions. Besides, in this case it was so useless. These two
children were a nuisance, he admitted, but they must not be allowed to
suffer through Sunny's incompetence. No, their father must be found.
Then there was his mare, Gipsy; and when he thought of her he went hot
with an alarm which no threat to himself could have inspired. This
turn of thought brought James into his focus. That personage was
rarely far from it, and he needed very little prompting to bring the
outlaw into the full glare of his mental limelight. He hated James. He
had seen him rarely, and spoken to him perhaps only a dozen times,
when he first appeared on Suffering Creek. But he hated him as though
he were his most bitter personal enemy.
He had no reason to offer for this hatred, beyond the outlaw's known
depredations and the constant threat of his presence in the district.
At least no reason he would have admitted publicly. But then Wild Bill
was not a man to bother with reasons much at any time. And it was the
venomous hatred of the man which now drove him to a decision of the
first importance. And such was his satisfaction in the interest of his
decision, that, for the time being, at least, poker was robbed of its
charm, faro had become a game of no consequence whatever, and gambling
generally, with all its subtleties as he understood them, was no
longer worth while. He had decided upon a game with a higher stake
than any United States currency could afford. It was a game of life
and death. James, "Lord" James, as he contemptuously declared, must
go. There was no room for him in the same district as Wild Bill of
Abilene.
It would be useless to seek the method by which this decision was
reached. In a man such as Bill the subtleties of his motives were far
too involved and deeply hidden. The only possible chance of estimating
the truth would be to question his associates as to their opinion. And
even then such opinions would be biased by personal understanding of
the man, and so would be of but small account.
Thus Minky would probably have declared that his decision was the
result of his desire for the welfare of the community in which he
claimed his best friends. Sandy Joyce would likely have shaken his
head, and declared it was the possibility of something having happened
to his mare Gipsy. Toby Jenks might have had a wild idea that Bill had
made his "pile" on the "crook" and was "gettin' religion." Sunny Oak,
whose shrewd mind spent most of its time in studying the peculiarities
of his fellows, might have whispered an opinion to himself, when no
one was about, to the effect that Bill couldn't stand for a rival
"boss" around Suffering Creek.
Any of these opinions might have been right, just as any of them might
have been very wide of the mark. Anyhow, certain it is that no citizen
of Suffering Creek would, even when thoroughly drunk, have accused
Bill of any leaning towards sentimentalism or chivalry. The idea that
he cared two cents for what became of Scipio, or his wife, or his
children, it would have been impossible to have driven into their
heads with a sledge-hammer. And maybe they would have been right. Who
could tell?
His decision was taken without any definite argument, without any
heroics. He frankly declared to himself that James must go. And having
decided, he, equally frankly, declared that "the proposition was up to
him." This was his silent ultimatum, and, having delivered it, there
was no turning back. He would carry it out with as little mercy to
himself as he would show to any other concerned.
The men of Suffering Creek thought they knew this man. But it is
doubtful if anybody, even the man himself, knew Wild Bill. Probably
the nearest approach to a fair estimate of him would have been to
describe him as a sort of driving force to a keen brain and hot,
passionate heart. Whether he possessed any of the gentler human
feelings only his acts could show, for so hard and unyielding was his
manner, so ruthless his purpose when his mind was made up, that it
left little room for the ordinary observer to pack in a belief of the
softer side to the man.
Ten minutes after performing his primitive ablutions Wild Bill was
eating breakfast in the dining-room at the store, with Minky sitting
opposite to him. The storekeeper was telling him of something that
happened the night before, with a troubled expression in his honest
eyes.
"I was wonderin' when you'd get around," he said, as soon as Birdie
Mason had withdrawn to the kitchen. "I'd have given a deal for you to
have been playin' last night. I would sure. There was three fellers,
strangers, lookin' for a hand at poker. They'd got a fine wad o'
money, too, and were ready for a tall game. They got one with Irish
O'Brien, an' Slade o' Kentucky, but they ain't fliers, an' the
strangers hit 'em good an' plenty. Guess they must ha' took five
hundred dollars out of 'em."
Bill's sharp eyes were suddenly lifted from his plate. He was eating
noisily.
"Did you locate 'em--the strangers?" he grated.
"That's sure the pinch," said Minky, wiping his broad forehead with a
colored handkerchief. The heat in the dining-room was oppressive.
"I've never see 'em before, an' they didn't seem like talkin' a heap.
They were all three hard-lookin' citizens, an'--might ha' been
anything from bum cowpunchers to--"
"Sharps," put in Bill, between noisy sips at his coffee.
"Yes."
Minky watched a number of flies settle on a greasy patch on the bare
table.
"Y'see," he went on, after a thoughtful pause, "I don't like strangers
who don't seem ready tongued--none of us do, since the stage-robbin'
set in."
"You mean--" Bill set his cup down.
Minky nodded.
"We ain't sent out a parcel of gold for months, an' I'm kind o' full
up with dust about now. Y'see, the boys has got to cash their stuff,
and I'm here to make trade, so--wal, I jest got to fill myself with
gold-dust, an' take my chances. I'm mighty full just now--an'
strangers worry me some."
"You're weakenin'," said Bill sharply, but his eyes were serious, and
suggested a deep train of swift thought. Presently he reached a piece
of bread and spread molasses on it.
"Guess you're figgerin' it 'ud be safer to empty out."
Minky nodded.
"And these strangers?" Bill went on.
"They've lit out," said Minky ruefully. "I ast a few questions of the
boys. They rode out at sun-up."
"Where did they sleep?"
"Don't know. Nobody seems to know."
Minky sighed audibly. And Bill went on eating.
"Ain't heerd nothing o' Zip?" the storekeeper inquired presently.
"No."
"'Bout that mare o' yours?"
Bill's face suddenly flushed, and his fierce brows drew together in an
ominous frown, but he made no answer. Minky saw the change and edged
off.
"It's time he was gettin' around."
Bill nodded.
"I was kind of wonderin'," Minky went on thoughtfully, "if he don't
turn up--wot's to happen with them kids?"
"I ain't figgered."
Bill's interest was apparently wandering.
"He'll need to be gettin' around or--somethin's got to be done," Minky
drifted on vaguely.
"Sure."
"Y'see, Sunny's jest a hoboe."
"Sure."
"Don't guess Zip's claim amounts to pea-shucks neither," the
storekeeper went on, his mind leaning towards the financial side of
the matter.
"No."
"Them kids'll cost money, too."
Bill nodded, but no one could have detected any interest in his
movement.
"How'd it be to get that claim worked for him--while he's away?"
Bill shrugged.
"Mebbe Zip'll be gettin' back," he said.
"An' if he don't."
"You mean?"
There was interest enough in Bill now. His interrogation was full of
suppressed force.
"Yes. James."
Bill sprang to his feet and kicked back his chair. The sudden rage in
his eyes was startling, even to Minky, who was used to the man.
However, he waited, and in a moment or two his friend was talking
again in his usually cold tone.
"I'll jest git around an' see how Sunny's doin'," he said.
Then he drew out a pipe and began to cut flakes of tobacco from a
black plug.
"See here, Minky," he went on, after a moment's pause. "You need to do
some thinkin'. How much dust have you got in the store?"
"'Bout twenty thousand dollars."
"Whew!" Bill whistled softly as he packed the tobacco in his pipe. "An
elegant parcel for strangers to handle."
The storekeeper's face became further troubled.
"It sure is--if they handle it."
"Jest so."
Bill's pipe was alight now, and he puffed at it vigorously, speaking
between the puffs.
"Y'see, this feller James plays a big game. Cattle duffin' and
ord'n'ry stage-robbin' ain't good enough, nor big enough, to run his
gang on. He needs gold stages, and we ain't sendin' gold stages out.
Wal, wot's the conclusion? I ast you?"
"He'll hev to light out, or--"
"Jest so. Or he'll get around here to--look into things. Those
strangers last night were mebbe 'lookin' into things.' You'll need to
stow that dust where the rats can't gnaw it. Later we'll think things
out. Meanwhile there's one thing sure, we don't need strangers on
Suffering Creek. There's enough o' the boys around to work the gold,
an' when they get it they mostly know what to do with it. Guess I'll
get on up to Zip's shack."
The two men walked out into the store. Minky in a pessimistic mood
passed in behind his counter. This question of gold had bothered him
for some weeks. Since the first stage-robbing, and James' name had
become a "terror" in the district, he had opened a sort of banking
business for the prospectors. Commercially it appealed to him
enormously. The profits under his primitive methods of dealing with
the matter were dazzlingly large, and, in consequence, the business
became a dominant portion of his trade. Nor was it until the quantity
of gold he bought began to grow, and mount into thousands of dollars'
worth, that the difficulties of his traffic began to force themselves
upon him. Then it was that he realized that if it was insecure to
dispatch a gold stage laden with the property of the prospectors, how
was he to be able to hold his stock at the store with any greater
degree of security.
The more he thought of the matter the greater the difficulties
appeared. Of course he saw possibilities, but none of them offered the
security he needed. Then worry set in. History might easily repeat
itself on Suffering Creek. James' gang was reported to be a large one.
Well, what if he chose to sweep down upon the camp, and clean the
place out. Herein lay the trouble. And in consequence his days and
nights were none too easy.
He had never spoken of the matter before. It was not a subject to be
discussed with anybody. But Bill was different from the rest, and, for
several days, Minky had sought an opportunity of unburdening himself
to his friend. Now, at last, he had done so, and, in return, had
received small enough comfort. Still he felt he had done the best
thing.
CHAPTER IX
THE FORERUNNER OF THE TRUST
Bill passed straight through the store and set out across the town
dumps. And it would have been impossible to guess how far he was
affected by Minky's plaint. His face might have been a stone wall for
all expression it had of what was passing behind it. His cold eyes
were fixed upon the hut ahead of him without apparent interest or
meaning. His thoughts were his own at all times.
As he drew near he heard Sunny's voice raised in song, and he listened
intently, wondering the while if the loafer had any idea of its
quality. It was harsh, nasal and possessed as much tune as a freshly
sharpened "buzz-saw." But his words were distinct. Far too distinct
Bill thought with some irritation.
"A farmer ast the other day if we wanted work.
Sez we, 'Ol' man, the labour?' Sez he, 'It's binding wheat.'
Sez we, 'Ol' man, the figger?' 'A dollar an' a ha'f the sum.'
Sez we, 'Ol' man, go an' tickle yerself, we'd a durned sight sooner
bum!'
'Anythin' at all, marm, we're nearly starvin',
Anything to hel-l-lp the bummers on their wa-ay,
We are three bums an' jolly good chums,
An' we live like Royal Turks,
An' with good luck we bum our chuck,
An' it's a fool of a man wot works.'"
Just as Sunny was about to begin the next verse Bill appeared in the
doorway, and the vocalist was reduced to a pained silence by his harsh
criticism.
"You'd orter be rootin' kebbeges on a hog ranch wi' that voice," he
said icily. "You're sure the worst singer in America."
Then he glanced round for the children. They were nowhere to be seen.
Sunny was at the cookstove boiling milk in a tin "billy." His face was
greasy with perspiration, and, even to Bill's accustomed eyes, he
looked dirtier than ever. He stood now with a spoon poised, just as he
had lifted it out of the pot at the moment of the other's entrance.
"Where's the kids?" the latter demanded sharply.
Sunny shifted his feet a little uneasily and glanced round the dirty
room. The place looked as though it hadn't been cleaned for a month.
There was a hideous accumulation of unwashed utensils scattered
everywhere. The floor was unswept, let alone unwashed. And the smell
of stale food and general mustiness helped to add to the keenness of
the visitor's nervous edge as he waited for the man's reply.
"Guess they're out on the dumps playin' at findin' gold," Sunny said,
with a slightly forced laugh. "Y'see, little Vada's staked out a claim
on a patch of elegant garbage, an' is digging fer worms. Them's the
gold. An' Jamie's playin' 'bad man' an' swoopin' down on her and
sneakin' her worms. It's a new game. Y'see, I thought it out and
taught 'em how to play it. They're a heap struck on it, too. I--"
But words somehow failed him under the baleful stare of the other's
eyes. And turning back to the milk he fell into a stupid silence.
"You'll get right out an' huyk them kiddies off'n those dumps," cried
Bill sharply. "You got no more sense in your idjot head than to slep
when your eyes shut. Diggin' worms on the dumps! Gee! Say, if it ain't
enough to give 'em bile and measles, an'--an' spots, then I don't know
a 'deuce-spot' from a hay-rake. Git right out, you loafin' bum, an'
fetch 'em in, an' then get the muck off'n your face, an' clean this
doggone shack up. I'd sure say you was a travelin' hospital o' disease
by the look of you. I'm payin' you a wage and a heap good one, so git
out--an' I'll see to that darn milk."
Argument was out of the question, so Sunny adopted the easier course
of obedience to his employer's orders. He dropped the spoon into the
milk with a suddenness that suggested resentment, and shuffled out,
muttering. But Bill followed him to the door.
"How?" he inquired threateningly.
"I didn't say nothin'," lied Sunny.
"I didn't jest guess you did," retorted Bill sarcastically. And he
watched his man hurry out into the sunlight with eyes that had somehow
become less severe.
He waited where he was for some moments. Then he turned back into the
room and stared disgustedly about him.
"If a feller can't fix two kiddies right an' cook 'em pap without
mussin' things till you feel like dying o' colic at the sight, he
ain't fit to rob hogs of rootin' space," he muttered. "I'd--Gee-whiz!
Ther's that doggone milk raising blue murder wi'--"
He rushed to the stove where the boiling milk was pouring over the
sides of the pot in a hissing, bubbling stream. He clutched at the
"billy," scalding his fingers badly, jerked it off the stove, upset
the contents on the floor and flung the pot itself across the room,
where it fell with a clatter upon a pile of dirty tin plates and
pannikins. He swore violently and sucked his injured fingers,
while, in angry dismay, he contemplated the additional mess his
carelessness had caused. And at that moment Sunny returned, leading
two grubby-faced infants by the hand.
"I got 'em back," he cried cheerfully. Then his shrewd eyes took in
the situation at a glance, and they sparkled with malicious glee.
"Gee," he cried, releasing the youngsters and pointing at the mess on
the stove and floor. "Now ain't that a real pity? Say, how d'you come
to do that? It sure ain't a heap of trouble heatin' a drop o' milk.
Most any fule ken do that. I tho't you savvied that, I sure did, or
I'd ha' put you wise. Y'see, you should jest let it ha' come to the
bile, an' then whip it off quick. My, but it's real foolish! Ten cents
o' milk wasted for want of a little sense."
"Our dinner milk," cried Vada in consternation. "All gone."
"All dorn," echoed Jamie, flinging himself on the floor and dipping
his fingers into the mess and licking them with grave appreciation.
In a moment he was joined by the inevitable yellow pup, which burnt
its tongue and set up a howl. Vada ran to the animal's assistance,
fell over Jamie's sprawling legs and rolled heavily in the mess.
For some seconds confusion reigned. Sunny darted to Vada's rescue,
sent the pup flying with a well-directed kick, picked the weeping girl
up, and tried to shake some of the milk from her dirty clothing. While
Bill grabbed Jamie out of the way of any further mischief. The boy
struggled furiously to free himself.
"Me want dinner milk," he shouted, and beat the gambler's chest with
both his little fists.
"You kicked Dougal!" wailed Vada, from under Sunny's arm.
And at that moment a mild voice reached them from the open doorway--
"Why, what's happenin'?"
Bill and Sunny turned at once. And the next instant the children were
shrieking in quite a different tone.
"Pop-pa," they shouted, with all the power of their childish lungs.
The men released them, and, with a rush, they hurled themselves upon
the small person of their father.
Scipio set a bundle he was carrying upon the floor and scrambled Jamie
into his arms and kissed him. Then he kissed Vada. After that he stood
up, and, in a peculiarly dazed fashion gazed about him, out of a pair
of blackened and bloodshot eyes, while the children continued to cling
to him.
The two onlookers never took their eyes off him. Sunny Oak gazed with
unfeigned astonishment and alarm, but Bill merely stared. The little
man was a pitiable object. His clothes were tattered. His face was
bruised and cut, and dry blood was smeared all round his mouth. Both
eyes were black, and in one of them the white was changed to a bright
scarlet.
James' men had done their work all too well. They had handled their
victim with the brutality of the savages they were.
Scipio let his eyes rest on Bill, and, after a moment's hesitation, as
though gathering together his still scattered wits, spoke his
gratitude.
"It was real kind of you lendin' me Gipsy. I set her back in the barn.
She's come to no harm. She ain't got saddle-sore, nor--nor nothin'.
Maybe she's a bit tuckered, but she's none the worse, sure."
Bill clicked his tongue, but made no other response. At that moment it
would have been impossible for him to have expressed the thoughts
passing through his fierce mind. Sunny, however, was more superficial.
Words were bursting from his lips. And when he spoke his first remark
was a hopeless inanity.
"You got back?" he questioned.
Scipio's poor face worked into the ghost of a smile.
"Yes," he said. And the awkwardness of the meeting drove him to
silently caressing his children.
Presently Sunny, who was not delicate-minded, pointed at his face.
"You--you had a fall?"
Scipio shook his head.
"You see, I found him and--his boys got rough," he explained simply.
"Gee!"
There was no mistaking Sunny's anger. He forgot his usual lazy
indifference. For once he was stirred to a rage that was as active and
volcanic as one of Wild Bill's sudden passions.
But the gambler at last found his tongue, and Sunny was given no
further opportunity.
"What you got there?" he asked, pointing at the parcel Scipio had
deposited on the floor.
The little man glanced down at it.
"That?" he said hazily. "Oh, that's bacon an' things. I got 'em from
Minky on my way up. He told me you'd sure got grub up here, an' I
didn't need to get things. But I guessed I couldn't let you do all
this now I'm back. Say," he added, becoming more alert. "I want to
thank you both, you bin real good helping me out."
Bill swallowed some tobacco juice, and coughed violently. Sunny was
eaten up with a rage he could scarcely restrain. But Scipio turned to
the children, who were now clinging silently to his moleskin
trousers.
"Guess we'll get busy an' fix things up," he said, laying caressing
hands upon them. "You'll need your dinners, sure. Poppa's got nice
bacon. How's that?"
"Bully," cried Vada promptly. Now that she had her father again
everything was "bully." But Jamie was silently staring up at the man's
distorted features. He didn't understand.
Wild Bill recovered from his coughing, suddenly bestirred himself.
"Guess we'd best git goin', Sunny," he said quietly. "Zip'll likely
need to fix things up some. Y'see, Zip," he went on, turning to the
father, "Sunny's done his best to kep things goin' right. He's fed the
kiddies, which was the most ne'ssary thing. As for keppin' the place
clean,"--he pointed at the small sea of milk which still stood in
pools on the floor--"I don't guess he's much when it comes to cleanin'
anything--not even hisself. I 'low he's wrecked things some. Ther's a
heap of milk wasted. Howsum--"
"Say!" cried the outraged Sunny. But Bill would allow no interruption.
"We'll git goin'," he said, with biting coldness. "Come right along.
So long, Zip," he added, with an unusual touch of gentleness. "I'll be
along to see you later. We need to talk some."
He moved over to Sunny's side, and his hand closed upon his arm. And
somehow his grip kept the loafer silent until they passed out of the
hut. Once outside the gambler threw his shoulders back and breathed
freely. But he offered no word. Only Sunny was inclined to talk.
"Say, he's had a desprit bad time," he said, with eyes ablaze.
But Bill still remained silent. Nor did another word pass between them
until they reached Minky's store.
* * * * *
The moment they had departed Scipio glanced forlornly round his home.
It was a terrible home-coming. Three days ago in spite of all
set-backs and shortcomings, hope had run high in his heart. Now--He
left the twins standing and walked to the bedroom door. He looked in.
But the curtains dropped from his nerveless fingers and he turned back
to the living room, sick in mind and heart. For one moment his eyes
stared unmeaningly at the children. Then he sat down on the chair
nearest the table and beckoned them over to him. They came, thrilled
with awe in their small wondering minds. Their father's distorted
features fascinated yet horrified them.
Jamie scrambled to one knee and Vada hugged one of the little man's
arms.
"We'll have to have dinner, kiddies," he said, with attempted
lightness.
"Ess," said Jamie absently. Then he reached up to the wound on his
father's right cheek, and touched it gently with one small finger. It
was so sore that the man flinched, and the child's hand was withdrawn
instantly.
"Oose's hurted," he exclaimed.
"Pore poppa's all hurt up," added Vada tearfully.
"Not hurt proper," said Scipio, with a wan smile. "Y'see, it was jest
a game, an'--an' the boys were rough. Now we'll git dinner."
But Vada's mind was running on with swift childish curiosity, and she
put a sudden question.
"When's momma comin' back?" she demanded.
The man's eyes shifted to the open doorway. The golden sunlight beyond
was shining with all the splendor of a summer noon. But for all his
blackened eyes saw there might have been a gray fog of winter
outside.
"Momma?" he echoed blankly.
"Ess, momma," cried Jamie. "When she comin'?"
Scipio shook his head and sighed.
"When she comin'?" insisted Vada.
The man lowered his eyes till they focused themselves upon the yellow
pup, now hungrily licking up the cold milk.
"She won't come back," he said at last, in a low voice. Then with a
despairing gesture, he added: "Never! never!" And his head dropped
upon Jamie's little shoulder while he hugged Vada more closely to his
side as though he feared to lose her too.
CHAPTER X
THE TRUST
It was a blazing afternoon of the "stewing" type. The flies in the
store kept up a sickening hum, and tortured suffering humanity--in the
form of the solitary Minky--with their persistent efforts to alight on
his perspiring face and bare arms. The storekeeper, with excellent
forethought, had showered sticky papers, spread with molasses and
mucilage, broadcast about the shelves, to ensnare the unwary pests.
But though hundreds were lured to their death by sirupy drowning, the
attacking host remained undiminished, and the death-traps only
succeeded in adding disgusting odors to the already laden atmosphere.
Fortunately, noses on Suffering Creek were not over-sensitive, and the
fly, with all his native unpleasantness, was a small matter in the
scheme of the frontiersman's life, and, like all other obstructions,
was brushed aside physically as well as mentally.
The afternoon quiet had set in. The noon rush had passed, nor would
the re-awakening of the camp occur until evening. Ordinarily the quiet
of the long afternoon would have been pleasant enough to the
hard-working storekeeper. For surely there is something approaching
delight in the leisure moments of a day's hard and prosperous work.
But just now Minky had little ease of mind. And these long hours, when
the camp was practically deserted, had become a sort of nightmare to
him. The gold-dust stored in the dim recesses of his cellars haunted
him. The outlaw, James, was a constant dread. For he felt that his
store held a bait which might well be irresistible to that individual.
Experienced as he was in the ways of frontier life, the advent of the
strangers of the night before had started a train of alarm which
threatened quickly to grow into panic.
He was pondering this matter when Sunny Oak, accompanied by the
careless Toby Jenks, lounged into the store. With a quick, almost
furtive eye the storekeeper glanced up to ascertain the identity of
the newcomers. And, when he recognized them, such was the hold his
alarm had upon him, that his first thought was as to their fitness to
help in case of his own emergency. But his fleeting hope received a
prompt negative. Sunny was useless, he decided. And Toby--well, Toby
was so far an unknown quantity in all things except his power of
spending on drink the money he had never earned.
"Ain't out on you
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