The Gold Girl

by James B. Hendryx

  CHAPTER IV

  MONK BETHUNE

  "When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, When the devil got well, the devil a monk was he."

  Pippin Larue chanted tipsily, as he strummed softly the strings of amuffled banjo. And Raoul Bethune, with the flush of liquor upon hispale cheeks, joined in the laugh that followed, and replenished hisglass from the black bottle he had contrived to smuggle from thehospital stores when he had been returned to his room in thedormitory. And "Monk" Bethune he was solemnly rechristened by thehalf-dozen admiring satellites who had foregathered to celebrate hisrecovery from an illness. All this was long ago. Monk Bethune'sdormitory life had terminated abruptly--for the good of the school,but the name had fastened itself upon him after the manner of namesthat fit. It followed him to far places, and certain red-coatedpolicemen, who knew and respected his father, the Hudson Bay Company'sold factor on Lake o' God's Wrath, hated him for what he had become.They knew him for an inveterate gambler who spent money freely andboasted openly of his winnings. He was soft of voice and mild ofmanner and aside from his passion for gambling, his conduct so far aswas known was irreproachable. But, there were wise and knowing onesamong the officers of the law, who deemed it worth their while to makecareful and unobtrusive comparison between the man's winnings and hisexpenditures. These were the men who knew that certain Indians werebeing systematically supplied with whisky, and that there were certainhorses in Canada whose brands, upon close inspection, showed signs ofhaving been skillfully "doctored," and which bore unmistakableevidence of having come from the ranges to the southward of theinternational boundary.

  But, try as they might, no slightest circumstance of evidence couldthey unearth against Bethune, who was wont to disappear from his usualhaunts for days and weeks at a time, to reappear smiling anddebonaire, as unexpectedly as he had gone. Knowing that the men of theMounted suspected him, he laughed at them openly. Once, upon a streetin Regina, Corporal Downey lost his temper.

  "You'll make a mistake sometime, Monk, and then it will be our turn tolaugh."

  "Oh-ho! So until I make a mistake, I am safe, eh? That is good news,Downey--good news! Skill and luck--luck and skill--the tools of thegamblers' trade! But, granted that sometime I shall make amistake--shall lose for the moment, my skill; I shall still have myluck--and your mistakes. You are a good boy, Downey, but you'll be aglum one if you wait to laugh at my mistakes. If I were a chickenthief instead of a--gambler, I should fear you greatly."

  Downey recounted this jibe in the barracks, and the officers redoubledtheir vigilance, but the Indians still got their whisky, and newhorses appeared from the southward.

  When Monk Bethune refused Ma Watts's invitation to dinner, and rodeoff down the creek followed by Lord Clendenning, the refusal did notmeet the Englishman's unqualified approval, a fact that he was notslow in imparting when, a short time later, they made noonday camp ata little spring in the shelter of the hills.

  "I say, Monk, what's this bally important business we've got on hand?"he asked, as he adjusted a refractory hobble strap. "Seems to me youthrew away an excellent opportunity."

  Bethune grinned. "Anything that involves the loss of a square meal, isa lost opportunity. You're too beefy, Clen, a couple of weeks on pilotbread and tea always does you good."

  "I was thinking more of the lady."

  "La, la, the ladies! A gay dog in your day--but, you've had your day.Forget 'em, Clen, you're fifty, and fat."

  "I'm forty-eight, and I weigh only fifteen stone as I stand,"corrected the Englishman solemnly. "But layin' your bloody jokesaside, this particular lady ought to be worth our while."

  Bethune nodded, as he scraped the burning ends of the little stickscloser about the teapot. "Yes, decidedly worth while, my dear Clen,and that's where the important business comes in. Those who live bytheir wits must use their wits or they will cease to live. I live bymy wits, and you by your ability to follow out my directions. In thepresent instance, we had no plan. We could only have sat and talked,but talk is dangerous--when you have no plan. Even little mistakes arecostly, and big ones are fatal. Let us go over the ground, now andcheck off our facts, and then we can lay our plans." As he talked,Bethune munched at his pilot bread, pausing at intervals for a swallowof scalding tea.

  "In the first place, we know that Rod Sinclair made a strike. And weknow that he didn't file any claim. Why? Because he knew that peoplewould guess he had made a strike, and that the minute he placed hislocation on record, there would be a stampede to stake the adjoiningclaims--and he was saving those claims for his friends."

  "His strike may be only a pocket," ventured Clendenning.

  "It is no pocket! Rod Sinclair was a mining man--he knows rock. If hehad struck a pocket he would have staked and filed at once--and takenno chances. I tell you he went back East to let his friends in. Thefool!"

  The Englishman finished his tea, rinsed out his tin cup in the spring,and filled his pipe. "And you think the girl has got the description?"

  Bethune shook his head. "No. A map, perhaps, or some photographs. Ifshe had the description she would not have come alone. The friends ofher father would have been with her, and they would have filed theminute they hit the country. It's either a map, or nothing but hisword."

  "And in either case we've got a chance."

  "Yes," answered Bethune, viciously. "And this time we are not going tothrow away our chance!" He glanced meaningly at the Englishman, whopuffed contentedly at his pipe.

  "Sinclair was too shrewd to have carried anything of importance, andthere would have been blood on our hands. As it is, we sleep good ofnights."

  Bethune gave a shrug of impatience. "And the gold is still in thehills, and we are no nearer to it than we were last fall."

  "Yes, we are nearer. This girl will not be as shrewd as her father wasin guarding the secret, if she has it. If she hasn't it our chance isas good as hers."

  "And so is Vil Holland's! He believes Sinclair made a strike, and nowthat Sinclair is out of the way, you may be sure he will leave nostone unturned to horn in on it. The gold is in these hills and I'mgoing to get it. If I can't get it one way, I will get it another."The quarter-breed glanced about him and unconsciously lowered hisvoice. "However, one could wish the girl had delayed her visit for acouple of weeks. A person slipped me the word he could handle abouttwenty head of horses."

  The Englishman's face lighted. "I thought so when you began to dickerwith Watts for his pasture. We'll get him his bally horses, then. Thishorse game I like, it's a sportin' game, and so is the whisky runnin'.But I couldn't lay in the hills and shoot a man, cold blooded."

  "And you've never been a success," sneered Bethune. "You never had adollar, except your remittance, until you threw in with me. And we'dhave been rich now, if it hadn't been for you. I tell you I knowSinclair carried a map!"

  "If he had, we'll get it. And we can sleep good of nights!"

  "You're a fool, Clen, with your 'sleep good of nights!' I sleep goodof nights, and I've--" he halted abruptly, and when he spoke again hiswords grated harsh. "I tell you this is a fang and claw existence--alllife is fang and claw. The strong rip the flesh from the bones of theweak. And the rich rip their wealth from the clutch of a thousandpoor. What a man has is his only so long as he can hold it. One man'sgain is another man's loss, and that is life. And it makes nodifference in the end whether it was got at the point of the pistolin defiance of law, or whether it was got within the law under theguise of business. And I don't need you to preach to me about what iswrong, either."

  The Englishman laughed. "I'm not preaching, Monk. Anyone engaged inthe business we're in has got no call to preach."

  "We're no worse than most of the preachers. They peddle out, formoney, what they don't believe."

  "Heigh-ho! What a good old world you've painted it! I hope you'reright, and I'm not as bad as I think I am."

  Bethune interrupted, speaking rapidly in the outlining of a plan ofprocedure, and it was well toward the middle of the
afternoon when thetwo saddled up and struck off into the hills in the direction of theircamp.

  * * * * *

  Twilight had deepened to dusk as Patty Sinclair pulled her team to astandstill upon the rim of the bench and looked down upon thetwinkling lights of the little town that straggled uncertainly alongthe sandy bank of the shallow river.

  "Hain't it grand lookin'?" breathed Microby Dandeline who satdecorously booted and stockinged upon the very edge of the board seat."You wouldn't think they wus so many folks, less'n you seen 'emyers'f. Wisht I lived to town, an' I wisht they'd be a circust."

  Patty guided the horses down the trail that slanted into the valleyand crossed the half-mile of "flats" whose wire fences and long,clean-cut irrigation ditches marked the passing of the cattle country.A billion mosquitoes filled the air with an unceasing low-pitcheddrone, and settled upon the horses in a close-fitting blanket of gray.The girls tried to fight off the stinging pests that attacked theirfaces and necks in whirring clouds. But they fought in vain and invain they endeavored to urge the horses to a quickening of their pace,for impervious alike to the sting of the insects and the blows of thewhip, the animals plodded along in the unvarying walk they hadmaintained since early morning.

  "This yere's the skeeter flats," imparted Microby, between slaps."They hain't no skeeters in the mountains, mebbe it's too fer, an'mebbe they hain't 'nough folks fer 'em to bite out there, they's onlyus-uns an' a few more." As the girl talked the horses splashed intothe shallow water of the ford and despite all effort to urge themforward, halted in mid-stream, and sucked greedily of thecrystal-clear water. It seemed an hour before they moved on andassayed a leisurely ascent of the opposite bank. The air becamepungent with the smell of smoke. They were in town, now, and as thewagon wheels sank deeply into the soft sand of the principal street,Patty noted that in front of the doors of most of the houses, slowfires were burning--fires that threw off a heavy, stifling smudge ofsmoke that spread lazily upon the motionless air and hung thick andlow to the ground.

  "Skeeter smudges," explained Microby proud of being the purveyor ofinformation, "towns has 'em, an' then the skeeters don't bite. Oh,look at the folks! Lest hurry up! They might be a fight! Las' timethey wus a fight an' a breed cut a man Pap know'd an' the man got thebreed down an' stomped on his face an' the marshal come an' sp'ilthit, an' the man says if he'd of be'n let be he'd of et the breed up."

  "My, what a shame! And now you may never see a man eat a breed,whatever a breed is."

  "A breed's half a Injun." Microby was standing up on the seat at theimminent risk of her neck, peering over the heads of the crowd thatthronged the sidewalk.

  "Sit down!" commanded Patty, sharply, as she noted the amused glanceswith which those on the outskirts of the crowd viewed the ridiculousfigure in the red dress and the pink sunbonnet. "They are waiting forthe movie to open.

  "Whut's a movie? Is hit like the circust? Kin I go?" The questionscrowded each other, as the girl scrambled to her seat, her eyes werebig with excitement.

  "Yes, to-morrow."

  "Looky, there's Buck!" Patty's eyes followed the pointing finger, andshe frowned at sight of the rangy buckskin tied with half a dozenother horses to the hitching rail before the door of a saloon. Itseemed as she glanced along the street that nearly every building intown was a saloon. Half a block farther on she drew to the sidewalkand stopped before the door of a two-story wooden building thatflaunted across its front the words "MONTANA HOTEL." As Patty climbedstiffly to the sidewalk each separate joint and muscle shrieked itsaching protest at the fifteen-hour ride in the springless, joltingwagon. Microby placed her foot upon the sideboard and jumped, hercow-hide boots thudding loudly upon the wooden planking.

  "Oughtn't you stay with the horses while I make the arrangements?"

  Microby shook her head in vigorous protest. "They-all hain't a-goin'nowheres less'n they has to. An' I want to go 'long."

  A thick-set man, collarless and coatless, who tilted back in his chairwith his feet upon the window ledge, glanced up indifferently as theyentered and crossed to the desk, and returned his gaze to the window,beyond which objects showed dimly in the gathering darkness. After amoment of awkward silence Patty addressed him. "Is the proprietoranywhere about?"

  "I'm him," grunted the man, without looking around.

  The girl's face flushed angrily. "I want a room and supper for two."

  "Nawthin' doin'. Full up."

  "Is there another hotel in this town?" she flashed angrily.

  "No."

  "Do you mean to say that there is no place where we can getaccommodation for the night?"

  "That's about the size of it."

  "Can't we get anything to eat, either?" It was with difficulty Pattyconcealed her rage at the man's insolence. "If you knew how hungry weare--we've been driving since daylight with only a cold lunch forfood." She did not add that the cold lunch had been so unappetizingshe had not touched it.

  "Supper's over a couple hours, an' the help's gone out."

  "I'll pay you well if you can only manage to get us something--we'restarved." The girl's rage increased as she noticed the gleam thatlighted the heavy eyes. That, evidently was what he had been waitingfor.

  "Well," he began, but she cut him short.

  "And a room, too."

  "I'm full up, I told you. The only way might be to pay someone todouble up. An' with these here cowpunchers that comes high. I might--"The opening of the screen door drew all eyes toward the man whoentered and stood just within the room. As Patty glanced at thesoft-brimmed hat, the brilliant scarf, and noticed that the yellowlamplight glinted upon the tip of polished buffalo horn, and the ivorybutt of the revolver, her lips tightened. But the man was not lookingat her--seemed hardly aware of her presence. The burly proprietorsmiled.

  "Hello, Vil. Somethin' I kin do fer you?"

  "Yes," answered the man. He spoke quietly, but there was that in hisvoice that caused the other to glance at him sharply. "You can standup."

  The man complied without taking his eyes from the cowboy's face.

  "I happened to be goin' by an' thought I'd stop an' see if I couldtake the team over to the livery barn for my--neighbors, yonder. Thedoor bein' open, I couldn't help hearin' what you said." He paused,and the proprietor grinned.

  "Business is business, an' a man's into it fer all he kin git."

  "I suppose that's so. I suppose it's good business to lie an' cheatwomen, an'----"

  "I hain't lied, an' I hain't cheated no one. An' what business is itof yourn if I did? All my rooms is full up, an' the help's all gone tothe pitcher show."

  "An' there's about a dozen or so cowmen stoppin' here to-night--theones you talked of payin' to double up--an' there ain't one of 'emthat wouldn't be glad to double up, or go out an' sleep on the streetif he couldn't get nowhere else to sleep, if you even whispered thatthere was a lady needed his room. The boys is right touchy when itcomes to bein' lied about."

  The proprietor's face became suddenly serious. "Aw looky here, Vil, Ididn't know these parties was friends of yourn. I'll see't they gits'em a room, an' I expect I kin dig 'em out some cold meat an'trimmin's. I was only kiddin'. Can't you take a joke?"

  "Yes, I can take a joke. I'm only kiddin', too--an' so'll the boys be,after I tell 'em----"

  "They hain't no use rilin' the boys up. I----"

  "An' about that supper," continued the cowboy, ignoring the protest,"I guess that cold meat'll keep over. What these ladies needs is agood hot supper. Plenty of ham _and_, hot Java, potatoes, an' whateveryou got."

  "But the help's----"

  "Get it yourself, then. It ain't so long since you was runnin' a shortorder dump. You ain't forgot how to get up a quick feed, an' to givethe devil his due, a pretty good one."

  The other started surlily toward the rear. "I'll do it, if----"

  "You won't do it _if_ nothin'. You'll do it--that's all. An' you'lldo it at the regular price, too."

  "Say, who's runnin' this her
e _hotel_?"

  "You're runnin' it, an' I'm tellin you how," answered the tallhillman, without taking his eyes from the other's face.

  The man disappeared, muttering incoherently, and Vil Holland turned tothe door.

  "I want to thank you," ventured Patty. "Evidently your word carriesweight with mine host."

  "It better," replied the cowpuncher, dryly. "An' you're welcome. I'lltake the team across to the livery barn." He spoke impersonally, withscarcely a glance in her direction, and as the screen door bangedbehind him the girl flushed, remembering her own rudeness upon thetrail.

  "Lawless he may be, and he certainly looks and acts the part," shemurmured to herself as the wagon rattled away from the sidewalk, "buthis propensity for turning up at the right time and the right place israpidly becoming a matter of habit." A door beside the desk stoodajar, and above it, Patty read the words "WASH ROOM." Pushing it openshe glanced into the interior which was dimly lighted by a murky oillamp that occupied a sagging bracket beside a distorted mirror. Twotin wash basins occupied a sink-like contrivance above which a singleiron faucet protruded from the wall. Beside the faucet was tacked abroad piece of wrapping paper upon which were printed in a laboriousscrawl the following appeals:

  NOTISS

  Ples DoNT LEEv THE WaTTer RUN ITS hANPumpt.PLes DONT Waist THE ToWL.Kome AN BREsh AN TOOTH BResH IS INtoTHR Rak BESIDS THE MiRRoW. PLeS PUTEM baCK.THes IS hoUSE RULes AN WANts TO be OBayDKINLY.

  F. RuMMEL, PROP.

  Removing the trail dust from their faces and hands, the girls returnedto the office and after an interminable wait the proprietor appeared,red-faced and surly. "Grub's on, an' yer room'll be ready agin you'veet," he growled, and waddled to his place at the window.

  A generous supply of ham and eggs, fried potatoes, bread and butter,and hot coffee awaited them in the dining-room, and it seemed to Pattythat never before had food tasted so good. Twenty minutes later, whenthey returned to the office the landlord indicated the stairway with ajerk of his thumb. "First door to the right from the top of thestairs, lamp's lit, extry blankets in the closet, breakfast from five'till half-past-seven." The words rattled from his lips in a singlebreath as he sat staring into the outer darkness.

  "If Aunt Rebecca could see me, now," smiled Patty to herself, as sheled the way up the uncarpeted stairs, with Microby Dandeline'scow-hide boots clattering noisily in her wake.