by Bret Harte
CHAPTER VIII.
As the day advanced the excitement over the financial crisis increasedat Hymettus, until, in spite of its remote and peaceful isolation,it seemed to throb through all its verandas and corridors with somepulsation from the outer world. Besides the letters and dispatchesbrought by hurried messengers and by coach from the Divide, there wasa crowd of guests and servants around the branch telegraph at the newHeavy Tree post-office which was constantly augmenting. Added to thenatural anxiety of the deeply interested was the stimulated fever of thefew who wished to be "in the fashion." It was early rumored that a heavyoperator, a guest of the hotel, who was also a director in the telegraphcompany, had bought up the wires for his sole use, that the dispatcheswere doctored in his interests as a "bear," and there was wild talkof lynching by the indignant mob. Passengers from Sacramento, SanFrancisco, and Marysville brought incredible news and the wildestsensations. Firm after firm had failed in the great cities. Oldestablished houses that dated back to the "spring of '49," and hadweathered the fires and inundations of their perilous Californianinfancy, collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, impalpablebreath of panic. Companies rooted in respectability and sneered at forold-fashioned ways were discovered to have shamelessly speculated withtrusts! An eminent deacon and pillar of the church was found dead inhis room with a bullet in his heart and a damning confession on the deskbefore him! Foreign bankers were sending their gold out of the country;government would be appealed to to open the vaults of the Mint; therewould be an embargo on all bullion shipment! Nothing was too wild orpreposterous to be repeated or credited.
And with this fever of sordid passion the summer temperature hadincreased. For the last two weeks the thermometer had stood abnormallyhigh during the day-long sunshine; and the metallic dust in the roadsover mineral ranges pricked the skin like red-hot needles. In thedeepest woods the aromatic sap stood in beads on felled logs andsplintered tree-shafts; even the mountain night breeze failed to coolthese baked and heated fastnesses. There were ominous clouds of smoke byday that were pillars of fire by night along the distant valleys. Someof the nearer crests were etched against the midnight sky by dull redcreeping lines like a dying firework. The great hotel itself creakedand crackled and warped though all its painted, blistered, and veneeredexpanse, and was filled with the stifling breath of desiccation. Thestucco cracked and crumbled away from the cornices; there were yawninggaps in the boarded floors beneath the Turkey carpets. Plate-glasswindows became hopelessly fixed in their warped and twisted sashes,and added to the heat; there was a warm incense of pine sap in thedining-room that flavored all the cuisine. And yet the babble of stocksand shares went on, and people pricked their ears over their soup tocatch the gossip of the last arrival.
Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found bitterness, was neverthelessimpatient in his inaction, and was eagerly awaiting a telegram fromStacy; Barker had disappeared since luncheon. Suddenly there wasa commotion on the veranda as a carriage drove up with a handsome,gray-haired woman. In the buzzing of voices around him Demorest heardthe name of Mrs. Van Loo. In further comments, made in more smotheredaccents, he heard that Van Loo had been stopped at Canyon Station, butthat no warrant had yet been issued against him; that it was generallybelieved that the bank dared not hold him; that others openly averredthat he had been used as a scapegoat to avert suspicion from higherguilt. And certainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, confident air seemed tocorroborate these assertions.
He was still wondering if the strange coincidence which had brought bothmother and son into his own life was not merely a fancy, as far as SHEwas concerned, when a waiter brought a message from Mrs. Van Loo thatshe would be glad to see him for a few moments in her room. Lastnight he could scarcely have restrained his eagerness to meet her andelucidate the mystery of the photograph; now he was conscious of anequally strong revulsion of feeling, and a dull premonition of evil.However, it was no doubt possible that the man had told her of hisprevious inquiries, and she had merely acknowledged them by thatmessage.
Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private sitting-room where he and hisold partners had supped on the preceding night. She received him withunmistakable courtesy and even a certain dignity that might or mightnot have been assumed. He had no difficulty in recognizing the son'smechanical politeness in the first, but he was puzzled at the second.
"The manager of this hotel," she began, with a foreigner's precision ofEnglish, "has just told me that you were at present occupying my roomsat his invitation, but that you wished to see me at once on my return,and I believe that I was not wrong in apprehending that you preferredto hear my wishes from my own lips rather than from an innkeeper. I hadintended to keep these rooms for some weeks, but, unfortunately for me,though fortunately for you, the present terrible financial crisis, whichhas most unjustly brought my son into such scandalous prominence, willoblige me to return to San Francisco until his reputation is fullycleared of these foul aspersions. I shall only ask you to allow me theundisturbed possession of these rooms for a couple of hours until I canpack my trunks and gather up a few souvenirs that I almost always keepwith me."
"Pray, consider that your wishes are my own in respect to that, mydear madam," returned Demorest gravely, "and that, indeed, I protestedagainst even this temporary intrusion upon your apartments; but Iconfess that now that you have spoken of your souvenirs I have thegreatest curiosity about one of them, and that even my object in seekingthis interview was to gratify it. It is in regard to a photograph whichI saw on the chimney-piece in your bedroom, which I think I recognizedas that of some one whom I formerly knew."
There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion and even hard aggressivenessthat quite changed the lady's face as he mentioned the word "souvenir,"but it quickly changed to a smile as she put up her fan with a gestureof arch deprecation, and said:
"Ah! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph."
The reply irritated Demorest. More than that, he felt a sudden sense ofthe absolute sentimentality of his request, and the consciousnessthat he was about to invite the familiar confidence of this strangewoman--whose son had forged his name--in regard to HER!
"It was a Venetian picture," he began, and stopped, a singular disgustkeeping him from voicing the name.
But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. "Oh, you mean my dearest friend--alovely picture, and you know her? Why, yes, surely. You are THE Mr.Demorest who--Of course, that old love-affair. Well, you are a marvel!Five years ago, at least, and you have not forgotten! I really mustwrite and tell her."
"Write and tell her!" Then it was all a lie about her death! He feltnot only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but even hisself-control. With an effort he said.--
"I think you have already satisfied my curiosity. I was told five yearsago that she was dead. It was because of the date of the photograph--twoyears later--that I ventured to intrude upon you. I was anxious only toknow the truth."
"She certainly was very much living and of the world when I saw herlast, two years ago," said Mrs. Van Loo, with an easy smile. "I dare saythat was a ruse of her relatives--a very stupid one--to break off theaffair, for I think they had other plans. But, dear me! now I remember,was there not some little quarrel between you before? Some letter fromyou that was not very kind? My impression is that there was somethingof the sort, and that the young lady was indignant. But only for a time,you know. She very soon forgot it. I dare say if you wrote somethingvery charming to her it might not be too late. We women are veryforgiving, Mr. Demorest, and although she is very much sought after, asare all young American girls whose fathers can give them a comfortable'dot', her parents might be persuaded to throw over a poor prince fora rich countryman in the end. Of course, you know, to you Republicansthere is always something fascinating in titles and blood, and our dearfriend is like other girls. Still, it is worth the risk. And five yearsof waiting and devotion really ought to tell. It's quite a romance!Shall I write to her and tell her I have seen you, looking well andprosperous? Nothing more.
Do let me! I should be delighted."
"I think it hardly worth while for you to give yourself that trouble,"said Demorest quietly, looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smiling eyes, "now thatI know the story of the young lady's death was a forgery. And I will notintrude further on your time. Pray give yourself no needless hurry overyour packing. I may go to San Francisco this afternoon, and not evenrequire the rooms to-night."
"At least, let me make you a present of the souvenir as anacknowledgment of your courtesy," said Mrs. Van Loo, passing into herbedroom and returning with the photograph. "I feel that with your fiveyears of constancy it is more yours than mine." As a gentleman Demorestknew he could not refuse, and taking the photograph from her with a lowbow, with another final salutation he withdrew.
Alone by himself in a corner of the veranda he was surprised thatthe interview had made so little impression on him, and had so littlealtered his conviction. His discovery that the announcement of hisbetrothed's death was a fiction did not affect the fact that thoughliving she was yet dead to him, and apparently by her own consent.The contrast between her life and his during those five years had beencovertly accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whether intentionally or not, andhe saw again as last night the full extent of his sentimental folly. Hecould not even condole with himself that he was the victim of miserablefalsehoods that others had invented. SHE had accepted them, and had evenexcused her desertion of him by that last deceit of the letter.
He drew out her photograph and again examined it, but not as alover. Had she really grown stouter and more self-complacent? Was thespirituality and delicacy he had worshiped in her purely his own idioticfancy? Had she always been like this? Yes. There was the girl who couldweakly strive, weakly revenge herself, and weakly forget. There was thefigure that he had expected to find carved upon the tomb which he hadlong sought that he might weep over. He laughed aloud.
It was very hot, and he was stifling with inaction. What was Barkerdoing, and why had not Stacy telegraphed to him? And what were thosepeople in the courtyard doing? Were they discussing news of furtherdisaster and ruin? Perhaps he was even now a beggar. Well, his fortunemight go with his faith.
But the crowd was simply looking at the roof of the hotel, and henow saw that a black smoke was drifting across the courtyard, and wasconscious of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped down from theveranda among the mingled guests and servants, and saw that the smokewas only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, that the chimney hadbeen on fire, and that it was Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and thatwhen the startled servants had knocked at the locked door she had toldthem that she was only burning some old letters and newspapers, therefuse of her trunks. There was naturally some indignation that thehotel had been so foolishly endangered, in such scorching weather, andthe manager had had a scene with her which resulted in her leaving thehotel indignantly with her half-packed boxes. But even after the smokehad died away and the fire been extinguished in the chimney and hearth,there was an acrid smell of smouldering pine penetrating the upperfloors of the hotel all that afternoon.
When Mrs. Van Loo drove away, the manager returned with Demorest to therooms. The marble hearth was smoked and discolored and still litteredwith charred ashes of burnt paper. "My belief is," said the managerdarkly, "that the old hag came here just to burn up a lot ofincriminating papers that her son had intrusted to her keeping. It looksmighty suspicious. You see she got up an awful lot of side when I toldher I didn't reckon to run a smelting furnace in a wooden hotel with thethermometer at one hundred in the office, and I reckon it was just anexcuse for getting off in a hurry."
But the continued delay in Stacy's promised telegram had begun towork upon Demorest's usual equanimity, and he scarcely listened in hisanxiety for his old partner. He knew that Stacy should have arrived inSan Francisco by noon. He had almost determined to take the next trainfrom the Divide when two horsemen dashed into the courtyard. Therewas the usual stir on the veranda and rush for news, but the two newarrivals turned out to be Barker, on a horse covered with foam, and adashing, elegantly dressed stranger on a mustang as carefully groomedand as spotless as himself. Demorest instantly recognized Jack Hamlin.
He had not seen Hamlin since that day, five years before, when thelatter had accompanied the three partners with their treasure toBoomville, and had handed him the mysterious packet. As the two mendismounted hurriedly and moved towards him, he felt a premonition ofsomething as fateful and important as then. In obedience to a sign fromBarker he led them to a more secluded angle of the veranda. He could nothelp noticing that his younger partner's face was mobile as ever, butmore thoughtful and older; yet his voice rang with the old freemasonryof the camp, as he said, with a laugh, "The signal has been given, andit's boot and saddle and away."
"But I have had no dispatch from Stacy," said Demorest in surprise. "Hewas to telegraph to me from San Francisco in any emergency."
"He never got there at all," said Barker. "Jack ran slap into Van Loo atthe Divide, and sent a dispatch to Jim, which stopped him halfway untilJack could reach him, which he nearly broke his neck to do; and thenJack finished up by bringing a message from Stacy to us that we shouldall meet together on the slope of Heavy Tree, near the Bar. I met Jackjust as I was riding into the Divide, and came back with him. He willtell you the rest, and you can swear by what Jack says, for he's whiteall through," he added, laying his hand affectionately on Hamlin'sshoulder.
Hamlin winced slightly. For he had NOT told Barker that his wife waswith Van Loo, nor his first reason for interfering. But he related howhe had finally overtaken Van Loo at Canyon Station, and how the fugitivehad disclosed the conspiracy of Steptoe and Hall against the bank andMarshall as the price of his own release. On this news, remembering thatStacy had passed the Divide on his way to the station, he had first senta dispatch to him, and then met him at the first station on the road."I reckon, gentlemen," said Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in hisvoice, "that he'd not only got my telegram, but ALL THE NEWS that hadbeen flying around this morning, for he looked like a man to whom itwas just a 'toss-up' whether he took his own life then and there or waswilling to have somebody else take it for him, for he said, 'I'll gomyself,' and telegraphed to have the surveyor stopped from coming. Thenhe told me to tell you fellows, and ask you to come too." Jack paused,and added half mischievously, "He sort of asked ME what I would taketo stand by him in the row, if there was one, and I told him I'dtake--whiskey! You see, boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, andI wouldn't mind for the sake of old times to finish the game with oldSteptoe that I began a matter of five years ago."
"All right," said Demorest, with a kindling eye; "I suppose we'd betterstart at once. One moment," he added. "Barker boy, will you excuse me ifI speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and walked to the rails ofthe veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, "You and I," he said hurriedly,"are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be nochild's play."
But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions whichBarker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, he surmisedthat Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He answered a littlemore seriously than his wont, "I don't think as regards HIS WIFE thatwould make much difference to him or her how stiff the work was."
Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed onlythis confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself hadseen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his return, to shakehis last remaining faith. "We'll all go together, then," he said, witha laugh, "as in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that we have nowoman in our confidence."
An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel, scarcelynoticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious of their absenceduring the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered from her fatiguingride, was in high spirits and the most beautiful and spotless of summergowns, and was considered quite a heroine by the other ladies as shedwelt upon the terrible heat of her return journey. "Only I knew Mr.Barker would be worried
--and the poor man actually walked a mile downthe Divide road to meet me--I believe I should have stayed there allday." She glanced round the other groups for Mrs. Horncastle, but thatlady had retired early. Possibly she alone had noticed the absence ofthe two partners.
The guests sat up until quite late, for the heat seemed to grow stillmore oppressive, and the strange smell of burning wood revived thegossip about Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in setting fire to herchimney. Some averred that it would be days before the smell could begot out of the house; others referred it to the fires in the woods,which were now dangerously near. One spoke of the isolated positionof the hotel as affording the greatest security, but was met by theassertion of a famous mountaineer that the forest fires were wont toleap from crest to crest mysteriously, without any apparent continuouscontact. This led to more or less light-hearted conjecture of presentdanger and some amusing stories of hotel fires and their ludicrousrevelations. There were also some entertaining speculations as to whatthey would do and what they would try to save in such an emergency.
"For myself," said Mrs. Barker audaciously, "I should certainly let Mr.Barker look after Sta and confine myself entirely to getting away withmy diamonds. I know the wretch would never think of them."
It was still later when, exhausted by the heat and some reaction fromthe excitement of the day, they at last deserted the veranda for theirrooms, and for a while the shadowy bulk of the whole building was pickedout with regularly spaced lights from its open windows, until now thesefinally faded and went out one by one. An hour later the whole buildinghad sunk to rest. It was said that it was only four in the morning whena yawning porter, having put out the light in a dark, upper corridor,was amazed by a dull glow from the top of the wall, and awoke to thefact that a red fire, as yet smokeless and flameless, was creeping alongthe cornice. He ran to the office and gave the alarm; but on returningwith assistance was stopped in the corridor by an impenetrable wall ofsmoke veined with murky flashes. The alarm was given in all the lowerfloors, and the occupants rushed from their beds half dressed to thecourtyard, only to see, as they afterwards averred, the flames burstlike cannon discharges from the upper windows and unite above thecrackling roof. So sudden and complete was the catastrophe, althoughslowly prepared by a leak in the overheated chimney between the floors,that even the excitement of fear and exertion was spared the survivors.There was bewilderment and stupor, but neither uproar nor confusion.People found themselves wandering in the woods, half awake and halfdressed, having descended from the balconies and leaped from thewindows,--they knew not how. Others on the upper floor neither awoke normoved from their beds, but were suffocated without a cry. From the firstan instinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating the conflagrationpossessed them all; to a blind, automatic feeling to flee the buildingwas added the slow mechanism of the somnambulist; delicate women walkedspeechlessly, but securely, along ledges and roofs from which theywould have fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. There was nocrowding or impeding haste in their dumb exodus. It was only when Mrs.Barker awoke disheveled in the courtyard, and with an hysterical outcryrushed back into the hotel, that there was any sign of panic.
Mrs. Horncastle, who was standing near, fully dressed as from somenight-long vigil, quickly followed her. The half-frantic woman wasmaking directly for her own apartments, whose windows those inthe courtyard could see were already belching smoke. Suddenly Mrs.Horncastle stopped with a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It hadjust flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told her only a few hoursbefore that Sta had been removed with the nurse to the UPPER FLOOR! Itwas not the forgotten child that Mrs. Barker was returning for, but herdiamonds! Mrs. Horncastle called her; she did not reply. The smoke wasalready pouring down the staircase. Mrs. Horncastle hesitated for amoment only, and then, drawing a long breath, dashed up the stairs. Onthe first landing she stumbled over something--the prostrate figure ofthe nurse. But this saved her, for she found that near the floor shecould breathe more freely. Before her appeared to be an open door. Shecrept along towards it on her hands and knees. The frightened cry ofa child, awakened from its sleep in the dark, gave her nerve to rise,enter the room, and dash open the window. By the flashing light shecould see a little figure rising from a bed. It was Sta. There was nota moment to be lost, for the open window was beginning to draw the smokefrom the passage. Luckily, the boy, by some childish instinct, threwhis arms round her neck and left her hands free. Whispering him tohold tight, she clambered out of the window. A narrow ledge of cornicescarcely wide enough for her feet ran along the house to a distantbalcony. With her back to the house she zigzagged her feet along thecornice to get away from the smoke, which now poured directly from thewindow. Then she grew dizzy; the weight of the child on her bosom seemedto be toppling her forward towards the abyss below. She closed her eyes,frantically grasping the child with crossed arms on her breast as shestood on the ledge, until, as seen from below through the twistingsmoke, they might have seemed a figure of the Madonna and Child nichedin the wall. Then a voice from above called to her, "Courage!" and shefelt the flap of a twisted sheet lowered from an upper window againsther face. She grasped it eagerly; it held firmly. Then she heard a cryfrom below, saw them carrying a ladder, and at last was lifted with herburden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then only did she raise hereyes to the upper window whence had come her help. Smoke and flame werepouring from it. The unknown hero who had sacrificed his only chance ofescape to her remained forever unknown.
*****
Only four miles away that night a group of men were waiting for the dawnin the shadow of a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the sky glowed redlyover the crest between them and Hymettus, Hamlin said:--
"Another one of those forest fires. It's this side of Black Spur, and abig one, I reckon."
"Do you know," said Barker thoughtfully, "I was thinking of the timethe old cabin burnt up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about in the sameplace."
"Hush!" said Stacy sharply.
CHAPTER IX.
An abandoned tunnel--an irregular orifice in the mountain flank whichlooked like a dried-up sewer that had disgorged through its opening therefuse of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and a peculiar clay knownas "cement," in a foul streak down its side; a narrow ledge on eitherside, broken up by heaps of quartz, tailings, and rock, and halfhidden in scrub, oak, and myrtle; a decaying cabin of logs, bark, andcobblestones--these made up the exterior of the Marshall claim. To thisdefacement of the mountain, the rude clearing of thicket and underbrushby fire or blasting, the lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitationof saplings, might be added the debris and ruins of half-civilizedoccupancy. The ground before the cabin was covered with broken boxes,tin cans, the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the cast-off ragsof blankets and clothing. The whole claim in its unsavory, unpicturesquedetails, and its vulgar story of sordid, reckless, and selfish occupancyand abandonment, was a foul blot on the landscape, which the first rosydawn only made the more offending. Surely the last spot in the worldthat men should quarrel and fight for!
So thought George Barker, as with his companions they moved in singlefile slowly towards it. The little party consisted only of himself,Demorest, and Stacy; Marshall and Hamlin--according to a prearrangedplan--were still in ambush to join them at the first appearance ofSteptoe and his gang. The claim was yet unoccupied; they had securedtheir first success. Steptoe's followers, unaware that his design hadbeen discovered, and confident that they could easily reach the claimbefore Marshall and the surveyor, had lingered. Some of them had helda drunken carouse at their rendezvous at Heavy Tree. Others were stillengaged in procuring shovels and picks and pans for their mock equipmentas miners, and this, again, gave Marshall's adherents the advantage.THEY knew that their opponents would probably first approach theempty claim encumbered only with their peaceful implements, while theythemselves had brought their rifles with them.
Stacy, who by tacit consent led the party, on reaching the claim atonce posted Demorest and Barker each
behind a separate heap of quartztailings on the ledge, which afforded them a capital breastwork, andstationed himself at the mouth of the tunnel which was nearest thetrail. It had already been arranged what each man was to do. They werein possession. For the rest they must wait. What they thought atthat moment no one knew. Their characteristic appearance had slightlychanged. The melancholy and philosophic Demorest was alert and bitter.Barker's changeful face had become fixed and steadfast. Stacy alone worehis "fighting look," which the others had remembered.
They had not long to wait. The sounds of rude laughter, coarseskylarking, and voices more or less still confused with half-spentliquor came from the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared with partof his straggling followers, who were celebrating their easy invasionby clattering their picks and shovels and beating loudly upon their tinsand prospecting-pans. The three partners quickly recognized the stampof the strangers, in spite of their peaceful implements. They werethe waifs and strays of San Francisco wharves, of Sacramento dens, ofdissolute mountain towns; and there was not, probably, a single actualminer among them. A raging scorn and contempt took possession of Barkerand Demorest, but Stacy knew their exact value. As Steptoe passed beforethe opening of the tunnel he heard the cry of "Halt!"
He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards before him with his rifleat half-cock. He saw Barker and Demorest, fully armed, rise from behindtheir breastworks of rock along the ledge and thus fully occupy theclaim. But he saw more. He saw that his plot was known. Outlaw anddesperado as he was, he saw that he had lost his moral power in thisactual possession, and that from that moment he must be the aggressor.He saw he was fighting no irresponsible hirelings like his own, but menof position and importance, whose loss would make a stir. Against theirrifles the few revolvers that his men chanced to have slung to themwere of little avail. But he was not cowed, although his few followersstumbled together at this momentary check, half angrily, half timorouslylike wolves without a leader. "Bring up the other men and their guns,"he whispered fiercely to the nearest. Then he faced Stacy.
"Who are YOU to stop peaceful miners going to work on their own claim?"he said coarsely. "I'll tell you WHO, boys," he added, suddenly turningto his men with a hoarse laugh. "It ain't even the bank! It's only JimStacy, that the bank kicked out yesterday to save itself,--Jim Stacyand his broken-down pals. And what's the thief doing here--in Marshall'stunnel--the only spot that Marshall can claim? We ain't no particularfriends o' Marshall's, though we're neighbors on the same claim; but weain't going to see Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys?"
"No, by G-d!" said his followers, dropping the pans and seizing theirpicks and revolvers. They understood the appeal to arms if not to theirreason. For an instant the fight seemed imminent. Then a voice frombehind them said:--
"You needn't trouble yourselves about that! I'M Marshall! I sent thesegentlemen to occupy the claim until I came here with the surveyor," andtwo men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in the rear of Steptoe andhis followers. The speaker, Marshall, was a thin, slight, overworked,over-aged man; his companion, the surveyor, was equally slight,but red-bearded, spectacled, and professional-looking, with a longtraveling-duster that made him appear even clerical. They were scarcelya physical addition to Stacy's party, whatever might have been theirmoral and legal support.
But it was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in hisdesigns for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor wasreally the only disinterested witness between the two parties. IfSteptoe could confuse his mind before the actual fighting--from which hewould, of course, escape as a non-combatant--it would go far afterwardsto rehabilitate Steptoe's party. "Very well, then," he said to Marshall,"I shall call this gentleman to witness that we have been attackedhere in peaceable possession of our part of the claim by these armedstrangers, and whether they are acting on your order or not, their bloodwill be on your head."
"Then I reckon," said the surveyor, as he tore away his beard, wig,spectacles, and mustache, and revealed the figure of Jack Hamlin, "thatI'm about the last witness that Mr. Steptoe-Horncastle ought to call,and about the last witness that he ever WILL call!"
But he had not calculated upon the desperation of Steptoe over thefailure of this last hope. For there sprang up in the outlaw's brain thesame hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at the Divide. Witha hoarse cry to his followers, he crashed his pickaxe into the brain ofMarshall, who stood near him, and sprang forward. Three or four shotswere exchanged. Two of his men fell, a bullet from Stacy's rifle piercedSteptoe's leg, and he dropped forward on one knee. He heard the stepsof his reinforcements with their weapons coming close behind him, androlled aside on the sloping ledge to let them pass. But he rolled toofar. He felt himself slipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shootof the tunnel. He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but thetreacherous drift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he werepart of its refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, butotherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundred feetbelow.
When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above him hadceased. He knew he was safe. The ledge could only be reached by acircuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, that if he could onlyreach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend tothe stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growthof hazel-brush. He bound up his wounded leg, and dragged himself on hishands and knees laboriously to the outcrop. He did not look up; sincehis pick had crashed into Marshall's brain he had but one blind thoughtbefore him--to escape at once! That his revenge and compensation wouldcome later he never doubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, frombush to bush through the sloping thickets, until he saw the red road afew feet below him.
If he only had a horse he could put miles between him and any presentpursuit! Why should he not have one? The road was frequented by solitaryhorsemen--miners and Mexicans. He had his revolver with him; whatmattered the life of another man if he escaped from the consequences ofthe one he had just taken? He heard the clatter of hoofs; two priests onmules rode slowly by; he ground his teeth with disappointment. But theyhad scarcely passed before another and more rapid clatter came fromtheir rear. It was a lad on horseback. He started. It was his own son!
He remembered in a flash how the boy had said he was coming to meet thepadre at the station on that day. His first impulse was to hide himself,his wound, and his defeat from the lad, but the blind idea of escapewas still paramount. He leaned over the bank and called to him. Theastonished lad cantered eagerly to his side.
"Give me your horse, Eddy," said the father; "I'm in bad luck, and mustget."
The boy glanced at his father's face, at his tattered garments andbandaged leg, and read the whole story. It was a familiar page to him.He paled first and then flushed, and then, with an odd glitter in hiseyes, said, "Take me with you, father. Do! You always did before. I'llbring you luck."
Desperation is superstitious. Why not take him? They had been luckybefore, and the two together might confound any description of theiridentity to the pursuers. "Help me up, Eddy, and then get up before me."
"BEHIND, you mean," said the boy, with a laugh, as he helped his fatherinto the saddle.
"No," said Steptoe harshly. "BEFORE me,--do you hear? And if anythinghappens BEHIND you, don't look! If I drop off, don't stop! Don't getdown, but go on and leave me. Do you understand?" he repeated almostsavagely.
"Yes," said the boy tremulously.
"All right," said the father, with a softer voice, as he passed his onearm round the boy's body and lifted the reins. "Hold tight when we cometo the cross-roads, for we'll take the first turn, for old luck's sake,to the Mission."
They were the last words exchanged between them, for as they wheeledrapidly to the left at the cross-roads, Jack Hamlin and Demorest swungas quickly out of another road to the right immediately behind them.Jack's challenge to "Halt!" was only answered by Steptoe's horsespringing forward under the sharp lash of the riata.
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"Hold up!" said Jack suddenly, laying his hand upon the rifle whichDemorest had lifted to his shoulder. "He's carrying some one,--a woundedcomrade, I reckon. We don't want HIM. Swing out and go for the horse;well forward, in the neck or shoulder."
Demorest swung far out to the right of the road and raised his rifle. Asit cracked Steptoe's horse seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacleahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, for his head wentdown with his fore feet under him, and he turned a half-somersault onthe road, flinging his two riders a dozen feet away.
Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in hand, but the other figurenever moved. "Hands up!" said Jack, sighting his own weapon. The reportsseemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet had pierced Steptoe's brain evenbefore the outlaw's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air.
The two men dismounted, but by a common instinct they both ran to theprostrate figure that had never moved.
"By God! it's a boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting theshoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neck broken and dead ashis pal." Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, beganhurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand.
"What are you doing?" demanded Demorest in creeping horror.
"Look!" said Jack, as he laid bare the small white hand. The first twofingers were merely unsightly stumps that had been hidden in the paddedglove.
"Good God! Van Loo's brother!" said Demorest, recoiling.
"No!" said Jack, with a grim face, "it's what I have longsuspected,--it's Steptoe's son!"
"His son?" repeated Demorest.
"Yes," said Jack; and he added, after looking at the two bodies witha long-drawn whistle of concern, "and I wouldn't, if I were you, sayanything of this to Barker."
"Why?" said Demorest.
"Well," returned Jack, "when our scrimmage was over down there, and theybrought the news to Barker that his wife and her diamonds were burnt upat the hotel, you remember that they said that Mrs. Horncastle had savedhis boy."
"Yes," said Demorest; "but what has that to do with it?"
"Nothing, I reckon," said Jack, with a slight shrug of his shoulders,"only Mrs. Horncastle was the mother of the boy that's lying there."
*****
Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat before the fire in the oldcabin on Marshall's claim--now legally their own--they looked from thedoor beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to the pallid snow-line of theSierras, still as remote and unchanged to them as when they hadgazed upon it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for the matter of that, theythemselves seemed to have been left so unchanged that even now, asin the old days, it was Barker's voice as he greeted them from thedarkening trail that alone broke their reverie.
"Well," said Demorest cheerfully, "your usual luck, Barker boy!" forthey already saw in his face the happy light they had once seen there onan eventful night seven years ago.
"I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next month," he said breathlessly,"and little Sta loves her already as if she was his own mother. Wish mejoy."
A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face; but his hand was the first tograsp Barker's, and his voice the first to say "Amen!"
