Heart's Desire

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE GROUND FLOOR AT HEART'S DESIRE

  _Proposing Certain Wonders of Modern Progress, as wrought by EasternCapital and Able Corporation Counsel_

  Tom Osby and Constance walked up the trail toward the hotel, and DanAnderson from a distance saw them pass. He watched the gray gown movethrough sun and shadow, until it was lost beyond the thickening bolesof mountain pines. She turned once and looked back, but he dared notappropriate the glance to himself, although it seemed to him that hemust rise and follow, that he must call out to her. She had beenthere, close to him. He had felt the very warmth of her hand near tohis own. There flamed up in his soul the fierce male jealousy. Heturned to this newcomer, this man of the States, successful, strong,fortunate. In his soul was ready the ancient challenge.

  But--the earth being as it is to-day, a compromise, and love beingdependent upon property, and chastity upon chattels, and the stars ofthe Universe upon farthing dips--though aching to rise and follow thegray gown, to snatch its wearer afar and away into a sweet wild forestall their own, Dan Anderson must sit silent, and plan material ways tobring the gray gown back again to his eyes according to the mandates ofour society. Because the gray gown was made in the States, he mustforget the lesson of Curly and the Littlest Girl. Because the wearerof the gown lived in the States, he must pull down in ruins the templeof Heart's Desire. Such is the sweet logic of these days of modernprogress, that independence, friendship, faith, all must yield if needbe; even though, and after all, man but demands that himself and thewoman whom he has sought out from all the world may one day be savageand sweet, ancient and primitive, even as have been all others who haveloved indeed, in city or in forest, from the beginning of the world.

  "As Mr. Ellsworth has told me," went on Porter Barkley, "you are anable man, Mr. Anderson,--far too able to be buried down here in amountain mining town."

  "Thank you," said Dan Anderson, sweetly; "that's very nice of you."

  "Now, I don't know what induced you to hide yourself out here--" wenton Barkley, affably.

  "No," replied Dan Anderson, "you don't. As for myself personally, it'sno one's damned business. I may say in a general way, however, thatthe prevailing high prices of sealskins and breakfast food in theEastern States have had a great deal to do with our Westerncivilization. The edge of the West is mostly inhabited by fools andphilosophers, all mostly broke."

  "I think I follow you," assented Barkley; "but I'd rather classify youas a philosopher."

  "Perhaps. At least I am not fool enough to talk about my own affairs.You say you are here to talk business. It is your belief that Iunderstand some of the chemical constituents of the population ofHeart's Desire. Now, in what way can we be useful to each other?"

  Ellsworth broke in, "It's as Barkley says; I've been watching you, Mr.Anderson, and I've had an interest in you for quite a while."

  "Indeed?"

  "Yes, I have. I want to see you win out. Now, if you won't go to themountain, the mountain will have to come to you. If you won't go backand live in the States, we will have to bring the States to you; andthey'll follow mighty quick when the railroad comes, as you know verywell."

  "My friend Tom Osby used those very words this morning, when he heardthe whistle of your esteemed railroad train."

  "Precisely," Ellsworth went on. "We'll give you a town to live in.We'll give you professional work to do."

  "So you'll build me a town, in order to get me work? That's very niceof you, indeed."

  "Now, there you go with your infernal priggishness," protestedEllsworth, testily. "Have we asked you to do anything but straightbusiness?"

  "Exactly," said Barkley.

  They were playing now with Dan Anderson's heartstrings, but his facedid not show it. They were putting him in the balance against Heart'sDesire, but his speech offered no evidence of it. They were makingConstance Ellsworth the price of Heart's Desire, but Dan Anderson didnot divulge it, as he sat and looked at them.

  "Gentlemen," said he, at length, "I am a lawyer, the best one inHeart's Desire. The law here is complex in practice. The titles arevery much involved. Between Chitty on Pleading and the land grants ofthe Spanish crown, the law may be a very slow and deliberate matter inthis country. Now, I understand the practice. I speak the language--Idon't need an interpreter--so that I am probably as good as any lawyeryou can secure at this time. In straight matters of business I am openfor employment."

  "Now you are beginning to talk," said Barkley. "And just to get right_down_ to business, and show you we're not all talk, I want to giveyou a little retainer fee. I'm sorry it isn't larger, but it'll grow,I hope." He drew a goodly wallet from his breast pocket, and countedout ten one-hundred-dollar bills, which he threw down carelessly on thepine needles in front of Dan Anderson. "Is that satisfactory?" heasked.

  "Yes," said the latter; but he did not take up the money.

  "Oh, there'll be more," suggested Mr. Ellsworth. "This business oughtto net you between five and ten thousand dollars this year. It mightmean more than that if we got into town without a fight."

  "That would be about the only way you would get in at all," and DanAnderson smiled incomprehensibly.

  "Exactly! And now, since you are our counsel--" Barkley spoke with anincreased firmness--"we want to know your idea on the right-of-wayquestion. What's the nature of the titles in that town, anyhow?"

  "As near as I can tell," replied Dan Anderson, "since you retain me andask my legal opinion, the fundamental title to the valley of Heart'sDesire lies in the ability of every fellow there to hit a tin can atforty yards with a six-shooter. There's hardly a tin can in the streetthat you could cook a meal in," he added plaintively.

  "I see," said Barkley, his laughter a little forced. "But now, I heardthere never was a town site filed on."

  "There was a story," replied Dan Anderson, ruminatingly, "that JackWilson laid out a town there soon after he made the Homestake strike.He had McDonald, the deputy surveyor, plat it out on a piece of brownpaper,--which was the only sort they had,--and Jack started over withthe plat to file at the county seat. He got caught in a rain and usedthe paper to start a fire with. After that he forgot about it, andafter that again, he died; so there never was any town site. The boysjust built their houses where they felt like it; and since then theyhave been so busy about other things--croquet, music, embroidery,antelope hunting, and the like--that they haven't had time to thinkabout town lots or town sites, or anything of that sort."

  Barkley's eyes gleamed. "That will simplify matters very much," saidhe.

  "You really do need local counsel," Dan Anderson observed. "On thecontrary of that, it will complicate matters very much."

  "Well, we'll see about that," rejoined Barkley, grimly. "We'll see ifa little mining camp can hold up a railroad corporation the size ofthis! But why don't you put your money in your pocket? It's yours,man."

  Dan Anderson slowly picked up the bills, folded them, and tucked theminto a pocket. "This," said he, "is a great deal more than the entirecirculating medium of Heart's Desire. I'm likely to become adisturbing factor up there."

  "That's what we want you to become," said Barkley. "We know there're alot of good mining claims in there, especially the coal lands on theeast side of the valley. It isn't the freight and passenger trafficthat we're after--we want to get hold of those mines. Why, the insidegang of the Southern Pacific--you'll keep this a professional secret,of course--has told us that they'll take coal from us for their wholesystem west of Houston. In a couple of years there'll be a town thereof eight or ten thousand people. Why, man, it's the chance of yourlife. And here's Mr. Ellsworth putting you in on the ground floor."

  Dan Anderson looked at him queerly.

  "By the way," began Ellsworth, taking from his pocket an engineer'sblue-print map, "one of the first things we want to settle is thequestion of our depot site. The only place we can lay out our sidetracks is just at the head of the canon, and at th
e lower end of thevalley. Do you know anything about this house here? It's the firstone as you go into town from the lower end of the valley."

  Dan Anderson bent over the map. "Yes, I know it perfectly," said he."That's the adobe of our friend Tom Osby here, the man who came downwith me from Heart's Desire. He just went up the trail with yourdaughter, sir."

  "The yards'll wipe him out," said Barkley.

  "The valley is so narrow," went on Ellsworth, "according to what ourengineers say, that we've got to clean out the whole lower part of thetown, in order to lay out the station grounds."

  Dan Anderson started. The money in his pocket suddenly burned him.

  "The trouble with your whole gang," resumed Barkley, striking a matchon a log, "has been that you've been trying to stop the world. Youcan't do that."

  Dan Anderson, silent, grim, listened to what he had not heard for manymonths, the crack of the whip of modern progress. Yet, before his eyeshe still saw passing the vision of a tall, round figure, sweet in thebeauty of young womanhood, even as he was strong in the strength of hisyoung manhood.

  "I'll help you all I can honorably, gentlemen," said he, at length,rising; "we'll talk it over up at the town itself. I don't know justwhat we can do in the way of recognizing existing rights, but in myopinion force isn't the way to go about it."

  "Well, we'll use force if need be; you can depend on that!" saidBarkley, harshly. "I've got to get back home before long, and it willbe up to you after that."

  He and Ellsworth also arose and brushed from their clothing theclinging dust and pine needles. The three turned towards the trail andwalked slowly up to the edge of the open space in which stood the SkyTop edifice.

  "Quite a house, isn't it?" said Ellsworth, admiringly.

  Dan Anderson did not look at the building. Constance was sitting aloneat the edge of the gallery. Wishing nothing so much in the world as togo forward, Dan Anderson turned back at the edge of the grounds.

  Some jangling mountain jays flitted from tree to tree about him. Theyseemed to call out to him to pause, to return. The whispering of thepines called over and over to him, "Constance! Constance!"

  Once more he turned, and retraced his steps, the trees stillwhispering. At the edge of the opening he paused unseen. He saw thegirl, with one hand each on the arm of her father and of Barkley,laughing gayly and walking across the gallery. Each had offered her anarm to assist her in arising, and her act was, in fact, the mostnatural one in the world. Yet to Dan Anderson, remote, morose,solitary, his soul out of all perspective, this sight seemed the veryend of all the world.