Gold, Gold, in Cariboo! A Story of Adventure in British Columbia

by Clive Phillipps-Wolley

  CHAPTER XVI.

  THE PRICE OF BLOOD.

  It was neither day nor night in Antler, but that time between the twowhen the stars are fading and the moon has set and the sun has not yetrisen.

  The men of the night-shift had gone back to the claims; the hurdy girlshad all followed Lilla's example and slipped away to their own rooms,and though the big dancing hall was still open, the only people in itwere a few maudlin topers dozing over their liquor.

  Out in the main street there was no light, no light either of sun ormoon; no light at all except one feeble ray which flickered from Lilla'swindow, and fell upon the black water which hurried through the woodenboxes laid across the highway.

  By and by a man came out of the gloom, blundered heavily over the boxes,and swore savagely below his breath as if the boxes had consciouslyconspired for his downfall.

  When he had picked himself up again from the mud, this night-bird stoodlooking fixedly towards the light. Had he swayed unsteadily from side toside, and perhaps fallen again, there would have been nothing worthwatching about him. Rye whisky, the fresh night air, and the ditcheslaid across the roads, used often to persuade very honest gentlemen topass their nights beside the gutter. But this man stood firmly upon hisfeet, looking steadily at the light ahead of him. Presently he appearedto have made up his mind, for after looking up and down the road to seewhether anyone was watching him, he stole up to the window and crouchedbeside it in such a position that he could peer in unseen.

  Inside the room the light fell upon bare wooden walls, from which hung alittle mirror, and a man's coat and broad-brimmed hat. There was a riflein one corner, and half the room appeared to be partitioned off from therest by a bright red Hudson Bay blanket hung up as a curtain. In spiteof the rifle and the coat an expert would have decided at once that theroom was a woman's room. There was a trimness about it not masculine, acleanliness not Indian. Whatever a red lady's virtues may be,cleanliness and order are not among them. But the figures upon which thelight fell explained the anomaly of a rifle and a mirror hung side byside in a miner's shack, and explained, too, why a room in which hung aminer's coat and hat was swept and garnished and in order.

  In a bunk against the wall lay a fair-haired man, his eyes shut insleep, with one powerful arm thrown limp and nerveless upon the outsideof his bed. The man who watched him felt a nervous twitching at histhroat as his eyes rested upon the big brown hand, contrasting sostrongly with the white linen upon which it rested; for Lilla had givenher patient of her best, and Ned Corbett was sleeping between the onlypair of sheets in Cariboo.

  The worst was evidently over for Corbett. The fever, or whatever hisdisease had been, had left him, worn and pulled down it is true; but thepeacefulness of his sleep, the calm child-like restfulness of his face,told both his watchers that unless a relapse took place his young lifewould be as strong in him as ever before many days had passed.

  The colonel, peering in at Lilla's face as she sat and watched herpatient, saw very little chance of a relapse whilst _she_ was Corbett'snurse. If tender care and ceaseless watching would save him, Corbettwould be saved. The colonel fancied, indeed, that he saw even more thanthis. His eyes ever since very early days had peered deep into thehearts of men and women; not from sympathy with them, not even from idlecuriosity, but to see what profit could be made out of them. Now hethought that he recognized in Lilla's eyes, and in the caressing touchof her hand as she brushed back Corbett's yellow hair, something whichhe had often seen before, something which he had generally turned to hisown advantage at whatever cost to the woman.

  "The little fool!" he muttered. "She has got stuck on him because he hasblue eyes and yellow hair like a Deutscher. Great Scott, what simpletonsthese women are!"

  Perhaps the colonel's guess as to the state of Lilla's heart was ashrewd one, perhaps not. At any rate if the girl was in love with herhandsome patient she was not herself conscious of it as yet, and as shesat crooning the tender words of a German love song, she was unconsciousthat they had any special meaning for her.

  "_Du du liegst mir im Hertzen,_" she sang; but as she sang, she believedthat the only feeling which stirred her heart for the sick man at herside was one of pity for a helpless bankrupt brother.

  For some time Lilla sat dreaming and crooning scraps of German songs,and then a thought seemed to strike her, and she drew from her bosom alittle leather case. Opening this she drew from it what looked like anold bill, and indeed it was an old bill-head, frayed and torn as if ithad been carried for many, many months in some traveller's pocket. Butthere was no account of goods delivered and still unpaid for upon thatdirty scrap of paper. As Lilla turned it to catch the light, the man atthe window had a glimpse of it, and started as if someone had struckhim.

  "Old Pete's map, by thunder!" he exclaimed; and so loudly did he speak,or so noisy was his movement as he tried to obtain a better view of thatprecious document, that Lilla heard something, and replacing the paperin her pocket rose and came to the window.

  There was only a thin partition of rustic boarding and the bosom of awoman's dress between the most reckless scoundrel in Cariboo and the keyto Cariboo's richest gold-mine. He could hear her breathing on the otherside of that thin partition, and he knew that his strong fingers couldtear it down and wrench away that secret before the woman and the sickman her friend could even call assistance. But he dared not do the deed.Life was still more than gold to him, and he knew that earth would behardly large enough to hide the man who should wrong Lilla from thevengeance of the hard-fists she had danced with and sung to in theirmerry moods, and nursed like a sister in their sickness.

  "No," he muttered, when Lilla had resumed her seat, "I daren't do it,and I daren't stay another hour. If that fool gets his wits back the catwill soon be out of the bag, and the only question of interest to mewill be,--'Is it to be Begbie or Lynch?' If the boys knew, I believe itwould be Lynch!" and muttering and grinding his teeth, a prey to rageand baffled greed, Colonel Cruickshank turned and retraced his steps tohis own quarters.

  Once, and only once, he stopped before he reached them, and stood withknitted brows like one who strives to master some difficult problem. Atlast a light came into his face, and his coarse mouth opened in an evilgrin--"I will, by Jove I will! It will be as safe there as anywhere.Cruickshank, my boy, you shall double the stakes and go for the pot. IfI had only seen more of that map--"

  The rest of his sentence was lost as he entered the shack where hisgoods were stored, and half an hour later, when the sun was still onlycolouring the sky a faint saffron along the horizon, he strode up to thestore of Ben Hirsch, general dealer, money-changer, and purchaser ofgold-dust at Antler.

  Old Ben was fairly early himself that morning. He had smoked so much thenight before (being a German Jew) that he really needed a breath offresh air to pull him together, before he engaged in another day ofchicanery, bargaining, and theft. But the sight of the dashing colonelat such an hour in the morning considerably astonished him. There wassomething wrong somewhere, of that he felt quite certain, and whereverthere was anything wrong there was profit for the wise old Jew. So hisbeady eyes twinkled beside his purple beak, and he gave the man helooked upon as his prey the heartiest greeting.

  "Goot-mornin', Colonel, goot-mornin'. Ach, vot a rustler you are! Novonder zat you make much gold. Haf you zold ze pacon yet?"

  "Not a cent's worth, uncle. Will you buy?"

  "Ach! you laugh at me. I haf no monish, you know I haf no monish. Zefreight eats up all ze profit."

  "Keep that for tenderfeet, Ben," replied Cruickshank roughly. "Freighton needles won't bring them up to fifty cents apiece, even in Cariboo.Will you buy or won't you? I've no time to talk."

  "Vot is your hurry, Colonel? Ze pacon and ze peans von't shpoil."

  The colonel turned to go.

  "_Ach, himmel!_" cried the Jew, throwing up his hands deprecatingly."How these English Herren are fiery. Colonel, dear Herr Colonel, pe sogoot as to listen."

  "Well, what is
it? I'll give you five minutes in which to make a bid.After that I'm off straight to Williams Creek."

  "Pacon is cheap zere, Colonel; almost cheaper zan here. Put I vill puy.Are ve not from of olt be-friended? Vot you zay, twenty-five cents zepound?"

  "Twenty-five fiddlesticks! Do you think I don't know the market prices?"

  But it is not worth while to record all the haggling between Hirsch andCruickshank. It was a match between the Jew, cool, crafty, and cringing,and the Christian (save the mark!), hurried, and full of strange oathsas become a soldier, "sudden and quick in quarrel."

  From the very outset the colonel had one eye on Ben and the other on thedoor, and his ears seemed pricked to catch the tramp of men who might becoming in pursuit. Of course the Jew saw this, and every time thecolonel started at some sudden sound, or reddened and swore at hisobstinate haggling, Ben's ferret-like eyes gleamed with fresh cunningand increased intelligence.

  Like an expert angler he had mastered his fish, and knew it, and meantnow to kill him at his leisure, without risking another struggle. Andyet (to maintain the metaphor) this fisher of men all at once loweredhis point and seemed to let his captive go.

  "Vell, colonel, all right. Suppose you give ze ponies in, I give youyour price."

  "You're a hungry thief, Ben. The ponies are worth the money; but I amnot going to do any more packing, so take them and be hanged to you."

  "Goot. It is a deal zen."

  "Yes, if I may keep the pinto. I want a pony to pack my tools andblankets on."

  "Tools. Vot! you go prospecting, eh?"

  "Yes. I think so."

  "Ach so! By and by you strike it rich. Then you bring your dust to oldBen--eh, colonel?"

  "Maybe. But where are those dollars?"

  "How vill you have them, colonel,--in notes or dust?" asked the Jew.

  "In dust, of course; those flimsy things would wear out before I couldget them down the Frazer. Besides, I've heard that your notes aren'talways just like other people's, Ben;" and the colonel pushed over alittle pile of dirty "greenbacks."

  "Ach, these are goot notes; but the gold is goot too, Colonel. Vill youveigh it?"

  "You bet I will," replied the colonel, making no parade of confidence inhis friend. There was good gold in old Ben's safe, but the tenderfootwho did not know good gold from bad often got "dust" of the wrong kind.This Cruickshank knew, so that he was careful to examine the quality ofthe dust in the two small canvas bags, and careful, too, in the weighingof them--trying the scales, and leaving no hole open for fraud to creepthrough.

  At last even he was satisfied.

  "Yes, Ben, that will do--it's good for the money."

  "Goot dust, isn't it? very goot dust and full measure. See!" and the oldJew put it in the scales again. "But, _donner und blitzen_, vot vants zesheriff so early?"

  The last part of the sentence was jerked out at the top of his voice bythe dealer in gold as he turned excitedly to stare out of the littlewindow on his left.

  "The sheriff! Did you say the sheriff? Give me the gold. Where is he?"

  Cruickshank had turned as white as the dead, and his hand shook as if hehad the palsy, but for all that he managed to snatch up the two smallcanvas bags from the counter and hide them away in the bosom of hisflannel shirt.

  "I zink I zee him go into ze dance-house. But vot is your hurry,colonel? shtay and vet ze deal. Vot, you von't! Ah vell, ze rye is notpad." And so saying Mr. Benjamin Hirsch filled a small glass forhimself, and with a wink drank to his departing guest.

  Ben Hirsch was certainly right in calling Colonel Cruickshank a rustler,a Yankee term for a man who does not let the grass grow under his feet.Half an hour after Ben's cry of "Sheriff" the colonel stole out ofAntler, driving old Job in front of him, with blankets, gold-pan, andall the rest of a prospector's slender outfit, securely fastened uponthe pony's back.

  As soon as he was well out of sight of the camp, the fugitive divergedfrom the main trail, and took instead a little-used path, leading directover a difficult country to Soda Creek, on the Frazer. Along this hedrove his pony at a speed which made that wall-eyed, cow-hockedquadruped grunt and groan in piteous fashion. In all his days Job hadnever before found a master who could and would get a full day's workout of him, without giving him a single chance to wander or even knockhis packs off amongst the timber. At last, when the sun had begun to gowest, Cruickshank paused, sat down upon a log, and lit his pipe. As hesmoked and thought, the lines went out of his face, until he almostlooked once more the oily, plausible scoundrel whom we first met inVictoria.

  "Yes," he muttered, "it was a bold game, but I made my bluff stick. Why,if old Ben knew that I didn't have even a pair to draw to, wouldn't he'raise Cain?'" And so saying, he put his hand inside his shirt and drewout the two little bags of gold-dust, weighing them nicely in his hands,and regarding them as lovingly as a mother would her first-born. For aminute or two his fingers played with the strings which fastened themouth of each sack, but finally thought better of it and put them backinto his pocket without untying them. To this man life was a game ofpoker, and for the present he considered that he had risen a winnerthough the odds had been against him, and with his winnings in hispocket he smacked old Job on the quarters, held up his head, and feltready for a fresh deal.

  And old Ben--what of him? Did he hurry away to secure the pack-poniesand their loads, or to see what the sheriff wanted at the dance-house?Not a bit of it. _He_ knew (none better) that the sheriff was away atWilliams Creek, and he knew, too,--he knew enough of human nature to besure that Dan Cruickshank would never return to Antler unless he wasbrought back against his will. He had sold his packs and his ponies fortwo little bags of gold ("of gold, ho, ho!" chuckled the Jew), and evenif he should find anything wrong with the gold he would not dare to comeback to claim his packs.

  "I vonder vot Dan has peen up to," mused the son of Israel. "He play zecarts a leetle too vell for his friends, I know, put it must pezomething worse zan zat. Ach vell, it was ver goot zat I knew a leetlehow to conjure;" and still chuckling and muttering to himself, he tookfrom a shelf just below the counter two small bags similar to those inCruickshank's shirt front, and put them tenderly and reverently away inhis safe. _They_ contained good gold-dust.

  Those which Cruickshank was carrying away contained a good many things,the price of innocent blood for instance, but Ben Hirsch would not havegiven many dollars for all that they contained. Whilst the colonel waslooking for the sheriff, Ben had substituted bags of copper pyrites forbags of gold.