The Man from the Bitter Roots

by Caroline Lockhart

  XXIV

  THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR

  Toy raised his head sharply from his little flat pillow where he lay inhis tent, pitched for convenience beside the kitchen, and listened. Asound like the cautious scraping of the sagging storehouse door on theother side of the kitchen had awakened him. He was not sure that he hadnot dreamed it or that it was not merely renewed activities on the partof his enemies, the pack-rats, between whom and himself there wagedconstant war. There was a possibility that some prowling animal mightpush in the door, but, as the month was now November and the nights wereas cold as winter, he was not too anxious to crawl from his warm nestand investigate until he was sure.

  Hearing nothing more he dropped back on his pillow sleepily, vowingfresh vengeance on the pack-rats who at that moment no doubt werecarrying off rice and rolled oats. Suddenly there came a fresh sound,very distinct in the stillness, somewhat like the side of a big tinbulging where it had been dented. To ease his mind rather than becausehe expected to find anything Toy slipped his feet into his thick-soledChinese slippers and shuffled out into the night.

  The faintest gleam of light was coming through the opening in thestorehouse door, which Toy himself had carefully closed. It was all ofeleven o'clock and the men, Toy knew, had been in bed for hours. Hestepped noiselessly inside and stared with all his eyes at Smaltz.Smaltz was about to extinguish the candle which he had been shieldingwith his coat.

  "What you do? What you gittee?"

  Smaltz whirled swiftly at the shrill demand with a startled look on hisimpudent face.

  "Oh--hello," he said uncertainly.

  "Why you come? What you want?"

  "Why--er--I wanted to see if they was any more of them eight-penny nailsleft. I'll need some to-morrow and bein' awake frettin' and stewin' overmy work I thought I'd come up and take a look. Besides," with hismocking grin, "the evenin's reely too lovely to stay in bed."

  "You lie, I think." Toy's teeth were chattering with cold andexcitement. "Why you come? What you want?"

  "You oughtn't to say those rude, harsh things. They're apt to hurt thefeelin's of a sensitive feller like me."

  "What you steal?" Toy pointed a trembling finger at the inside pocket ofSmaltz's coat where it bulged.

  "You wrong me," said Smaltz sorrowfully in mock reproach. "That's myBible, Chink."

  After Smaltz had gone Toy lighted a candle and poked among the boxes,cans, and sacks. He knew almost to a pound how much sugar, flour, rice,coffee, beans, and other provisions he had, but nothing, that he coulddiscover, had been disturbed. The nail kegs and reserve tools in thecorner, wedges, axe-handles and blades, files and extra shovels all werethere. It was a riddle Toy could not solve yet he knew that Smaltz hadnot told the truth.

  A white man who was as loyal to Bruce as Toy would have told himimmediately of Smaltz's mysterious midnight visit to the storehouse, butthat was not the yellow man's way. Instead he watched Smaltz like ahawk, eying him furtively, appearing unexpectedly at his elbow while heworked. From that night on, instead of one shadow Smaltz found himselfwith two.

  Toy never had liked Smaltz from the day he came. Those who knew theChinaman could tell it by the scrupulous politeness with which hetreated him. He was elaborately exact and fair but he never spoke to himunless it was necessary. Toy yelled at and bullied those he liked but amandarin could not have surpassed him in dignity when he addressedSmaltz.

  Bruce surmised that the Chinaman must share his own instinctivedistrust, yet Smaltz, with his versatility, had proved himself more andmore valuable as the work progressed.

  Banule's sanguine prophecy that they would be "throwin' dirt" within twoweeks had failed of fulfilment because the pump motors had sparked whentried out. So small a matter had not disturbed the cheerful optimism ofthe genius, who declared he could remedy it with a little further work.Days, weeks, a month went by and still he tinkered, while Bruce,watching the sky anxiously, wondered how much longer the bad weatherwould hold off. As a convincing evidence of the nearness of winter,Porcupine Jim, who considered himself something of a naturalist,declared that the grasshoppers had lost their hind-legs.

  While the time sped, Bruce realized that he must abandon his dream oftaking out enough gold to begin to repay the stockholders. The most hecould hope for now was a few days' run.

  "If only I could get into the pay-streak! If I can just get enough outof the clean-up to show them that it's here; that it's no wild-cat;that I've told them the truth!" Over and over he said these thingsmonotonously to himself until they became a refrain to every otherthought.

  In the middle of the summer he had been forced to ask for more money. Hewas days nerving himself to make the call; but there was noalternative--it was either that or shut down. He had written thestockholders that it would surely be the last, and his relief andgratitude had been great at their good-natured response.

  Now the sparking of the motors which unexpectedly prolonged the work hadonce more exhausted his funds. It took all Bruce's courage to writeagain. It seemed to him that it was the hardest thing he had ever donebut he accomplished it as best he could. He was peremptorily refused.

  His sensations when he read the letter are not easy to describe. Therewas more than mere business curtness in the denial. There was actualunfriendliness. Furthermore, it contained an ultimatum to the effectthat if the season's work was unsuccessful they would accept an offerwhich they had had for their stock.

  With Helen's warning still fresh in his mind, Bruce understood thesituation in one illuminating flash. Under the circumstances, no one butSprudell would want to buy the stock. Obviously Sprudell had gotten intouch with the stockholders and managed somehow to poison their minds.This was the way, then, that he intended taking his revenge!

  Harrah's secretary had written Bruce in response to his last appeal thatHarrah had been badly hurt in an aeroplane accident in France and thatit would not be possible to communicate with him for months perhaps.This was a blow, for Bruce counted him his only friend.

  Bruce had neither the time nor money to go East and try to undo the harmSprudell had done, and, furthermore, little heart for the task ofsetting himself right with people so ready to believe.

  There was just one thing that remained for Bruce to do. He could use theamount he had saved from his small salary as general manager andcontinue the work as long as the money lasted. When this was gone he wasdone. In any event it meant that he must face the winter there alone. Ifthe machinery was still not in working order when he came to the end ofhis resources it meant that he was stranded, flat broke, unable even togo outside and struggle.

  In his desperation he sometimes thought of appealing to his father. Theamount he required was insignificant compared to what he knew hisfather's yearly income must be. He doubted if even Harrah's fortune waslarger than the one represented by his father's land and herds; but justas often as he thought of this way out just so often he realized thatthere were some things he could not do--not even for Helen Dunbar--noteven to put his proposition through.

  _That_ humiliation would be too much. To go back _begging_ after allthese years--no, no, he could not do it to save his life! He would meetthe pay-roll with his own checks so long as he had a cent, and hope forthe best until he knew there was no best.

  The end of his rope was painfully close the day Banule announced, afterfrequent testings, that they might start.

  During short intervals of pumping, Bruce had been able byground-sluicing to work off a considerable area of top soil and now thatthe machinery was declared to be ready for a steady run he could set thescrapers at once in the red gravel streak that contained the "pay."

  The final preparation before starting was to pour the mercury behind theriffles in the sluice-boxes. When it lay quivering and shining behindeach block and bar Bruce felt that his gargantuan bread-crumb had beendragged almost to the goal. It was well, too, he told himself withindescribable relief, for, not only his money, but his courage, hisnerves, were well-nigh gone.

  Bruce wo
uld trust no one but himself to pour the mercury in the boxes.

  "That looks like good lively 'quick'," Smaltz commented as he watchedhim at the task.

  "It should be; it was guaranteed never to have been used." He added witha smile: "Let's hope when we see it again it won't be quite so lively."

  "Looks like it orter be as thick as mush if you can run a few thousandyards of that there pay-streak over it." There was a mocking look inSmaltz's yellow-brown eyes which Bruce, stooping over, did not see. Heonly heard the hopeful words.

  "Oh, Smaltz--Smaltz--if it only is! Success means so much to me!"Unaccountably, such a tide of feeling rose within him that Bruce baredhis heart to the man he did not like.

  Smaltz looked at him with a curious soberness.

  "Does it?" he responded after a pause.

  "And I've tried so hard."

  "You've sure worked like a horse." There was a look that was half pity,half grudging admiration on Smaltz's impudent face.

  Banule was to run the power-house for the day and complete some workinside, so when Bruce had finished with the mercury he told Smaltz totelephone Banule from the pump-house that they were ready to start.Therefore while Bruce took his place at the lever on the donkey-engineenclosed in a temporary shed to protect the motor from rain and dust,Smaltz went to the pump-house as he was bid.

  When Banule answered his ring he shouted:

  "Let her go in about two minutes--_two minutes_--d'ye hear?" Thetelephone receiver was shaking in Smaltz's hand and he was breathinghard.

  "Yes," Banule answered irritably, "but don't yell so in my ear."

  Smaltz already had slammed the receiver back on the hook. With a swiftmovement he threw in the switch and jumped for the outside. He droppedfrom the high platform and fell among the rocks some ten feet below.Instantly he scrambled to his feet and crouching, dodging among theboulders that strewed the river bank, he ran at top speed until hereached the sluice-boxes. The carpenter came out from his shop to take aleisurely survey of the world and Smaltz threw himself flat until he hadturned inside again.

  Then, still crouching, looking this way and that, watching the trail, hetook a bottle from his pocket and pulling the cork with his teeth pouredthe contents over the mercury almost to the upper end of the first box.He went as far as he dared without being seen by Bruce inside the shed.

  The pumps had already started and the big head of water was coming witha rush down the steep grade, but Smaltz had done his evil workthoroughly for wherever the mercury laid thickest it glittered withiridescent drops of kerosene.

  He was thrusting the bottle back in his pocket, his tense expressionrelaxed, when he turned his head sharply at the sound of a crashing inthe brush.

  "Toy!" Smaltz looked startled--scared.

  It was Toy, his skin a waxy yellow and his oblique eyes blazing withexcitement and rage.

  "I savvy you, Smaltz! I savvy you!" His voice was a shrill squawk. "Isavvy you!" His fingers with their long, sharp nails were opening andshutting like claws.

  Smaltz knew that he had seen him from the hill and, watching, hadunderstood. It was too late to run, useless to evade, so he stoodwaiting while shrieking, screeching at every step, the Chinaman came on.

  He flew at Smaltz's face like a wild-cat, clawing, scratching, diggingin his nails and screaming with every breath: "I savvy you! I savvyyou!"

  Smaltz warded him off without striking, trying to get his hand over hismouth; but in vain, and the Chinaman kept up his shrill accusing cry, "Isavvy you, Smaltz! I savvy you!" There was little chance, however, ofhis being heard above the rush of the water through the sluice-boxes andthe bumping and grinding together of the rocks and boulders that itcarried down.

  Then Smaltz struck him. Toy fell among the rocks, sprawling backwards.He got to his feet and came back. Once more he clawed and clung and oncemore Smaltz knocked him down. A third time he returned.

  "You're harder to kill nor a cat," Smaltz grinned without malice, but hethrew him violently against the sluice-box.

  Toy lost his balance, toppled, and went over backward, reaching outwildly to save himself as he fell. The water turned him over but hecaught the edge of the box. His loose purple "jumper" of cotton and silkballooned at the back as he swung by one hand in the on-rushing water,thick and yellow with sand, filled with the grinding boulders that camedown as, though shot from a catapult, drowning completely his, agonizedcry of "Bluce! Bluce!"

  It was only a second that he hung with his wild beseeching eyes onSmaltz's scared face while his frail, old body acted as a wedge for theracing water and the rocks. Then he let go and turned over and overtumbling grotesquely in the wide sluice-box while the rocks pounded andground him, beat him into insensibility. He shot over the tail-race intothe river limp and unresisting, like a dead fish.