The Candidate Part 27

The "King" nodded his head. He knew that she was a better mountaineer than any in the party except the guide and himself, and he felt less alarm for her than was in the mind of Grayson or Harley.

But Harley was thrilled by her courage. Here, amid these wild mountains, with the threat of darkness and the storm, she was unafraid and still feminine. "This is a woman to be won," was his unuttered thought.

Another hour pa.s.sed, and the air grew darker and colder. Then Jim stopped.

"Gentlemen," he said, "there's a snow-storm comin' soon. I didn't expect one so early, even on the mountains, but it's comin', anyhow, an' if we keep on for Crow's Wing they'll have to dig our bones out o' the meltin'

drifts next summer. We've got to make for Queen City."

"Queen City!" exclaimed Mr. Heathcote. "I didn't know there was another town anywhere near here."

"She's a-standin' all the same," replied the guide, brusquely, "an' I wouldn't never hev started on the trip to Crow's Wing if there hadn't been such a stoppin'-place betwixt an' between, in case o' trouble with the weather. An' let me whisper to you, Queen City's quite a sizable place. We'll pa.s.s the night there. It's got a fine hotel, the finest an' biggest in the mountains."

He looked grimly at Mr. Heathcote, as much as to say, "Ask me as much more as you please, but I'll answer you nothing." Then he added, glancing at Sylvia:

"It's a wild night for a gal."

"But you said that the biggest and finest hotel in the mountains was waiting for me," replied Sylvia, with spirit.

The guide bowed his head admiringly, and said no more.

Something cold and damp touched Harley's cheek. He looked up, and another flake of snow, descending softly, settled upon his face. The clouds rolled over them, heavy and dark, and shut out all the mountains save a little island where they stood. The snow, following the first few flakes, fell softly but rapidly.

"It's Queen City or moulderin' in the drifts till next summer!" cried Jim, and he turned his horse into a side-path. The others followed without a word, willing to accept his guidance through the greatest peril they had yet faced in an arduous campaign. Despite the danger, which he knew to be heavy and pressing, and his anxiety for Sylvia, Harley's curiosity was aroused, and he wished to ask more of Queen City, but the saturnine face of the guide was not inviting. Nevertheless, he risked one question.

"How far is this place, Queen City?" he asked.

"Bout two miles," replied Jim, with what seemed to Harley a derisive grin, "an' it's tarnal lucky for us that it's so near."

Harley said no more, but he was satisfied with nothing in the guide's reply save the fact that the town was only two miles away; any shelter would be welcome, because he saw now that a snow-storm on the wild mountains was a terrible thing.

The guide led on; Jimmy Grayson, with bent head, followed; Mr.

Heathcote, shrunk in his saddle, came next; then "King" Plummer; and after him Sylvia and Harley, who were as nearly side by side as the narrow path would permit.

"It won't be far, Miss Morgan," said Harley; the others could not hear.

She felt rather than heard the note of apprehension in his voice, and she knew it was for her. A thrill of singular sweetness pa.s.sed over her.

It was pleasant for some one, _the_ one, to be afraid for her sake. She looked out at the driving snow and the dim peaks, but she had no fear for herself. She was glad, too, that she had come.

"I know the way of the mountains," she replied. "The guide will take us in safety to this city of his, of which he speaks so highly."

Harley saw her smile through the snow. The others rode on before, heads bowed, and did not look back. He and she felt a powerful sense of comrades.h.i.+p, and once, when he leaned over to detach her bridle rein from the horse's mane, he touched her hand, which was so soft and warm.

Again the electric thrill pa.s.sed through them both, and they looked into each other's eyes.

Now and then the vast veil of snow parted before the wind, as if cleft down the centre by a sword-blade, and Harley and Sylvia beheld a grand and awful sight. Before them were all the peaks and ridges, rising in white cones and pillars against the cloudy sky, and the effect was of distance and sublimity. From the clefts and ravines came a desolate moaning. Harley felt that he was much nearer to the eternal here than he could ever be in the plains. Then the rent veil would close again, and he saw only his comrades and the rocks twenty feet away.

They turned around the base of a cliff rising hundreds of feet above them, and Harley caught the dull-red glare of brick walls, showing through the falling snow. He was ready to raise a shout of joy. This he knew was Queen City, lying snugly in its wide valley. There was the typical, single mountain street, with its row of buildings on either side; the big one near-by was certainly the hotel, and the other big one farther on was as certainly the opera-house. But n.o.body was in the streets, and the whole place was dark; not a light appeared at a single window, although the night had come.

"We're here," Harley said to Sylvia, "but I confess that this does not look promising. Certainly there is n.o.body running to meet us."

She was gazing with curiosity.

"It's like no other town that I ever saw," she said.

Harley rode up by the side of the guide.

"The place looks lonesome," he said.

"Maybe they've all gone to bed; there ain't anythin' here to keep 'em awake," replied the guide, with the old puzzling and derisive smile.

Harley turned coldly away. He did not like to have any one make fun of him, and that he saw clearly was the guide's intention. Jimmy Grayson was still thinking of things far off, and Mr. Heathcote, chilled and shrunk, seemed to have lost the power of speech. "King" Plummer, for reasons of his own, was silent too.

The guide rode slowly towards the large brick building that Harley took to be the hotel, and, at that moment, the snow slackened for a little while; the last rays of the setting sun struck upon the dun walls and gilded them with red tracery; some panes of gla.s.s gave back the ruddy glare, but mostly the windows were bare and empty, like eyeless sockets.

Harley looked farther, and all the other buildings--the opera-house, the stores, and the residences--were the same, desolate and decaying. About the place were snow-covered heaps, evidently the refuse of mining operations, but they saw no human being.

The effect upon all save the guide was startling. Harley saw the look of chilled wonder grow on Jimmy Grayson's face. Mr. Heathcote raised himself in his saddle and stared, uncomprehending. Harley had been deep in the desert, but never before had he seen such desolation and ruin, because here was the body, but all life had gone from it. He felt as one alone with ghosts. Sylvia was silent, her confidence gone for the moment. The guide laughed dryly.

"You guessed it," he said, looking at Harley. "It's a dead city. Queen City has been as dead as Adam these half-dozen years. When the mines played out, it died; there was no earthly use for Queen City any longer, and by-and-by everybody went away. But I've seen the old town when it was alive. Five thousand people here. Money a-flowin', drinks pa.s.sin'

over the counter one way and the coin the other, the gamblin'-houses an'

the theatre chock-full, an' women, any kind you please. But there ain't a soul left now."

The snow thinned still more, and the buildings rose before them gaunt and grim.

"We'll stop to-night at the Grand Hotel--that is, if they ain't too much crowded; it'll be nice for the lady," said the guide, who had had his little joke and who now wished to serve his employers as best he could; "but first we'll take the horses into the dinin'-room; n.o.body will object; I've done it afore."

He rode towards a side-door, but over the main entrance Harley saw in tessellated letters the words "Grand Hotel," and he tried to shake off the feeling of weirdness that it gave him.

The door to the dining-room, which was almost level with the ground, was gone, and with some driving the horses were persuaded to enter. They were tethered there, sheltered from the storm, and, when they moved, their feet rumbled hollowly on the wooden floor. Sylvia, the candidate, and his friends, driven by the same impulse, turned back into the snow and re-entered the house by the front door.

They pa.s.sed into a wide hall, and at the far end they saw the clerk's desk. Lying upon it were some fragments of paper fastened to a chain, and Harley knew that it was what was left of the hotel register. It spoke so vividly of both life and death that the five stopped.

"Would you like to register, Mr. Grayson?" asked Harley, wis.h.i.+ng to relieve the tension.

The candidate laughed mirthlessly.

"Not to-night, Harley," he said; "but, gloomy as the place is, we ought to be thankful that we have found it. See how the storm is rising."

He glanced at Sylvia, and deep grat.i.tude swelled up in his breast.

Grewsome as it might look, Queen City was now, indeed, a place of refuge. But he had no word of reproach for her, because she had insisted upon coming. He knew that a snow-storm had not entered into her calculations, as it had not entered into his, and, moreover, no one in the party had shown more courage or better spirits.

The snow drove in at the unsheltered windows, and a long whine arose as the wind whirled around the old house. The guide came in with cheerful bustle and stamp of feet.

"Don't linger here, gentlemen and ladies," he said. "The house is yours.

Come into the parlor. We've had a piece of luck. Now and then a lone tramp or a miner seeks shelter in this town, just as we have done; they come mostly to the hotel, and some feller who gathered up wood failed to burn it all. I'll have a fire in the parlor in five minutes, and then we can ring for hot drinks for the men, a lemonade for the lady, and a warm dinner for all. I'll take straight whiskey, an' after that I ain't partic'ler whether I get patty-de-foy-graw or hummin'-bird tongues."

His good-humor was infectious, and they were thankful, too, for the shelter, desolate though the place was. All the wood had been stripped away except the floors, and the brick walls were bare. In the great parlor they had nothing to sit on save their saddles, but it was a n.o.ble apartment, many feet square, built for a time when there was life in Queen City.

"I've heard the Governor of Montana speak to more than two hundred people in this very room," said Jim, reminiscently. "He was to have spoke in the public square, but snow come up, an' Bill Fosd.i.c.k, who run the hotel, and run her wide open, invited 'em all right in here, an'

they come."