Dorothy's Double Volume Iii Part 10

Ten minutes later Ned took a coil of rope and sauntered off to the spot he had indicated, where he was presently joined by the ten men.

'It would be useless trying to take this fellow in his tent to-night,'

he said; 'after what has happened they will be certain to keep a good lookout. We must watch as they leave the saloon. Will you, Armitstead, go in there now and seat yourself at a table and see what is going on, and when you see them coming out get out before them, and come and tell us; we shall be gathered just round the corner.'

'I don't expect they will be long,' Armitstead said. 'There won't be much play going on to-night after what has happened. Yes, I will go in.'

There were a few men still sitting at the tables when he entered; they were drinking silently, and watching with scowling faces the group standing at the bar. He took his seat at the table nearest to the door, and in the silence of the place could plainly hear what was being said at the other end.

'I tell you, you were wrong,' Bluff Harry was saying; 'there was no call to draw. The men were new-comers and meant no harm; it is enough to set the whole camp agin us. It ain't no use your scowling at me; I ain't afraid of you and you knows it.'

'Bluff Harry is right, Ben; however, it ain't no use having words atween friends. We have got to stick together here, and if we does that we can clear this camp out.'

'I don't care a continental what Bluff Harry or any other man thinks,'

Ben Hatcher said, sulkily. 'I does as I like, without asking leave from no man; still, I don't want to quarrel, and as some of you seems to want to make a muss, I will just leave you to yourselves and turn in.' As he turned to leave the bar, Jack Armitstead slipped out through the door and ran round the corner.

'He is coming out by himself,' he said; 'you had best get away from here, for a shout would bring the whole gang upon us.'

Ned led the others down by the side of the saloon, and then out through the tents. They took their station behind one standing on the verge of the camp and waited. In two or three minutes a step was heard approaching. As the man came along, Ned Hampton sprang out and threw himself upon him; the others at once followed, and the man was thrown on to the ground, and in spite of his struggles bound and gagged. Then six of them lifted him on their shoulders, and carried him up into the wood.

The next morning, one of the miners going up to chop some firewood returned with the news that Ben Hatcher was hanging from a tree. Many others ran up to verify the statement. On the breast of the dead man was pinned a paper. 'This man has been tried and found guilty of murder, and has been hung by my orders--Judge Lynch.'

The feeling in camp was one of general satisfaction. The murders of the preceding evening had caused general indignation, and threats had been freely uttered.

Hatcher's companions were among the last to hear what had happened. None of them, on their return a few minutes after him, had thought of looking in his tent; the three whose turn it was had each kept three hours'

watch, and had no reason for supposing that anything unusual had occurred. It was not until eight o'clock, that one looking into Ben Hatcher's tent discovered that it was untenanted; the others were soon roused at the news, and Bluff Harry went down into the camp to see if he had gone down on some errand.

'Have you seen Ben Hatcher?' he asked a miner who was cooking breakfast for his mates.

'Ay. I have seen him, and I guess pretty near every one in camp has.'

'Where is he?'

'You will find him up in that wood there, close to that big pine, and it ain't a pleasant sight to look at, I can tell you.'

'Is he dead?'

'I should say so; about as dead as he ever will be.'

Bluff Harry returned to his friends, and they went up in a party to the wood. Hardy as they were, their faces whitened as they looked at the swinging body and read the paper.

Not a word was spoken for a minute or two; then Mason, the gambler, said--

'We had best bury him at once, boys; we can talk it over afterwards.'

Two of the men went down and borrowed picks and shovels. In half-an-hour they returned to their tents, having finished their task. The meal was prepared in silence. When they sat down, Mason said--

'Well, boys, I don't know how you take it, but it seems to me that this is not a healthy place to stop in. We cannot always keep together and always be on our guard, and they may pick us up one after the other. I thought when you were talking yesterday about Judge Lynch that you were away from the mark. He has been to two or three camps where I have been, and it ain't no manner of good bucking against him. My opinion is, the sooner we git the better.'

'I am with you,' Bluff Harry agreed. 'If they came to open fighting I would take a hand to the last, but this secret business don't suit me. I reckon the game is played out here, and we had better vamoose the ranch before the worst comes of it.'

The others were of the same opinion. The little tents were pulled down and their belongings made up into bundles, and before noon each man shouldered his kit and moved quietly off.

CHAPTER XXII

The evening after the departure of the men who had terrorised the camp, a general meeting was held and the proceedings of Judge Lynch were endorsed by a unanimous vote. It was resolved that the camp should be kept free from professional gamblers and hard characters, and Judge Lynch was requested to give warning to any such men as might come, to clear off without delay. Except those absolutely concerned in the affair of the night before, none in camp knew who were the men who had carried it out. It was an understood thing in the mining camps that the ident.i.ty of Judge Lynch and his band should not be inquired into or even guessed at. Had their ident.i.ty been established, it would have been unsafe for any of them to have gone beyond the limits of their camp, and the risk would have been so great that it would have been difficult to get men to act, had they not known that the most absolute secrecy would be maintained.

Some of the miners who were in the habit of playing high grumbled somewhat at the expulsion of Mason, who had not himself been concerned in any of the shooting affrays. Two or three of them packed up their kits and left the camp on the day following the expulsion of the gambler and his a.s.sociates, but the general result was that the saloon was better attended than ever. There was still a good deal of play going on, for cards formed one of the few amus.e.m.e.nts of the miners, but as long as they played against each other, the stakes were comparatively moderate, and men were pretty sure that if they lost they, at least, lost fairly.

The intimacy between Ned Hampton and the girl who went by the name of Linda increased. She had given him a bright nod the first time he went into the saloon after the revolution.

'You see there was nothing to be nervous about,' he said; 'the matter was very easily carried out.'

'It is a comfort to know that they are all gone. I hope we shall have peace and quiet now. I hope no one knows that you had anything to do with it.'

'No; it is known only to those who took part in it, and no one but yourself knows that I was one of them.'

'No, but some suspect it. My father and Murdoch both do. They were talking about it this morning. They don't know whether to be glad or sorry. Mason paid well for the use of that inner room, but of late custom has fallen off in other respects. During the last two days we have taken twice as much as we were doing before, so that I think things will be about even. They were asking me about you, and if I knew anything of your history; but, of course, I could tell them nothing, because I don't know anything myself.'

'I don't think any of us know much of each other's antecedents,' Ned said. 'For anything you know I may be either an escaped convict or a duke in disguise; for anything I know you may be the daughter of the man you call your father or you may not. You may be a lady of rank, who has, from a spirit of adventure, come out here. You may have been brought up in poverty and misery in some London slum. It is certainly not the rule here in the diggings to ask people who they are or where they come from.'

The girl had turned suddenly pale. She was silent for a moment when he ceased speaking, and then said--

'It is not very civil of you to suggest that I may have been brought up in a slum.'

'I was merely putting it generally,' he said. 'Just as I suggested that I might be an escaped convict for aught you knew.'

Truscott and Murdoch had indeed noticed with some uneasiness that the girl had seemed inclined to be much more friendly with Ned than she had been with any one else since they had come out. On the journey across the plains they had travelled so much faster than the majority that there was no opportunity for forming many intimacies. Since they had been in California they had seen with great satisfaction that she had strictly followed out the line they had impressed upon her, that while civil to all she had treated them with the most absolute impartiality, showing no preference of the slightest kind. The rough compliments paid to her were simply laughed away, and, if persevered in, those who uttered them found that they had no further opportunities of conversation, and that they were completely ignored the next time they came to the bar.

The interests of the two men were so strongly concerned in the matter that they watched her closely, and were not long in noticing that whenever Ned presented himself at the bar she would in a very short time come across from her place behind to speak to him, sometimes only exchanging a word or two, at others, if business happened to be at all slack, chatting with him for some minutes. That day, when as usual they sat down to dinner together, Truscott said:

'You seem to be taken with that young fellow who chucked Wyoming Bill out the other day. I should not encourage him, or it will be noticed by the others, and that will do us harm.'

The girl flushed angrily. 'You can keep your advice to yourself,' she said. 'He is the most decent man I have met out here, and I like to talk to him; he does not pay me compliments or talk nonsense, but just chats to me as he would to any one else. I don't interfere with you, and you had best not interfere with me.'

'Well, you need not be so hot about it,' the man said; 'there was no harm meant.'

And so the subject dropped for the time, but the two men talked it over seriously when they were alone.

Another fortnight pa.s.sed. Ned worked steadily on the claim, which was turning out exceedingly well. Jacob went backwards and forwards for supplies. The camp increased in size, and most of the miners were doing fairly well. The saloon was crowded at meal times, and in the evening; the back room was still used for play, but no professional gambler had ventured into the camp. Truscott himself, however, frequently took the bank, although always making a protest before doing so, and putting it as a favour. He refused, however, to play for really high stakes, but the amounts staked were considerably above those played for by the miners at the other tables.

Jacob, who occasionally went to the saloon with Ned, was more and more convinced that the woman behind the bar was the girl he had known in Piper's Court; and the sudden change in her face when he had spoken to her as to what her past history might be, had still more brought Ned over to the belief that the lad might be right. He himself was feeling anxious and undecided. He seemed no nearer getting at the end he desired than he had been a month before, and he could not conceal from himself that this girl showed pleasure when she met him, that her manner softened, and that once or twice when he had come suddenly upon her, her cheek had flushed. An occasional rough joke from his mates showed that it was considered in camp a settled thing that he would carry off the woman whose presence was considered by the superst.i.tious miners to have brought luck to them all.

Hitherto, except on the occasions when she came out to speak to him, he had only met her at the bar. She had more than once mentioned that she went out every morning and afternoon for a stroll through the camp while the diggers were all at work, but being unable to arrive at any conclusion as to his best course, he had not availed himself of what seemed to him a half invitation to meet her. At last, however, he determined to see what would come of it, and making some excuse to leave his work soon after breakfast, went up into the camp. From his tent he could see the saloon, and after watching for half-an-hour he saw the girl come out. Marking the way she went, he followed and overtook her just outside the camp. There was no mistaking the look of pleasure in her face.