The Freebooters of the Wilderness Part 45

"Bargain?" repeated Wayland.

Then, they both laughed. She had him at such an obvious disadvantage.

I do not intend to tell how far the afternoon shadows had stretched out when Eleanor exclaimed with a jump; "d.i.c.k: the buckboard is out of sight." I do not think either of them as lovers of horses ever offered adequate reason for having ridden their bronchos such a hard pace up grade the last ten miles that the ponies came down the Ridge to the Valley road a lather of sweat.

"You are sure," he had asked as they came out of the evergreens, "that you'll never regret?"

"Mr. Matthews intended to leave to-morrow, d.i.c.k. Do you think you could persuade him to stay over a day?"

It was Mrs. Williams who sensed something unusual as the ponies came down one of the by-paths from the Ridge.

"My dear, look at their faces! I do believe it has!" Then to Eleanor, "Will you come in the rig? Are you tired?"

"I think I shall," said Eleanor.

"You've ridden y'r nags uncommon hard, Wayland," observed Matthews.

Eleanor had ascended to the back seat. Wayland had tied the bridle rein of her horse to the rear and was riding abreast of the front seat.

"I wish you could make it convenient to put off your departure for a day or two," began Wayland, very red.

"Eh? What's that?" cried Matthews; and when he looked to the back seat Eleanor and the little gray haired lady in plain back mourning bonnet were going on as fool-women will, and Williams was risking a fall out leaning over the seat shaking hands with Wayland. Somebody was flouris.h.i.+ng a red cotton handkerchief; two for ten cents, they sell them in Smelter City. It was Williams who put a check to what Eleanor called a 'loadful of idiots.' "The wind is blowing towards the snow,"

he said; "but I don't like that column of smoke rising from the Homestead slope in this high gale. That Irish sot went home roaring drunk by the stage yesterday. What will you bet the fire didn't start in the timber slash?"

Wayland gave only one look. "It isn't my job any more," he said, "but I can't stand seeing _that_."

He was off at a gallop. They saw the sparks strike from the stones as he turned up the Ridge Trail.

A week had pa.s.sed. The fire had been put out with little damage except from O'Finnigan's timber slash to the lake beneath the upper snows. A new Ranger was in charge. As for O'Finnigan, like Calamity, he had dropped as completely from the Valley's knowledge as if the earth had swallowed him. The Valley, in fact, had given small thought to the mad squaw or the drunken Irishman. The Valley had had other things to talk about. There was the coming fall campaign, and Wayland's name as reform candidate, and Wayland's quiet marriage to the daughter of the dead sheep king. Eleanor and Wayland had gone round through the Pa.s.s to the Lake Behind the Peak, where he had dreamed what form of triangulation thoughts must take from the star in the water to the star on the other side of the Holy Cross; where the little waves lipped and lisped and laved the reeds; where they two could drink and drink unseen of the joy of the waters of life before the opening of the political battle.

"Make him tell y' of all that happened in th' Pa.s.s when A was with him," Matthews had called as they rode away up the narrowing trail to the jubilant shouting of the canyon waters, the little mule leading the pack ponies.

Mrs. Williams stood on the upper piazza of the Mission School waving and waving. The cottonwoods were raining down showers of gold; and the pines were clicking their gypsy tambourines; and the golden torches of countless yellow autumn flowers lighted the triumphal procession of the year to its consummation. Against the opal crown of the Holy Cross Mountain, the yellowed larches tossed flaming torches to the very sky.

"They seem to be riding away to a world of dreams," said the little lady in black.

Mr. Bat Brydges and Senator Moyese walked slowly and reflectively past the Range Cabin towards the charred burn and timber slash of O'Finnigan's abandoned homestead.

"It's that d.a.m.ned rant the old fellow let off in the court room," said Brydges.

"Rant doesn't win elections, Brydges! It has to be fought out! Sooner we accept the challenge and put 'em to bed for good, the better! Money talks, Brydges!"

"But that's just it, Senator! Money _does_ talk; and some body's money has talked when the Independent sold out to Joe!"

"Fool and his money soon parted, Brydges! Only, in this case, I've a suspicion it's a _Her_! Never fear a known enemy, Brydges! It's the unknown factors you want to look out for! F'r instance, there is this sot of a drunken Shanty Town Irishman? What's become of him? Did he burn himself, when he set fire to the slash?"

They had paused opposite that fallen giant which bridged the Gully where Wayland had laid the saplings to cross to the Rim Rocks.

"That's a fine one; the fire didn't bring that one down! Been cheesy heart wood! Wonder who placed the saplings for a bridge? Think I'll cross and go down to the ranch by the Rim Rocks, Brydges!"

"Then, excuse me, Mr. Senator! I go back _this_ way! Napoleon had aversion to mice! I've an aversion to wire walking."

He saw Moyese, hands in pockets, stroll along the great log bridging the Gully. Mid-way, he paused as if in contempt of Brydges' timidity.

"Bark gives a little," he said, pressing his whole weight up and down flexibly.

"I wish you wouldn't do that, Senator," called Brydges. "Trunk looks to me as if the fire had run through the punk!"

Even as he spoke, he saw it happen, Calamity glide on the far end of the log, utter a maniacal laugh, throw her shawl to the winds and bound forward.

"Go back, you she-devil! Look out, Senator! That log won't stand the weight of two--"

There was the flash of a knife in her hand. Moyese had jumped from the stabbing onslaught--when he lost his balance: the tree crunched, bent, doubled like a jack knife, and plunged in a swirl of smoke and dust to the bottom of the Gully. It had been burnt through to the green mossed outer bark. When Brydges looked fearfully over the bank, the Indian woman had crushed below the log; and Moyese lay very still, his face to the sky, his left hand in his pocket, his right hand thrown out as if to ward a blow, gashed and b.l.o.o.d.y, whether from rock or knife cut, one could not tell.

I do not intend to repeat the "Smelter City Herald's" flare head announcement of "the deplorable and tragical accident that cut short one of the most promising political careers in the United States."

"Senator Moyese had long been accustomed to search the mountains in autumn for seeds and roots of specimen flowers for his herbarium, of which he had made a hobby. That reckless disregard of danger for which he was famous, etc., etc." You'll find the salient features of it all in "Who's Who." Pad that out with Mr. Bat Brydges' imagination and devotion; and you will have an idea of the sorrow that convulsed the "Smelter City Herald."

The opposition paper opined "He would hardly have retained the confidence of the Valley had he lived;" and the "Independent"--our old friend, the news editor--paid him the straight out from the shoulder compliment, "that he had died as he had lived, an uncompromising game fighter to the end."

What became of Mr. Bat Brydges? Bless you, my friend, do you need to ask? He is shouting for Reform as loudly as his kind always shout when the tide turns. What became of the scandal story? What becomes of any scandal story? What becomes of the skunk's contribution to the gayety of nations?--Buried in the memory of decent folks, long ago and forgotten: in the memory of indecent folk, still hauled forth and repeated and fondled under the tongue.