The Plunderer Part 13

That was all he said, and yet in his simple sentence was much. The camp had done well. He straightened up with an air of weariness.

"This pail is pretty heavy," he said. "Won't you take it, Mathews, and carry it over?"

The miner caught it up in his arms, fearing lest the bail break loose under its weight. The doctor bade them good night, and they started toward the High Light, leaving the torch man to extinguish his flares.

She talked freely as she walked between them, expressing her relief that none of the dest.i.tute in that distant camp of mourning would suffer unduly after the receipt of Goldpan's offering. As they entered the house of the lights and noise the bartender nearest hailed her, wiped his hands on his ap.r.o.n and reached out an envelope.

"Bully Presby was in here about an hour or two ago," he said, "and left this. It was before you and Doc Mills was goin' out to try and get the boys interested."

She tore it open, then flushed, and pa.s.sed it to the partners who together read it.

"I hear," the letter read, "that some of the men who were killed over at the Blackbird used to work for me down in California. Also that there are some women and children over there who may have a hard time of it. Will you see to it that this goes to the right channels, and regard it as confidential? I don't want to appear to be a philanthropist on even a small scale. Presby."

Pinned to the letter was a check. It was for ten thousand dollars.

Bill lifted it in his fingers, scanned each word, then handed it to Mrs. Meredith who stood frowning with her eyes fixed on the floor.

"I've known burros, and other contrary cusses, in my time," he said, slowly, "but this feller Presby has 'em all lookin' as simple, and plain, and understandable, as a cross-roads guide-post."

And The Lily, contrite, agreed.

CHAPTER IX

WHERE A GIRL ADVISES

"There's one thing about you, pardner, I don't quite sabe," drawled Bill to his employer as they sat in front of their cabin one night, after discussing the a.s.says which d.i.c.k made his especial work. "You ain't as talkative as you used to be. Somethin's on your mind. It's more'n two weeks now since I had time to think about anything but the green lead, and I'm beginnin' to notice. Where the devil do you go every mornin' between nine and eleven?"

d.i.c.k turned toward him impulsively, and then made no reply, other than to laugh softly. Then slowly he felt a wave of embarra.s.sment.

"Not that it's any of my business, bein' as you're you and I'm me; but we were pardners for some years before things changed and made you the boss and me the hired hand. And it may be I'm undue curious. Who's that girl you go up on the pipe line to meet every mornin'?"

His question was so abrupt that, for an instant, the younger man had a hot, childish anger; but he controlled himself, and wondered why he should have been annoyed by the frank interrogation.

"Miss Presby, the lumberman's daughter," he said crisply. "But what interests me most is how you knew?"

The elder miner slapped his leg gleefully, as if pleased with a joke, and said: "Well, I went up there five or six days ago, tryin' to find you, because I'd lost the combination to the safe, and wanted to look over them old drawings. I sneaked back, because I was a little jealous to see you sittin' on the pipe talkin' right friendly to such a good-looker. Three evenin's later while you were workin' on them mill samples, I thought I'd like to see the whole of the line. I took a walk. There's been a real good horse trail worked into the ground up there, ain't there? And it's a new trail, too. Seems as if somebody must have been riding up and down that way every day for just about two weeks. And it's serious, too, because you don't say nothin' to a man you was pardners with for more'n seven years. Hey, d.i.c.k! What ails you, anyway?"

The younger man was on his feet with one of his fists drawn back, in an att.i.tude of extreme temper.

"Suppose after this you mind your own business?"

For a full half minute the elder man sat there in the dusk, and then said slowly: "All right, boy--I mean, Mister Townsend--I will hereafter."

In the gloom his figure seemed suddenly bent forward more than usual, and his voice had a note of terrible hurt. It was as if all the ties of seven years of vicissitude had been arbitrarily cast off by his old partner; that they had become master and man. His words conveyed an indescribable sorrow, and loss.

"Bill!"

d.i.c.k's arm had relaxed, and he had stepped closer. Mathews did not lift his head. A hand, pleading, fell on his shoulder, and rested there.

"Bill, I didn't mean it! I'm--I'm--well, I'm upset. Something's happened to me. I didn't seem to realize it till just now. I'm--well, thank you, I'm making a fool of myself."

The faithful gray head lifted itself, and the gray eyes glowed warmly as they peered in the dusk at the younger man's face.

"Whe-e-w!" he whistled. "It's as bad as that, is it, boy? Just forget it, won't you? That is, forget I b.u.t.ted in."

d.i.c.k sat down, hating himself for such an unusual outburst. He felt foolish, and extremely young again, as if his steadfast foundations of self-reliance and repression had been proven nothing more than sand.

"I know how them things go," the slow voice, so soft as to be scarcely audible, continued. "I was young once, and it was good to be young.

Not that I'm old now, because I'm not; but because when a feller is younger, there are hot hollows in his heart that he don't want anybody to know about. Only don't make me feel again that I ought to 'mister'

you. I don't believe I could do that. It's pretty late to begin."

d.i.c.k went to his bed with a critical admission of the truth, and from any angle it appeared foolish. How had it all happened? He was not p.r.o.ne to be easy of heart. He had known the light, fleeting loves of boyhood, and could laugh at them; but they had been different to this.

And it had come on him at a time when everything was at stake, and when his undivided thoughts and attention should have been centered on the Croix d'Or. He reviewed his situation, and scarcely knew why he had drifted into it, unless it had been through a desire to talk to some one who knew, as he knew, all that old life from which he had been, and would forever be, parted.

Not that he regretted its easy scramble, and its plethora of civilized concomitants; for he loved the mountains, the streams, the open forests, and the physical struggles of the wild places; but--and he gave over reasoning, and knew that it was because of the charm of Miss Presby herself, and that he wanted her, and had hoped unconsciously.

Sternly arraigning himself, he knew that he had no groundwork to hope, and nothing to offer, just then; that he must first win with the Croix d'Or, and that it was his first duty to win with that, and justify the confidence of the kindly old Sloan who backed him with hard dollars.

He had not appreciated how much the daily meeting of Miss Presby meant to him until, on the following morning, and acting on his hardly reached resolution of the night before, he went up for what might be the last time. It was difficult to realize that the short summer of the alt.i.tudes was there in its splendid growth, and that it had opened before his un.o.bserving eyes, pa.s.sed from the tender green of spring to the deep-shaded depths of maturity, and that the wild flowers that carpeted the open slopes had made way for roses. Even the cross on the peak was different, and it came to him that he had not observed it in the weeks he had been climbing to the slope, but had always waited eagerly for the light of a woman's face.

She came cantering up the trail, and waved a gay hand at him as she rounded the bend of the crag. There was a frank expectancy in her face--the expectancy of a pleasant hour's visit with a good comrade.

He wondered, vaguely and with new scrutiny, if that were not all--just friendliness. They talked of nothing; but his usual bantering tone was gone, and, quick to observe, she divined that there had come to him a subtle change, not without perturbation.

"You don't seem talkative to-day," she accused as he stood up, preparatory to going. "Have you finished work on your pipe line?"

He flushed slightly under the bronze of his face at the question, it being thus brought home to him that he had used it as a pretext for continuing their meetings for more than two weeks after that task was completed and the pipemen scattered--perhaps working in some subway in New York by that time.

"Yes," he said, "the work is finished. I shall not come up here again unless it is for the sole purpose of seeing you."

There was something in his tone that caused her to glance up at him and there was that in his eyes, on his face, in his bearing of restraint, that caused her to look around again, as if to escape, and hastily begin donning her gloves. She pulled the fingers, though they fitted loosely, as if she had difficulty with them--even as though they were tight gloves of kid, and said: "Well, you might do that, sometimes--when you have time; but you mustn't neglect your work. I come here because it is my favorite ride. You must not come merely to talk to me when there are other duties."

"Yes," he said, endeavoring to appear unconcerned. "The Croix d'Or is apt to be a most insistent tyrant."

"And it should come first!" He was obtuse for the instant in his worriment, and did not catch the subtle shade of bitterness in which she spoke.

She tugged at the reins of her horse, and the animal reluctantly tore loose a last mouthful of the succulent gra.s.s growing under the moisture and shadow of the big steel pipe, and stood expectantly waiting for her to mount. She was in the saddle before d.i.c.k could come around to her side to a.s.sist her. He made a last desperate compromise, finding an excuse.

"When I feel that I must see you, because you are such a good little adviser, I shall come back here," he said, "morning after morning, in the hope of seeing you and unburdening my disgruntlement."

She laughed, as if it were a joke.

"I'm afraid I'm not a very good miner," she said, "although I suppose I ought to be a yellow-legged expert, having been brought up somewhere within sound of the stamps all my life. Good luck to you. Good-by."

His reply was almost a mumble, and the black horse started down the trail. He watched her, with a sinking, hungry heart. Just as the crag was almost abreast of her mount, she turned and called back: "Oh, I forgot to say that I shall probably come here almost every day."

He did not understand, until long afterward, the effort that speech cost her; nor did he know ever that her face was suffused when her horse, startled, sprang out of sight at the touch of her spurs. He did not know, as he stood there, wis.h.i.+ng that he had called her back, that she was riding recklessly down the road, hurt, and yet inclined to be strangely happy over that parting and all it had confessed. With a set face, as if a whole fabric of dreams had been wrenched from his life, the miner turned and walked slowly over the trail, worn by his own feet, which led him back to the Croix d'Or, and the struggle with the stubborn rock.