The Plunderer Part 24

Once I wondered what she was. Now I know more than ever. She was all woman!"

And to this, Joan, putting out her hand to bid them good-by, a.s.sented.

The night shots had been fired at five o'clock--the time usually selected by mines working two s.h.i.+fts--supper had been eaten, and the partners were sitting in front of their quarters when Bill again referred to Mrs. Meredith. High up on the hill, where the new landmark had been, erected, at the foot of the cross, the day s.h.i.+ft of the Croix d'Or was busied here and there in clearing away the ground around the grave of the engineer, some of the men on hands and knees casting aside small bowlders, others tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a clearing in the surrounding brush, and still others painfully building a low wall of rock.

"The hard work of findin' out where The Lily is," said Bill softly, "is because she covered her trail. n.o.body knows where she went. The stage driver saw her on the train, but the railway agent told him she didn't buy no ticket. The conductor wrote me that he put her off at the junction, and that she took the train toward Spokane. That's all!

It ends there as if she'd got on the train, and then it had never stopped. We cain't even thank her."

d.i.c.k, absorbed in thoughts of Joan, heard but little of what he said, and so agreed with a short: "No, that's right." And Bill subsided into silence. A man came trudging up the path leading from the roadway lower down, and in his hand held a bundle of letters.

"Got the mail," he said. "The stage may run every other day after this, instead of twice a week, the postmaster over at the camp told me. Not much to-night. Here it is."

He handed d.i.c.k a bundle of letters, and then, sighting the others on the side of the peak above, started to join them, and take his share in that labor of respect and affection. In the approaching twilight d.i.c.k ran through the packet, selected one letter addressed to his partner, and gave it to him, then tore open the first one at hand. It was addressed in an unfamiliar and painful chirography, with the postmark of Portland, Ore., stamped smudgily in its corner. He began casually to read, then went white as the laborious lines flowed and swam before his eyes:

Dear Mister Townsend, owner of the cross mine, I write you because I am afraid I aint got your pardners name right and because Ive got something on my mind that I cant keep any more. Im the girl that got burned at the High Light. Your pardner saved my life and you were awful kind to me. Everybody's been very kind to me too. I spose you know 111 not be able to work in dance halls no more because Im quite ugly now with them scars all over my face. But that dont make no difference. Mrs. Meredith has been here to see me and told me who it was saved my life. Mrs. Meredith dont want n.o.body to know where shes gone. Shes not coming back any more.

Shes quit the business and is running a sort of millinery store in----

Here a name had been painstakingly obliterated, as if by afterthought, the very paper being gouged through with ink.

Shes paid all my hospital bills and when I get strong enough shes going to let me go to work for her. But that aint what Im writing about and this letter is the biggest I ever wrote. The nurse says Im making a book. I wasn't a very bad girl or a very good girl when I was in the camps. Maybe you know that but I done my best and was as decent as I could be. There was a man was my sweetheart and sometimes when he drank too much he talked too much. Men always say a whole lot when theyre full of rotgut, unless they get nasty. My man never got nasty. Hes gone away and I dont know where. Maybe he dont want nothing more to do with me since I got my face burned. Ive kept my mouth shut until I found out it was you two men who saved me and Im writing this to pay you back the only way I can. Bully Presby is stealing all his best pay ore from the Croix d'Or. Hes worked clean under you and got the richest ledge in the district. They aint n.o.body but confidential men ever get into that drift. Hes been stealing that ore for going on two years andll give you a lot of trouble if you dont mind your Ps and Qs. I hope you beat him out, and I pray for both of you.

Your ever grateful, Pearl Walker.

CHAPTER XVII

WHEN REASON SWINGS

d.i.c.k suddenly crumpled the sheet of paper, and put it in his pocket.

He lifted himself, as a man distracted, from the chair in which he had been sitting, gripping the arms with hands that were tensely responding to an agony of spirit. He almost lurched forward as he stepped to the little steps leading down from the porch, and into the worn trail, hesitated at the forks leading to mess-house or a.s.say office, and then mechanically turned in the latter direction, it being where the greater number of his working hours were pa.s.sed.

"Where you goin'?" the voice of his partner called, as he plunged forward.

He had to make a determined attempt to speak, then his voice broke, harsh and strained, through dry lips:

"a.s.say office."

He did not look back, but went forward, with limp hands and tottering knees, turning neither to right nor left. The whole world was a haze.

The steadfast mountain above him was a cynical monster, and dimly, in the shadow of the high landmark, he discerned a change, sinister, gloating, and leering on him and his misery. The soft voices of the men of the day s.h.i.+ft returning from their voluntary task, the staccato exhaust of the hoisting engine bringing up a load of ore from the refound lead, the clash of a car dumping its load of waste, and the roar of the Rattler's stamps, softened by distance, blended into discordance.

He entered the a.s.say-house like a whipped dog seeking the refuge of its kennel, threw himself on a stool before the bench, leaned his head into his hollowed arms, and groaned as would a stricken warrior of olden days when surrendering to his wounds.

This, then, explained it all--that sequence of events, frustrating, harrying, baffling him, since the first hour he had come to the mine of the Croix d'Or. The rough suggestion of Bully Presby on the first day, discouraging him; the harsh att.i.tude; the persistent attempts to dishearten him and buy him out; the endeavor to buy half the property from, and remove the backing, of Sloan, without which he could not go on; the words of the watchman, who doubtless had discovered Bully Presby's secret theft, blackmailed him as much as he could, and, dying, cursed him; but, hating the men of the mine more, had withheld the vital meaning of his accusation. Perhaps Presby had been instrumental in Thompson's strike. But no, that could scarcely be, although, in the light of other events in that iniquitous chain, it might be possible. That he had any part in the dynamiting of the dam or power-house, d.i.c.k cast aside as unworthy of such a man. The strong, hard, masterful, and domineering face of Bully Presby arose before him as from the darkening shadows of the room, and it seemed triumphant.

He lifted his head suddenly, thinking, in his superacute state of mind, that he had heard a noise. He must have air! The a.s.say office, with its smell of nitric acid, its burned fumes, its clutter of broken cupels and slag, was unbearable. He arose from the stool so suddenly that it went toppling over to fall against the stacked crucibles beneath the bench which lent their clatter to the upset. He stepped out into the night. It was dark, only the stars above him dimly betraying the familiar shapes of mountains, forests, and buildings around. Up in the bunk-house some man was wailing a verse of "Ella Re," accompanied by a guitar, and the doleful drone of the hackneyed chorus was caught up by the other men "off s.h.i.+ft." But, nauseating as it was to him, this piebald ballad of the hills, it contained one shrieking sentence: "Lost forevermore!" That was it! Joan was lost!

He looked up at the superintendent's quarters, which had been his home, and saw that its lights were out. Bill, he conjectured, always hard working and early rising, had tumbled into his bed, unconscious of this tragedy. He struck off across the gulch, and took the trail he had so frequently trodden with a beating heart, and high and tender hope. It led him to the black barrier of the pipe line, the place where first he had met her, the sacred clump of bushes that had held and surrendered to him the handkerchief enshrined in his pocket, the slope where she had leaned down from her horse and kissed him in the only caress he had ever received from her lips, and told him that he should be with her in her prayers.

Reverently he caressed with his hands the spot where she had so often sat on a gray old bowlder, flat-topped. His heart cried for one more sight of her, one more caress, one more opportunity to listen to her voice before he dealt her the irrevocable wound that would end it all.

Not for an instant did he waver. The tempter, whispering in his ear, told him that he could conceal his knowledge, advise Sloan to sell, take his chance with Joan, and let the sleeping dog lie, forever undiscovered. It told him that Sloan was admittedly rich beyond his needs, and that with him the Croix d'Or was merely a matter of sentiment, and an opportunity of bestowing on the son of his old-time friend a chance to get ahead in the world.

But back of it all came the inexorable voice of truth, telling d.i.c.k that there was but one course open, and that was reparation; that to his benefactor he owed faith and loyalty; that Presby must pay, though his--Richard Townsend's--castles crumbled to dust in the wreckage of exposure. He must break the heart and faith of the girl who loved him, and whom, with every fiber of his being, he loved in return.

She would stand in the world as the daughter of a colossal thief! Not a thief of the marts, where crookedness was confused with shrewdness far removed from the theft of the hands; but a thief who had burrowed beneath another man's property, and carried away, to coinage, his gold. Between Bully Presby and the man who tunneled under a bank to loot the safe, there was no moral difference save in the romance of that mystic underground world where men bored like microbes for their spoil.

"Joan! Joan! Joan!" he muttered aloud, as if she were there to hear his hurt appeal.

It was for her that he felt the wound, and not for Bully Presby, her father. For the latter he spared scant sympathy; but it was Joan who would be stricken by any action he might take, and the action must be taken, and would necessarily be taken publicly.

Under criminal procedure men had served long terms behind bars for less offenses than Presby's. Others had made reparation through payment of money, and slunk away into the shadows of disgrace to avoid handcuffs. And the fall of Presby of the Rattler, as a plunderer, was one that would echo widely in the mining world where he had moved, a stalwart, unbending king. Not until then had d.i.c.k realized how high that figure towered. Presby, the irresistible, a thief, and fighting to keep out of the penitentiary, while Joan, the brave, the loving, the true, cowered in her room, dreading to look the world in the face.

And he, the man who loved her, almost accepted as her betrothed, with the ring even then burning in his pocket, was the one who must deal her this blow!

He got up and staggered through the darkness along the length of the line, almost envying the miserable dynamiter, who had died above the remnant of wall, for the quiet into which he had been thrust.

If the train bringing him homeward had been wrecked, and his life extinguished, he could have saved her this. The Cross would have been sold. She might have grieved for him, for a time, but wounds will heal, unless too deep. He stood above the abyss where daylight showed ruins, and knew that the destruction of the dam, heavy a blow as it had seemed when inflicted, was nothing as compared to this ruin of dreams, of love, and hope.

"d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k! What is it, boy?" came a soft voice from the night, scarcely above a whisper. "Can't you tell me, old man? Ain't we still pardners? Just as we uster be?"

He peered through the darkness, roused from his misery in the stillness of the hour, and the night, by the appeal. Dimly he discerned, seated above him on the abutment, a shape outlined against the stars. It threw itself down with hard-striking feet, and came toward him, and he knew it was not a phantom of misery. It came closer to where he stood on the brink of the blackness, and laid a hand on his shoulder, put it farther across and held him, as tenderly as father might have held, in this hour of distress.

"I've been follerin' you, boy," the kindly voice went on. "I saw that somethin' had got you. That you were hard hit! I've been near you for the last two or three hours. I don't know as I'd have bothered you now, if I hadn't been afraid you'd fall over. Let's go back, d.i.c.k--back to the mine."

It seemed as if there had come to him in the night a strong support.

Numbed and despairing, but with a strange relief, he permitted Bill to lead him back over the trail, and at last, when they were standing above the dim buildings below, found speech.

"It's her," he said. "It's for her sake that I hate to do it. It's Joan!"

"Sit down here by me," the big voice, commiserating, said. "Here on this timber. I've kept it to myself, boy, but I know all about her. I stood on the bank, where I'd just gone to hunt you, on that day she reached down from the saddle. I knew the rest, and slipped away. You love her. She's done somethin' to you."

"No!" the denial was emphatic. "She hasn't! She's as true as the hills. It's her father. Look here!"

He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the crumpled sheet, and struck a match. Bill took the letter in his hands and read, while the night itself seemed pausing to s.h.i.+eld the flickering flame. With hurried fingers he struck another match, and the light flared up, exposing his frowning eyebrows, the lights in his keen eyes, the tight pressure of his firm lips.

He handed the letter back, and for a long time sat silently staring before him, his big, square shoulders bent forward, and his hat outlined against the light of the night, which was steadily increasing.

"I see how it is," he said at last. "And it's hard on you, isn't it, boy? A man can stand anything himself, but it's h.e.l.l to hurt those we care for."

The sympathy of his voice cut like a knife, with its merciful hurt.

d.i.c.k broke into words, telling of his misery, but stammering as strong men stammer, when laying bare emotions which, without pressure, they always conceal. His partner listened, motionless, absorbing it all, and his face was concealed by the darkness, otherwise a great sympathy would have flared from his eyes.

"We've got to find a way out of this, d.i.c.k," he said at last, with a sigh. And the word "we" betrayed more fully than long sentences his compa.s.sion. "We must go slow. Somehow, I reckon, I'm cooler than you in this kind of a try-out. Maybe because it don't hit me so close to home. Let's go back, boy, back to the cabin, and try to rest. The daylight is like the Lord's own drink. It clears the head, and makes us see things better than we can in the night--when all is dark. Let's try to find a way out, and try to forget it for a while. Did you ever think how good it all is to us? Just the night, coming along every once in a while, to make us appreciate how good the sun is, and how bright the mornings are. It ain't an easy old world, no matter how hard we try to make it that; because it takes the black times to make our eyes glad to watch the sunrise. Let me help you, old pardner.

We've been through some pretty tight places together, and somehow, when He got good and ready, the Lord always showed us a way out."

He arose on his feet, stretched his long muscular arms, and started down the hill, and d.i.c.k followed. There was not another word exchanged, other than the sympathetic "good-night" in which they had not failed for more than seven years, and outside the stars waned slowly, the stamp mill of the Rattler roared on, and the Croix d'Or was unmoved.