The One-Way Trail Part 20

"But your sister? What's poor Eve going to do with you always hating Will? She'll get no happiness, laddie, and you'd rather see her happy.

Say, if you can't help hating Will, sure you can hide it. You needn't to run foul of him. You go your way, and he can go his. Do you know I'm pretty sure he'll try and do right by you, because of Eve----"

"Say, Peter, you're foolish." The boy had calmed, and now spoke with a shrewd decision that was curiously convincing. "Will'll go his way, and Eve won't figger wuth a cent with him. I know. Eve'll jest have to git her toes right on the mark, same as me. He's a devil, and I know.

Will'll make Eve hate herself, same as he'll make me. Say, an' I'll tell you this, Eve'll hev to work for him as well as me. I know. I can see. You can't tell me of Will, nor of n.o.body that's bad--'cause I ken see into 'em. I'm bad, an' I ken see into folks who 're bad."

There was no argument against such an att.i.tude as the boy took.

Besides, Peter began to understand. Here was an unique study in psychology. The boy either fancied he possessed--or did possess--such unusual powers of observation that they almost amounted to the prophetic, where that which was bad was concerned. He saw Will in a light in which no one else saw him, although already he, Peter, and Jim had witnessed unpleasant dashes of that side of the man's character which Elia seemed to read like an open book. However, he could not abandon his task yet, but he changed his tactics.

"Maybe you're right, laddie," he said. "I was thinking of poor Eve. I was wondering if you wouldn't like to try and make her happy, seeing she's always been so good to you. I do believe you'd rather she was happy."

The boy nodded his head, and an impish light crept into his eyes.

"And you're going to try and make her--happy?"

Peter was smiling with simple eager hope. The impish light deepened in the boy's eyes.

"Maybe," he said. "Guess I'll do what I ken. When Will treats me fair I'll treat him fair. I can't do a heap of work, seein' I'm as I am, but if he wants me to do things I'll do 'em--if he treats me fair.

I'll do what I ken, but I hate him. Maybe you're guessin' that'll be makin' things fair for Eve. You best guess agin." Then the impish light left his eyes, and they became quite serious again. "Say, tell me some more 'bout that gold?"

But Peter laughed and shook his head.

"Time enough, laddie," he said, pleased with the result of his first essay on behalf of peace between Elia and Will. "You're going to get that gold when we find it, sure, so come right along and let's get to work--and find it."

CHAPTER XIII

AFTER ONE YEAR

Scandal was rampant in Barnriff. But it was not of an open nature.

That is to say, it was scandal that pa.s.sed surrept.i.tiously from lip to lip, and was rarely spoken where more than two people foregathered.

For small as Barnriff was, ignorant as were the majority of its people, scandal was generally tabooed, and it was only in bad cases where it was allowed to riot.

The reason of this restraint was simple enough. It was not that the people of the village were any different to those of other small places. They loved gossip as dearly as anybody else--when to gossip was safe. But years ago Barnriff had learned that gossip was not always safe in its midst.

The fact was that the peace laws of the place were largely enforced by a process which might be called the "survival of the strong." There were no duly authorized peace officers, and the process had evolved out of this condition of things. Quarrels and bloodshed were by no means frequent in the village, rather the reverse, and this was due to the regulations governing peace.

If two men quarreled it was on the full understanding of the possible and probable consequences; namely, a brief and effective life and death struggle, followed by a sudden and immediate departure from the fold of the survivor. Hence, scandal was held in close check, and traveled slowly, with the slow twistings and windings of a venemous snake. But for this very reason it was the more deadly, and was the more surely based upon undeniable fact. The place was just now a-simmer with suppressed scandal.

And its object. It was only a year since Eve and Will Henderson's marriage. A sufficiently right and proper affair, said public opinion.

There were of course protestors. Many of the women had expected Eve to marry Jim Thorpe. But then they were of the more mature section of the population, those whose own marriages had taught them worldly wisdom, and blotted out the early romance of their youths. It had been a love match, a match where youth runs riot, and the madness of it sweeps its victims along upon its hot tide. Now the tide was cooling, some said it was already cold.

After their brief honeymoon the young people had returned to the village. The understanding was that Eve should again take up her business, while Will continued his season up in the hills, hunting with his traps and gun. He was to visit Barnriff at intervals during the season, and finally return and stay with Eve during the months when the furs he might take would be unfit for the market. This was the understanding, and in theory it was good, and might well have been carried out satisfactorily. All went pa.s.sably well until the close of the fur season.

Eve returned to the village a bright and happy woman. She took up her business again, and, perhaps, the novelty of her married state was the reason that at first her trade increased. Then came Will's visits. At first they were infrequent, with the arranged-for laps of time between them. But gradually they became more frequent and their duration longer. The women wagged their heads. "He is so deeply in love, he can't stay away," they said. And they smiled approval, for they were women, and women can never look on unmoved at the sight of a happy love match. But against this the men shrugged their shoulders. "He's wastin' a heap o' time," they said; "pelts needs chasin' some, an' y'

can't chase pelts an' make love to your own wife or any one else's, for that matter." And this was their way of expressing a kindly interest.

The men were right and the women were wrong. Will did more than waste time. He literally pitched it away. He prolonged his stays in the village beyond all reason, and as Eve, dutifully engaged upon her business, could not give him any of her working hours, he was forced to seek his pleasures elsewhere. That elsewhere, in a man p.r.o.ne to drink, of necessity became the saloon. And the saloon meant gambling, gambling meant money. Sometimes he won a little, but more often he lost.

Being a reckless player, fired by the false stimulation of Rocket's bad whiskey, he began to plunge to recoup himself, and, as ever happens in such circ.u.mstances, he got deeper into the mire. At first these heavy losses had a salutary effect upon him, and he would "hit the trail" for the hills, and once more ply his trade with a feverish zest.

This sort of thing went on until the close of his fur season. Then he made up his bales of pelts, and, to his horror, discovered that his year's "catch" was reduced by over fifty per cent., while, in place of a wad of good United States currency in his hip pocket, he had floated a perfect fleet of I. O. U.'s, each in itself for a comparatively small amount, but collectively a total of no inconsiderable magnitude.

And each I. O. U. was dated for payment immediately after he had marketed his pelts.

This stress, and the life he had been living in Barnriff, caused his mercurial temper to suffer. And as his nature soured, so all that was worst in him began to rise to the surface. He did not blame himself.

Did ever one hear of a man blaming himself when things went wrong? No.

He blamed the fur season. The hills were getting played out. The furs were traveling north, and, in consequence were scarce. Besides, how could he be in Barnriff and the hills at the same time? The position was absurd. Eve must join him and give up her business, and they must make their home up in the hills where she could learn to trap. Or they must live in Barnriff and he must find fresh employment.

Yes, he would certainly find out how Eve's business was prospering. If she had shown a better turnover than he, perhaps it would be as well for him to go into Barnriff for good. The idea rather pleased him. Nor could he see any drawback to it except those confounded I. O. U.'s.

The next news that Barnriff had was that Will and Eve were settled for good in the village, and that he had no intention of returning to the hills. Barnriff's comment was mixed. The women said, "Poor dears, they can't live apart." Again the men disagreed. Their charity was less kind, especially amongst those who had yet to collect the payment of their I. O. U.'s. They said with sarcastic smile, "Wants to live on his woman, and play 'draw.'" And time soon showed them to be somewhere near the mark.

Will sold his furs, paid his debts, sighed his relief, and settled down to a life in Barnriff. A month later he found to his profound chagrin that the small margin of dollars left over after paying off his I. O. U.'s had vanished, and a fresh crop of paper was beginning to circulate. Whiskey and "draw" had got into his blood, and all unconsciously he found himself pledged to it.

It was during this time that scandal definitely laid its clutch upon the village. But it was not until later that its forked tongue grew vicious. It was at the time that word got round the village that there was trouble in Eve's little home that the caldron began to seethe. No one knew how it got round; yet it surely did. Scandal said that Eve and Will quarreled, that they quarreled violently, that Will had struck her, that money was the bottom of the trouble, that Will had none to meet his gambling debts, and that Eve, who had been steadily supplying him out of her slender purse, had at last refused to do so any more.

It went on to say that Will was a drunken sot, that his methods at cards were not above suspicion, and that altogether he was rapidly becoming an undesirable.

Peter Blunt heard the scandal; he had watched things himself very closely. Jim Thorpe heard, but, curiously enough, rumor about these two did not seem to reach the "AZ" ranch easily.

However, what did reach Jim infuriated him almost beyond words. It was this last rumor that sent him riding furiously into the village late one night, and drew him up at Peter Blunt's hut.

He found the gold seeker reading a well-known history of the Peruvian Aztecs, but without hesitation broke in upon his studies.

"What's this I hear, Peter?" he demanded, without any preamble. "I mean about the--the Hendersons."

His dark eyes were fierce. His clean-cut features were set and angry.

But these signs didn't seem to hurry Peter's answer. He laid his book aside and folded his hands behind his head, while he searched the other's face with his calm blue eyes.

"We've just got it out on the ranch," Jim went on. "He's--he's knocking her about--they say."

"And so you've come in. What for?"

The big man's words had a calming effect.

"Peter, can't you tell me?" Jim went on, with a sudden change of manner that became almost pleading. "It's awful. I can't bear to think of Eve suffering. Is it, as they say, money? Has he--gone to the dogs with drink and gambling? Peter," he said, with sudden sternness, his feelings once more getting the better of him, "I feel like killing him if----"

But the other's face was cold, and he shook his head.

"I'm not going to talk this scandal," he said. "You've no right to feel like that--yet." And his words were an admission of his own feelings on the subject.

Peter's eyes wandered thoughtfully from his friend to the book shelves; and after a moment the other stirred impatiently. Then his eyes came back to Jim's face. He watched the pa.s.sionate straining in them, that told of the spirit working within. Nor could he help thinking what a difference there might have been had Eve only married this man.

"You better go back to the ranch," he said presently.

But the light that suddenly leaped to Jim's eyes gave him answer without the words which followed swiftly.