They Of The High Trails Part 19

"It's the mayor. Let me speak with you a minute."

Kelley considered for a breath or two; his brain was sluggish. "Open the door, Rosie," he finally said and backed against the wall.

The girl obeyed, and the mayor entered, but his hands were open and raised. "Don't shoot, Ed. We're friends." He was followed by the judge and a couple of aldermen.

"It's all right, Ed," said the judge. "Mink's coming to life. Put up your gun. We don't blame you. He had no call to attack an officer like that--"

At the word "officer" Kelley let his rifle slip with a slam to the floor and began to fumble at the badge on his coat. "That reminds me, your Honor," he said, at last. "Here's a little piece of tin that belongs to you--or the city."

He tossed the loosened badge to the mayor, who caught it deftly, protesting: "Oh, don't quit, Ed. You've just about won the fight. Stay with it."

A wry smile wrinkled one side of the trailer's set face. "I'm no fool, your Honor. I know when I've got enough. I don't mind being shot in the back and mobbed and wallered in the dirt--that's all in the day's work; but when it comes to having women pop in on me with Winchesters I must be excused. I'm leaving for the range. I'll enjoy being neighbor to the conies for a while. This civilized life is a little too busy for me."

Rosa, who had been listening, understood his mood much better than the men, and with her small hands upon his arm she pleaded: "Take me with you! I hate these people--I want to go with you."

He turned a tender, pitying, almost paternal glance upon her. "No, girl, no. I can't do that. You're too young. It wouldn't be right to snarl a grown woman's life up with mine--much less a child like you." Then, as if to soften the effect of his irrevocable decision, he added: "Perhaps some time we'll meet again. But it's good-by now." He put his arm about her and drew her to his side and patted her shoulder as if she were a lad. Then he turned. "Lend me a dollar, Judge! I'm anxious to ride."

The judge looked troubled. "We're sorry, Ed--but if you feel that way, why--"

"That's the way I feel," answered the trailer, and his tone was conclusive.

Dusk was falling when, mounted on his horse, with his "stake" in his pocket, Kelley rode out of the stable into the street swarming with excited men. The opposition had regained its courage. Yells of vengeance rose: "Lynch him! Lynch the dog!" was the cry.

Reining his bronco into the middle of the road, with rifle across the pommel of his saddle, Kelley advanced upon the crowd, in the shadowy fringes of which he could see ropes swinging in the hands of Mink's drunken partisans.

"Come on, you devils!" he called. "Throw a rope if you dare."

Awed by the sheer bravery of the challenge, the crowd slowly gave way before him.

The block seemed a mile long to Kelley, but he rode it at a walk, his horse finding his own way, until at last he reached the bridge which led to the high-line Red Mountain road. Here he paused, faced about, and sheathed his Winchester, then with a wave of his hand toward Rosa Lemont, who had followed him thus far, he called out:

"Good-by, girl! You're the only thing worth saving in the whole dern town. _Adios!_"

And, defeated for the first time in his life, Tall Ed turned his cayuse's head to the San McGill range, with only the memory of a wors.h.i.+pful child-woman's face to soften the effect of his hard experience as the Marshal of Brimstone Basin.

PARTNERS FOR A DAY

I

Cinnebar was filled with those who took chances. The tenderfoot staked his claim on the chance of selling it again. The prospector toiled in his overland tunnel on the chance of cracking the apex of a vein. The small companies sank shafts on the chance of touching pay ore, the big companies tunneled deep and drifted wide in the hope of cutting several veins. The merchants built in the belief that the camp was a permanent town, and the gamblers took chances of losing money if their game was honest, and put their lives at hazard if they cheated.

Only the saloon-keepers took no chances whatever. They played the safe game. They rejoiced in a certainty, for if the miners had good luck they drank to celebrate it, and if they had bad luck they drank to forget it--and so the liquor-dealers prospered.

Tall Ed Kelley, on his long trip across "the big flat," as he called the valley between the Continental Divide and the Cascade Range, stopped at Cinnebar to see what was going on. In less than three days he sold his horse and saddle and took a chance on a leased mine. At the end of a year he was half owner in a tunnel that was yielding a fair grade of ore and promised to pay, but he was not content. A year in one place was a long time for him, and he was already meditating a sale of his interest in order that he might take up the line of his march toward the Northwest, when a curious experience came to him.

One night as he drifted into the Palace saloon he felt impelled to take a chance with "the white marble." That is to say, he sat in at the roulette-table and began to play small stakes.

The man who rolled the marble was young and good-looking. Kelley had seen him before and liked him. Perhaps this was the reason he played roulette instead of faro. At any rate, he played, losing steadily at first--then, suddenly, the ball began to fall his way, and before the clock pointed to ten he had several hundred dollars in winnings.

"This is my night," he said, on meeting the eyes of the young dealer.

"Don't crowd a winning horse," retorted the man at the wheel; and Kelley caught something in his look which checked his play and led him to quit the game. In that glance the gambler had conveyed a friendly warning, although he said, as Kelley was going away: "Be a sport. Give the wheel another show. See me to-morrow."

Kelley went away with a distinct feeling of friendliness toward the youngster, whose appearance was quite unlike the ordinary gambler. He seemed not merely bored, but disgusted with his trade, and Kelley said to himself: "That lad has a story to tell. He's no ordinary robber."

The next afternoon he met the youth on the street. "Much obliged for your tip last night. The game looked all right to me."

"It _was_ all right," replied the gambler. "I didn't mean that it was crooked. But I hate to see a good man lose his money as you were sure to do."

"I thought you meant the wheel was 'fixed.'"

"Oh no. It's straight. I call a fair game. But I knew your run of luck couldn't last and"--he hesitated a little--"I'd kinda taken a fancy to you."

"Well, that's funny, too," replied Kelley. "I went over to play your machine because I kind of cottoned to you. I reckon we're due to be friends. My name's Kelley--Tall Ed the boys call me."

"Mine is Morse--Fred Morse. I came out here with a grub-stake, lost it, and, being out of a job, fell into rolling the marble for a living. What are you--a miner?"

"I make a bluff at mining a leased claim up here, but I'll admit I'm nothing but a wandering cow-puncher--a kind of mounted hobo. I have an itch to keep moving. I've been here a year and I'm crazy to straddle a horse and ride off into the West. I know the South and East pretty well--so the open country for me is off there where the sun goes down."

His voice had a touch of poetry in it, and the other man, though he felt the bigness of the view, said:

"I never was on a horse in my life, and I don't like roughing it. But I like you and I wish you'd let me see something of you. Where are you living?"

"Mostly up at my mine--but I have a room down here at the Boston House.

I pick up my meals anywhere."

The young man's voice grew hesitant. "Would you consider taking me in as a side partner? I'm lonesome where I am."

Kelley was touched by the gambler's tone. "No harm trying," he said, with a smile. "We couldn't do more than kill each other. But I warn you I'm likely any day to buy an old cayuse and pull out. I'm subject to fits like that."

"All right--I'll take the chance. I'm used to taking chances."

Kelley laughed. "So am I."

In this informal way they formed a social partners.h.i.+p, and the liking they mutually acknowledged deepened soon into a friends.h.i.+p that was close akin to fraternal love.

Within a week each knew pretty accurately the origin and history of the other, and although they had but an hour or two of an afternoon for talk, they grew to depend upon each other, strangely, and when one day Morse came into the room in unwonted excitement and said, "Ed, I want you to do something for me," Kelley instantly replied: "All right, boy.

Spit it out. What's wanted?"

"I'm in a devil of a hole. My mother and my little sister are coming through here on their way to the Coast. They're going to stop off to see me. I want you to let me in on a partners.h.i.+p in your mine just for a day. They'll only stay a few hours, but I want to have them think I'm making my living in a mine. You get me?"

"Sure thing, Fred. When are they due?"

"To-morrow."

"All right. You get a lay-off from your boss and we'll pull the deal through. I'll tell my old partner I've taken you in on my share and he'll carry out his part of it. He's a good deal of a bonehead, but no talker. But you'll have to put on some miner's duds and spend to-day riding around the hills to get a little sunburn. You don't look like a miner."