Chapter XXIII
The Will-o'-the-Wisp
For the hour, if for no longer, the tables plainly were turned upon Sanchia. The high content which so abruptly had enveloped Helen and Howard was comparable to the old magic armour of the fairy tales which the fortunate prince found always at his time of need. Through it venomed glance and bitter tongue might not pass; as Sanchia's anger rose the two lovers looked into each other's eyes and laughed. Again Sanchia bit her lips and sat back.
'Dear old pops,' said Helen, going to her father's side and slipping both arms about his neck, ruffling his scant hair and otherwise making free with his passive person, thereby achieving the dual result of coming between him and Sanchia and giving a joyous outlet to a new emotion. 'I am not going to leave you, after all. And the West is the nicest country in the world, too. And Alan and I were wrong to run off and leave you as we did. We'll stay right with you now, and it will be so much jollier that way; won't it, Mrs. Murray?'
Longstreet patted her hand; Sanchia Murray measured her anew.
'And I too,' ran on Helen, 'must take more interest in your work, your books. Now that we live right on the spot where the things are, the strata and eroded cañons and—and relics of monster upheavals and fossils of the Pliocene age and all that—it will be so much fun to study about them, all together. Alan thinks so, I'm sure. Don't you agree, Mrs. Murray?'
Helen's eyes were dancing, Longstreet imagined with newly inspired interest, Alan knew with the light of battle; Sanchia's eyes were angry. The girl had stated her plan of campaign as though in so many words. If time came when Longstreet had a second golden secret to tell, she meant to hear it and to have Alan hear it at least not an instant later than Mrs. Murray; thereafter, with odds two to one against the widow, they should see what they would see.
Sanchia did much thinking and little talking. She remained an hour. During the last half-hour she developed a slight but growingly insistent cough. Before she left she had drawn the desired query from Longstreet. Oh, hadn't he noticed before? It had been coming on her for a month. The doctors were alarmed for her—but she smiled bravely. They had even commanded that she move away from the dust and noise of a town; that she pitch a tent somewhere on the higher lands and live out-doors all of the time. Helen saw what was coming before the actual words were spoken. It was Longstreet who was finally led to extend the invitation! Why didn't she move into a tent near them? And with a look in which gratitude seemed blurred in a mist of tears, Sanchia accepted. She would move to-morrow and pitch her tent right up there near the spring.
'If you don't mind, Helen dear?' she said. 'Your little summer house by the spring may be sacred ground?'
Promptly Helen made her a present of it. All that she wanted were some things she had left there, a pair of spurs and a bridle; Sanchia was perfectly welcome to the rest.
They all went out together for Sanchia's horse. And Sanchia, accepting the altered battle-ground to which Helen's tactics had driven her, seeing that she was to have little opportunity of getting Longstreet off to herself, began a straight drive at her main objective. She laid an affectionate hand on his arm as though thrown upon that necessity by the irregularities of the trail in which she had stumbled, and turned the battery of her really very pretty eyes upon him. With her eyes she said, boldly yet timidly: 'You splendid man, you have touched my heart! You noble creature, you have made Sanchia Murray love you! Generous man, you have come to mean everything to a poor little woman who is lonely!'
It is much to be said in a glance, but Sanchia had never travelled so far on her chosen road of life if she had not learned, long ago, how to put into a look all that she did not feel. And she did not stop with the one look; again she appeared to stumble, again her eyelids fluttered upward, her glance melted into his; again she flashed sufficient message to redden Longstreet's cheeks and make his own eyes burn with embarrassment. And since it was obvious that henceforward the combat must be waged in the open, she did not await the unlikely opportunity of some distant tête-à-tête to emphasize her intention. Before she mounted she managed to allow the glowingly embarrassed man to hold her two hands; and she told him whisperingly:
'I would to God that you had come a few years earlier into the life of Sanchia Murray!' She sighed and squeezed his hands. Then she smiled a wan little smile. 'You have come to mean so much, oh, so much, in my poor little lonely existence.'
She mounted and rode away, waving her farewell, looking only at Longstreet. They all saw how, before she reached the bend in the trail, her handkerchief went to her eyes. Longstreet appeared genuinely worried.
'I am sorry for that little woman,' he said thoughtfully.
'She's making love at you, papa,' laughed Helen, as though the matter were of no moment but delightfully ridiculous. 'Fancy Sanchia Murray falling in love with dear old pops!'
He looked at her severely.
'You should not speak lightly of such matters, my dear,' he chided her. 'Mind you, I am not admitting that there is any ground for such a suspicion as you express.'
'But if there were ground for it?'
'Is there any reason why a pretty woman should not fall in love?' he asked her stiffly. 'Further, is your father such a man that no woman could care for him?' He stalked away.
Helen gasped after him and was speechless.
In due course of time Howard recalled that there was a man named Roberts, a teamster in Sanchia's Town; and that on the Desert Valley ranch there were mules which should be sold; and that, though there was a golden paradise here in Bear Valley, there remained a workaday world outside the charmed confines where time was of the essence. He made Helen understand that if he were to make good in his acquisition of the cattle range he must be down there among his men and his herds during every working hour of the day, but that the nights were his own. He was to come up every night that it was possible. She was to guard her father from Sanchia during the days; he was to seek to be on hand if ever the golden news broke again; they two were to check the adventuress' move. And Helen was to keep the spurs and bridle; she was to take Danny not as a loan but as a gift, of which only they were to know; she was to induce her father to ride down to the lower valley to watch the round-up. Then, lingeringly and with many a backward look, Alan Howard went on his way.
He found his man and, while Howard sat sideways in the saddle and Roberts whittled at a stick, they drove their bargain. The mules were sold for two thousand dollars, if they were as Roberts remembered them and as Howard represented them; Roberts would ride down the next day for them and would pay six hundred dollars as the first payment and thereafter not less than two hundred a month. Howard was satisfied. He would have a little more cash for running expenses or for the purchase of more stock if he could find another chance like that when he had bought the calves from Tony Vaca in French Valley.
The week rolled by, bursting with details requiring quick attention. Danny was found, roped, saddled and bridled. Longstreet rode him, delighting in the pony's high spirits, more delighted to see how he 'came around.' Gentled sufficiently and reminded that he was no longer a free agent to fling up his heels at the wind and race recklessly where he would, but that he was man's friend and servant, Danny was presented to Helen. He ate sugar that she gave him; he returned bit by bit the impulsive love which she granted him outright. In his new trappings, to which Howard had added a saddle from his own stables, Danny accepted his new honours like a thoroughbred.
Helen rode him the day she and her father came down from the hills for the round-up. Longstreet out-Romaned the Romans: his spurs were the biggest, his yell when he circled a herd was the most piercing, his borrowed chaps struck the eye from afar; his hat was a Stetson and amazingly tall. Now and then, when his horse swerved sharply to head off a racing steer, he came near falling. Once he did fall and rolled wildly through the dust of a corral; but he only continued his occupation with the more vim and was heard to shout over and over: 'It's the life, boys! It's the life!'
Helen, often riding at Howard's side, saw how the herds were brought down from the hills; how they were counted and graded; how the select were driven into the fattest pasture lands. She watched the branding of those few head that had escaped other round-ups. At first she cringed back as she saw the hot iron and the smoke rising from the hides and smelled the scorching hair and flesh. But she came to understand the necessity and further she saw that little pain was inflicted, that the victims though they struggled and bellowed were soon grazing quietly with their fellows. And at last the time had come when she had learned to ride. That was the supreme joy of the moment.
To Howard, no less, was it a joy. He watched her race, with whip whirling over her head, to cut off the lunging attempt at escape made over and over by the wilder cattle; he saw that with every hour her seat in the saddle became more secure; he read that she was not afraid. He looked forward to long rides, just the two of them, across the billowing sweep of Desert Valley, in the golden time when the title rested secure with them, in the time when at last all dreams came true.
Of any world outside their own happy valley they knew little. Sanchia had pitched her tent near the Longstreet camp, but these days she was left very much to herself. They did not pass through Sanchia's Town on their way back and forth and knew and cared nothing of its activities. The Longstreets, keenly interested in all that went forward on the ranch, were persuaded to accept Howard's hospitality for three days and nights. They rode early and late; there were the brief before-bedtime talks together; Helen saw the bluebird feather and laughed about it; she claimed it, but was in the end, after a deal of bantering argument, content to leave it where it was. She allowed Howard to talk what she branded as foolishness about certain alterations in the old house which he prophesied would be necessary before long; she grew into the custom of speaking of the room which she had occupied on her first visit to the ranch as 'my room.' She was very happy and forgot that her father was a troublesome childlike parent who fancied that he knew how to discover gold mines. What did mere gold amount to, anyway?
Then came the drive. The pick of the herd were to be moved slowly down to San Juan. Howard had communicated with his former buyers, and they were eager for more of his stock and at the former price. He wanted Helen and her father to come with them. But Longstreet shook his head smilingly.
'I'm two-thirds cowboy now,' he chuckled. 'A few more days of this and I'll be coming to you and asking for a job! It won't do, my boy. It won't do. Especially at a time like this. You make your drive and I'll make mine. And I'll bet you a new twenty-dollar hat that when you get back I'll have found gold again.'
So the Longstreets went back to Bear Valley and the drive began. Howard started his cattle moving at three o'clock the next morning. And almost from the beginning, although everything started auspiciously, he encountered hardship. At ten o'clock that morning he came upon a dead calf, its throat torn out as though by a ravening monster wolf; a section of the flesh seemed to have been removed by a sharp knife. That was nothing; to him it merely spelled Kish Taka, and Kish Taka was his friend and welcome. But as he rode on, reflecting, he read more in the omen. If Kish Taka were here, in the hills, then somewhere near by Jim Courtot had passed. Then shortly after noon he came upon what he knew must be the work of Jim Courtot. And he surmised with rising anger that recently Courtot had seen Sanchia and that again Courtot was Sanchia's right hand. Here was a little hollow; on two sides were steep banks. Along these banks lay four big steers, dead, a rifle bullet through each one. Already the buzzards were gathering.
Dave Terril came upon him and found him bending over one of the big stiffening bodies. Howard's face was white, the deadly hue of rage.
'Who done that for you, Al?' muttered Dave wonderingly.
'Jim Courtot!'
'Why don't you go get him, Al?'
'Why don't I?' said Howard dully.
Why did he not lay a fierce hand upon the wind that danced over the hills? It was no more elusive than Jim Courtot. Why did not Kish Taka, the eternally vigilant, come up with his prey? Nowhere in the world is there so baffling a quarry as a hunted man. Jim Courtot struck and vanished; he played the waiting game; he would give his right hand for Howard's death, his left hand for the Indian's. But in his heart, his visions his own, he was afraid.
Before they came to Sunderberg's Meadows, where it had been arranged that the herd was to pasture that night, they saw the wide-flung grey films of smoke. Accident or hatred had fired the dry grass; flames danced and sang their thin songs of burning destruction; the wide fields were already black. Howard had bought and paid for the pasture land; the loss was his, not Sunderberg's; Courtot, if Courtot it was, or perhaps Monte Devine or Ed True, had been before him. Sanchia's venom—for, be the hand of the agent whose it may, he recalled always the look in Sanchia's eyes and the threat from Sanchia's lips—seemed to travel with him and in front of him. His cattle browsed that night on a rocky, almost grassless ground, making the best of what poor shrub growths they could lay their dry tongues to. There was no water; the pools lay in the heart of a smouldering tract too hot to drive across.
When the cattle had rested, without waiting for full day Howard was forced to start them on and to make a wide swerve out of his intended direction to come soon to feed and water. Otherwise the drive would become a tremendous misfortune and loss. His cattle would lose weight rapidly under privation; they would when delivered in San Juan only vaguely resemble the choice herd he had promised; scrawny and jaded, under weight and wretched, their price would drop from the top to the bottom of the scale. He would make for the San Doran place; Doran, though no friend, would at least sell him hay; the figure would be high, since Doran, no man better, knew when the other man was down and in a ditch. But water and food must be had.
Howard, toward noon, rode ahead to Doran's house. Doran was out in front of his barn, breaking a team of colts, working one at the time with a steady old mare, and in a hot and unpleasant mood. He saw Howard and behind him the dust-clouds of an advancing herd.
'Got any hay?' demanded Howard.
'Two barns full,' said Doran.
'Sell me enough to take care of my cows? Sunderberg's pastures were burned out; I'm up against it for feed.'
'Can't,' said Doran. 'Guess I'm sold out already for all I can let go.'
Howard wondered who was buying up hay at this time and by the big barnful.
'A fellow came by here yesterday,' explained Doran, and took an option on my whole lot.' His shrewd eyes gleamed. 'And at my own figure, too! Which was four dollars the ton higher'n the market! That's going a few, ain't it?'
'Who was the man?' asked Howard.
'Fellow named Devine. Know him?'
Howard pondered swiftly. Then he demanded: 'Just an option? Mind saying how much cash you got, Doran?'
'Why, no. He said he was short of cash, but he slipped me twenty bucks to tie the option. I'm expecting him back to-morrow or next day to close the deal.'
Howard sought swiftly to explain what Devine's play was; it was his suspicion that the twenty dollars would be forfeited and that Doran's hay would remain in his barns a thousand years if he waited for Devine to come back for it. But Doran, though he seemed to reflect, was stubborn. He hadn't a bale to sell, and that was all there was of it. He even grinned behind Howard's departing back.
The drive continued. Slowly the panting brutes were urged on; at every water-hole and every trail-side pasture they were rested. In the afternoon Howard found a rancher who could spare half a dozen bales of hay; they were promptly purchased, opened and thrown to the herd; to disappear instantly. That night camp was made on the upper courses of the Morales Creek. It was less than satisfactory; it was better than nothing.
Thus the journey into San Juan required twice the time Howard had counted upon. And when at last he and his men urged his lagging cattle to the fringes of the village, he knew that the herd was in no condition for an immediate delivery. He rode ahead and saw Engle at the bank; from Engle he rented the best pasture to be had at hand and bought hay; then, impatient at the enforced delay, he pitched camp and strove in a week to bring back his stock to something of its former condition.
Alone, he rode that night into San Juan, his eyes showing the rage which day after day had grown in his heart. His revolver loose in its holster he visited first the Casa Blanca, Crook Galloway's old place of sinister reputation. Some day he must meet Jim Courtot; might not that time have arrived? God knew he had waited long enough. But Jim Courtot was not to be found here; nor anywhere in San Juan, though Howard sought him out everywhere. No, men told him; they had not laid eyes upon Courtot since Howard had last sought him here.
Finally the delivery was made at the local stock pens; the cattle crowded through the narrow defile, were counted and weighed and paid for. The purchasing agent looked at Howard curiously.
'You had higher grade stuff last time,' he said. 'This bunch isn't in the same class with the other shipment.'
'Don't I know it?' Howard flared out at him, grown irritable here of late.
He took his cheque, banked it and left town, advancing his men a little money and telling them to cut their holiday short. Then he saddled his best horse and headed back for Desert Valley the shortest way. His expenses had been far heavier than they should have been; his receipts lower. He knew that look he would see in Sanchia's eyes when again they met; he prayed that the time might come when he could come close enough to Jim Courtot to read and answer his look. He thought of Kish Taka, and for the first time with anger; Kish Taka should keep his hands off.
Chapter XXIV
The Shadow
There was something awaiting Alan Howard at his ranch house that for a little at least made him forget Sanchia and Courtot and hard climbs ahead in the road he must travel. Tired as he was and dispirited when he got home late that night he went to bed glowing with content. At dawn he was in the saddle. The Longstreets, early risers as they had grown to be, had only finished breakfast when he came racing into Bear Valley, waving his hat to them and calling cheerily. A first frown came when he saw that Sanchia Murray was breakfasting with them, but the frown did not linger.
'Good morning, everybody,' he greeted them. Helen, sitting in the sun on the doorstep, got to her feet; her father came smiling out to shake hands; even Sanchia, pushing her plate back, rose. She looked at him searchingly, appearing to note and wonder at his gay mood.
'No, I won't light down and have coffee with you,' he laughed at the invitation. 'And I won't stop to eat, having devoured a day's rations before I hit the saddle. No, there's nothing you can do for me, Mr. Longstreet; there's nothing in the world I want.' Helen had given him her hand; he held it a little before he would let it free and looked straight down into her eyes and kept on laughing gaily as he declared with certain unmistakable boldness: 'Right now I've got every blessed thing in the wide world I want.'
Sanchia said sharply: 'You must have been unusually successful in your latest deal?'
'It's the next deal I'm thinking of,' he told her lightly, letting her have the words to ponder on if she liked. But he had scant time for Sanchia and his eyes came back to Helen. 'I've got to ride into the new camp to see Roberts,' he told her. 'He's seen my mules and is buying. How would an early ride suit you? And I'll show you how easy it is to collect six hundred dollars before most folks have had breakfast!'
'My, what a lot of money,' laughed Helen. 'Of course I'll come. You know where I keep Danny. If you'll saddle for me I'll get ready and be out in two minutes.'
When they rode away down the trail together, Longstreet was smiling, and Sanchia frowning after them.
'She even eats with you?' queried Howard.
'I just thank Heaven she hasn't brought her bed in yet,' answered Helen. 'She is as transparent as a piece of glass, and yet dear old pops lets her pile the wool over his eyes as thick as she pleases. I'm just giving her plenty of rope,' she added philosophically. 'Do that, and people always get tangled up first and then hang themselves next, don't they?'
'Give me plenty of rope!' he said eagerly. 'I'll just tie myself up, hand and foot, and give you the end of the rope to hold.'
She laughed at him, touched Danny with her new spurs and shot ahead.
'You're nearly dying to tell me some good news,' she said when he had come up with her again. 'Aren't you?'
'I want to show you a letter I got when I came in last night. But I'd just as soon think of handing it over to a whirlwind as to you at the rate you are going.'
They drew their horses down to a walk. From his pocket Howard took an envelope; from the envelope brought forth a long blue slip of paper, torn in two, and with a few words penned across the fragments in a big running scrawl. He held the two pieces together for her to read; by now the horses had stopped and, being old friends, were rubbing noses. Helen read:
'Dear old Al: It took me a few days to see straight. Instead of blocking your game, let me help whenever I can. Don't need this now; won't have it. Take your time, Al. Good luck and so long.
JOHN.'
'Turn it over!' cried Howard.
Helen obeyed, only then fully understanding. It was a cheque for twelve thousand five hundred dollars, signed by Alan Howard and payable to the order of John Carr. Again she looked at the brief note; it was dated, and the date was eight days old. Her face flushed suddenly; the colour deepened.
'He wrote that the day after I sent my telegram to him!' she cried breathlessly.
'Telegram?'
'Yes.' She hesitated, then ran on swiftly: 'When Mr. Carr left I let him think that maybe father and I would follow soon. I don't know that I had been exactly what you men call square with Mr. Carr. I wanted to be square with everyone. So I sent him a telegram, saying that we appreciated his generosity but that we would stay here.'
Howard studied the date on the fluttering paper and his mind ran back.
'You sent that wire the day after I came back last time!'
'And if I did?' She met his look serenely.
'You did so because you cared——'
But Helen laughed at him, and again Danny, touched with a sudden spur, shot ahead down the trail.
They clattered like runaway children into the crooked rocky street of Sanchia's Town. Had their thoughts been less busied with themselves and with a hint of a rosy future and with the bigness of the thing which John Carr had done for them, they would have marked long ago that here something was amiss. But it was only when they were fairly in the heart of the settlement that they stopped abruptly to stare at each other. Now there was no misunderstanding what had happened! Sanchia's Town, that had been a busy, humming human hive no longer ago than yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down, outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving on, only a few things left for the last crew to come for.
'It feels like a graveyard,' whispered Helen. 'What has happened?'
'The old story, I suppose.' He turned sideways in the saddle, looking about him for a sign of remaining life. 'It grew in the night; somehow it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of Quigley bought up two or three claims; I've a notion the rest were worthless. Anyway, like many another of its kind, Sanchia's Town was born, has lived and died like old Solomon Gundy.'
Helen's face was that of one in deep study.
'Papa was saying only day before yesterday,' she said thoughtfully, 'that this was going to happen. He said that was why he hadn't taken the trouble to make a fight for his rights here. He said that Kemble had bought up all of the land that was worth anything; and that he, himself, had given Kemble the right tip. It begins to look as though papa knew, doesn't it?'
Howard nodded vigorously.
'He knows gold mines and he knows gold signs,' he said positively.
'I've felt that all along. But——'
'But,' she took the words out of his mouth, speaking hastily, 'he doesn't know the first thing about people; about a woman like Sanchia Murray. And now that he says he is going to locate his real mine and we are leaving him with her——'
'We mustn't be away too long,' he agreed.
'Look. There's some one down there at the lunch counter; at least there's a little smoke from the stovepipe. Shall we see who it is?'
It was love among the ruins. Or, in other words, Yellow Barbee leaning halfway across the lunch counter, toward the roguish-eyed, plump maid who leaned slowly toward him.
'Hello, Barbee,' called Alan. And when Barbee greeted him without enthusiasm, he asked: 'What's happened to the town?'
'Hit the slide,' said Barbee carelessly. 'Bottom fell through, I guess, and at the same time somebody started a scare about gold being found down toward Big Run. The fools,' he scoffed, 'piled out like crazy sheep. You can find the way they went by a trail of old tin cups and socks and such stuff dropped on the run.'
'Roberts, the teamster, has gone, I suppose?'
'He'll be back. Pet's old man is still packing his stuff and Roberts is going to haul it this afternoon. I'm sticking along, helping pack,' he grinned. Pet eyed him in high mock scorn.
'A lot of help you are,' she told him. Barbee laughed.
Howard and Helen were reining their horses about to leave when Barbee came out into the road and put a detaining hand upon Howard's horse's mane.
'Saw Jim Courtot last night, Al,' he said quietly.
'Here?' asked Howard quickly. So long had Courtot seemed the embodiment of all that was elusive that it came with something of a shock of surprise that any man had seen him.
'Yes,' Barbee nodded. 'He's trailing his luck with that Murray woman again. They're a bad outfit, Al; better keep your eye peeled.'
Howard did not smile at Barbee's reference to Sanchia. He hardly remarked it.
'Tell me about Courtot,' he commanded.
'Something's come over him,' said Barbee vaguely. 'He's different somehow, Al; and I can't just get him. If he ain't half crazy he ain't much more than half right. He's got a funny look in his eyes; he's as nervous as a cat; he jumps sideways if you move quick. Last night I thought he was going to break and run for cover at a little sound no man would pay any attention to,'
'What kind of a sound?'
'Just a fool dog barking! Well, so long, Al. I got to help Pet do her packing.' And winking his merry eye, Barbee turned back toward the lunch counter.
Howard and Helen rode again toward the hills. Across the girl's face a shadow had fallen. Howard wondered if it were there because the odd sadness of a forsaken town had tinged her spirit with its own weird melancholy; or if she had been disturbed by word of Jim Courtot. Barbee had spoken quietly, but Helen might have heard. They rode in silence until Sanchia's Town was lost behind a ridge. Then Helen asked steadily:
'Is there no way out for you and Jim Courtot but the way of violence?'
He sought to evade, saying lightly that it began to look as though he and Courtot could no more meet than could spring and autumn. But when she asked directly, 'What would happen if you did meet?' he answered bluntly. His mood was not quarrelsome this morning; he wanted no needless fight with any man. But if Jim Courtot stepped out into his trail and began shooting . . . Well, he left it to her, what would happen. Then he began to speak of Barbee and his new girl, of anything that offered itself to his mind as a lighter topic. But Helen was in no responsive mood. It seemed to her that a shadow had crept across the sky; that the warmth had gone out of the sunlight. A fear crept into her heart, and like many a baseless emotion grew into certainty, that if Alan Howard and Jim Courtot came face to face it would be Alan who fell. When she saw how straight and virile Howard sat in the saddle; when she marked how full of life and the sheer joy of life he was; when she read in his eyes something of his own dreams for the future; when then she saw the gun always bumping at his hips, she shivered as though cold. Her own senses grew sharpened; her fancies raced feverishly. From every boulder, from every bend in the trail, she feared to see the sinister face of Jim Courtot.
Chapter XXV
In the Open
There came that night a crisis. Half expected it had always been, and yet after the familiar fashion of supreme moments it burst upon them with the suddenness of an explosion. Howard and Helen were sitting silent upon the cabin doorstep, watching the first stars. In Sanchia's near-by tent a candle was burning; they could now and then see her shadow as she moved restlessly about. Longstreet had been out all day, prospecting.
The first intimation the two star-gazers had of any eventful happening was borne to them by Longstreet's voice, calling cheerily out of the darkness below the cliffs. His words were simply 'Hello, everybody!' but the whoop from afar was of a joy scarcely less than delirious. Sanchia ran out of her tent, toppling over her candle; both Helen and Howard sprang up.
'He has found it!' cried Helen. 'Look at that woman. She is like a spider.'
Longstreet came on down the trail jauntily. Sanchia, first to reach him, passed her arm through his and held resolutely to his side. As they came close and into the lamp-light from the cabin door their two faces hid nothing of their two emotions. Longstreet's was one of whole-hearted triumph; Sanchia's of shrewdness and determination.
'Now,' cried Longstreet ringingly, 'who says that I didn't know what I was talking about!' It was a challenge of the victor, not a mere question.
Before any other reply came Sanchia's answer.
'Dear friend,' she told him hurriedly, 'I always had faith in you. When others doubted, I was sure. And now I rejoice in your happiness as——'
'Papa!' warned Helen. She ran forward to him. 'Remember and be careful!'
Longstreet went into the cabin. The others followed him. Sanchia did not release his arm, though she saw and understood what lay in Helen's look and Howard's. The main issue had arrived and Sanchia meant to make the most of it.
Longstreet put down his short-handled pick. Howard noted the act and observed, though the impression at the time was relegated to the outer fringes of his concentrated thought, that the rough head of the instrument and even a portion of the handle looked rusty. Longstreet removed from his shoulders his canvas specimen-bag. Plainly, it was heavy; there were a number of samples in it, some as small as robins' eggs, one the size of a man's two fists. He was lifting the bag to dump its contents out upon the table when suddenly Howard pushed by Sanchia and snatched the thing from Longstreet's hands. Longstreet stared at him in astonishment; Sanchia caught at his coat.
'Just a minute,' said Howard hastily. Even Helen wondered as he turned and bolted out through the door and sped up the trail toward the spring. Longstreet looked from the departing figure to his daughter and then to Sanchia, frankly bewildered. Then all went to the door. In a moment, Howard returned, the bag hanging limp over his arm, his two hands filled with the fragments of rock which glistened in the lamp-light.
'I washed them off,' he said lightly. 'If there really is gold here we can see it better with all the loose dirt off, can't we?' He put them down on the table and stood back, watching Sanchia keenly.
The fine restraint which, in her many encounters with the unexpected, Sanchia had been trained so long and so well to maintain, was gone now in a flash. Her eyes shone; a rich colour flooded her face; she could not stop her involuntary action until she had literally thrown herself upon the bits of quartz, snatching them up. For they were streaked and seamed and pitted with gold, such ore as she had never seen. The avarice gleaming in her eyes for that one instant during which she was thrown off her guard was akin to a light of madness.
But she had herself in hand immediately; she was as one who had slipped slightly upon a polished floor but had caught herself gracefully from falling. She thrust the rock into Longstreet's hands; she smiled upon him; she made use of her old familiar gesture of laying her hand upon his arm, as she hardly more than whispered:
'Dear friend—and wonderful man—I am glad for your sake, so tremendously glad. For now you have vindicated yourself before the world. Now you have shown them all'—and in her flashing glance Sanchia managed to include both Alan and Helen sweepingly with an invisible horde whose bitter tongues had been as so many dogs yelping at the excellent Longstreet's heels—'now you have shown them all that you are the man I have always contended you were.' She crowded her smile fuller of what she sought to convey than even she had ever risked before as she murmured at the end, her tones dropping away like dying music: 'This is a happy hour in the life of Sanchia Murray!'
'There's truth there, if nowhere else,' cried Helen pointedly. 'Papa, if you have stumbled on a real gold mine at last, aren't you wise enough this time to keep still about it?'
'That word "stumbled," my dear,' Longstreet told her with great dignity, 'is extremely offensive to me at a moment like this. It is a word which you have employed in this same connexion before to-day, yet it is one to which I have always objected. In that sure progress which marks the path a scientific brain has followed, there are no chance steps. Surely my own daughter, after the evidence I have already given——'
'That isn't the point,' said Helen hurriedly. 'The only thing that counts now is that you mustn't go shouting of it from the housetops.'
'Am I shouting, my dear? Am I seeking the housetops?' His dignity swelled. Also, it was clearly read in his unusually mild eyes that Helen, in her excitement with her ill-chosen words, had hurt him. Sanchia Murray, for one, who was older and of wider worldly experience than Longstreet's other companions of the moment, and who surely knew as much of human nature, saw something else in his clouded look. It was an incipient but fast-growing stubbornness. Therefore Sanchia closed her lips and watched keenly for developments.
'There's a good old pops,' Helen cajoled. She slipped between him and Sanchia, sending Howard a meaning look. She made use of certain of the widow's own sort of weapon, putting her two round arms about her father's neck. Before he quite understood what was happening to him, she had managed to get him through the door which led to her room at the rear, and to close the door after them and set her back to it. Forthwith her cajolery was done with, and taking him by the two shoulders Helen looked severely into his wondering eyes.
She began speaking to him swiftly, but her voice lowered. She had marked how Sanchia had sought to follow, how Howard had put his hand on her arm and Sanchia had shown her teeth. The woman was in fighting mood, and Helen from the beginning was a little afraid of what she might succeed in doing.
'Papa,' she said, 'anyone can see what that woman is after. She robbed you once, and anyone can see that too. You are a dear old innocent thing and she is artful and deceitful. You are not safe for a minute in her hands; you must stay right in here until Mr. Howard and I can send her away.'
She felt Longstreet's body stiffen under her hands.
'If you mean, my dear, that your father is a mere child; that he cannot be trusted to know what is best; that you, a chit of a youngster, know more of human nature than does he, a man of years and experience; that——'
'Oh, dear!' cried Helen. 'You are wonderful, pops, in your way. You are the best papa in the world. But, after all, you are just a baby in the claws—or hands of a designing creature like that hideous Sanchia. And——'
'And, my dear,' maintained Longstreet belligerently, the stubbornness now rampant in his soul, 'you are mistaken, that is all. You and I disagree upon one point; you condemn Mrs. Murray outright, because of certain purely circumstantial evidence against her. That is the way of hot-headed youth. I, being mature, even-minded and clear-eyed, maintain that one accused must be given every opportunity to prove himself innocent. When you say that Mrs. Murray is untrustworthy——'
'I could pinch you!' cried Helen. 'If she robs you again I—I——' She could think of no threat of punishment sufficient unto the crime. Suddenly she pulled the door open. 'Come in here,' she called to Alan. And as he obeyed, leaving the baffled Sanchia without, Helen said swiftly: 'See if you can't talk reason into papa. I'll keep her out there.' And she in turn passed out, again closing the door.
'You little vixen!' Sanchia's cheeks were red with anger as, Helen's manoeuvre complete, the girl stood regarding her with defiant eyes. Sanchia's hands clenched and the resultant impression given forth by her whole demeanour was that upon occasion the little widow might be swept into such passionate rage that she was prone to resort to primal, physical violence. Helen, though her own cheeks burned, smiled loftily and made no answer.
From beyond the closed door came Alan's eager voice. Sanchia bent forward, straining her ears to hear; Helen, the light of battle flaring steadily higher in her eyes, began suddenly to sing, the same little broken snatches of song which not so long ago had irritated her impatient lover and which now confused the words spoken beyond the door and which made Sanchia furious.
'Stand aside,' commanded Sanchia. 'I am going in.'
Helen stood firm. Then she saw that Sanchia meant what she said. And, on the table near the discarded pick, she saw Longstreet's big revolver. She made a quick step forward, snatched it up in both hands and pointed it directly at Sanchia's heaving breast. Now the colour went out of Helen's face and it grew very white, while her eyes darkened.
'If you move a step toward that door,' she threatened, 'I am going to shoot!'
Sanchia sneered. Then she paused. And finally she laughed contemptuously.
'You little fool,' she whispered back, cautious that no syllable might enter the adjoining room. 'I don't need to go rushing in there, after all. And you know it. That stuff,' and she glanced briefly at the rock on the table, 'got into my blood for a second. I'll take my time now; and I'll get what I want.'
As they stood in silence, Helen making no answer, they heard what the men were saying.
'—just this if nothing more,' came the end of Howard's entreaty. 'Don't tell Sanchia.'
Promptly came the angry answer:
'Mind your own business, young man! And, until you are asked for advice, hold your tongue!' At the end of the command the door snapped open and Longstreet popped into the room.
Sanchia, her cool poise regained, made no step toward him but contented herself by a slow comprehensive and sympathetic smile. Howard came quickly to Helen, stooped to her and whispered:
'I can't do a thing with him. But come outside with me a second; I think I know what to do.'
She flung down the heavy gun and went with him. Ten paces from the cabin they stopped together.
'Did you glimpse the specimens before I ran out to the spring with them?' he asked sharply. She shook her head, her eyes round.
'Do you have any idea,' he hurried on, 'just where your father has been prospecting lately?'
'Yes, I went with him for a walk two or three times during the last week. He——'
But he interrupted.
'Has he shown any interest in a flat-topped hill about three miles back? Where there is a lot of red dirt? They call it Red Dirt Hill.'
'Yes!' Her tone quickened. 'That is why——'
They had no time for complete sentences.
'I saw the red dirt on his pick first; then on the rock. That is why I washed it off, hoping that she had not seen. It's more than a fair gamble, Helen, that your father's claim is on Red Hill.'
Her hand was on his arm now; she did not know, but through all other considerations to him this fact thrilled pleasurably. He put his own hand over hers.
'If Sanchia saw, too?'
'I don't think that she did. Nor am I half sure that it would mean anything to her. I know every foot of these hills; she doesn't. We'll go in now and see what we can do. If your father does give it away—well, then we'll play our hunch and try to beat her to it.'
But though they had been out so brief a time, already Sanchia met them at the door. Her eyes were on fire; her slight body seemed to dilate with a joy swelling in her heart; she looked the embodiment of all that was triumphant. Behind her, rubbing his two hands together, and looking like a wilful and victorious child, was Longstreet. Sanchia ran by them. In her hands, tight-clutched, was the finest specimen.
'You haven't told her, papa! Oh, you haven't told her!'
'And what if I have?' he snapped. 'Am I not a man grown that I am not to——'
Again no time for more than a broken sentence.
'Will you tell us?' demanded Howard.
'In due time,' came the cool rejoinder. 'When I am ready. I should have told you to-night, had you trusted to me. Now I shall not tell you a word about it until to-morrow.'
They knew that Sanchia was going for her horse. Here was no time for one to allow his way to be cluttered up with trifles. Howard turned and ran to his own horse. They lost sight of him in the dark; they heard pounding hoofs as he raced after Sanchia and by her; they heard her scream out angrily at him as she was the first to grasp his purpose. And presently at the cabin door was Howard again, calling to Helen. She ran out. He was mounted and led two horses, her own and Sanchia's white mare.
'Hurry!' he called. 'We'll play my hunch and beat her to it yet.'
Helen understood and scrambled wildly into her own saddle. She heard Sanchia calling; she could even hear the woman running back toward them. Then her horse jumped under her, she clutched at the horn of her saddle to save herself from falling, and she and Howard were racing up trail, Sanchia's mare led after them, Sanchia's voice screaming behind them.
They skirted the base of the cliffs for half a mile. Then Howard turned Sanchia's horse loose, driving the animal down into a dark ravine where there would be no finding it in the night-time.
'It's only a chance,' he said, 'but then that's better than just sitting and sucking our thumbs. We take the up-trail here.'
They came out upon the tablelands above Bear Valley. There was better light here; the trail was less narrow and steep; they could look down and see the light in the cabin.
Later they were to know just what had been Sanchia Murray's quick reply to their move. And then they were to know, too, where Jim Courtot's hang-out had been during these last weeks in which he had seemed to vanish. Sanchia, with a golden labour before her, had promptly turned to her 'right hand.' On foot, since there was no other way, and running until she was breathless and spent, she hurried across the narrow valley, climbed the low hills at its eastern edge, and plunged down into the ravine which was the head of Dry Gulch. Up the farther side she clambered, again running, panting and sobbing with the exertion she put upon herself, until she came to another broken cliff-ridge. There she had stood calling. And, from a hidden hole in the rocks, giving entrance to a cave, like a wolf from its lair, there had come at her calling Jim Courtot.
Chapter XXVI
When Day Dawned
Upon the flat top of Red Dirt Hill, Howard and Helen drove their stakes. Thereafter they made a little fire in the shelter of a tumble of boulders and camped throughout the night under the blazing desert stars. Were they right? Were they wrong? They did not know. In the darkness they could make out little of the face of the earth about them. Alan thought himself certain of one thing: that only near here could it be likely that Longstreet should have broken off fragments of stone with so plain a marking of red dirt on them. Helen merely knew that her father had more than once climbed up here, though she had laughed at him for seeking gold upon the exalted heights. To know anything beyond this meagre and unsatisfying data, they must await the dawn.
The hours passed and Sanchia Murray did not come. Before now, they estimated, she could have hurried here even though she came on foot; before now, had she thought of it and had the patience, she might have found Longstreet's horse. Yet she did not come. The fact made their uncertainty the greater. They had ample opportunity to ask themselves a hundred times if they had done the foolish thing in racing off here. Should they have held by Sanchia?
Toward morning it grew chill and they came closer together over their little brush fire. They spoke in lowered voices, and not always of Helen's father and of his gold. At times they spoke of themselves. To-morrow Helen might be mistress of a bonanza; to-morrow she might be, as she was to-night, a girl but briefly removed from pennilessness. As the stars waxed and began at last to wane and the sky brightened, as the still thin air grew colder at the first promises of another day, they discussed the matter quietly. And it seemed that this was not the only consideration in the world, nor yet even the chiefest. But——
'I can't come to you like a beggar-girl,' she whispered.
'If I lost everything I had—and I could not lose everything since I would go on loving you—would that make any difference, Helen?'
She hesitated. 'You know,' she said quietly at last.
So, when the pallid sky gave way to the rosy tints of the new day, they knew everything, being richly wise in the wisdom of youth. Even it was granted them to see the red earth about them and to know that Alan's surmise had led them aright. Just yonder in a little hollow to which the shadows clung longest, were the marks left by Longstreet's pick; there was a tiny pit in which he had toiled exposing a vein of rock from which he had chipped his samples; near the spot his location stake and notice. Promptly they removed their own stakes, taking claims on both sides of his.
'We were right!' called Alan triumphantly. 'But how about Sanchia? He told her and——-'
'Look!' Helen caught his arm and pointed.
Upon a neighbouring hill, by air-line not over half a mile from their own, but almost twice that distance by the trail one must follow down and up the rugged slopes, were two figures. Clearly limned against the sky, they were like black outlines against a pink curtain.
'That is Sanchia!' Helen was positive. 'There is a man with her.
It—— Do you think——'
He did not know why she should think what he knew she did think; what he himself was thinking. It was altogether too far to distinguish one man from another. It might even be Longstreet himself. But he knew that she feared it was Jim Courtot, to whom naturally Sanchia would turn at a moment like this; and never from the first did he doubt that it was Courtot.
'It's some one of Sanchia's crowd,' he said with high assumption of carelessness. 'But here is what I can't understand! Your father told Sanchia; she has raced off and staked; and as sure as fate, they are on the wrong hill! Sanchia wouldn't make a blunder like that!'
Helen was frowning meditatively. She understood what Howard had in mind, and she, too, was perplexed.
'Do you know,' she cried suddenly, 'I think we have failed to do papa justice!'
'What do you mean?'
'He never said outright that he had told her; he merely let us think that he had. He never once said positively that he had faith in Sanchia; he just said, over and over, that one accused should be given a chance to prove his innocence! Now, supposing that he had led Sanchia to think that his mine was over yonder on that other hill? He would be risking nothing; and at the same time he would be giving her that chance. No,' and it was a very thoughtful Helen who spoke, 'I don't know that we have ever done dear old pops justice.'
They stood, silent, watching the growing day and the two motionless figures upon the other hill. Those figures, as the day brightened, began to move about; plainly they were searching quite as Alan and Helen had searched just now. They were making assurance doubly sure, or seeking to do so. They disappeared briefly. Again they stood, side by side, in relief against the sky.
'That is Jim Courtot, I know it.' Helen's hands were tight-pressed against her breast in which a sudden tumult was stirring. All of yesterday's premonition swept back over her. 'You two will meet this time. And then——'
'Listen, Helen. I no longer want to meet Jim Courtot. I would be content to let him pass by me and go on his own way now. But if he does come this way, if at last we must meet—— Well, my dear,' he sought to make his smile utterly reassuring, 'I have met Jim Courtot before.'
But her sudden fear, after the way of fear when there is an unfounded dread at the bottom of it, gripped her as it had never done before; she felt a terrified certainty that if the two men met it would be Alan who died. She began to tremble.
Far down in the hollow lying between Red Dirt Hill and the eminence whereon stood Sanchia and Courtot, they saw a man riding. He came into a clearing; had they not from the beginning suspected who it must be they would have known Longstreet from that distance, from his characteristic carriage in the saddle. No man ever rode like James Edward Longstreet. And Courtot and Sanchia had seen him.
He jogged along placidly. They could fancy him smiling contentedly. Helen and Howard watched him; he was coming toward them. They glanced swiftly across the ravine; there the two figures stood close together, evidently conversing earnestly. The sun was not yet up. Longstreet rode into a thickness of shadow and disappeared. In five minutes he came into sight again. Courtot and Sanchia had not stirred. But now, as though galvanized, they moved. Courtot leaped from his boulder and began hurrying down into the cañon, seeking to come up with the man on the horse. Sanchia followed. Even at the distance, however, she seemed slack-footed, like one who, having played out the game, knows that it is defeat.
'Papa is coming this way!—Jim Courtot is following him—in ten minutes more——'
She did not finish. Howard put his arms about her and felt her body shaking.
'You do love me,' he whispered.
She jerked away from him. A new look was in her eyes.
'Alan Howard,' she said steadily, 'I love you. With my whole heart and soul! But our love can never come to anything unless you love me just exactly as I love you!'
'Don't you know——'
'You do not know what it has meant to me, your shooting those two men in papa's quarrel. But they lived and I have tried to forget it all. If they had died, then what?' Her eyes widened. 'If you and Courtot meet, what will happen? If he kills you, there is an end. If—if you kill him, there is an end! Call it what you please, if it is not murder, it is a man killing a man. And it is horrible!'
Mystified, he stared at her.
'What can I do?' he muttered. 'You would not have me run from him,
Helen? You do not want me to turn coward like that?'
'If you kill him,' she told him, her face dead-white, 'I will never marry you. I will go away to-morrow. If you would promise me not to shoot him, I would marry you this minute.'
He looked down into the ravine trail. Longstreet was appreciably nearer. So was Courtot. Behind Sanchia lagged spiritlessly, seeming of a mind to stop and turn back. He looked at Helen; she had had no sleep, she was unstrung, nervous, distraught. He gnawed at his lip and looked again toward Courtot.
'If you love me!' pleaded Helen wildly.
'I love you,' he said grimly. 'That is all that counts.'
He waited until she looked away from him. Then silently he drew his gun from its holster; the thing was madness, but just now there was no sanity in the universe. He could not run; he must not kill Courtot. He dropped the gun behind him and with the heel of his boot thrust it away from him so that it fell into a fissure in the rock. He turned again to watch Courtot coming on.
The eerie light of uncertainty which is neither day nor night lay across the hills. It was utterly silent. Then, the rattle of stones below; horse and rider were so close that they could see Longstreet's upturned face. Courtot was close behind him; Courtot looked up and they could see his face.
'You must go, now,' whispered Helen. 'You have promised me.'
'I am keeping my promise,' he said sternly. 'But I am not going to run from him. You would hate me for being a coward, Helen.'
She looked at him, puzzled. Then she saw that the holster at his hip was empty.
'Oh,' cried Helen wildly, 'not that! You must kill him, Alan. I was mad with fear. I——'
Stopping the flow of her words there swept over her the paralyzing certainty that it was useless to batter against fate; that a man's destiny was not to be thrust aside by a woman's love. For out of the silence there burst a sound which to her quivering nerves was fraught with word of death; that sound which in countless human hearts presages a death before the dawn—the long, lugubrious howling of a dog. It seemed to her to burst out of the nothingness of the sky, to arise in the void of an unseen ghostly world where spirit voices foretold the onrush of destruction.
Jim Courtot was hurrying up the slope. They saw him stop dead in his tracks. He, too, seemed turned to stone by the sound. It came again, the terrible howling of a dog, nearer as though the creature sped across the hills on the wings of the quickening morning wind. Sanchia stopped and began to draw back. Longstreet came on unconcernedly.
A third time, and again nearer, came the strange baying. Courtot held where he was, balancing briefly. Then they heard him cry out, his voice strange and hoarse; he whirled about and began to run. He was going down the trail now, running as a man runs only from his death, stumbling, cursing, rising and plunging on.
'Look!' Howard's fingers had locked upon Helen's arm. 'It is Kish
Taka!'
She looked. Behind them, outlined against the sky, were a strange pair. A great beast, head down, howling as it ran, that was bigger than a desert wolf, and close behind it, gaunt body doubled, speeding like an arrow, a naked man. They flashed across the open space and sped down the steep slope of the ravine where, in the shadows, they became mere ghost figures.
'It is Kish Taka!' said Howard a second time. 'And again Kish Taka has saved my life.'
Dazed, the girl did not yet understand. She shivered and drew close to her lover, stepping into his arms. He held her tight, and they turned their fascinated eyes below. The speed of Jim Courtot in the grip of his terror was great; but it looked like lingering leisure compared to the speed of Kish Taka and his great hungering dog. And, now, behind Kish Taka came a second dog, like the first; and behind it a second man, like Kish Taka.
If Jim Courtot remembered his revolver, it must have been to know that not long would that stand between him and the two rushing, slavering beasts and the two avenging Indians behind him. His one hope was his hidden cave with its small orifice and concealed exit. And Jim Courtot must have realized how small was his chance of coming to it.
They saw him plunge on. The light slowly increased. They saw how the dogs and men gained upon him. They lost sight of all down in the ravine among the shadows. They saw Courtot again, still in the lead but losing ground. They lost sight of him again. They heard a wild scream, a gun fired, the howl of a dog. Another scream, tortured and terrified. Then, in the passes of the hills, it was as still as death.
Longstreet, alone, had not seen all of this; the dogs had swept on, but to him, deep in his own thoughts, they were but dogs barking as dogs have a way of doing. Sanchia sat in a crumpled heap, her face in her hands. Longstreet's face was smiling when he came to where his daughter stood with her lover's arms tight about her.
'I gave that woman her chance, and she was not innocent,' he announced equably. 'I wanted to make sure, but I had my doubts of her, my dear. Do you know,' he went on brightly, as though he were but now making a fresh discovery of tremendous importance to the world, 'I am inclined to believe that she is entirely untrustworthy! I first began to suspect her when she appeared to be in love with me!' He came closer and patted Helen's hand; his kindly eyes, passing over the stakes of his claim, were gentle as he peered reminiscently across the dead departed years. 'Why, no woman ever did that except your mother, my dear!'
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London