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Title: Bonanza: A story of the Gold Trail
Author: Raine, William MacLeod
Language: English
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[Cover Illustration]
=B O N A N Z A=
=A STORY OF THE GOLD TRAIL=
=BY=
=WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE=
=AUTHOR OF=
=A MAN FOUR SQUARE,=
=CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT,=
=TROUBLED WATERS, Etc.=
=G R O S S E T & D U N L A P=
=P U B L I S H E R S N E W Y O R K=
COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1926, BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE
PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
The giants with hopes audacious; the giants of iron limb;
The giants who journeyed westward when the trails were new and dim;
The giants who felled the forests, made pathways o’er the snows,
And planted the vine and fig tree where the manzanita grows;
Who swept the mountain gorges, and painted their endless night,
With their cabins rudely fashioned and their camp-fires’ ruddy light;
Who builded great towns and cities, who swung the Golden Gate,
And hewed from the mighty ashlar the form of a sovereign state.
I drink alone in silence to the builders of the West—
“Long life to the hearts still beating, and peace to the hearts at rest.”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Pony Express Rider............................ 1
II. “Hurrah for Washoe!”.............................. 8
III. The Night Ride.................................... 15
IV. Scot McClintock Introduces Himself................ 27
V. Scot Passes the Hat............................... 39
VI. Hugh Sits in...................................... 53
VII. Vicky Tells Secrets............................... 65
VIII. Scot Offers Health Hints.......................... 75
IX. Scot Talks on Mother Love......................... 80
X. Till Tapping...................................... 90
XI. “Twenty-Four Hours to Get Out”.................... 99
XII. “Git Out de Way, Ole Dan Tucker”.................. 106
XIII. The “Stranglers”.................................. 121
XIV. Colonel McClintock Agrees with Vicky.............. 130
XV. Hugh Learns Old Grimes Is Still Dead.............. 139
XVI. In the Pit of Night............................... 150
XVII. A Knife with Fourteen Notches..................... 159
XVIII. Apply to Hugh McClintock.......................... 165
XIX. McClintock Bills the Town......................... 171
XX. “Little Vicky”.................................... 179
XXI. In the Blizzard................................... 187
XXII. A Haven of Refuge................................. 196
XXIII. Two Plus One Makes Three.......................... 208
XXIV. Old Dog Tray Barks................................ 221
XXV. The Killer Strikes................................ 229
XXVI. Hugh Hits the Trail............................... 238
XXVII. Trapped........................................... 244
XXVIII. “As Good as the Wheat”............................ 252
XXIX. Vicky Finds a Way................................. 261
XXX. At Bell’s Camp.................................... 270
XXXI. Hugh Takes the Stump.............................. 277
XXXII. Father Marston Prophesies......................... 283
XXXIII. The Booming of the Forty-Fives.................... 293
XXXIV. The Bald Knob Strike.............................. 298
XXXV. McClintock Reads Tennyson......................... 310
XXXVI. Signed by William Thornton........................ 316
XXXVII. Hugh Explains..................................... 324
XXXVIII. The Battle of Bald Knob........................... 329
XXXIX. Sleuthing......................................... 338
XL. In the Mesh of His Own Net........................ 344
XLI. From the Junipers................................. 350
XLII. Hugh Rides to an Appointment...................... 357
XLIII. The Sacrifice..................................... 363
XLIV. Under the Stars................................... 367
BONANZA
B O N A N Z A
CHAPTER I
THE PONY EXPRESS RIDER
Far as the eye could see lay a rough and broken desert of sage. It
stretched to the edge of a flat and arid world.
In front of the long one-story adobe station a man waited, eyes turned
to the west. His hand rested on the flat straight back of a spirited
chestnut horse. Byers was small and wiry, hard as nails. His high-heeled
boots, buckskin breeches, flannel shirt, and skull cap had all been
chosen for utility and not for looks. He wasted no energy in useless
protest, but the fat station keeper who leaned against the door jamb and
chewed tobacco knew he was seething with impatience. The wrangler
holding a second saddled horse knew it, too. For the pony express rider
from Carson was late and his delay was keeping Byers from starting on
the next lap of the transcontinental journey.
The fat man sang lugubriously and tunelessly in a voice that had been
created solely for his own amusement.
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
We ne’er shall see him more.
He wore a single-breasted coat,
All buttoned down before.”
The wrangler looked at him reproachfully and murmured, “Durned if he
wouldn’t sing at a wake and spoil everybody’s enjoyment.”
“His heart was open as the day,
His feelin’s all were true.
His hair it was inclined to gray,
He wore it in a queue,”
intoned the vocalist.
“Not news,” the wrangler told himself bitterly. “I done heard all them
interestin’ details two hundred and seventy-three times.” Aloud, he
attempted a diversion. “Len’ me a loan of a chew of tobacco, Jim.”
The station keeper dived into his left hip pocket, produced a ragged
plug, and offered it to his helper. Meanwhile he gave further
information about the wearing apparel and physical idiosyncrasies of one
Grimes, defunct.
“Wonder what’s holdin’ Tim,” the stableman interposed at the end of
another stanza.
“He ain’t been late before in a blue moon. I don’t recollect as he ever
was late,” answered the fat man, drawn momentarily from his rhymed
epitaph.
Byers said nothing.
The habit of the hard-riding pony express messengers of Russell, Majors,
and Waddell was to be ahead of schedule. Each man prided himself on
covering his relay under the assigned number of hours. The mounts
supplied were chosen for speed, stamina, and heart; the men for
gameness, resource, and knowledge of the country. To be late was
contrary to the tradition of the service.
The pony express was a triumph of American pluck and energy. It
stretched from St. Joseph to San Francisco, two thousand miles through
the heart of the Indian country. The enterprise included five hundred
superb horses, nearly two hundred stations, a hundred riders. The men in
the little racing saddles were stripped to the last ounce. For
protection they carried only a knife and a revolver. The mail bags never
weighed more than twenty pounds. Each letter was written on thin tissue
paper. The postage on the smallest was five dollars. Between the
Missouri and Sacramento the time-table called for ten days, but often
the pouches moved two hundred miles toward their destination in
twenty-four hours.
Those in the saddle had to be man size in soul. No weaklings ever
applied for this job. Some of those in the service were outlaws, for
court warrants did not reach into the sage. Many were desperadoes.[1]
But few of them were quitters. They played out the hand that had been
dealt them.
-----
[1] This was more true of the station keepers and the attendants than of
the stage drivers and pony express messengers. Slade, the notorious man
killer, was superintendent of a division at Julesburg, Colorado. He
succeeded Jules, whom he murdered in cold blood. Slade ruled his crew of
wild assistants with an iron fist. He was an able and efficient servant
of the company. Later he was hanged by the vigilantes in Montana.
Legends of the country, probably much exaggerated, credit him with
having killed thirty men.—W. M. R.
-----
“Tim’s sure late,” the wrangler said hurriedly, for he saw signs of a
return to music which did not soothe his savage breast.
“Kid McClintock’s early. Hour ahead of his schedule,” the station keeper
replied.
Far away to the east a small cloud of dust rose from the sage and
greasewood. Almost at the same time a second billow of yellow alkali
appeared in the sunset glow of the opposite horizon.
The fat man grumbled. “Hell’s hinges! That accident to Meighan is liable
to shoot the whole schedule up. Tim’ll have to double back to Carson in
his place. I’ll have him dig us up another man there.”
The rider from the east arrived at the station first. He pulled up
beside the wrangler, leaped to the ground, and at the same time reached
for the tie straps which fastened the flat leather mail pouches to the
saddle. Two minutes was allowed for the change of sacks from one horse
to another, but usually the transfer was made in ten seconds. The
messenger, a long lean boy, swept the pouches deftly from one saddle to
the other.
“Where’s Meighan?” he asked.
“Done bust his laig tryin’ to gentle that sorrel mustang. Tim Keefe will
have to take his run to-night.”
“Where’s Tim?”
“Not in yet. There’s his dust.” The station keeper waved a fat hand
toward the sunset.
Byers had been watching intently the dust cloud moving through the
brush. “Something’s wrong,” he said briefly.
Hugh McClintock looked. The approaching horse was off the trail. Its
gait was peculiar. Plunging unsteadily in spurts, it was weaving from
side to side. Instead of a rider, a sack seemed to be prone in the
saddle.
McClintock ran forward and caught the bridle of the unsteady horse. The
flank of the animal was clotted with a splash of dust and blood.
The sack slid from the saddle as the horse shied. The sack was a man who
had been clinging feebly to the mane of the bay. He groaned.
“Piutes—this side the Silver Mountains,” he whispered, and fainted.
The station manager, the wrangler, and McClintock gave him first aid. An
arrow head, deeply imbedded, projected from the flesh back of the
shoulder. One of the rider’s boots was filled with blood, due to a
bullet which had shattered the ankle.
Byers spent no time in helping with the wounded man. He had other
business. If the Indians got a messenger, that was in the day’s work.
The mails had to go through without delay. He transferred the pouches to
his own saddle, swung on, and galloped into the desert.
Kid McClintock rose. He, too, must be on his way, for there was nobody
else to carry the mail to Carson City.
“I’ll be movin’,” he said briefly.
“Looks like you’re elected,” agreed the fat man, following the boy to a
water olla where the young fellow washed his baked throat, drank deeply,
and filled his canteen. “Not much use wishin’ advice on you. It’s a
gamble, o’ course. Injuns may be anywhere. But I reckon maybe you better
swing to the south and hit the Walker River range. They’re liable to be
watchin’ the trail for you.”
“I reckon.”
The boy moved to the fresh horse, spurs dragging and jingling. He had
done his day’s work. The horse upon which he had ridden in, lathered
with sweat and still breathing deep from a long fast run, was mute
testimony of this. The dry powdery dust of the desert covered every inch
of the young rider. His legs were stiff and his shoulders tired. But the
spring of splendid youth trod in his stride.
He had before him more than another hundred miles of travel, through a
country infested by hostile savages. He might get through alive or he
might not. That was on the knees of the gods. He had to take what came.
More than once he had run a gauntlet of redskins. He had been a target
for their arrows and their slugs. Tim was not the first messenger he had
seen bring in on his person souvenirs of their missiles. The one salient
point was that the mail had to go through. It always had reached its
destination—always but once. On that occasion the messenger offered the
only acceptable excuse for his failure. He lay dead on the trail, his
scalp gone.
McClintock shot westward in a cloud of dust. Half a mile from the
station he swung sharply to the south.
CHAPTER II
“HURRAH FOR WASHOE!”
Placerville was busy as a hive of bees on a warm June afternoon. Its
hotels and restaurants were crowded to capacity. The saloons were doing
a rush business and the gambling halls teemed with a packed and jostling
humanity. Grocery stores bustled with the activity of clerks filling
orders, packing supplies, nailing up boxes, and sewing bales. The main
streets were filled with mixed crowds of miners, speculators, gamblers,
men of leisure then known as “bummers,” and such flotsam as is always
washed up in the stampede for a new mining camp.
Vaqueros drove loaded mules and burros through the streets with soft
liquid oaths of command. A sixteen-horse ore wagon, painted red, the bed
of it six feet deep, rumbled down the road with two “back-actions”
behind, each of these also filled with ore. They had come straight from
the diggings at Virginia City. Freight outfits were loading at stores
and wholesale liquor houses with supplies for the new camp. Men bought
and sold hurriedly. A hundred outfits were being roped up to cross the
Sierras to the Carson Valley. Ox teams swung into town and out again
with goods for the new district. Everywhere was that orderly confusion
of many cross currents of humanity moving to a common end.
That common end was Washoe.[2] The name was on every tongue. It
dominated every mind. All the able-bodied old prospectors who had come
round the Horn in the old days, who had followed the stampedes to Kern
River, the Fraser, and Told Bluff, were now headed as by one impulse for
the silver diggings at the foot of Mt. Davidson. Such rich grounds never
had been seen before. All one had to do was to pan the outcroppings and
grow rich in a few weeks. Hurrah for Washoe! Hip hip for the land of
golden dreams! Washoe or bust!
-----
[2] Nevada was commonly known as Washoe until its admission as a
territory under the Spanish name.—W. M. R.
-----
A canvas-covered emigrant wagon drawn by a pair of emaciated horses
moved slowly toward the hills. The driver was a bullet-headed young
fellow with sullen, close-set eyes. These were a peculiar
grayish-yellow, and the pupils were very small. He was unshaven, poorly
dressed, and far from clean. The hardship of a long overland trip had
undermined his self-respect and worn away the thin veneer of the man’s
civility.
At the crest of the first rise he turned in his seat and looked back
toward the town. “Good-bye, Hangtown,”[3] he shouted with an oath,
shaking his ragged whip.
-----
[3] In the early days Placerville was often called Hangtown.
-----
The skeleton horses crept up the road toward the mountains. Presently
evidence of the stampede to Washoe began to manifest itself. The prairie
schooner passed a broken-down stage, a smashed wheel, a splintered wagon
tongue snapped in the middle. An empty whisky barrel advertised one of
the chief staples of trade. A dead burro lay half buried in the mire.
The road had been a good one once. Perhaps it would be hard and firm
again after the slush from the rains had dried. Just now it was one to
try the patience of man and beast. There were stretches where even the
pack mules bogged down while Mexican drivers beat and hauled at them to
an accompaniment of excited curses in their native tongue.
A stage from Virginia City swung down the grade, “Pony” King on the box
holding the lines, his long whip crackling out snakelike toward the
leaders. The stage was not a handsome Concord, the pride of every
employee of the company, but one of the mud-wagons used as a substitute
when the roads were bad. A pack train of fifteen animals overtook the
covered wagon. These carried nothing but liquors—whisky, gin, lager
beer, brandy, some pipes of California wine, and a few baskets of
champagne. Foot travellers, carrying outfits on their backs, ploughed
wearily forward. Nothing but the wonders of the Comstock Lode could have
kept their tired legs moving through the mud.
At every gulch there was a bar, the fixtures improvised from a couple of
dry-goods boxes and a canvas top. Restaurants announced themselves every
few miles, as well as hotels, which had all necessary accommodations for
tired stampeders except food, beds, and bedding.
Later in the day the prairie schooner came into a region where patches
of snow began to appear in the hill crotches above. The grade was
stiffer and the poor horses made sorry progress. A dozen times they gave
up, exhausted. The driver beat them furiously with his whip and flung
raucous curses at them. From the wagon a big-eyed child and a wan-faced
woman dismounted to lighten the load. Once the woman timidly murmured a
protest at her husband’s brutality. Savagely he turned on her, snarling
his rage explosively.
She shrank back, afraid that he was going to use the whip on her.
“Don’t, Rob,” she begged, face white as the snow in the bank beside the
road.
A burro train swung round the bend, and the man flung away from her and
lashed the horses instead.
They camped that night at the mouth of a cañon and were on the road at
daybreak next morning. The travellers were well into the mountains now.
The spring rains had been heavy and had loosened the snow on the slopes.
Landslides were frequent and the air was filled with the thunder of
avalanches. The trail itself was treacherous. It was honeycombed with
chuck holes where the mules of pack outfits had broken through and
wallowed in the mud.
The American River plunged down a cañon beside the road. A growth of
heavy pines bordered the trail.
When the gaunt team dragged into the clearing at Strawberry Flat
hundreds of men and scores of teams were camped there for the night. The
animals were tied to the tongues and sides of the wagons and fed from
long feed-boxes. They were protected from the cold by heavy canvases
lined with blanket stuff. The men who handled the jerkline and the
blacksnake curled up under the wagons. Soon they were fast asleep,
oblivious to the soft snow that drifted in and wrapped them about.
The driver of the prairie schooner fed and watered the horses while his
wife made supper. She found dry wood for kindling in the wagon, and the
little girl, who was all thin arms and legs and wild flying hair,
gleefully cleared away snow from the spot selected. Soon a fire was
roaring and little Victoria was sniffing the savoury odour of a
jackrabbit stew.
She hopped up and down, first on one foot, then on the other.
“Goody, goody. Le’s hurry up’n eat, Sister Mollie,” she shouted, waving
a spoon excitedly.
After supper Robert Dodson disappeared into the nearest grog shop, and
his wife retired to the wagon and nursed a six-weeks-old baby. Victoria
washed the dishes, played around the fire, and after a time came
hop-skipping through the snowflakes to their canvas-covered home.
“Sister Mollie,” announced the child, climbing nimbly up from the
tongue, “when I’m big I’m gonna marry a prince, ’n he won’t _ever_ get
drunk ’n beat me like Rob does you.”
“Sh-h-h! You mustn’t say such things, Vicky,” the older sister
admonished.
“’N I’m gonna have shoes without holes in ’em ’n a dress not all patchy,
with gold spangles ’most all over it. ’N he’ll have a silver chariot ’n
great big white horses with long tails—not jus’ plugs like ours.”
Mollie sighed and caught the baby in her arms tighter, so that for a
moment the infant stirred restlessly in its sleep. She, too, had once
known dreams of the fairy prince who was to come riding gallantly into
her life and to carry her irresistibly into the Land of Romance.
From the tent barroom where her husband had gone came the words of a
drunken chorus:
“Exciting times all round the town,
Glory, Glory to Washoe,
Stocks are up and stocks are down,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Washoe! Washoe!
Bound for the land of Washoe,
And I own three feet
In the ‘Old Dead Beat,’
And I’m bound for the land of Washoe.”
Mollie recognized the voice of her husband and then his tipsy laugh. Her
slight body shivered underneath the thin shawl she was wearing.
CHAPTER III
THE NIGHT RIDE
Hugh McClintock drew his horse to a walk and skirted the base of a hill.
He patted the shiny neck of the bay affectionately. The boy loved the
mounts he rode. His life depended on their stamina and speed, and they
had never failed him.
“Good old Nevada Jim,” he whispered. “We got a long trail before us
through these red devils, but I reckon we’re good for it, me ’n you.”
He was swinging well to the south of the Silver Mountains, riding
through country covered with brush. He had been travelling at a rapid
pace as he wound in and out among the sage and greasewood. Now he had
reached the hills that marked the limit of the range. His intention was
to go by way of Alkali Flat, circle Walker Lake, and cross the Walker
River range. This plan was subject to change, for at any minute he might
run into the Piutes. On the other hand, which was more likely, he might
reach Carson without having had a glimpse of them.
Boy though he was, he knew Indians. His father was one of the earliest
pioneers in Eagle Valley. Hugh’s first recollection was of the trip from
Salt Lake through the desert. He recalled that a cow had worked side by
side in the wagon with an ox. The first plough that had broken a furrow
in Nevada had been made by his father from discarded wagon tires picked
up on the overland road to California. He remembered the days when
Captain Jim in beads and buckskin and his breech-clothed tribe had hung
around the settlers in pretended friendship. Tame coyotes instead of
dogs had followed them. There hung in his mind the memory of a morning
when he had gone to the stable to find the horses run off and the cows
stuck full of arrows.
One adventure he would never forget. His mother had wakened him at
midnight and dressed him hurriedly. He and his younger brother had been
packed in apple boxes slung on the opposite sides of a mule. Rifle in
hand, his father had walked beside a second mule upon which Hugh’s
mother rode. So they had crossed the Sierras from Mormon Station into
California, driven from home by the news that the Indians were raiding
the valleys. In his young life he could recall a hundred such memories
of the dangers and hardships of pioneering.
While he was still in the hills the brilliant reds and crimsons of
sunset gave way to the soft violet of dusk, which in turn melted into
the deep purple of falling night. Sometimes, as he wound forward in the
chaparral, he heard the faint rustling of wild shy creatures scurrying
to safety.
The stars had long been out before he reached Alkali Flat. He was far
from any road, but the unerring instinct of the frontiersman took him,
with many twists and turns, in the direction he had chosen. Not long
after midnight he struck Walker Lake. He followed the shore line around
the southern point. On a little peninsula he unsaddled, picketed Nevada
Jim, and slept for nearly two hours.
Darkness was still heavy over the land when he saddled and retied the
mail sacks. He crossed Cat Creek, turned northwest, and began the hill
trek into the Walker River Range.
Light began to filter into a sky that grew less opaque. The hills took
vague outlines. A meadow lark’s piping heralded the advent of the young
day.
He put Nevada Jim at the saddle of a hill and reached the brow that
formed part of the lip of a small saucer-shaped valley beyond. A score
of morning camp-fires shone like glowworms in the misty hollow. By
chance he had stumbled on a party of Piutes who had probably raided a
ranch and come down here to revel undisturbed. Very likely it was the
same bunch that had waylaid and shot Tim. There rose to the express
rider the pungent smell of burning meat, and he guessed that the Indians
were indulging in their favourite feast of roasted horseflesh.
McClintock made to turn back, but as he did so a slim breech-clothed
figure shot up from the sage almost at his stirrup. The rider,
silhouetted against the skyline, was a mark hardly to be missed at such
close range even by a Piute with a trade gun. Hugh dragged Nevada Jim
round with fore feet in air, drove home his spurs, and charged straight
at the brave.
A red-hot stab seared McClintock’s side. A moment, and he felt the shock
of impact. The sentry was flung headlong before the weight of the horse,
which staggered over the naked body, trod it under, and went plunging
down the hill.
Hugh heard guttural shouts of alarm from the valley. Presently, riding
along the arroyo below, he saw horsemen urging their mounts over the
brow of the hill. A shout of triumph told him that he had been seen by
his pursuers.
As the long strides of the horse carried him down the arroyo, the boy’s
brain functioned to meet the emergency. He might turn to the right,
circle the lake, make for Alkali Flat, and from there across the hills
on the long stretch for the station. The alternative was to keep going
north, strike across the range, and point for Carson. Even in this
desperate emergency the morale of the service was the deciding factor.
The mail was due at Carson in a few hours. With a pressure of his right
knee he guided Nevada Jim up the gulch toward a mountain pass he knew
above.
If his horse had been fresh McClintock would have had small fear of the
result. The Indians had no such ponies as the one he was astride. Their
stock was inferior, just as their rifles were. Moreover, at their best
they were wretched marksmen. But all the natural advantages of the white
man were neutralized. Nevada Jim was far from fresh. Any rifle was
better than none, and the pony express rider had to depend on a
revolver, good for fast-short-range work but useless now. He was one
against many, and already he could feel a wet splash on his shirt when
he pressed his hand to his side. How bad the wound was he did not know,
but it was certain that the long hard ride before him would not add to
his strength.
A boy of his age, trained in any other school except the hard outdoor
one of the frontier, might have been forgiven for getting panicky under
the circumstances. But Hugh wasted no nerve force in fear surges or in
self-pity. He had a job to do. He must do it. That was the simple A B C
of his reasoning. Quite coolly he set his mind to work on the problem of
_how_ it was to be done, given the conditions that confronted him. One
trouble was that he did not know those conditions. How long could Nevada
Jim, after the hard hours of travel that lay between him and the
station, keep going at the pace required? Was he himself likely to
collapse suddenly from loss of blood?
His best chance, he decided, lay in the speed of the bay. As soon as he
had crossed the range—if he ever got across—he would try to run the
Indian ponies off their legs. If they found they could not catch him,
the Piutes would give up the chase after a few miles.
The boy looked back. The Indians had swept out of the arroyo and were
following him up the gulch. A dozen of them were bunched, with three or
four trailing behind. But well in front of the group and going strong
was a young brave mounted on a buckskin. At every stride his horse
lengthened the distance between him and his companions.
“Big Chief Heap-in-a-Hurry aims to collect me,” the boy told himself
aloud. “Me, I got different notions. Get a hustle on you, Jim. This is
one race where I don’t aim to throw down on myself.”
The bay answered the call gallantly. With every ounce of bone and muscle
Nevada Jim flung forward at the steep trail. The horse gave all it had
to give, breathing heavily as it ploughed up the divide.
McClintock had changed his plans. The young Piute on the buckskin was a
factor he could not ignore. It would never do to drop down from the
hills with this enemy at his heels. The fresher mount would close in on
the bay and the Indian would pick Hugh off at his leisure. It would be
better to risk all on a bolder, more decisive stroke.
With voice and knee and the gentle caress of hand he urged Nevada Jim to
his best. “I know, old-timer, it’s breakin’ yore heart,” he pleaded.
“But I got to ask it of you—just for a mile or two more, Jim—till we
get to the pass; then that’ll be all, if our luck stands up.”
Hugh felt his side again and was alarmed at the sogginess of the flannel
shirt. The pain of the wound was insistent, but he had no time to worry
about that. What troubled him was the loss of blood. He might fall out
of the saddle from sheer weakness before he reached safety.
He looked back and faintly grinned. The Indians were beginning to string
out, and the gap between the buckskin and the other horses had widened.
This was exactly what he wanted.
“Come on, you Buckskin,” he shouted softly down the wind. “Don’t you
stick around with them broomtails.”
Nevada Jim’s lungs were pumping hard, but the clean long legs of the
horse still reached with long strides for the rising ground, the
muscular shoulders moved smoothly and automatically.
The head of the divide was close now, scarcely a quarter of a mile in
front of the fugitives. Hugh looked back as he galloped up into the
pass. The buckskin was far in advance of the other pursuers.
The pass was short and narrow. At the very summit a huge boulder
outcropped from the ridge. McClintock swung his labouring horse back of
this, and at the same instant leaped to the ground. Swiftly he
unclinched and drew the bay close to the flat face of the great rock.
For the first time since the wild race had begun he took from its
scabbard the navy revolver he carried.
He had not long to wait. There came the sound of a hoof striking the
hard quartz of the ridge, then the thud of galloping feet. The express
rider tensed his muscles. He was like a coiled spring as he crouched
back of the boulder, a menace to life as deadly as a rattlesnake about
to strike.
Smoothly he slid round the edge of the rock. The Piute, taken by
surprise, jerked the buckskin sideways and tried to raise his rifle.
Lightning flashed from McClintock’s six-shooter—once, twice. He dived
forward and caught the bridle just as the redskin tumbled from the
horse. The rifle clattered to the ground.
Hugh took one look at the Indian. It was enough. He would never steal
another horse from the whites. The buckskin, frightened, tried to jerk
away. Its new owner spoke gently, soothingly. He coaxed the startled
animal to the rock and transferred the saddle from the back of Nevada
Jim.
Already he could hear approaching horses. As rapidly as possible he
cinched and swung astride. Yet an instant, and he was galloping down the
western slope.
As he looked back, McClintock saw an Indian’s head and the upper part of
his body rising and falling with the stride of a horse. He was the first
of the pursuers coming up into the pass. There was a shout and the sound
of a shot. A bullet struck a spurt of sand from the ground some yards
ahead of the express rider. Other shots came, a scattering volley of
them. Hugh had thrust his smoking revolver back into the scabbard. He
did not attempt to draw it again. The primary business of the moment was
to get the buckskin into its stride and widen the distance between him
and his enemies.
Soon he was out of range. Bullets were still falling, but they struck
the dust behind him. The buckskin was fast and willing. Nevada Jim, like
many of the company horses, had a cross of Morgan blood. This horse was
a mustang, but it had unusual speed and power. Hugh wondered whether the
ranchman who had owned it had been killed when his place was raided.
The pursuit continued for several miles, but the Indians fell always
farther to the rear. At last they dropped out. At least Hugh saw them no
more.
It was time. McClintock was faint and dizzy. He could barely stick to
the saddle by clinging with both hands to the pommel. His wound,
irritated by the constant motion, hurt a great deal. The fever mounted
in his blood.
The amber dawn gave place to clear day. The sun climbed high in the
heavens. It was noon when the buckskin picked its way through the East
Walker River to the west bank.
The boy could go no farther. He slid down, tied the horse, and staggered
to the water. An odd lightheaded feeling lifted him from the ground, it
seemed. He floated, imponderable, on waves of air resonant with music.
Then he passed out of all sensation whatever into unconsciousness.
He came to life again placidly and without energy. When he roused
himself to think about it his body was singularly inert. It was almost
as though it were a thing apart from himself, did not belong to him at
all. He tried heavily with his hand to brush away the cobwebs from his
mind. Then slowly he remembered what had taken place.
The buckskin was still standing patiently beside the willow to which he
had tied it. The sun was beginning to slant from the west.
Slowly he undressed himself in part, washed the wound with clean water,
and tied it up with a bandage torn from his clothing. His fever was
high, and he bathed his face in the cold water fresh from the mountain
snows.
He was in no condition to travel, but he knew he would have to stick to
the saddle till he reached a settlement. Even if the Indians had given
up the chase, he could not lie here without food, shelter, or attention
to his wound. When he rose to drag himself to the horse it took all his
grit to set his teeth on the pain that went through him like a knife
thrust. He could not hold his body erect without agony.
Somehow he reached the buckskin and pulled himself to the saddle. He
held the pony to a walk, because this jolted his side less than any
other gait. His mind refused to consider the long hours he must spend on
the rack of torture. Every moment was sufficient to itself. He would set
landmarks for himself. That scrub cottonwood by the river must be
passed. When that had been reached a bunch of greasewood ahead became
his goal. So, mile by mile, in a growing delirium, he kept going till he
was far up in the Pine Nut Range.
He lost count of time and of distance. He forgot where he was travelling
or why. He remembered only Indians, and the fear he had resolutely
repressed—which no doubt had been uppermost all the time in the boy’s
subconscious mind—expressed itself in the babbling of his delirious
talk.
“They’re roostin’ up there in the hills somewheres. Sure are. Want my
topknot for to decorate their tepees. Hump yoreself, you Nevada Jim. I
feel right spindlin’, an’ I want Mother to fix me up some sage
tea. . . . They’re after me full jump. See ’em come lickety split.
Aimin’ to scalp me, all on account that I didn’t stop to say ‘Howdy.’”
His laughter jangled in the empty desert, fear for the moment forgotten.
“We ce’tainly lit a-runnin’, me an’ you, Jim, when we jumped up them
Piutes. Clumb for the tall timber, didn’t we, _amigo viego_? . . . Never
did see mountains dance before. S’lute yore pardners. Grand right an’
left. Alemane . . . Here the devils come, hell for leather. Better not
crawl our humps, eh, Jim? We’ll sure show ’em what for.”
It was the buckskin that saved him, that and the terror which had become
an obsession. He clung to the saddle desperately, long after he no
longer knew the reason for it, long after he had ceased to guide his
mount. Just before nightfall the horse took him to a Mormon ranch.
A comfortable-looking matron, feeding her chickens, looked up to see the
horse and its load motionless before her.
“Lands sake!” she ejaculated, amazed; then raised her voice in a shout
to her husband. “Father, come here. Buckskin has come home, and——”
She broke off to run to McClintock’s aid. He had slid from the saddle to
the ground.
“The poor boy,” she cried. “He’s all shot up. He’s dead, I guess. It’s
them Piutes. Help me get him into the house, Father.”
With a ghost of a smile the wounded boy reassured her.
CHAPTER IV
SCOT McCLINTOCK INTRODUCES HIMSELF
Mark Twain tells us that in the early Nevada days it gave a man no
permanent satisfaction to shoot an enemy through both lungs, because the
dry air was so exhilarating that the wounded foe was soon as good as
new. Hugh McClintock was an illustration of this. He reached the Mormon
settlement a white-faced rag of humanity. But he had lived hard and
clean. The wind and the sun and able-bodied forbears had given him a
constitution tough as hammered brass. When his brother Scot drove from
Virginia City to see him, having heard the news that Hugh was wounded to
death, he found the boy wrapped in a blanket and sitting in the sunshine
at the corner of the ranch house. This was just a week after the end of
the young brother’s wild ride.
“’Lo, Hugh! How are cases?” asked Scot, his gay smile beaming down at
the boy.
“Fine as silk, Scot. I got an appetite like a bear. Sorry you had to
come so far.”
“I hooked up soon as I heard about it, old f’ler. Now I’ve seen you I
feel a lot better. The way I heard it you were ready to cash your
chips.”
Scot’s arm was round the lad’s shoulder. The half-caress, the light in
the fine eyes, the warmth of the voice, all told of the strong affection
the older brother had for the younger. Hugh repaid this love with
interest. In his eyes Scot was an Admirable Crichton, the most wonderful
man he had ever been privileged to know. He trod the earth a king among
his race—and the king could do no wrong.
No two sons of the same father and mother could have been more unlike
than these. The last-born was counted steady as an eight-day clock,
reliable as tested steel. The other walked wild and forbidden paths. Yet
to call them unlike is to tell a half-truth. They had in common courage,
a certain cleanness of fibre, and an engaging gaiety. Scot McClintock
was nearly ten years older than Hugh, but there was a remarkable
physical resemblance between them. Each had inherited from a Scotch
father eyes of the same colour, a square-cut chin, and a strong Roman
nose. The head of each was crowned with curls of russet gold.
The shoulders of Scot were broader, his figure less stringy. He was of
splendid physique, tall, compact, powerful. Bearing himself with manly
grace, he radiated vitality. His chin told the truth. He was indomitably
resolute, a born leader. Vanity was his weakness. The spectacular
appealed. It had been said of him that he would rather break down a door
than wait for a key. The self-esteem of the man expressed itself in
clothes. These he wore always for effect, with the knowledge that his
fine figure would win him envy and admiration, even though he affected
the dandy. In his frock coat of doeskin with its flaring skirt and broad
lapels, his fancy vest cut wide to show a frilled shirt and blue satin
necktie, his pegtop trousers, his immaculately varnished boots, and his
flat-crowned silk derby, he was out of question the Beau Brummel of
Washoe. Another might have been laughed at for this punctilious devotion
to dress, but even in Virginia City nobody was hardy enough to poke fun
at Scot McClintock.
Many smiled with him, for this blue-eyed gambler had a thousand friends.
It was in his horoscope to fight or share his last dollar with you
gladly. He did not care which. He could be brave, reckless, generous,
sociable, or witty. But nobody could ever say that he was mean spirited.
“I’m going to take you back with me as soon as you can travel, Hugh,” he
said.
“That’ll be to-morrow mo’ning.”
“Sure you can stand the jolting yet?”
“Sure. Ask Mother Jessup here.”
The rancher’s wife had come out from the house and been introduced to
Scot. Now she smiled comfortably at her patient. “He’s doing fine.”
“He would, with you looking after him, Madam,” Scot answered gallantly.
“It’s a God’s mercy he stuck on all those miles, wounded the way he was.
I don’t see how he ever did,” Mrs. Jessup said.
“I reckon he clamped his teeth on the job. Hugh’s right obstinate when
he gets set,” the older brother said with affectionate pride.
“Runs in the family,” Hugh cut back, grinning.
“Maybe so. Well, tell me all about it, boy. Where did you jump the
Piutes? And how did you make your getaway?”
“Not much to tell,” the younger brother replied, and gave a skeleton
outline of the story.
They started on their journey next morning, made a short day of it on
account of Hugh’s wound, and put up at Carson for the night.
On what had been known as Eagle Ranch, in the valley of the same name,
the town of Carson had been built. During the previous decade both Eagle
and Carson valleys had served as a refuge for those who ran off stolen
stock from San Francisco and other California points. In these hidden
parks the outlaws had been accustomed to rest and feed the herds before
making the desert trip by obscure routes to Salt Lake. But those days
were past. Carson now had two thousand inhabitants, a boom in town lots,
and a civic consciousness. It had become respectable, though guns still
flashed frequently. Already it was laying political wires to become the
capital of Nevada, the “battle-born” state.
Through Carson supplies came by way of Mormon Station for the diggings
at Virginia, along a road which wound around the base of the hills. As
Scot drove in, the air was musical with chimes. Some of these came soft
and mellow from a great distance. Each mule of the freight outfits had a
circlet of bells suspended in a steel bow above its collar. They made
music as they moved.
At the hay corral into which McClintock drove, scores of outfits were
gathered, most of them freighters to or from the diggings. A dozen
others could be heard jingling in, from one direction or the other. The
winter had been a severe one, and hundreds of cattle in the adjacent
valleys had died for lack of feed. Hay was scarce. There was a very
strong demand for it to feed the freight outfits. Just now the price was
three hundred dollars a ton. Ranchers found it far more profitable to
let their cattle rustle on bunch grass and take a chance of roughing
through than to feed hay worth such a price. Wherefore all the native
hay went to the stock hauling supplies.
Scot hailed Baldy Green, a well-known stage driver. “How about places up
on the stage for me and Hugh to-morrow, old-timer?”
Baldy rubbed the top of his shiny head and grinned at him. “Full up.
Like to ditch a couple of my passengers for you if I could—a jewellery
peddler and a sky pilot—but I don’t reckon I can, Scot.”
The eyes of the older McClintock sparkled. “Show ’em to me, Baldy.”
Three minutes later the Beau Brummel of Virginia City might have been
seen in earnest conversation with a clergyman who hailed from Buffalo,
New York. He was telling the story of the Indian attack upon his brother
and making certain deductions from it. His manner of grave deference was
perfect.
“But bless my soul, do you really think the redskins are likely to
attack the stage to-morrow?” asked the startled missionary.
“Can’t tell, sir. They were certainly heading this way when last seen.
Big chance of it, I’d say. I’m a sinner—a professional gambler. What
does it matter about me? But you—the only minister of the Gospel in a
hundred miles—you can’t be spared. The harvest is ripe for the reaper.
Why not wait here a day or two and make sure the Piutes are not around?”
The missionary was frankly frightened, but he had in him the stuff of
heroes. His lower lip became a thin straight line of resolution. No
professional gambler should put his courage to shame. If he rode through
the valley of the shadow he had a promise from Holy Writ to comfort him.
“I’ll go if the stage goes,” he said stoutly.
Scot McClintock knew when he was beaten temporarily. But he was not the
man to give up a point upon which he had set his heart. He looked up a
friend of his, the mayor of the town, drew him aside, and whispered
persuasively in his ear.
The fat little man with whom he talked exploded a protest. “But doggone
it, Scot, if the Gospel shark accepts, won’t I have to go to his
meetin’?”
“Maybe so. What of it? Be a good scout, Adams. I want that boy of mine
to get up to Virginia to-morrow so that I can make him comfortable.”
The mayor grinned. “Never saw your beat for gettin’ your own way. All
right. I’ll rustle up some of the women and ask him.”
Scot dropped into the What Cheer House and glanced around. The jewellery
salesman was sitting in a corner by himself. McClintock introduced
himself and invited the stranger to a rum cocktail or a whisky sling. In
five minutes he knew all about the peddler’s business and how much he
hoped to make from the sale of his stock at Virginia.
“But why not sell it here in Carson? The town’s booming. Lots of money
here. More women. Up in Virginia they can’t think anything except
mines,” Scot suggested.
“My friendt, I make more at Virginia.”
“Well, you know your business better than I do. Hope we get through
without trouble.”
“Trouble? Vat kind of trouble?”
“Injuns on warpath. They shot up my brother. I’m taking him up with me
to a doctor. From the way the Piutes were heading I rather expect an
attack on the stage to-morrow.”
The peddler rose to the bait, excitedly, with shrill voice. “And I haf
paid my fare to Virginia. It’s an outrage. I vill demand a refund. I
vill sue the company. I vill nodt travel in onsavety. You are right, my
friendt. I sell my stock right here in Carson if I get a refund.”
“I would,” agreed McClintock sympathetically, “I know Baldy Green. Let’s
see if he’ll stand for the refund.”
The stage driver played up to his friend with a serious face. It was not
customary to make refunds. He had a kind of hunch the stage would get
through without being attacked. But if the gentleman wanted to stay at
Carson and if McClintock would guarantee him against loss to the company
through an empty seat, probably it could be arranged. Incidentally, he
mentioned that he had just heard from the clergyman cancelling his
passage. He had been urged by a deputation of Carson citizens to stay in
town over Sunday and preach on the plaza. This call, he felt, could not
be ignored.
Baldy called Scot back as he was leaving. The stage driver’s face was
one wrinkled grin. “You ce’tainly take the cake, old alkali. I got to
give it to you. Afraid the stage will be attacked, are you? Dad gum yore
hide, you know Injuns won’t dare come up here on the peck.”
“I’d hate to have the jewellery gentleman take any chances,” Scot
explained.
“And preachin’ on the plaza. Don’t you know there’s hawss racin’ here
every Sunday?” cackled Baldy.
“Competition is the life of trade. The ladies can meet an’ pray for
their wicked husbands. They need it, don’t they?”
“Sure do. Well, I got no kick comin’. I won’t be here Sunday.”
Neither was Scot. He and his brother travelled Virginiaward in the
morning. The “mud-wagon” had been left at Carson. They travelled in a
beautiful painted Concord stage behind six high-stepping chestnuts
decked with ivory rings, silver tassels, and expensive harness.
Baldy drove superbly. He and his kind were knights of the road. The
wranglers and attendants were deferential to them, the public viewed
them admiringly as celebrities. Baldy drew on his gauntlets slowly,
mounted to the box, and took the ribbons from the hand of a hostler.
There was a swift tightening of the reins, a sweeping crack of the whip.
The leaders came round on the run, the swings at a gallop, and the
wheelers at a trot.
The ride to Virginia was one worth taking. The road wound round curves,
dropped into draws, swept along dugways beneath which were deep
precipices. When he hit the curves Baldy gave the wheels play.
Occasionally one of the back ones hung precariously over space. A minute
later the stage perhaps had struck a level and the driver was riding the
brakes while the horses dashed wildly forward. Ten miles an hour, up
hill and down, over the precipitous mountain road, the chestnuts
travelled wildly, every foot of the way guided by the man on the box who
handled them coolly and expertly. Meanwhile, Baldy discussed casually
with Scot McClintock the news of the day. With his whip he pointed to a
bad turn.
“Hank Monk went over the grade yesterday—coach, hawsses, and
passengers.”
“Much damage?”
“Nope—none a-tall. Nary a beast skinned. Paint on coach hardly
scratched. Busted one tenderfoot’s laig. That’s all. Mighty lucky spill.
Hank always did fall on his feet. Been me I’d prob’ly a-hurted one of
the animals.”
“Lucky for all parties except the tenderfoot,” agreed Scot.
“Yep. Couldn’t a-been better. G’lang!”
The long whip snaked out with a crack like the sound of an exploding
gun. The coach leaped forward, swaying like a cradle set on wheels. They
were drawing close to Virginia now, and the whole desert was staked like
the sole of a giant shoe. American Flat fell away to the rear. The
chestnuts raced up Gold Hill and the Ophir Grade, across the divide, and
down into Virginia City, which was perched on the lower slope of Mt.
Davidson.
The town was an uncouth and windswept camp, but it represented uncounted
hopes and amazing energy. In this mass of porphyry lay the fabulously
rich Comstock Lode, from which in a single generation nearly a billion
dollars’ worth of ore was to be taken.
The Concord dropped down into B Street, the horses covering the home
stretch at a gallop. Baldy brought the coach along the rough street at a
dead run, sweeping it skillfully around a train of wood-packed burros.
He stopped exactly in front of the company’s office, twined the reins
around the brake bar, and smiled at Scot.
“Yore friend the peddler will feel sold when he hears you wasn’t
scalped.”
“The scenery flew past so fast I couldn’t tell whether it was punctuated
with Piutes or not,” said Scot genially, as he swung down to help Hugh
from inside.
The younger McClintock stepped out stiffly.
“Hope I didn’t mix yore inside geography too much,” Baldy asked him.
“I’m all right. The docs say the inside of a stagecoach is first rate
for the inside of a man,” Hugh answered.
“Tha’s right, too—for a well man; but they don’t say it’s a sure cure
for one the Injuns have been playin’ with, do they? Well, so long, young
fellow. Don’t you let that rip-snortin’ brother o’ yours c’rupt you
none.”
CHAPTER V
SCOT PASSES THE HAT
Through the throngs that crowded, not only the dilapidated sidewalks,
but also the street itself, Scot guided his brother deftly toward the
hotel. The whole appearance of the place was still higgledy-piggledy.
Men lived in tents, in dugouts, in prospect holes, in shacks built of
dry-goods boxes, canvas sacks, and brush. They cooked and ate as best
they could, while they went about their business of prospecting or
buying and selling “feet”[4] in what by courtesy were called mines.
-----
[4] In Virginia City mining interests were then sold by feet, and not by
shares.—W. M. R.
-----
“We’ll cut across this lot,” the gambler suggested.
A mud-stained wagon with a dirty canvas top had been unhitched close to
the street. Two bony and dejected horses were tied to the wheels eating
some brush that they were trying to persuade themselves was hay.
Hugh commented on the broomtails. “So thin they won’t throw a shadow.”
A moment later he was sorry, for as they rounded the wagon he saw a
woman and child crouched over a camp fire. They were cooking a stew. A
man sat on the wagon tongue smoking. He looked at the passing men out of
sullen, clouded eyes.
A voice from the sidewalk drifted to the brothers. “Trouble, looks like.
Sam Dutch has got Red Mike backed up against the bar of the Mile High,
and he’s tryin’ to devil him into drawing a six-shooter.”
On the heels of the words there came the sound of a shot, followed by a
second. A swift trampling of many feet, and the side door of the Mile
High burst open. Men poured out of it as seeds are squirted from a
pressed lemon. They dived in every direction to escape. After them came
a single man, bare-headed, a revolver in his hand. He looked wildly
round, then fled to the shelter of the wagon for safety. A huge fellow,
bellowing like a bull, tore out of the saloon in pursuit.
An ironclad rule of the old fighting West is that every quarrel is a
private one. No outsider has any right to interfere. Under ordinary
conditions, the first impulse of the McClintocks would have been to dive
for cover. The West considers it no reflection on a man’s courage for
him to sing small when guns are out to settle a difference of opinion
which is no concern of his.
The McClintocks, as though moved by the same spring, wheeled in their
tracks and ran back to the wagon. The man on the tongue was disappearing
into the bed through the opening in the canvas. But the woman and the
little girl, terror-stricken, stood spellbound beside the fire. Pursued
and pursuer were charging straight toward them. A bullet struck with a
metallic clang the iron pot in the live coals. The child screamed.
Roughly the woman and the little girl went down at the same instant,
flung to the ground by the impact of flying bodies. They heard more
shots, but they knew nothing of what was going on. For the McClintock
brothers were crouched above them, shielding them from the danger of
wild bullets. They did not see the red-headed man stumble and pitch
forward, nor did they see the big ruffian at his heels fling shot after
shot into his prostrate form.
Hugh released his weight from the child, and lifted her to her feet in
such a way that her face was turned from the tragedy.
“Run right along into the wagon where yore dad is, li’l girl, and don’t
turn yore head,” he said, and his voice was very gentle.
She moved forward, whimpering as she went, and climbed to the wagon
tongue. But, just as she was about to vanish inside, curiosity or some
other impulse swung round her black and shaggy little head. Big dark
eyes fastened on Hugh, then moved past him to the awful thing she was to
see in her dreams for many a night. A man, red-haired and red-bearded,
lay face up on the ground, sightless eyes staring up at the blue sky. A
second man straddled the body with brutal triumph, a big slouchy fellow
with coarse tawny hair reaching to his neck, and sandy whiskers tied
under his chin. He wore a brown Peruvian hat, a blue army overcoat with
a cape, and a woollen shirt. From his bootleg a horn-handled bowie knife
projected.
“Wanted to be chief,[5] eh?” the murderer jeered in a heavy overbearing
voice. “There’ll be only one chief in Virginia while Sam Dutch is here.
If any one else wants the job, he’ll gets his like Red Mike did.” He
shuffled away, Spanish spurs jingling, slouching and slow of movement.
His gestures were heavy, except when shooting. No bad man in Washoe was
quicker on the draw.
-----
[5] It was a matter of pride among the desperadoes of Nevada in early
days to be cock of the walk. Many a “bad man” died with his boots on
because he aspired to be “chief” among his fellows. So long as these
ruffians killed each other, the community paid little attention to their
murders. When good citizens fell victim, a sentiment was created which
eventually resulted in the supremacy of law.—W. M. R.
-----
A faint trickle of smoke still issued from the barrel of his revolver as
he thrust it back into its scabbard, where it could be seen beneath the
flapping coat tails. He disappeared into the Mile High and proceeded to
down half-a-dozen gin slings at the expense of friends who did not dare
withhold this tribute of admiration lest he make one of them number
eleven on his list. An hour later, Scot McClintock saw him there, in
drunken slumber lying on a billiard table, the brute primordial, first
among the bad men of the lawless camp because he was its most deadly
ruffian. There were those who would have liked to make an end of him as
he lay soddenly asleep, but he was so quick and terrible that their fear
was greater than the lust to kill.
Scot helped from the ground the woman he had thrown. She looked at him,
her breast rising and falling deep, fear still quick in the soft brown
eyes. Her cheeks were white as the snow on Mt. Davidson.
“Madam, I’m sorry I was rough,” Scot said, and gave her the most gallant
bow in Washoe. “But you were in the line of fire. I couldn’t take
chances.”
Emotion shook her. A faint colour crept timidly into her face. She said,
in a voice hardly audible: “You saved my life.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” the man answered, smiling.
Something eager, beautiful, made of the woman’s eyes soft stars of
night. “I’ll never forget—never,” she promised, with a strangled sob.
There was a low jangling laugh at her shoulder. “Tha’s right. Always a
fool if you can find a chance to be one, Moll,” a voice sneered.
The light died from the woman’s eyes, the colour from her cheeks. She
became at once a creature lifeless, without spirit.
Scot turned, voice soft and suave. “Did you find what you went to look
for in the wagon, sir?” he asked, raking the unkempt unclean emigrant
with scornful eyes.
A dull flush burned into the man’s face. A furtive darting look slid
from the yellow-gray eyes. It carried menace, as does sometimes that of
a tamed wolf toward its trainer.
“I—I didn’t notice where Moll was when I started,” he said with sullen
reluctance. “An’ I reckon tha’s _my_ business.”
“Quite so,” agreed the gambler.
He bowed again to the woman in the cheap patched homespun, met the eyes
of his brother, and turned to go.
From the wagon came a weak little wail. The McClintocks stood rooted in
their tracks. Again the puling cry was raised. With a murmured
exclamation the woman excused herself hurriedly and climbed into the
covered wagon.
“Have you got a baby there?” asked Scot, a new note in his voice.
The father grunted a sulky “Yes.”
“A baby, Hugh. An honest-to-God baby. The first in Virginia City. What
do you think about that?”
“Could we see it, do you reckon?” the younger brother asked eagerly.
Scot turned on him reproving eyes. “I’m surprised at you, Hugh. That
baby’s being—fed—right now.” Suddenly he wheeled on the emigrant. “Boy
or girl?”
“Girl!”
“Great. We’ll call her Virginia.”
“Her name’s Susan,” the father growled.
“No matter. We’ll change it. Last name?”
“Dodson. Her name’s goin’ to stay right what it is now.”
A crowd of men had poured upon the vacant lot to view the scene of the
killing. Some were removing the body to an adjacent saloon, others were
discussing the affair guardedly from its dramatic and not from its
ethical standpoint. There was no question of ethics in an ordinary
killing if both combatants had had ample warning. It was the boast of
Virginia, just as it was later of Austin, Pioche, Aurora, and the other
Nevada camps, that it had “a man for breakfast” each day. This was not
the literal truth, but it was too nearly true for comfort. The diggings
were infested with wild, lawless criminals driven from more settled
communities. They robbed stages, held up citizens, and maintained the
rule of the six-gun among communities the great majority of whose
residents would much have preferred peace and order.
Scot climbed into the bed of an empty ore wagon and clapped his hands
for silence. Only those in his immediate vicinity heard him, wherefore
Scot got what he wanted by the simple expedient of firing his revolver
into the air.
For a moment there was the threat of a stampede, but not after the
discovery that McClintock had fired the gun. Scot was known as a
professional gambler, a respectable business man who did not kill
wantonly. It was evident that he wanted to make a speech. Anything in
reason that Scot McClintock wanted in Virginia City he could have. He
was the most popular man in camp.
“Go to it, Scot. Onload heap much oration,” someone shouted.
After which there was silence.
“Boys,” Scot began simply, “I’m going to tell you something that will
please you a lot. We’ve got a baby in camp, a real, genuine,
blown-in-the-bottle guaranteed baby, the first one that ever hit
Virginia City. It’s a lady baby, and her name’s Susan. Now, we’ve none
of us got anything against Susan. It’s a good name. But it’s not the
name for our baby. We’re going to name that kid Virginia or know why.”
A wild howl of approval lifted into the air. The emotions of Washoe were
direct and primitive. This was the sort of thing that made its sure
appeal. These men were far from their womenkind and the ties of home.
Many of them had slipped into ways that would have shocked their
sheltered relatives in older communities. But they were sentimental as
schoolgirls. A baby was the symbol of all the happiness they had left
behind when they undertook the lonesome hardships of gold hunting. They
cheered and shouted and shook hands with each other in deep delight.
“We’re going to give this kid a good send-off, because she’s our baby.
Virginia is her name and Virginia is her home. I’m going to pass the
hat, boys. You, El Dorado Johnnie and Jean Poulette and Six-Fingered
Pete and Murphy Davis get your hats off and circulate among these Washoe
millionaires and bummers. Dig deep into your jeans, every last one of
you. We’re going to do the right thing by this little lady the good Lord
has sent us. Whoop ’er up now,” adjured McClintock.
From every direction men came running to this new form of entertainment.
Saloons and gambling houses emptied. The streets began to pack. Still
the jingling of coins dropping into hats could be heard. Everybody gave.
Scot appointed a committee to count the spoils and another committee to
invite the town’s brass band down to the reception.
Meanwhile he whispered in Hugh’s ear and the boy carried a message to
the prairie schooner.
“I want to see Mrs. Dodson,” he told that lady’s husband.
The dull, unimaginative face of the man was lit with cupidity and
suspicion. It surely was not possible that all this money was going to
be turned over to him just because he had a baby. The world couldn’t
possibly be so full of fools. Yet it looked like it. He called his wife.
She came out to the tent flap with the baby in her arms. All this noise
and confusion frightened her a little, but it did not disturb the
tousled little girl by her side. It was meat and drink to her. Her eyes
snapped with excitement. She had an inkling of what was going on, and
she wriggled like a small, pleased puppy.
Hugh took off his hat. “Madam, we’d like to borrow for a little while
yore family. We’re figurin’ on a sort of a parade, and we want the baby
in it. We’d like to have you an’ the li’l girl go along to see the
baby’s taken care of proper.”
“Goody, goody!” Victoria hopped from one foot to the other as a register
of approval.
The woman hesitated. Her glance fluttered timidly to the husband. “I
don’t know. What do you think, Rob?” Then, in a low voice: “I haven’t
anything to wear. Perhaps you could take Baby.”
The boy interposed hurriedly. “That’s not quite the idea, ma’am. The
boys are kinda hungry to see a sure enough mother and baby. It would be
a kindness to them if you’d come yoreself. We’ll have the stage, an’ you
can ride beside the driver. O’ course we don’t aim to be bossy about it,
but our hearts are real set on this.” He smiled, and Hugh’s boyish grin
was a winsome argument. It had the touch of sweet deference women liked.
“They’re rough looking, ma’am, but none of these miners would hurt you
for the world. It’s a celebration for the camp’s first baby.”
“Oh, let’s go, Sister Mollie,” urged Victoria. “I wantta ride in the
pee-rade.”
The woman whispered with her husband. He broke out roughly: “Don’t be so
damned finicky. Your dress is all right.”
“We’ll come,” the young woman told the boy. “In a few minutes we’ll be
ready. And thank you for wanting us.”
Scot McClintock presently arrived himself and escorted the guests of
honour to the stage. He assisted the young mother to the seat beside
Baldy and passed the baby up to her. The infant was a plump little thing
with fat dimpled arms and legs. It crowed up into Scot’s face and
gurgled happily at him. Vicky was lifted up to the seat next her sister.
As master of ceremonies Scot, in a long red sash, mounted on a beautiful
white horse, rode at the head of the procession. The stage came next,
followed by Virginia’s young and exuberant brass band. After this
marched the fire organizations in their red shirts and helmets. Empty
ore wagons fell into line and were quickly filled with miners. A mixed
crowd of residents on foot brought up the rear.
The contributions already collected had been poured from the hats into a
tub. This was tied to the back of the stage, in the place where trunks
and packages usually rested. All along A Street and back along B Street
men fought to get at the tub with their money. The band played “Old Dan
Tucker” and other popular airs, but out of deference to a divided public
opinion did not give either “Yankee Doodle” or “Dixie.”[6] There were
speeches, of course, full of bombast, eloquence, and local patriotism,
all of which were vociferously applauded.
-----
[6] The Civil War was being fought at this time, and though Nevada was
far from the scene of action, sectional feeling was high. A fairly large
minority of those in Virginia City and Carson were Southerners—W. M. R.
-----
It was while the band was playing that the guest of honour began to cry.
“Stop that damn band and give the kid a chance,” someone shouted.
A hundred light-hearted sons of mirth took up the word. The band stopped
in the middle of a bar, and to her mother’s embarrassment Miss Virginia
Dodson entertained with a solo.
The marshal of the parade rode back to the coach and smiled up at the
young mother.
“Don’t mind the boys,” he advised. “It’s just their way of showing how
much they think of our baby. You know, ma’am, this town claims the young
lady. We’ve adopted her, but if you say ‘Please’ real nice we’ll let you
bring her up.”
Mollie’s bosom warmed within her. A lump rose in her throat and her eyes
misted. For years she had been the chattel of Robert Dodson, a creature
to be sneered at, derided, and beaten. This splendid-looking hero of
romance treated her as though she were a lady. She wondered who he could
be. Among all these rough-bearded miners he shone like diamonds in a mud
heap. His clothes, manner, speech, the musical intonation of his voice,
all set him apart from other men, she thought, even if his figure and
face had not marked him for distinction.
A big blond lawyer with a long yellow beard was at the head of the
committee appointed to count the money. His name was William M. Stewart.
Later he represented Nevada in the United States Senate for many years.
At the request of Scot McClintock he made the presentation speech, the
baby in his arms at the time. The total amount collected ran over
thirty-two hundred dollars.
Robert Dodson had been drinking more or less all day. He had taken the
opportunity to celebrate rather steadily during the parade, since, as
father of Virginia, he had been offered a nip at many bottles. Now he
unwisely presented himself to take charge of the fund raised.
Stewart looked at him carefully, then exchanged glances with Scot.
“Friends,” said the future Senator, “I move a committee of three to take
charge of Miss Virginia’s educational fund. If this is satisfactory I
shall ask the citizens of the camp to name the trustees.”
It was so voted. When the time came to name the custodians of the fund
the crowd shouted “McClintock” and “Stewart.”
The big blond lawyer consulted with Scot. “Mr. McClintock and I are glad
to serve as trustees in your behalf, gentlemen,” announced Stewart.
“With your permission we shall name Robert Dodson, the father of
Virginia, as the third member.”
In the months that followed, Dodson flew into a rage whenever the trust
fund was mentioned. He insinuated to his cronies over the bar that
McClintock and Stewart were manipulating the money to their own
advantage. The fact was that they refused to let their co-trustee get
his fingers on any of it to dissipate.
CHAPTER VI
HUGH SITS IN
From every state and many nations the pioneers of California came,
young, ardent, hopeful, strong. Round the Horn in clipper ships, across
the fever-swept Isthmus, by way of the long Overland Trail, they poured
into the Golden West. They laughed at hardship. They wrote songs of
defiance to bad luck and sang them while they worked and starved and
died. Self-contained and confident, they gutted mountains, made deserts
leafy green, built cities that were the marvel of their generation. To
these sunset shores came the pick of the world’s adventurous youth.
Nevada absorbed the best and the worst of California’s seasoned
veterans. Gay, reckless, debonair, the gold-seekers went their turbulent
way. Every man was a law to himself, carried in his holster the redress
for wrongs. The wildest excesses prevailed. The most brutal crimes went
unpunished. For years there was no night at Virginia, at Austin, or at
Eureka. The flare from dance halls, hurdy-gurdys, and gambling houses
flung splashes of light on masses of roughly dressed men engaged in
continual revelry.
But it would be unjust to condemn Washoe because it did not measure up
to the standards of Philadelphia. At its worst no good woman was ever
more revered than here, no child’s innocence more zealously guarded.
And, as it proved, the strength of the bad man lacked the endurance of
the one who was good. Law and order came to Nevada, brought by stalwarts
who took their lives in their hands to punish desperadoes.
The dominance of law came slowly, because Washoe was under the
jurisdiction of Utah, so far away across the desert that its authority
was only a shadow. Until this handicap was taken away, no real civil
authority was possible.
The earliest mining at Virginia was done from the grass roots, which
fact accounts largely for the character of its population. Six-Mile
Cañon heads on the north side of Mt. Davidson, Gold Cañon about a mile
distant on its south slope. Placer miners, working among the decomposed
rock and gravel of the ravines, moved up toward the mother lode without
knowing it. The clay in which they dug was so tough it had to be
“puddled” in water with shovels.
But the formation of the strata had convinced the astute that the Washoe
diggings were a quartz proposition. The rocker and the long tom had had
their day. Into the Ophir and the Gould & Curry, steam hoists had been
put. The shafts were going deeper every hour. Much litigation developed,
due in part to defective location work and disputes as to veins. This
brought to the territory the ablest bar on the Pacific Coast. Among the
newspaper reporters who worked a few months later on the _Territorial
Enterprise_ was Mark Twain. He was one of a dozen brilliant writers who
later were known from coast to coast, all of whom were associated with
the Goodwins on this paper.
No other such mining camp ever existed. Side by side with lawlessness
and the roughest makeshifts there existed a high civilization which was
satisfied with nothing less than the best. In the days to come, after
the town had found its feet, McCullough, Booth, Barrett, and Modjeska
played at Piper’s Opera House within a stone’s throw of the raucous
uproar of the hurdy-gurdy houses. One lucky miner expressed himself in a
mansion equipped with door stops of gold and door knobs of silver;
another lifted his eyes to the stars and wrote his soul out with
fire-tipped pen.
In this heterogeneous society there was at first no class consciousness.
The professional gambler had a special standing. He was accepted as
necessary to the community, much as a doctor or a merchant was. He set
the standard of dress and of manners. If he was a “square sport” he
played a fair game. The most distinguished men in the camp were glad to
sit down at poker with such a gambler as Scot McClintock.
So long as the road from California was open Virginia City lived on the
best that could be imported. But during the heavy winter just ending the
trail had been closed for months. Food was dangerously short. The supply
of potatoes and onions, the staple vegetables, had become completely
exhausted. There was very little fresh meat, though jackrabbits were
fortunately plentiful. To make conditions worse, soft heavy spring snows
blocked the passes and made transportation impossible. At Placerville
and at Strawberry Flat great trains of supplies waited for the opening
of the trail.
On a sunny windswept afternoon Scot McClintock made his way from the
International Hotel to the Crystal Palace, where he dealt faro to a
high-priced clientele. He was pleasantly at peace with the world. If he
carried a derringer in his pocket it was as a concession to the custom
of a country where every man went armed. His progress along B Street and
through the Crystal Palace to his seat was in the nature of a reception.
For everybody knew Scot and wanted to claim acquaintance with him.
He nodded to the players, slid into his chair, and began to deal. His
face took on the gambler’s mask of impassivity. This mask did not lift
when a heavy-set huge man slouched into the Crystal Palace and to the
corner where McClintock presided. Someone hastily moved aside to give
the newcomer a place. Nobody in Virginia City disputed any question of
precedence with Sam Dutch.
The desperado had been drinking. It was apparent to all that he was in
an ugly humour. Gradually, inconspicuously, the players at that end of
the hall cashed in their chips and departed from the immediate vicinity.
Scot continued to deal with a wooden face, but behind his expressionless
eyes was a wary intentness. Dutch meant trouble. He had come with the
deliberate intention of making it.
Friends had brought to McClintock the word that he had better look out
for Dutch. The bad man was jealous of his popularity, his influence in
the camp, and above all of the fearlessness that would not accept
intimidation. Shrewdly, with that instinct for safety common to all
killers, the fellow had chosen his moment well. All the advantage would
lie with him. The hands of the dealer must be above the table sliding
out cards. His own could be on the butts of his six-shooters before he
called for a showdown. What Dutch proposed was not a duel but deliberate
cold-blooded murder.
Scot knew this. He knew, too, that if either of his hands lifted for an
instant from the cards the ruffian opposite would fling slug after slug
into his body. Nor could he expect any help from the lookout for the
game. Dutch was too sure on the shoot to tempt interference.
The roulette wheel continued to turn. The stud and draw poker games went
on. Automatically men made their bets, but the interest was gone from
their play. The atmosphere had grown electric. The furtive attention of
everybody focussed on two men, the killer and the victim he had
selected. When would Dutch find his excuse to strike? In the tenseness
of the suspense throats parched and nerves grew taut.
The contrast between the two men was striking. The one dealing the cards
was clean-cut, graceful, and lithe as a tiger. From head to foot he was
trim and well-groomed. Even the fingernails were polished pink in the
latest San Francisco fashion. The huge man in front of him was dirty,
his hair and beard unkempt, his figure slouchy. The long army overcoat
he wore was splashed with mud. He looked the incarnation of brute force
dominated by craft instead of intelligence.
Into the Crystal Palace a lean sun-and-wind browned man walked. He was
about to start back to take his run on the pony express and he had come
in to say good-bye to his brother. With one clear-eyed steady look he
realized the situation. The gunman had not yet called for a showdown. He
meant to choose his own time for fastening the quarrel on Scot. His rage
might still be diverted into another channel.
Hugh did his thinking as he moved lightly forward. There was not a break
in his stride as he walked straight to the faro table. Carelessly, it
appeared, but really by cool design, he chose the place next to Dutch,
close to him and on his right.
“Don’t crowd, young fella,” warned the bully heavily. “Me, when I play,
I want room a-plenty.”
The pony express rider tossed a twenty-dollar gold piece on the table.
“Chips,” he said, without even looking at Dutch.
The eyes of the McClintocks met. Hugh was no gambler. He was sitting in,
Scot knew, to share and lessen the risk. If he could draw the gunman’s
attention for even an instant at the critical moment it might save the
dealer’s life. A stack of chips slid across to the boy.
The big ruffian slammed down a fist like a ham, so that the chips
jumped. “Didja hear me speak, kid? Know who I am?” he blustered.
The sun streamed full on the boy’s fair curly head from the window
above. It brought out the faint golden down on his lean cheek and
emphasized a certain cherubic innocence of gaze that still lingered from
his childhood.
“Why, no, I don’t reckon I do.”
“I’m Sam Dutch.”
Hugh coppered two of the big man’s bets and played the jack to win.
“Knew a fellow called Dutch once—hanged for stealing sheep from the
Mormons. No kin, maybe,” he said cheerfully.
The lookout stirred uneasily, then stepped from the place where he sat
and disappeared through a side door. The cards slid out of the box. Hugh
won both bets he had coppered. Scot sized up chips to match the bets,
and the boy drew them in with his left hand.
Dutch turned to him a face distorted as a gargoyle. “Play yore own game
and keep off’n the cards I play. An’ don’t get heavy with me,” he
snarled with an oath.
“Sure not,” Hugh promised amiably. “It was down on the Humboldt Sink
they hanged him, I recollect.”
The bad man thrust his unkempt head closer. “Get outa here. You’re
crowdin’ me. I don’t want my private graveyard to hold no kid-size
coffins.”
“Room for both of us,” said Hugh coolly, and he did not give a fraction
of an inch. Instead, he coppered another of the camp bully’s bets,
playing the ace to lose.
“Not room for me an’ you here both. I tell you I’m Sam Dutch.”
Scot slid out the cards. The ace lost.
“Yes, I heard you—no need to shout,” Hugh said tranquilly, reaching for
his winnings.
Dutch brushed his arm aside roughly. He raked in the chips. “I’ll
collect on that ace,” he announced.
“You played it to win and it lost,” Hugh told him.
“Did I?” The killer was dangerously near explosion point. “Don’t forget,
young fella, that I’m chief in this town.”
Hugh looked straight at him, his blue eyes narrowed ever so little. “So?
Who elected you?”
This cool defiance from an unknown smooth-cheeked boy put the match to
the ruffian’s rage. He snatched from his head the Peruvian hat and
stamped it under his feet. His teeth ground savagely. He stooped as
though to leap, and as he did so his fingers closed on the horn handle
of the bowie projecting from his boot leg. The long blade flashed in the
sunlight.
Almost simultaneously a derringer and a navy revolver flamed.
A stupid puzzled expression gathered on the face of the man in the army
overcoat. He seemed to be groping for the meaning of what had happened.
The huge body swayed and the bowie clattered to the floor.
Both brothers watched the killer intently. Neither fired a second shot,
though every sense, nerve, and muscle waited in readiness for instant
action.
Dutch clutched at the faro table with both hands, then unexpectedly
pitched forward upon it, scattering chips and cards in all directions.
From behind the bar, from back of chairs and tables, men cautiously
emerged. Others gathered themselves from the floor where they had been
lying low. The lookout stuck a head carefully through the side doorway.
There would be no more shooting.
Scot spoke quietly. “I take you-all to witness, gentlemen, that he came
here looking for trouble. My brother and I fired in self-defence.”
Someone thrust a hand under the big body and pushed aside the blue coat.
“Heart’s still beating,” he announced.
“Then send for a doctor and have him looked after. I’ll pay the bill,”
Scot said, still in an even expressionless voice.
“Hadn’t you better finish the job?” a voice whispered in Hugh’s ear.
Hugh turned, dizzy with nausea. “God, no!” he answered.
“If he lives he’ll get you sure—both of you.”
“We’re not murderers,” the boy said.
He groped his way to a chair and sat down quickly. Was he going to
faint?
A hand fell on his shoulder. Through a haze Scot’s voice came warm and
low: “Good old Hugh. Saved my life sure. You were that cool—and game.
Every move you made counted. If you hadn’t devilled him till he lost his
head he’d likely have got one of us. Boy, I’m proud of you.”
Hugh was ashamed of his weakness. “I didn’t play the baby this away when
I got that Piute at the pass,” he said apologetically.
“Nothing to it, boy. You came through fine. Except for you—well, I
would have cashed in. Come. Let’s get out of here.”
The owner of the Crystal Palace was standing near.
“Can you get someone else to finish my shift?” Scot asked.
“Sure.” The proprietor did a little legitimate grumbling. “There’s
sixty-five saloons in this town, an’ I’ll be doggoned if everybody
doesn’t come here to do their gun stuff. Seems like a man will walk
clear up from Gold Hill so’s to pull off his fireworks at the Crystal.
It don’t do business no good, lemme tell you.”
“You’re out of luck,” his dealer smiled. “But we couldn’t really help it
this time.”
“I don’t say you could, Scot. I won’t mourn for Sam Dutch if you’ve got
him. All I say is I try to run a quiet, respectable place an’ looks like
I never get a chance.”
The brothers walked out to the street. Patrons of the place fell back to
let them pass and followed with their eyes the two straight,
light-stepping men. Hugh was still a little stringy in build, but even
in his immaturity it would have been hard to find a more
promising-looking youngster. As for Scot, he was acknowledged to be the
handsomest man in the diggings. No woman ever saw him pass without
wanting to look at him twice.
The news had swept through town already, and as the brothers walked down
the street a hundred men stopped to shake hands with and congratulate
them. But even now they whispered their approval. It was possible Dutch
might survive his wounds, in which case they were prepared to resume
ostensible neutrality. The killer’s name was one that sent the chills
down the backs of even courageous men. He was more deadly than a
rattlesnake because he usually did not give warning before he struck.
CHAPTER VII
VICKY TELLS SECRETS
After what had just taken place at the Crystal Palace the bright
sunshine of Nevada was welcome to both brothers. Inside the gambling
house had been unwholesome excitement, passion, the dregs of cruel
murder lust, and the shadow of death. In the open street were friendly
faces, a sane world going about its business, and God’s sun in the
heavens. The McClintocks had probably snuffed out a life. It had been
one horribly distorted by evil. None the less, it shook their composure
to have sent even such a soul to its last account. They wanted, if
possible, to forget completely the look on the face of that huge figure
collapsing upon the table.
A little girl stood squarely in front of them on the broken sidewalk. To
the casual eye she appeared all patches, flying hair, and knobby legs.
There was the shy wildness of a captured forest creature in her manner,
but in her small body the McClintocks sensed, too, a dauntless spirit.
“Mister Goodmans,” she said, addressing them both, “don’t you ’member
me?”
“Of course. You’re Vicky,” Scot told her.
She came directly to business. “Rob, he’s ’most always drunk ’n we ain’t
got nothin’ to eat. Mollie ’n me’s jist awful hungry.”
“Hungry? Good Lord!” cried Hugh.
His brother took charge of the situation. “Go in to Groton’s with Vicky
and get her a good dinner. I’ll see what supplies I can pick up and go
down to the wagon with them.”
In front of the Delta saloon Scot met a Washoe Indian. He was carrying a
half a sack of wild onions he had brought to town to trade. McClintock
did business with him on the spot. At Lyman Jones’s store the faro
dealer bought some rice and coffee. He also induced the merchant to let
him have the last five pounds of flour he had in stock. With these
supplies he tramped to the edge of town to the place where the Dodsons
had moved their camp.
He ploughed through heavy sand, up a steep slope of shale and loose
rubble, to a narrow flat where the prairie schooner stood. Mollie Dodson
must have heard him coming, for as he reached the wagon she called from
within:
“Did you find Rob, Vicky?”
Perhaps the firmness of his tread told her at once of her mistake. She
leaned out of the open flap and caught sight of Scot. Into her white
face the colour beat in waves. Startled eyes held to his with a
surprised question in them.
“I—I was looking for Vicky,” she said.
“Yes. I met Vicky.” His white teeth flashed in a smile that sought to
win her confidence. “That young lady has a lot of sense. She wanted to
know why the trustees of the Virginia Dodson Fund were not attending to
business. So I’m here.”
“Oh! Vicky oughtn’t to have done that.” Another surge of colour, born of
shame, swept into the cheeks.
For the first time Scot realized how very pretty she was. He found her
diffidence charming, for he lived in a world where the women he knew
could not afford to be shy.
“Vicky did just right,” he protested while he was opening his sack. “Our
baby must be well fed. It’s my business to see to that, and I’m going to
do it from now.”
He built a fire while she watched him, the baby in her arms. Mollie was
acutely uncomfortable. The gambler had taken off his coat in order that
his movements might be freer. In his figured waistcoat, frilled cambric
shirt, close-fitting trousers, and varnished boots he looked too
exquisite for menial labour. She was acutely conscious of her patched
and faded gingham. It was Cophetua and the beggar maid brought down to
date, except that she was a wife and not a girl.
“I wish—you wouldn’t,” she stammered.
He stood up, masterful and dominant. His glance swept round and found a
battered water bucket. “Where’s the spring, Mrs. Dodson?” he asked.
“Let me go,” she begged. “It’s—it’s quite a way.”
“I’m feeling better to-day. Maybe I can make it to the spring and back,”
he said, smiling. “Which way, please?”
Reluctantly she pointed to the spring. It was in an arroyo nearly a
quarter of a mile distant.
“Robert forgot to get water before he left. He’s—away looking for
work,” she explained with a slight tremor of the lips.
He liked her better for the little lie. Scot guessed that Dodson had not
been at the camp for several days. He had seen the man in town yesterday
drunk, and again to-day sleeping under an empty wagon in a vacant lot.
It was a safe bet that Mollie Dodson carried the water for the family
use.
Scot returned with the water and made a batch of biscuits and some hot
coffee. While she ate he put rice on to boil.
When he looked at her he saw tears in her brown eyes. She was choking
over the food and trying to prevent him from seeing it. He decided that
this was a time for plain talk.
“I reckon I can guess how you feel,” he said gently. “But that’s not the
right angle to look at this thing. Back where you come from persons that
take help from others are—well, they don’t hold their heads up. But
this is the West, a new country. The camp’s short of food. It can’t be
bought in the market unless you know the ropes. We share with each other
here. In a kind of way we’re all one big family. I’m your big brother,
and I’m certainly going to see this baby is fed proper.”
She murmured something he could not catch for the break in her voice. He
bustled about the fire cheerfully and let her alone till she had
regained control of herself.
By which time Hugh and Vicky arrived, that long-legged young lady
skipping on the hilltops, with high-pitched voluble comment.
“Looky. Looky here, Sister Mollie, what I got,” she cried in her eager
breathless fashion. “He got it for me, Mister—Mister Santa Claus.” One
finger pointed straight at Hugh while she held out for the inspection of
her sister a doll with blue eyes and flaxen hair.
“Oh, but you shouldn’t—you ought not,” Mollie protested to the boy.
“Did she ask you for it?”
“No, ma’am. I wanted to get it for her. It was the only doll for sale in
Virginia, far as I know. I been hankerin’ to buy that doll. Now I feel a
heap better.”
Vicky herself was so clearly in a seventh heaven of delight that her
sister had not the heart to say anything more about it. But she was
uneasy in her mind. She wondered if their obligations to these young men
would never end. What would Rob say? How would he make her pay for the
charity he had forced her to accept?
In the days that followed she had occasion many times to feel weighted
by the kindnesses of Scot McClintock. Hugh had departed to report for
duty with the express company, but his brother made it a point to see
that the little family in the prairie schooner did not lack for food.
He hunted the cañons and brought back a young buck deer with him. One
hind quarter of it went to Mollie Dodson to keep the pot boiling. Fish,
rabbits, a prairie hen, three dozen eggs brought by a rancher all the
way from Honey Lake Valley; these and other delicacies were forced upon
the protesting woman.
Robert Dodson’s attitude was one of sneering suspicion. He was willing
that another man should supply his family with the food it needed, but
he was mean enough to jeer at his wife and bully her because of it. Even
while he ate the meat brought by McClintock his tongue was a whip that
lashed Mollie and the man. His whole attitude implied that the two were
carrying on a clandestine love affair.
Mollie wept herself to sleep more nights than one. By nature a dependent
woman, she did not now know which way to turn. Her husband was a broken
reed. He no longer even pretended to be looking for work. Humiliating
though it was, she had to accept Scot’s favours. She could not let the
family starve. A thousand times Robert Dodson had trampled her pride and
affection in the dust. She knew that life with him held nothing for her,
but it must go on through the long gray years that stretched ahead till
the end of things. She was not the sort of woman to contemplate suicide
with any fortitude. Both the courage and the cowardice for it she
lacked.
Scot returned from the Dodson camp one day, lips close set and eyes
dangerously lit with a smouldering fire. Mollie was nursing a black eye.
She had fallen, she told him, against the corner of the wagon. He had
not believed her when she told this tremulous lie. But Vicky had settled
the matter past doubt. She was waiting for him in a little gulch near
the camp, waiting to tell him in a burst of impotent childish passion
that Dodson had beaten Mollie because she did not have supper ready for
him when he came home hours after the fire was out.
As it chanced, McClintock met the ne’er-do-well a hundred yards farther
down the gulch. Dodson was, for a wonder, sober. He had no money of his
own and he had been unable to wheedle many free drinks from miners.
At sight of the gambler Dodson scowled. He had plenty of reasons for
disliking Scot. He nursed a continuous spleen because he would not let
him get at the money collected for the baby. His pride suffered at
accepting favours from a man who scorned him. He was jealous of the
interest McClintock must have aroused in his “woman,” Mollie Dodson. No
matter how he stormed and sneered at her he could not keep her mind from
a comparison of the men who just now were most present in her life, and
in that silent judgment he knew he must play a sorry part.
The bummer, to use the phrase of the day, would have passed without
speaking. A sulky dignity was the rôle he judged the most effective. But
Scot caught him by the coat lapel and swung him sharply round.
“I’m going to teach you not to lay a hand on—on a woman,” McClintock
said, his voice thick with suppressed passion.
Dodson’s thin mask of offended dignity fell away instantly. He tried to
back off, snarling at the man whose steel grip held him.
“She’s been tellin’ lies on me, has she?” he retorted, showing his
teeth.
“Mrs. Dodson says she fell against the wagon. I don’t believe it. You
struck her, you yellow wolf. Right now I’m going to give you the
thrashing of your life.”
The eyes of the loafer flashed fear. “You lemme go,” he panted, trying
to break away. “Don’t you dass touch me. Think I don’t know about you
an’ her? Think I’m a plumb idjit?”
An open-handed smash across the mouth stopped his words. He made a swift
pass with his right hand. Scot’s left shot out and caught the wrist,
twisting it back and up. A bullet was flung into the sky; then, under
the urge of a pain which leaped from wrist to shoulder of the tortured
arm, the revolver dropped harmlessly to the ground.
“Goddlemighty, you’re breakin’ my arm,” Dodson shrieked, sagging at the
knees as he gave to the pressure.
Scot sent home a stiff right. “You’ll be nursing a black eye from that
to-morrow,” he said evenly.
The craven in Dodson came out at once. He tried to escape punishment by
whining and begging. He promised anything the other man might demand of
him. He made an attempt to fling himself to the ground and cover up.
McClintock set his teeth and went through with the job.
Afterwards to the bully who lay on the sand sobbing with rage and pain,
he gave curt orders. “You’ll go back to town and not show up at the
wagon to-night. To-morrow you’ll tell Mrs. Dodson you had a fight.
You’ll not tell her who with or what it was about. If you ever lay a
hand on her again or on Vicky, I’ll break every bone in your body.
Understand?”
The beaten man gulped out what might be taken for an assent.
Scot turned away, sick at heart. Already he questioned the wisdom of
what he had done.
CHAPTER VIII
SCOT OFFERS HEALTH HINTS
A Washoe zephyr was playing impish tricks in Virginia City. It screamed
down the side of Mt. Davidson in a gale of laughter, filling the air
with the white powder of alkali dust. It snatched hats from unwary heads
and sent them flying into the cleft cañon below which led through the
hills to the sage desert. It swooped up a dog on A Street and dropped
the yelping cur down the chimney of a shack on B Street. Boards were
ripped from fences and sucked straight into the air for fifty feet. A
basket of duck eggs took premature flight from a farmer’s wagon, sailed
through the window of a barber shop, and gave a customer in the chair a
free egg shampoo. The wind came in ribald gusts, tremendous, filled with
jeering howls.
About Virginia City there have been many disputes, but nobody who lived
there in the ’sixties ever denied that it was the windiest spot on
earth. The town slanted like a steep roof, each street a terrace. During
the zephyrs all sorts of possessions came rolling downhill like
tumbleweeds. They ranged in size from a spool of thread to the roof of a
house.
Scot McClintock, working his way along B Street, took refuge in a
hurdy-gurdy[7] near Union. The noise of a piano, of fiddles, of stamping
feet, filled the hall. The place was flooded with light from kerosene
lamps set in candelabras with crystal pendants. At one side of the room
was the inevitable bar.
-----
[7] An unusual feature of Virginia City was the hurdy-gurdy house. In
the early days it was quite respectable, at least from the Western point
of view. The girls were generally Germans. Their business was to dance
with the miners and to lead them afterwards to the bar for a drink. Most
of the girls saved their money to send home to their parents overseas.
Serious-minded young women, they often married well and happily. Later,
these houses degenerated.—W. M. R.
-----
A blonde young woman of Teutonic descent joined Scot. “Would you like to
dance, Mr. McClintock?” she asked deferentially.
“Not to-night, thank you,” he answered with the grave respect he gave
all women.
His glance swept the hall, was arrested at a small group near the
farther end of the bar. The central figure of it was a huge
rough-bearded man with long hair flowing to his shoulders. He wore an
army overcoat, dusty boots, and Mexican spurs.
The girl’s eyes gave a signal of alarm. She had forgotten for the moment
about the affair between the McClintocks and Sam Dutch.
“First time he’s been down,” she whispered. “He has not yet seen you
already. If you like—the door——”
Scot smiled grimly. He had a picture of himself slipping out of the door
to avoid Sam Dutch.
It was his temperament always to take the bull by the horns. He stepped
across the dance floor to the bar, and stood at the elbow of the
desperado.
Dutch, clinking glasses with a girl, looked round to see his enemy
before him. He was taken at a disadvantage. Was this a trap set for him?
If he made a move would the younger McClintock or some other ally of the
gambler fill him full of slugs? Nervously his eyes stole round the big
room. They came back to the clean, straight figure standing in front of
him.
“No place for you, Dutch,” the faro dealer said curtly. “Not good for
your health. You’ve got a weak heart, you know. It’s likely to stop
working altogether if you’re not careful of yourself. Go
home—now—right away—and stay there till the stage leaves. This is an
unhealthy altitude for you. Try Aurora or Dayton.”
The bad man moistened his dry lips with his tongue. Tiny beads of
moisture stood out on his forehead. He had come to the parting of the
ways and knew it. If he let this man drive him from the house he could
never hold up his head in Virginia again. His reign as chief would be
ended here. Should he take a chance and draw? He had killed many men.
This gambler, so far as he knew, had never got one. Why not now? This
very instant. It would all be over in a flash.
And yet—he could not do it. With McClintock’s cold and steely stare in
his he could not drop the glass from his hand and reach for a revolver.
The wills of the two clashed, fought out the battle, and the stronger
won.
The gaze of the killer fell away and slid round the hall in a furtive
search for help. It found none. He was playing a lone hand. The way out
must be one of his own choosing. Of all these men and women who watched
this crisis so tensely not one but would be glad to see him blotted out
of existence. His hand was against every man’s. That was the penalty he
paid for his reputation.
Again his tongue went out to moisten dry lips.
“I—I reckon you’re right,” he heard himself say huskily. “I ain’t
feelin’ good yet. Fact is, I’m still a sick man. Mebbe I better go home.
I was thinkin’ thataway myself before you came in.”
“Keep right on thinking it. Think yourself out of Virginia inside of
twenty-four hours,” ordered Scot implacably.
Dutch drained the glass and put it down shakily on the bar. He laughed
with attempted bravado and swaggered to the door. There he turned.
“Meet up with you again one o’ these days, Mr. McClintock,” he said, his
voice and manner a threat.
Scot said nothing. Not for an instant did his unwavering eyes release
the man till the door had shut behind him. Then, quickly, disregarding
the hands of congratulation thrust at him, he pushed through the crowd
and passed from the rear of the building. He had no intention of letting
himself be a target for a shot through the window.
The discredited killer did not leave by stage. He went out in a private
buckboard to Carson, from whence he drifted to the new camp Aurora,
already the largest town in that section of Nevada. His self-esteem and
public repute, shaken by the showdown in the hurdy-gurdy house, were
shortly restored by a rencontre with another bad man. He shot his victim
in the stomach while they were drinking together, after which he was
cock of the walk at Aurora.
CHAPTER IX
SCOT TALKS ON MOTHER LOVE
The weeks passed, became months. Spring browned to summer and summer
crisped to autumn. Hugh and Scot saw nothing of each other. The younger
brother had given up riding and joined a gold rush to a new camp; the
older was still dealing faro at the Crystal Palace.
The Dodsons were yet camped on the outskirts of Virginia. The man of the
family spent most of his time hanging around saloons and dance halls.
Rarely he did a day’s work. Usually he secured food and drink for
himself by acting as janitor at some of the places which he frequented.
For weeks at a time his wife never saw him.
Scot McClintock no longer visited the dugout beside the prairie
schooner. The last time he had seen Mollie Dodson was the day when he
had thrashed the bully to whom she was married. He did his kindnesses by
proxy now. The missionary from Buffalo, New York, Calvin Baird by name,
was his deputy in supplying the needs of the Dodson family. Sometimes
Vicky reported to him, but he saw very little even of her.
Then, one day, Vicky came to him at the International Hotel, where he
lived, and sent up word that she wanted to see him. Scot came down and
found the face of his little friend wan and tear-stained.
“What’s wrong, Vicky?” he asked, slipping his arm round her shoulder.
She began to sob, and through her broken words he gathered the story.
Dodson had come home drunk while his wife was getting a bucket of water,
had flung himself on the bed without seeing the baby, and had fallen at
once into heavy stertorous slumber. When Mollie got back the child was
dead, smothered by her own father.
Scot borrowed a horse and rode out at once to the camp. Dodson had
temporarily disappeared, frightened at the horrible thing he had done.
The accident had taken place twelve hours earlier, and the tears of the
mother were for the moment spent. She was dry-eyed and wan, in that deep
despair which is beyond expression, almost beyond feeling. With a
tenderness that set flowing in Scot a wild river of sympathy she drew
back the cotton handkerchief that covered the baby face. For an instant
his heart beat fast. Except for the pallor Virginia looked so natural
she might have been asleep. He half-expected to see the lashes tremble
and the blue eyes open.
McClintock took on himself all the arrangements for the funeral. He
dragged Dodson out of a grog shop, soused his head in a horse trough,
and when he became sober saw that he remained so until the burial.
The day after the interment Scot called on Mrs. Dodson. Her husband was
not at the camp.
Presently he came plump to the purpose of his visit. He was never a
spendthrift of words.
“What are you and Vicky going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the bereaved mother answered listlessly. “Vicky ought
not to stay here. It’s not right. But I’ve no place to send her.”
“Mr. Stewart and I have discussed that. We’ve talked with some of the
business men of the town. If you’re willing we’ll divert the baby’s fund
to Vicky and send her down to Miss Clapp’s school at Carson. She’ll be
well taken care of there. Miss Clapp is a fine woman. Does it seem to
you a good idea?”
Tears brimmed to her eyes. “You’re good. I can never repay you. I—I’ll
be awf’lly lonesome without her, but if you think it best——”
“It’s not what I think but what you think,” he said gently.
“Could I see her sometimes?”
“As often as you like. She would spend her vacations with you, of
course.”
The lump in her throat began to ache again. Her gaze travelled beyond
the cañon below, across the Twenty-Six Mile Desert and the Forty Mile
Desert to the Pine Nut Mountains. There it rested for a long time. She
drew in her breath with a deep ragged sigh that was almost a sob. “She’d
better go. This is no life for a little girl. I want her to have a
chance to—to—be happy and live with good people.”
“Is it any life for a young woman to lead?” he asked, his blue eyes
fixed steadily on her.
A faint flag of colour fluttered in her wan cheeks. He had never before
broken down the outposts of her reserve. She felt her pulse beating. His
impersonal friendliness had suddenly become a close and vital thing.
“Why speak of that? I made my choice years ago,” she said. She thought,
but did not say, that the hard and bitter facts of existence cannot be
talked away. They are as immovable as the Sierras.
“We have to make fresh choices every day,” he told her. “Do you think
your life can go on now the same as it did before? It can’t. There’s a
gulf between you and—him. Have you any hope that it can be bridged?”
“No.”
“Or that you can do him any good by staying with him?”
“No.”
“Then why should you make deliberate shipwreck of your life—or let him
do it for you? Just now you don’t care what becomes of you. But you have
to keep on the best you can.”
He spoke quietly, his words unstressed, but just for a flash she caught
in his eyes an expression that told her his emotions were a banked
volcano. Mollie found herself trembling.
“No—no. I married him, for better or worse. I’ll stay with him.”
“Can you stay with him when he doesn’t want you, when he won’t stay with
you?”
“Perhaps he’ll change,” she murmured.
The knuckles of his clenched hand were bloodless, she noticed.
“Men of his age don’t change. They’re what they have made themselves.
They can’t be anything else. Would you waste your life on such an
impossible chance? Don’t do it. Begin again.”
“How?” she asked.
“There’s work at Virginia for a hundred women. You can mend clothes or
cook or keep boarders—anything for a start. Afterwards——” He let the
future take care of itself.
In spite of her dependence Mollie had a capacity for dumb resistance.
Scot left her knowing that he had the empty victory of having convinced
her judgment but not the deep instinct in her born of habit and
tradition.
He walked down the grade past dugouts, shanties, and lean-tos.
Occasionally he could hear the blast of dynamite. He passed bull teams
hauling hay from the Truckee Meadows, the drivers cracking long-lashed
whips with short hickory handles. Freight outfits, wood haulers, and ore
wagons filled the road. Everywhere was the bustle and activity that go
with the early years of a new and prosperous mining camp. He was aware
of it all only subconsciously, for his mind was filled with thoughts of
the woman he had just left.
A medley of voices, a whirl of excited men, roused him from reflection
as he reached the end of the business part of town. Just now he was not
looking for crowds. He turned to make the climb to A Street when a voice
hailed him.
“Just in time, Scot. We’re aimin’ to hang Dodson. Come on, old scout.”
McClintock stood rooted. Here was an easy way for Mollie out of her
troubles. All he had to do was to keep on walking up hill and the matter
would settle itself. It was none of his business. If Virginia City had
had enough of the ne’er-do-well the matter was one for it to pass upon.
The fellow was not worth a short bit anyhow. Scot’s judgment was that he
was better dead.
None the less he found it impossible to keep on up the hill. He walked
toward the mob and pushed a way through with his broad shoulders to the
cowering wretch with the rope around his neck.
Dodson sank down and clung to McClintock’s knees. “Save me,” he begged,
his face ashen gray.
“What’s he done?” asked Scot of the man who seemed to be the leader.
“You know what the drunken bummer did—killed his own baby. Then when
Jerry Mulligan told him what for an hour ago he stuck a knife in him.”
“Is Jerry dead?”
“No. Not yet. Doc says maybe he’ll die.”
“Jerry have a six-shooter out?”
“No.”
“He was gonna attack me. It was self-defence,” the grovelling man
pleaded.
One of the crowd spoke: “This Dodson’s bad—bad clear to the bottom of
his heart. He’s been talkin’ about his wife to make excuses for what he
did.”
“Let’s wait, boys,” Scot said. “Maybe Jerry will pull through.”
“No, let’s finish the job, Scot. This fellow’s no good, anyhow. You know
it. So do we.” Jean Poulette, the owner of a gambling house, pushed to
the front.
“I’m not thinking about him, Jean. I’m thinking about that little mother
in the prairie schooner. She’s got trouble enough already, hasn’t she?
Do you want to pile on more—to send her through life marked as the wife
of a man that was hanged? Ain’t that rather rough on her, boys?”
“She’ll be well rid of him,” a voice cried.
“Sure,” agreed McClintock. “But not that way. I don’t say this drunken
loafer is worth saving. But we can’t hang him without striking a blow at
her. She’s sensitive, boys. It would hurt her ’way down deep.”
“Sho! Tha’s foolishness, Scot. It’d be a li’l shock at first maybe, but
afterwards she’d just naturally be plumb pleased. Any of us would in her
place.”
“Say, who started this gabfest?” demanded the man holding the other end
of the rope that had been slipped over Dodson’s head. “Let’s hustle this
job through. I got a man to meet right soon.”
McClintock met him eye to eye. “You can go meet him right now,
Six-Fingered Pete. The hanging’s off.”
“Who says it’s off?” blustered Pete.
“I say so.” Scot spoke quietly, his voice low and clear.
“Someone elect you judge and jury, Scot?” asked Poulette.
“Sorry to interfere, boys. I’ve just come in from seeing Mrs. Dodson.
She’s all broke up about the baby. You wouldn’t want to make things
harder for her. It doesn’t matter a billy-be-damn whether this fellow
lives or dies. Nobody cares about him. He’s nothing. We’ll hold him till
we see how Jerry comes out—just stick him in the calaboose.”
If Scot was a dominating figure in the life of the camp it was not
because men walked in fear of him. He never looked for trouble or
avoided it. He never used his splendid strength and courage to bully
those weaker than himself. Even old Tom Todd, the Negro roustabout who
was the butt of the camp jokes, always met with respect from the dealer
at the Crystal. His influence was born of liking and admiration. It
maintained itself without effort on his part because he had the
qualities of leadership.
It was a part of his gift that he made men want to follow the path he
took. He usually knew exactly in what direction he wanted to go, but he
never hectored or was overbearing.
Poulette felt within himself a response to Scot’s warm appealing smile,
but he was ashamed to make a direct face about. “Might as well go
through now. You can’t ever do justice without hurtin’ some woman
somewhere.”
“An’ this bummer ce’tainly is ripe for a rope,” added Pete.
“I wouldn’t lift a hand for him,” Scot answered. “I’m still thinking of
that mother’s aching heart, boys. Not one of us here was ever good
enough to his mother. We’re a hard, tough lot. We’ve travelled a heap of
crooked trails since we were kids at our mothers’ knees. Pete, you
hard-boiled old sinner, I met your mother in Sacramento last year, and
that little lady began to tell me about what a good boy you’ve always
been to her, how you send her money now, and how when you were a
freckled runt of a ten-year-old——”
Red as a beet, Pete interrupted roughly: “Oh, hire a hall, Scot.”
McClintock pushed his advantage home. The theme of his talk was mother
love. These big, overgrown boys reacted to it because each one of them
had enshrined in his own heart the memory of a mother he had many times
hurt and often neglected. The point Scot made was that they could now
pay part of the debt they owed their own mothers. It scored heavily.
“I reckon Scot’s right,” someone spoke up. “If it’s gonna worry the lady
any, might as well postpone the necktie party.”
Mobs are fickle and unstable of purpose. This one’s mind began to veer.
Inside of five minutes Scot had the members of the lynching party
moulded to his view. They had no desire whatever to hang the poltroon
who had stabbed their friend, or, at least, the desire was subordinated
to a more imperative one.
The rescued man tried to whine out a blend of thanks and justification
to the gambler.
Scot looked him over scornfully and turned on his heel without a word.
CHAPTER X
TILL TAPPING
The loyalty Mollie had cherished to her early ideal of marriage burned
low for lack of fuel to feed upon. Her husband had practically deserted
her. When he returned to camp it was to bully money out of her or to get
some of their small store of belongings to sell. In the intervals she
might starve for all he cared.
There came a day when she definitely broke with her past life. She moved
into town and opened a small shop where she sold home-cooked food to
miners eager to buy her cakes, cookies, pies, and doughnuts. She called
her place the Back Home Kitchen, and she did a thriving business. The
members of the fire companies patronized the store a great deal, and
since they ran to a large extent the political and social life of
Virginia City, as they had done in San Francisco a few years earlier,
her shop became so much the vogue that she had to employ a Chinese
assistant to help with the cooking.
Scot watched the venture but offered no advice. He had, in fact, not
spoken to Mollie since the day after the funeral. Vicky had been taken
to Carson by Hank Monk on the stage and was writing back badly spelled
but enthusiastic letters to her sister. The cards had been re-shuffled,
McClintock told himself, and he was no longer sitting in at the game.
Meanwhile, the new camps of Nevada went their humorous, turbulent, and
homicidal way. Men grew wild over prospects that never had a chance to
become real mines. They worked on croppings, sold and bought feet in a
thousand prospects, struck it rich, went stony broke again within the
month. They were in bonanza or in borrasca[8], and in either case kept
their grins working. They lived in brush tents, sack tents, or dugouts,
and the hard conditions never disturbed their happy-go-lucky optimism.
-----
[8] The Mexicans used to say that a mine was in bonanza when its
production was high, and in borrasca before the vein was struck or after
it had pinched out. With the adoption of the terms by Americans, the
words took on a more general application. A bonanza was then any highly
profitable venture; a borrasca was the reverse.—W. M. R.
-----
They shared their last pot of beans with a stranger and were gaily
confident that to-morrow they would strike a pick into the glory hole.
The saving grace of American humour salted all their adventures. The law
in particular, when it made its belated appearance, was a merry jest.
Those who dispensed it and those who dispensed with it enjoyed the joke
alike.
Two women in Carson quarrelled over a cow. One accused the other of
milking it secretly. The jury decided that the defendant was guilty of
milking the cow in the second degree. A man in Virginia City was haled
before the court charged with drunkenness, which in Nevada was held to
be a right guaranteed a man by the Constitution. The constable Mike
whispered to the justice that the arrested man had one hundred dollars
on his person. “Are youse guilty?” the judge demanded. The defendant
said he was not. “You know domn well yez are. I fine yez a hundred
dollars, fifty for me an’ fifty for Mike,” the Court passed judgment.
Sometimes the laugh was on the Court, as in the case of a justice, very
hazy as to his powers and duties, who conducted the preliminary hearing
of a man charged with murder. He listened to the evidence till he was
satisfied, then announced his decision. “I find you guilty and sentence
you to be hanged at ten o’clock to-morrow. The constable will bring the
prisoner and a rope.”
Even the homicidal mania of those who lived by their wits had its
momentary gleams of dreadful humour. Scot drifted into a barber shop one
day and found El Dorado Johnnie having his hair curled. The youth in the
chair was dressed in new clothes. His boots had been polished. He was
shaved and perfumed.
“Going to your wedding, Johnnie?” the faro dealer asked.
“No, sir,” replied the other. “‘Farmer’ Peel has give out that he’s
gunnin’ for me. If I’m elected as the corpse I want to look nice.”
It turned out that Johnnie’s forethought was wise. “Farmer” Peel shot
quicker and straighter than he did. Peel, who had come from Salt Lake
with a record of several killings, was arrested for having made a
disturbance. He was fined and released on his own recognizance to go and
raise the money. “Farmer” Peel sober was a pleasant, mild young fellow
who wanted to be at peace with the world, but Peel drunk was a demon.
Before he raised the money to pay his fine, he visited several saloons
and had a change of heart. Back he went to the court, caught the justice
by the beard, and mopped that dignitary all over the floor. Nobody
intervened, for the drunken man was dangerous. The justice, released at
last, had to be removed to the hospital for repairs. Virginia City
merely grinned. Judge or no judge, every man had to play his own hand.
Offences against property were considered more serious than those
against life. In some camps hired desperadoes jumped claims. Hold-ups
were of frequent occurrence, and every few days a stage robbery was
reported. Nevada was too busy developing the newly discovered ore veins
to pay much attention to these excrescences from the normal.
In this rough, crude society Mollie moved with as much safety as she
could have done in a staid New England village. No ruffian could have
molested her without the danger of being lynched. The only man who
annoyed her was the one whose name she bore. When he discovered how well
she was doing financially Dodson began to hang around the Back Home to
bleed its mistress of what she earned.
Mollie was an easy victim. She never had been one to stand up for her
own rights. She fought only feebly and without success to protect
herself. Every day or two Dodson robbed the till.
He boasted of it to his cronies when he was half seas over. To Scot, who
was keeping an eye on him in expectation of just such a possibility, the
news was promptly carried. He learned that the man paid his visits to
the Back Home in the evening.
Two days later Dodson knocked at the door of the shop and was admitted.
He slouched forward to the counter and leered at the girl he had
promised to love and protect.
“Come through, old woman.”
“I can’t. There’s just enough for the rent,” she pleaded.
“You’re holdin’ out on me. Tha’s what you’re doin’. I won’t stand
it—not a minute.”
His eyes were glazed. He thrust his bullet head forward threateningly.
Mollie recognized the signs of the abusive stage of intoxication.
Presently he would begin to beat her if she opposed him. But she was
desperate. She could not let him take the rent money.
“You can’t have it. That’s all there’s to it. You just can’t have it,”
she cried.
Mollie flew to the till as the man came round the counter. She was
between him and the money. He tried to thrust her to one side, but the
space was narrow. For a few seconds he tugged at her in vain. Then his
temper leaped out. He struck her again and again while she tried to
shield herself from the blows.
Neither of them heard the door open or saw a man step into the room.
Neither of them saw him take the counter in one flying leap. An arm
reached out and plucked Dodson from his victim. It hurled him back
against the wall, where he struck with great force, hung for a moment,
and dropped limply to the floor.
Mollie lifted her eyes to those of Scot McClintock and into the white
face came two flaming flowers. For in the eyes that burned down into
hers she read that which brought a burst of music into her heart. She
had fought against this—oh, how she had schooled herself to deny it!
But with his strong arms round her, his heart beating against her own,
what was the use of pretending any longer? Her supple body made a little
motion of nestling closer. She began to sob quietly.
“He—he——”
Scot brushed her explanation aside. “Forget him. He’s out of your life.
It’s you and I now. I kept away. I gave him his chance. I gave you yours
to go it alone. That’s ended. I’m going to take care of you now.”
He lifted her flushed face and kissed it.
That kiss stirred to life all the Puritan blood of Mollie, the racial
inheritance from a rock-ribbed ancestry. She pushed him from her with
all the force of a despairing energy.
“No . . . no . . . no!” she cried, and fled to the room back of the
shop.
She was afraid of his passionate tenderness for her, but she was afraid,
too, of the deep yearning of her whole being for the love he offered.
In the days that followed Scot McClintock fought the fight of his life.
He had always prided himself that he was master of his desires. When he
yielded to self-indulgence it was because he chose to follow for a time
the path of dalliance. But this keen-edged longing for the woman he
loved flooded his being, swept over him like great waves over a bather
in the surf. It set him fifty times pacing the floor, to and fro, to and
fro. For the first time in his life he learned that he had nerves. There
was a passionate urge in him to take what he wanted. He could make her
happy in spite of all the tongues that would clack, in spite of cynical
smiles and hard unforgiveness on the part of the world.
But could he? Would his love be enough to insure Mollie’s happiness if
he overbore her scruples? He knew it would not. There was in her a
something fine and flowerlike that blossomed shyly through all the
sordid impedimenta of her life. If he snatched at her, as a child does
at a rose, the fragrant beauty of her would be crushed and lost.
Yet Scot knew that it was the best of him that wanted her. This was the
real thing that had come to him at last. Love had penetrated the folly
and waste of his life. Its rapier thrust had pushed through the conceits
of manner and dress in which he had wrapped himself. It called to the
simple elemental manhood in him.
He knew how his world would take it if he eloped with Mollie. His old
father, Alexander McClintock, a Bible-reading Presbyterian of granitic
faith, would cast him off with a gesture worthy of the ancient prophets.
Hugh would be hurt and shocked, but he would not give him up. Virginia
City would be interested but not outraged, for the town had by this time
become accustomed to unexpected shifts in marital relations. The legal
divorce had not yet reached Nevada, but a simple substitute for it was
not infrequent. Many young women who had come from the East by way of
the Overland Trail had found the long desert trip destructive of romance
and had deserted their rough and weatherworn husbands for more devoted
and attractive lovers. In Mollie’s case the camp would find extenuating
circumstances. Dodson was a ne’er-do-well of a particularly despicable
type. He was a shiftless, wife-beating drunkard. It had not been his
fault that Jerry Mulligan had persisted in recovering from the knife
thrust in his side. Moreover, Scot was known to be no Lothario. The
general verdict would be that it was nobody’s affair but that of the
principals. If Dodson felt aggrieved he could always appeal to Judge
Colt as a court of last resort.
Yes, but Scot had to think of Mollie herself—of Mollie into whose
cheeks he could send the delicate colour flying, whose pulses he could
set beating with a burst of music in her heart. The thought of her
drenched him with despair. How could he protect her if he remained a
stranger in her life? Yet if he broke the code with her he would be
saving her from distress only to plunge her into greater trouble.
CHAPTER XI
“TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO GET OUT”
Hugh wrote Scot from Aurora, where the boy was filling a wood contract.
He proposed that Scot join him in the new camp. The older brother
declined. He could not leave the neighbourhood of Mollie till he was
assured she had the strength to manage her own affairs. He had once told
her he meant to be her big brother. At least he could be that.
Aurora was a gold camp in the first flush of its prosperity. The town
was built in a gulch, below which lie narrow, crooked cañons. The
history of the camp, in its essential aspects, parallels that of a dozen
others. Its first inhabitants were hard-working prospectors, prosaic
grubbers who respected each other’s rights and lent a kindly hand to the
neighbour in the next-door tent. But after the “glory hole” was struck
and the population began to climb came an influx of parasites—gamblers,
desperadoes, and road agents. A small percentage of the population, they
leavened the whole. Down Virgin Cañon, by stage or on horseback, came
John Daily, James Masterson, Sam Dutch, William Buckley, and John
McDowell, alias Three-Fingered Jack. They were the advance guard of a
hundred others of like mind, hard-visaged “man eaters” whose trigger
fingers always itched. They made Aurora sit up on its hind legs and
howl.
Two rival gangs operated, one from San Francisco, the other from
Sacramento. Between them they ran the town. There was a reign of
lawlessness. Juries were afraid to convict. Judges and sheriffs were
timid about pushing cases. Sam Dutch, king of the killers, boasted that
he was chief. He was suspicious of everybody and never sat except with
his back to a wall. In the evening he always saw that the curtains were
down. He was for ever watching for the inevitable hour when some other
bad man would challenge his supremacy and perhaps cut short his career.
This suspense increased his deadliness. He could not afford to wait for
an even break because he could not fathom an opponent’s mind and know
just when he might elect to draw steel. Wherefore, like the rest of his
kind, he killed unnecessarily without provocation. His theory was that
dead men are harmless.
When Hugh knew that Dutch was in town he prepared for the trouble he
foresaw. Every day he practised with his navy revolver when he was up in
the hills with his woodchoppers. Every night in his cabin he carefully
oiled and loaded the weapon. He, too, improvised curtains of gunny sacks
for the window. When he went down Main Street he had eyes in the back of
his head. For he knew that Dutch would assassinate him if possible.
Winter hangs on long at Aurora. There is no spring. The dry, torrid
summer with its parching heat follows on the heels of frost. When Hugh
arrived in June the cañons still held banked the winter snow. By the
middle of July the gulch was a bakeshop.
It was late afternoon one sultry day when Hugh walked down the crooked
business street of the town. He stopped in the shadow cast by the false
front of a store.
A dog up Virgin Gulch was howling monotonously. A long, lank man,
carelessly dressed, sat in a chair tilted back against the wall. One of
his heels was hooked in a rung of the chair.
“If I owned a half-interest in that dog,” he drawled lazily, “I believe
I’d kill my half.”
Hugh grinned and looked at the man. He had yellow hair, a great mop of
it, and twinkling eyes heavily thatched by overhanging brows. He learned
later that the man’s name was Sam Clemens. The world came to know him
better as Mark Twain.
A bearded miner who had come out of the store gave the remark his
attention. “You couldn’t do that, Sam,” he said at length. “If you did
that, don’t you see you’d kill the whole dog?”
Clemens looked at the miner. “Maybe you’re right. Anyhow, the other half
would be too sick to howl,” he said hopefully.
“If you owned the tail you could cut that off. Or if you owned one of
the ears, say,” explained the man with the beard. “I don’t reckon your
pardner could kick on that. But if you killed half the dog the rest of
it would sure die. Any one can see that, Sam. You sure made a fool
remark that time.”
“Yes, I can see now you’re right,” the lank man agreed. “I must be out
of my head. Probably the altitude.”[9]
-----
[9] Mark Twain afterwards made use of this in one of his books. A good
many bits of his humour can be traced to the days when he was a youth in
Nevada.—W. M. R.
-----
“O’ course you could buy the other fellow’s interest in the dog and then
kill it,” pursued the literal-minded one. “No objection to that, I
reckon.”
“Yes, I could do that—if someone would lend me the money. But I
wouldn’t, come to think of it.” Clemens brightened up till he was almost
cheerful. “I’d give the dog to you, Hank.”
Attracted by the lank stranger’s dry humour, Hugh reached for a
three-cornered stool and started to sit down. He changed his mind
abruptly. Out of a saloon next door, named the Glory Hole from Aurora’s
famous treasure lode, a big bearded man in an army coat came slouching.
It was the first time Hugh had seen Sam Dutch since their meeting at the
Crystal Palace.
The boy stood, slightly crouched, his right thumb hitched lightly in the
pocket of his trousers. Every nerve was taut as a fiddle string. The
eyes of McClintock, grown hard as quartz, did not waver a hair’s
breadth.
Dutch stood in front of the saloon a moment, uncertain which way to
turn. He came toward the little group before the store. Apparently he
was in arrears of sleep, for a cavernous yawn spread over and wrinkled
his face.
The yawn came suddenly to a period and left the man gaping, his mouth
ludicrously open. Evidently he was caught by complete surprise at sight
of young McClintock.
“You here!” he presently growled.
Hugh said nothing. There is strength in silence when accompanied by a
cold unwinking gaze.
Dutch made a mistake. He delivered an ultimatum.
“Twenty-four hours. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get out. If
you’re here then——” The threat needed no words to complete it.
Without lifting his eyes from the killer Hugh sidestepped to the middle
of the road. If bullets began to fly he had no desire to endanger the
bystanders.
“I’ll be here,” he said crisply. “If you feel that way, no use waiting
twenty-four hours. Come a-shootin’.”
McClintock had no wish to start trouble. If he had known that Dutch was
coming out of the Glory Hole he would have quietly absented himself. But
the other man had forced the issue. The boy knew that any proposal to
talk over the difficulty would have been regarded as a sign of weakness
and would have precipitated an attack. Wherefore he had flung out his
bold challenge.
The Chief of Main Street was startled. Some months since, this boy had
tossed a defiance in his teeth. Before he had had time to draw a weapon
two bullets had crashed into him. The psychology of a killer is
peculiar. Down in the bottom of his heart he is as full of superstitions
as a gambler. Dutch was no coward, though he fought like a wolf outside
of the code that governed more decent men. But he was not used to men
like the McClintocks. Other men, when he raved and threatened, spoke
humbly and tried to wheedle him back to good humour. In the very silence
with which these two faced him was something menacing and deadly that
paralyzed his fury.
“Not now. Give you twenty-four hours,” the big man snarled through his
beard. He used the fighting epithet, applying it to Scot McClintock.
“Like yore brother did me when I was feelin’ sick an’ triflin’ an’ all
stove up. Get out. Hit the trail on the jump. Or I’ll sure collect you,
kid or no kid.”
“You’re wasting time,” Hugh said quietly.
The killer raved. He cursed savagely. But he did not draw his
six-shooter. The man had his crafty reasons. This youngster was chain
lightning on the shoot. The evidence of this was scarred on the body of
Dutch. Moreover, he could probably take the boy at disadvantage
later—get him from behind or when he came into a room dazed from the
untempered light outside.
Spitting his warning, Dutch backed into the Glory Hole. “Not room for
you’n me here both. Twenty-four hours. You done heard me.”
The red-shirted miner Hank turned beaming on McClintock. He could
appreciate this, though Clemens’s humour was too much for him. “You
blamed li’l’ horn toad, if you didn’t call a bluff on Dutch and make it
stick.”
He used the same epithet that the desperado had just employed, but as it
fell from his lips the sting of it was gone. A few years later a senator
from the sagebrush state had occasion to explain away this expression on
the floor of the upper house of Congress. His version of it was that
this was a term of endearment in Nevada. Sometimes it was. Then, again,
sometimes it was not.
Hugh made no mistake. He had won the first brush, but he knew the real
battle was still to come.
CHAPTER XII
“GIT OUT DE WAY, OLE DAN TUCKER”
Hugh was no hero of romance, but a normal American youth whose education
from childhood had fitted him to meet the emergencies that might
confront him. The school of the frontier teaches self-reliance. Every
man must stand alone. He is judged by the way he assays after the acid
test of danger.
At the Crystal Palace Hugh had not been conscious of any fear. His
brother’s life had depended upon his coolness, the smooth efficiency
with which his nerves and muscles coördinated. Not until after the peril
was past had he felt any hysteria, and then only because he thought he
had killed a man.
The situation was different now. He had to meet alone the most notorious
man killer of Nevada, not when he was strung up for action by the clash
of a sudden encounter, but after a day and night of suspense in which
his imagination would play him unkind tricks and show him ghastly
visions. He saw pictures—horrible pictures in which Dutch loomed up a
huge apelike superman towering over him as a prostrate victim. He saw
himself playing the poltroon, dying, dead, every detail of the scene
sharp as the lines of an etching. The little boy in him—the child that
had for years been dormant—crept out and wailed with fear. Yet all the
time he wore a wooden face that told no tales to curious men who watched
him.
When at last he was alone Hugh did the wisest thing possible. He
borrowed a page instinctively from twentieth-century psychology not then
in vogue. He faced the fact that he was afraid, dragged his fears out
into the open, examined them, and jeered at them.
“What’s ailin’ you, Hugh McClintock?” he demanded of himself. “Ain’t you
got any sand in yore craw a-tall? Who’s Sam Dutch, anyhow? What if he
has got a dozen men? Didn’t he kill half of them when they weren’t
lookin’ for trouble? Didn’t he pick on four flushers who wouldn’t stand
the gaff? Say he is big as all outdoors. Easier to hit, ain’t he? What
do you care if he’s a wild man from Borneo and chews glass, like he
claims? All men are the same size when they get behind a Colt gun.”
He oiled his revolver while he fought out his fears aloud. “Whyfor
should Sam Dutch hang the Indian sign on you? He’s the same scalawag
they had to carry feet first outa the Crystal Palace after you got
through with him. He’s the same false alarm Scot ran outa Virginia not
so long ago. He should do the frettin’, not you.”
With the thought of Scot, courage flowed back into his heart. He knew
that somehow Scot would in his place face this fellow down or blot him
from the map. “Trouble with you is you’re scared, Hugh. But you’re goin’
through, ain’t you? Sure. You got to. Then buck up an’ throw the scare
into the other fellow.”
His mind stuck to that last thought. What were his brains for if he
could not make them more useful than the craft and brutishness of Sam
Dutch? His mind began to work out a practical plan of action. When he
arose from the bench where he sat cleaning the revolver his eyes were
bright and shining. The fear in him, which had for hours been lying like
a heavy weight on his subconscious mind, no longer repressed but frankly
admitted and examined, had now vanished into thin air.
As soon as it was dark Hugh slipped out of his shack and crept along the
side of the gulch toward Main Street. He stopped behind a cabin of
whipsawed lumber and edged forward to the back of it. The hut had one
room. Except the front door there was no way of entrance but by one of
the two windows. Hugh had no intention of entering. He was satisfied
that Dutch would not come home till late. Probably he would bring a
companion with him as a protection against the chance of being ambushed.
For five minutes Hugh worked at one window, then gave his attention to
the other. After this he stole back to the edge of the gulch and busied
himself among the branches of a little scrub tree which stood at the
point of intersection between a small gorge and the main gulch.
Hugh’s guess had been a good one. It was close to one o’clock in the
morning when Dutch returned to his cabin. With him was a companion whom
Hugh, lying huddled in the sage close to the cañon’s rising slope,
recognized as William Buckley, one of Sam’s boon toadies.
The man killer took no chances, at least no more than were necessary. It
was quite on the cards, as he understood the business of murder, that
his foe might lie in wait for him and shoot from ambush. He did not come
down the road, but by way of an alley that brought him to the rear of
his shanty. Quickly and stealthily the two men dodged inside. Once in,
Dutch bolted the door and pulled the window blinds. Before going to bed
he moved both cots so as to put them out of range of one who might crawl
up to either window and take a wild shot at the place where one of the
beds had been.
Dutch was slipping out of his long army coat when there came a gentle
tap—tap—tap at one of the windows. The big bulk of a man stood
crouched, eyes glaring, head thrust forward, every sense alert to meet
the danger which threatened. He slid out of the coat and dragged a
revolver from his hip.
Again there came a slow tap—tap—tap, this time on the opposite window.
With incredible swiftness Dutch whirled and fired. His gun was still
smoking when the tap—tap—tap, clear and measured, sounded a second
time at the first window. Straight at the sound the killer flung another
shot. He rushed to the window and drew back the sack used for a curtain.
There was nobody at the window either alive or dead, nor was it possible
for anybody to have slipped away in that second between the sound of the
tapping and the moment when Dutch had torn aside the sack.
As he stood there, frightened and bewildered, there came a sound that
turned his flesh to goose-quills. Down the wind was borne a sobbing
scream like the wail of a lost soul. Dutch knew that no human voice had
uttered that cry. It rose and fell, died down, broke out again, weird
and unearthly as a banshee’s whimper.
Tiny beads of perspiration stood out on the man’s forehead. His hands
shook. He had no thought but that his call from the world beyond had
come, and with the blood of a dozen men on his atrophied conscience he
yielded to the rising tide of terror in him.
The slow tap—tap—tap sounded a third time on the window.
The gun-fighter trembled. “Goddlemighty, Bill, I—I done got my call.”
Buckley felt none too comfortable himself, but he managed a laugh. “Sho,
Sam! Nothin’ but the wind.”
“The wind can’t tap on the window for me, can it? It can’t——”
The sentence died out, for a second time the ululation of that sobbing
shriek came faintly.
Dutch collapsed on a cot, covering his ears with his hands. The man was
of a low order of intelligence, as full of superstition as a plantation
Negro. His mind did not even seek for a rational explanation of the
phenomena that startled him. He was a coward of conscience. The clock
was striking twelve o’clock for him. He accepted that without debate.
With an uneasy glance at the window Buckley offered such sorry comfort
as he could. “The wind plays damn queer tricks, Sam. You buck up an’ get
a bottle out. We’ll play seven up for a spell.”
A high mocking laugh, thin and sinister, trembled out of the night as
though in answer to Buckley’s suggestion. The two men looked at each
other. Each read fear in the eyes facing his.
“It—that sounded like—like Al Morford the day I shot him,” gasped
Dutch, clutching at his companion’s sleeve. “He—he was laughin’ at me
when I drew on him and asked him where he’d have it.”
“You don’t want to get to thinkin’ about that now, Sam,” advised
Buckley, moistening his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. “Let’s hit
the grit back to the Glory Hole. We’ll feel better once we get outside
of a few drinks.”
“He—said he’d come back an’ ha’nt me,” whispered the man killer
abjectly. “Said it while they was takin’ his boots off, right before he
passed in his checks.”
“Al Morford’s been dead an’ buried for years,” said the other man
shakily. “Forget him. An’ le’s get outa here, sudden.”
Another wail soughed down from the gorge. Dutch shook like an aspen.
“I—I can’t go out—there.”
“You gonna stay here all night? I ain’t.” Buckley mopped the sweat from
his forehead and drew a revolver. He trod softly to the door, then
turned to his companion. “Come on, Sam.”
Buckley had no mind to take the night walk alone, nor had Dutch the
courage to stay without his ally. The big ruffian, his nerves a-quiver,
crept after the other man.
They slipped from the cabin toward the road. A gust of wind swept the
gulch, bringing with it a menacing jangle of horrible laughter. The
fugitives threw away the remnant of their pride and stumbled through the
sagebrush at a run. Their hearts were in their throats. When they looked
back it was with the expectation of seeing hobgoblins burst from the
chaparral in pursuit.
Presently Hugh McClintock stole up to the cabin and removed a tick-tack
from each of the shattered windows. He cut down from the scrub pine at
the mouth of the gorge a kind of æolian harp he had made out of violin
strings and a soap box. The wind, whistling through this, had given out
the weird wail which had shaken the nerves of Dutch. The falsetto
laughter had been an histrionic effort of Hugh’s own vocal cords. It
happened that just now his voice was changing.
The youngster went home to bed and to sleep. Meanwhile Dutch, to restore
his weakened self-esteem and courage, drank heavily through the night.
In the morning Hugh made his few preparations. He wrote a letter to his
father and another to Scot. He ate a good breakfast. He examined
carefully his revolver and a sawed-off shotgun loaded with slugs.
By way of back alleys he reached the Glory Hole and slipped through the
back entrance to a small table in the darkest corner of the saloon.
Except for the bartender Hugh was almost alone in the place. Two men,
their feet on the rail, were discussing the bonanza in Last Chance Hill.
They were comparing the merits of the Real Del Monte and the Wide West,
both of which mines were producing very rich ore. Occasionally somebody
else drifted in and out again.
The bartender looked curiously at the young fellow with the sawed-off
shotgun on the table in front of him. He was a little puzzled to know
what to do. He did not want to intrude in anybody’s private affairs, but
he did not want any trouble in the Glory Hole. Perhaps this youngster
was going hunting and had agreed to meet someone here.
The attendant drifted that way on pretense of wiping a table with a
towel.
“Serve you anything?” he asked casually.
“No, thanks.”
“Waitin’ for someone?”
“Yes.”
“Can I take care of the gun till yore friend gets here?”
“Thanks. It’s no trouble.”
“Live here?”
“Yes. Wood contract for the Real Del Monte.”
The young stranger’s manner was so matter of fact that the bartender’s
suspicions, not very strong, were lulled to rest. It was not likely,
anyhow, that this boy with the golden down on his cheeks could be
looking for trouble.
There came an irruption of patrons and the man with the apron became
busy. Then another group swept into the place. There were five of them.
In the van was Dutch. Hugh recognized Buckley, Daily, and Three-Fingered
Jack. They took noisily a table close to the one where Hugh sat.
Daily, about to sit down, gripped the back of his chair hard and stared
at the man behind the sawed-off shotgun. He did not take his seat.
Instead, out of one corner of his mouth, he dropped a word of warning to
Dutch. Then, as though moved by a careless impulse to speak to the
bartender, he sauntered to the front of the room.
Dutch slewed round his head and looked at Hugh. Neither of them spoke a
word. The killer was not drunk. He was in that depressed state of mind
which follows heavy drinking after the stimulus has died down. One
glance was enough to make clear to him his carelessness. By the crook of
a finger his foe could fill him full of buckshot.
The ticking of a clock behind the bar was the only sound in the room.
The gun-fighters with Dutch dared not rise to slip out of the line of
fire for fear McClintock might misunderstand the movement and blaze
away.
Hugh broke the silence. “If any of you gentlemen have business elsewhere
Mr. Dutch and I will excuse you.”
All of them, it appeared, had matters needing their attention. They
moved swiftly and without delay.
Dutch begged for his life. His ugly face was a yellowish-green from
fear. “I was jes’ a-foolin’, young fellow. I didn’t aim to hurt you
none. Only a li’l’ joke. Ole Sam don’t bear no grudge. Le’s be friends.”
The man with the shotgun said nothing. With the tip of his forefinger he
tapped slowly three times on the wooden top of the table.
The bad man gave a low moan of terror. He had no thought but that he had
come to the end of the passage. His brain was too paralyzed to permit
him to try to draw his revolver. Nemesis was facing him.
“Hands on the table,” ordered Hugh.
The big hands trembled up and fell there. Abjectly Dutch pleaded for the
mercy he had never given another man. He would leave camp. He would go
to Mexico. He would quit carrying a gun. Any terms demanded he would
meet.
Hugh sat in a corner with his back to the wall. He was protected by his
position from any attack except a frontal one, in case the companions of
Dutch moved to come to his rescue. They had, in point of fact, no such
intention. Though Dutch belonged to their gang, he had always been an
obnoxious bully. He was a quarrelsome, venomous fellow, and more than
once had knifed or shot those of his own crowd. Nobody liked him, least
of all those who had accepted him as leader.
Three-Fingered Jack leaned back with his elbows hitched on the bar and
grinned cynically as he listened to the whining of the huge ruffian.
“He claims to be a man-eater, Sam does,” he whispered to Daily. “Calls
himself Chief of Main Street. Fine. We’ll let him play his own hand. He
sure wouldn’t want us interferin’ against a kid. All night I’ve listened
to his brags about what all he’d do to this McClintock guy. Now I’m
waitin’ to see him do it.”
“What’s eatin’ the kid?” demanded Daily, also in a whisper. “Why don’t
he plug loose with the fireworks? You can’t monkey with Sam. First thing
he knows he won’t know a thing, that kid won’t. He’ll be a sure enough
corpus delinqui.”
But Hugh took no chances. He knew what he was waiting for. Thirty
minutes by the watch he held the desperado prisoner. When Dutch got
restless he tapped the table three times with his finger tip, and the
man began to sweat fear again. The big bully never knew at what moment
the boy might crook his finger.
“You’re goin’ on a journey,” Hugh explained at last. “You’re takin’ the
stage outa town. The Candelabria one is the first that leaves. So you’re
booked for a seat in it. And you’re not buyin’ a return trip ticket.
Understand?”
Dutch understood humbly and gratefully. His gratitude was not to this
fool of a boy whom he meant to destroy some day, but to the luck which
was bringing him alive out of the tightest hole he had ever been in.
Under orders from Hugh the bartender disarmed Dutch. Still covered by
the shotgun, the sullen dethroned chief climbed into the stage that was
about to leave.
From a saloon farther down the street a Negro’s mellow voice was lifted
in song:
“Ole Dan and I, we did fall out,
An’ what you t’ink it was about?
He tread on my corn an’ I kick him on de shin,
An’ dat’s de way dis row begin.
So git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to come to supper.”
A crowd had gathered on the street. It watched with eagerness the taming
of this bad man. In the old fighting West nobody was more despised than
a cowed “man-eater.” The good citizen who went about his business and
made no pretensions held the respect of the community. Not so the gunman
whose bluff had been called.
On the outskirts of the crowd a quiet man—he was Captain J. A. Palmer
and he had nerves of steel—took up the chorus of the song derisively.
Others began to hum it, at first timidly, then more boldly:
“Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to come to supper.”
Before the last verse the song was going with a whoop. Nearly everybody
present had sidestepped Dutch. Many had gone in fear of his vicious,
erratic temper. It was a great relief to see him humiliated and driven
away.
Dutch looked neither to the right nor to the left. He sat hunched in his
seat, head down and teeth clenched. At any moment the demonstration
might turn into a lynching bee now that Aurora had lost its fear of him.
The stage rolled away in a cloud of dust.
Hugh turned, to find himself facing Captain Palmer.
“Don’t you know better than to let Sam Dutch get away alive after you’ve
got the drop on him?” Palmer asked.
“I couldn’t kill him in cold blood.”
“Hmp! He’d have killed you that way, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes. But I’m no murderer.”
Palmer looked the youth over with a new respect. “Shoot straight?”
“I’m a pretty good shot.”
“Kill if you had to?”
“Yes.”
“Young fellow, I want you. What you doing now?”
“Wood contract.”
“Finish it. Then come see me. We want a shotgun messenger to ride with
the stage. Got to stop these hold-ups. Big pay and little work.”
Hugh smiled. “Guaranteed as a nice safe job, is it?”
“Safe as running Sam Dutch out of town,” Palmer answered, meeting the
smile with another.
Young McClintock shook his head. “Got another job waiting—one with
Uncle Sam.”
“Going to join the army?”
“Yes.”
The Captain nodded. “Good enough. Your country has first call. Go to it,
boy.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE “STRANGLERS”
A letter from Scot delayed Hugh for a time from carrying out his
intention of joining the army. The older brother wrote that he had been
offered a commission and was anxious to get to the front, but that
certain matters were just now keeping him in town. He did not mention
that he was waiting till Mollie closed out her little business and moved
to Carson, where she would be free of her husband’s interference.
The news that his brother was going into the army gave the boy a thrill.
He had given his ardent hero worship to Scot. He felt, as many others
did, too, that there were thwarted qualities of leadership in Scot that
might yet make of him a Broderick. Between him and a big future there
was no obstacle but the wilful wildness of the man. He had everything
that made for success except stability of purpose.
What a soldier he would be. What an officer under whom to serve! Scot
would make an ideal cavalry chief. Young McClintock wrote back at once
that he would join his brother whenever he was ready to leave. He
wanted, if possible, to serve in his company.
The departure of Sam Dutch from Aurora did not put an end to lawlessness
there, though it undoubtedly heartened the good people and prepared the
way for the drastic law-and-order programme which followed.
The Last Chance mines were producing amazingly. There seemed no end to
the riches in sight. Money was easy, and the rough element flocked to
the town from California and the other Nevada camps. The Sacramento and
San Francisco gangs ran wild and killed and maimed each other at will,
but so long as they let good citizens alone for the most part, no
efficient check was put upon them. The town went its busy, turbulent,
happy-go-lucky way. It sunk shafts, built business blocks, established a
company of home guards known as the Esmeralda Rangers, and in general
made preparations for a continued prosperity that was never to end. Two
daily newspapers supplied the eight thousand inhabitants with the news
of the world as it came in over the wire.
The ebb and flow of the tide of battle from the great centres where the
armies of Lee, Meade, Grant, Buell, and Bragg struggled reached this
far-off frontier and drew a line of cleavage between the fiery
Southerners and the steadfast Northerners who made up the population.
Nevada had been made a territory and the fight was on for statehood.
President Lincoln backed the party which demanded admission. The reasons
were both political and financial. Later, Abraham Lincoln said that
Nevada, through the treasures of gold and silver which it poured to the
national capital, had been worth a million men to the Union cause.
His wood contract finished, Hugh took temporarily a place with the
express company as shotgun messenger. The job was a very dangerous one.
Hold-ups were frequent, and the messenger did not get or expect an even
break. In the narrow twisting cañons below the town it was easy to lie
in ambush and surprise the stage as it carried bullion from the mines.
Hugh was lucky. His stage was “stuck up” once, but it chanced that no
bullion was on board. On another occasion he was wounded in an attempt
at robbery and left one of the bandits lying in the road with a load of
buckshot in him. His own wound was slight. People began to say that he
bore a charmed life. The boy’s reputation for gameness was growing.
Bob Howland, a nephew of the territorial governor, Nye, was city
marshal. He asked young McClintock to be his deputy.
“We’re going to clean up this town and I need help. You’ll sure have a
merry time.”
Hugh declined. “No, I’m going into the army right away, soon as I hear
from Scot. I’ll stick with the stage till then.”
Hugh had occasion next day to go into the Glory Hole to speak with a
man. He saw Bob Howland talking to the girl dealing faro. The marshal
walked across the floor and joined McClintock.
He was smiling. “Come outside,” he said quietly.
They strolled out together. “Jimmy Sayres was killed this morning by
Johnny Rogers,” Howland explained. “You know Rogers is working for
Johnson on his ranch at Smith’s Valley. Jimmy and a couple of other
bummers were passing through Wellington Station and picked up a good
saddle horse belonging to Johnson. Johnny buckled on his Colt’s navy and
hit the trail after them. Seems he caught up with them near Sweetwater
Station. They fired at him. He got busy right then, and Sayres quit
taking any interest in the proceedings. The other two thieves broke for
the willows. Johnny took the horse back with him. Good work, I say.”
“Sayres is one of the San Francisco gang. Isn’t that likely to make
trouble? The gang will be out for revenge.”
“Captain Palmer has served notice on them to lay off Johnny Rogers. If
they don’t we’ll organize a branch of the vigilantes, as they did at
Virginia not long since.”
“Then it’s a showdown?”
“It’s a showdown.”
It was observable that the gang began to draw together from that day.
Minor differences of opinion in its members were sunk in the common need
of a united front. Daily, Masterson, Buckley, Vance, McDowell, Carberry,
and their followers could be seen swaggering in groups. Their attitude
was defiant. It would not have surprised Aurora to learn any morning
that Palmer or Rogers had been shot down.
The vengeance of the gunmen fell instead on Johnson, the rancher who had
sent Rogers to get back the stolen horse. He was warned not to show his
face in Aurora. The ranchman disregarded the threat and came to town
each week to sell his produce. He made the trip once too often. His body
was found one morning lying in the street. During the night he had been
murdered.
Hugh was standing in front of the Novacovich building when he heard of
the killing. The man who told him whispered a word in his ear. Instantly
the express messenger walked to his cabin. He drew out a sawed-off shot
gun from beneath the bed and passed down Main Street to the Wingate
building.
Already forty or fifty men were present, the pick of the town. More were
pouring in every minute. Captain Palmer was the leader. As Hugh looked
from his cold stern face to those of the grim men about him he knew that
a day of judgment had come.
An organization of vigilantes was completed in a few minutes. There was
no debate, no appeal from the decision of the chair. These citizens
meant business. They were present to get results swiftly and
efficiently. The men were divided into companies with captains. One
group was sent to take charge of the Armoury, where the weapons of the
Esmeralda Rangers were kept.
Palmer checked off a list of gunmen to be arrested. This commission was
given to Hugh. He divided his company into groups and set about finding
the men whose names he had on the list.
Most of the desperadoes were taken completely by surprise. They were
captured in bed after being aroused from sleep. Hugh himself broke down
the door of Jack Daily’s room after the man had refused to open it.
The two faced each with a revolver in his hand. Daily saw other men at
the head of the stairs back of McClintock.
“What’s all this row about?” he asked.
“W. R. Johnson was killed in the night. You’re wanted, Jack,” the young
man answered.
“Killed, was he? Well, he had it comin’,” jeered the gunman. “You’ve
heard about the pitcher that went once too often to the well, I reckon.”
“We’ve heard about that pitcher, Jack. Have you?” asked Hugh
significantly.
Daily tried to carry things off with a swagger. “Been elected sheriff
overnight, young fellow, in place of Francis?”
“Just a deputy. Drop that gun.”
The desperado hesitated. Then, with a forced laugh, he tossed his
revolver upon the bed. “You’re feelin’ yore oats since Dutch showed a
yellow streak, McClintock.”
Buckley had escaped and the sheriff sent a posse after him. Two or three
men on the list were in hiding and could not at once be found, but the
gather in the net of the vigilantes was a large one. Later in the day
Buckley was brought to town. He had been found skulking in a prospect
hole.
There was a disposition at first on the part of some to let the
machinery of the law take its course rather than try the prisoners
before a people’s court. The leaders of the movement yielded to this
sentiment so far as to allow a preliminary hearing in the office of
Justice Moore.
At this hearing Vance, one of the gang whose name somehow had not been
included on the list, had the hardihood to appear. He blustered and
bullied, though he was warned to remain silent. Presently, just as he
was reaching for a revolver, one of the citizens’ posse wounded him in
the arm.
Captain Palmer, on behalf of the vigilantes, at once brushed aside the
formalities of the law and organized a people’s court. He did not intend
to let the guilty men intimidate the court that was to try them, nor to
permit them to escape by means of technicalities.
About a dozen men were tried. They were brought before the court and
examined separately. The evidence showed conclusively that Daily,
Buckley, Masterson, and McDonald had murdered Johnson. The four were
convicted and sentenced to be hanged as soon as the carpenters could
build a gallows. Carberry, known as “Irish Tom,” escaped the extreme
penalty by one vote. That deciding vote was cast by Hugh McClintock.
Carberry and his companions, shaky at the knees and with big lumps in
their throats, were dizzy with joy at the sentence of banishment passed
upon them. They would have emigrated to Timbuctoo to escape “the
stranglers,” as they called the vigilantes.
Someone—perhaps the sheriff, perhaps some friend of the condemned
men—wired Governor Nye for help to save the gunmen. The Governor sent a
telegram to his nephew. The wire read:
It is reported here that Aurora is in the hands of a mob. Do you
need any assistance?
Bob Howland sent a prompt message back. It read:
Everything quiet here. Four men will be hanged in fifteen
minutes.
The gallows had been built on the summit of the hill in the centre of
North Silver Street. There, before the people whose laws they had mocked
for so long, the four killers paid the penalty of their crimes.
Young McClintock, in charge of the company which guarded the gallows,
was bloodless to the lips. He felt faint and greatly distressed. There
was something horrible to him in this blotting out from life of men who
had no chance to make a fight for existence. If a word of his could have
saved them he would have said it instantly. But in his heart he knew the
sentence was just. It meant the triumph of law and order against
violence. Killers and gunmen would no longer dominate the camp and hold
it in bondage to fear. Honest citizens could go about their daily
business in security.
CHAPTER XIV
COLONEL McCLINTOCK AGREES WITH VICKY
The pink of apple blossoms was in Mollie’s cheeks, the flutter of a
covey of quails in her blood. At the least noise her startled heart
jumped. Sometimes it sang with a leaping joy beyond control. Again it
was drenched with a chill dread. The Confederacy had made its last grand
gesture at Appomattox. A million men and more were homeward bound. Scot
McClintock had written that to-day, on his way back to Virginia City
from the front, he would stop off at Carson for a few hours.
She was afraid to meet him. In the hour when they had talked over their
decision she had begged him never to see her again, to put her out of
his mind as though he had never met her. The fear lurked in the
hinterland of her mind that perhaps he had done this. He had been a
soldier, busy with the work given him to do, rising step by step by the
force of his personality. Was it likely he still cherished the wild
love, fruition of which had been denied them?
Mollie had always pushed far back into her secret consciousness the
sweet memories of Scot that had persisted. It had been a matter of duty.
Her code bound her to the view that she could not be the wife of one
man, though in name only, and at the same time love another even in the
secret recesses of her soul. Yet it was never hidden from her that she
loved Scot. No power within her could change that. All she could do was
to flog herself because of it.
And to-day he was coming back, covered with honour and glory. Was she
going to meet a stranger or the ardent friend who had brought colour
into her life?
Into the house burst a girl, shining in the radiance and clean strength
of her young teens. She was slim and straight and dark, and in her eager
face glowed a wonderful colour that came and went as the flame of her
emotions quickened or died. With a whirlwind rush of her supple body she
launched herself on her sister.
“Oh, Mollie—Mollie darling,” she cried. “It’s been the _longest_ time
since I saw you. What made you stay so long up in Virginia? And who did
you see there? Tell me all about _everything_.”
A soft flame beat into the older sister’s cheeks. Victoria’s enthusiasm
was always a tonic for her.
“I’ve had a letter from—from Colonel McClintock,” she said. “He expects
to pass through Carson this morning.”
Vicky hugged her again. “Oh, goody, goody! Three _whacking_ cheers for
our colonel.” It was characteristic of her speech that stressed words
stood out like telegraph poles on a railroad track.
“He’s not our colonel,” reproved Mollie gently.
“He’s mine,” answered Vicky. “Isn’t he my guardian? And doesn’t he send
me the _best_ present every Christmas? He likes you, too. Think I don’t
know, Sis?”
Mollie’s startled eyes fastened to those of Vicky. She was always being
surprised by the acute observation of this helter-skelter youngster. Of
course she couldn’t know, but——
“Why don’t you marry him, now you’ve got a divorce?” the child rushed on
with the ruthless innocence of her age.
The colour poured into Mollie’s cheeks. “How you talk!” she gasped.
“About things you know nothing about. He—Colonel McClintock—has been a
good friend to us. You mustn’t get foolish notions.”
“They’re _not_ foolish.” She had Mollie in her arms once more. “Why
don’t you marry him, dearest? I would. I’d snap him up. ’N him a
hero—decorated for bravery, like the _Enterprise_ said.”
Mollie’s eyes fell. “You mustn’t talk that way,” she breathed
tremulously. “You’re only a girl, and you don’t know anything about it.”
“But I just do,” triumphed Vicky. “You think you’d stand in his way or
_somep’n_ now he’s a big officer. Or you think——”
“I think your imagination is too active, dear,” Mollie countered drily.
“You haven’t the least reason to think there is anything but friendship
between me and Colonel McClintock.”
Vicky caught her by the shoulders. “Sister Mollie, can you tell me,
honest Injun, that you don’t love him?”
The gaze of Mollie wavered before the steady searching eyes of
inexorable youth.
“Or that he doesn’t care for you?” Vicky went on.
There was a mist of tears in Mollie’s eyes. “How do I know? I haven’t
seen him for years. Maybe he doesn’t—any longer——”
The girl protested vigorously. “Don’t you know him better’n that? Of
_course_ he does. You’ll see.”
The pent-up secret of Mollie’s heart came out tremulously. “I sent him
away. I told him to forget me. Men don’t remember always—like we women
do.”
Vicky took active charge of the campaign. “I’ll tell you what, Sister
Mollie. You put on that blue-print dress, the one with the flowered
pattern—an’ lemme fix your hair—an’ when you see him forget every
single thing except how glad you are to see him.”
Light-footed and swift, Vicky moved about the room making ready for the
transformation of her sister. She was a girl given at times to silences,
but just now she was voluble as a magpie. Her purpose was to divert
Mollie’s thoughts from herself for the present.
After the flowered dress had been donned and the soft thick hair
arranged to Vicky’s satisfaction, that young lady stood back and clapped
her hands. “Come into the parlour and look at the sweetest and prettiest
thing in Carson,” she cried, catching her sister’s hand and dragging her
forward. “If Colonel McClintock doesn’t think you’re _just dear_, it’ll
be because he’s gone blind.”
Mollie took one look in the glass, then caught at the sideboard to
steady herself. For a voice from the doorway answered Vicky’s prophecy.
“He does think so, just as he always has.”
Scot came across the room in three long strides and swept Mollie into
his arms. The breath of life flooded her cheeks and flung out a flag of
joy. Her soldier had come home from the wars. He still wanted her.
“You’ve heard,” she cried.
“That the courts have freed you. Of course.”
Mollie wept happy tears through which smiles struggled. Vicky, dominated
by a sense of delicacy, regretfully withdrew and left them to talk the
murmurous disjointed language of lovers that has come down from Adam and
Eve in the garden. Fifteen minutes later she poked her head back into
the room and coughed discreetly.
“Vicky, when can you have my girl ready?” Scot demanded.
“Ready for what?” she asked.
But she knew for what. Her face sparkled. The slim body wriggled with
excitement, as a happy, expectant puppy does.
“For the wedding, of course.”
“In twenty minutes,” answered Vicky promptly.
“Good. I met Father Marston at the Ormsby House when the stage came in.
I’ll be back in time.”
Mollie protested, blushing. She had no clothes. She did not think she
wanted to be married in such a hurry. Proper arrangements must be made.
Vicky and Scot brushed her excuses aside peremptorily.
In his blue uniform McClintock strode down the street, the sword still
swinging at his side. He knew where to find Father Marston, who was
chaplain of the legislature, now in special session.
Delavan Marston was a character. Rough and rugged, he struck straight
from the shoulder. His tastes and habits were liberal. He liked a good
cigar and a good glass of wine. Generally he was called Father Marston,
though he was a Protestant.
He rose, tall and gaunt, to open the assembly with prayer, just as Scot
came into the hall. The soldier listened to a remarkable petition. A
member of the legislature had been complaining because the chaplain’s
prayers were too long.
“And they don’t get practical results,” the member had added. “If they’d
make the rock in my tunnel any softer or the water in my ditch more
plentiful I’d favour ’em. But they look to me like a waste of time.”
A kind friend had reported the grumbler’s words to Marston. This morning
he made his petition short enough and direct enough.
“O Lord,” he prayed sonorously, “we ask Thee to remember in particular
one of our number. Make the rock in his tunnel as soft as his head and
the water in his ditch as plentiful as the whisky he daily drinks.
Amen.”
McClintock stopped the parson on his way out of the building.
Father Marston swept the handsome figure from head to foot with his grim
eyes. He was very fond of Scot McClintock, but he disapproved of many of
his actions. He was the only man alive except old Alexander McClintock
who dared tell him so.
“Colonel, that uniform is an honour to any living man. They tell me
you’ve not disgraced it in the army. That’s right. I’d expect you to be
a good soldier. But there are soldiers of peace, sir. They have their
battles to fight, too. Isn’t it about time you quit hellin’ around and
set this country round here a good example? Folks like and admire you.
The Lord knows why. They set a heap o’ store by you. They’ll be
disappointed if you go back to dealing faro.”
Scot gave him his frank disarming smile. “I’ll not disappoint them in
that particular way, Father. Hugh and I are going into business together
as soon as he is discharged from the army. Tell you-all about that
later. Right now I want you to marry me.”
“Who to?”
“To Mrs. Dodson.”
“A divorced woman.”
Scot met him eye to eye. “Yes, sir.”
“I don’t believe in divorces, Colonel.”
“There are divorces and divorces, Father. Do you know anything about
Robert Dodson and Mollie Dodson?”
“Know ’em both. She’s a good woman. The less said about him the better,
I reckon. Maybe she’s entitled to a good husband. Looks thataway to me.
I’ll marry you. If it’s a sin the Lord will have to charge it against
me. When do you want to be married?”
“Now. Soon as I can get a license. Meet you at her house in fifteen
minutes.”
“I’ll be there on time, sir.”
Father Marston was waiting when Scot reached the house with the license.
Vicky came into the parlour, slim and straight as a half-grown boy. She
drew her heels together and lifted a hand to her rebellious black hair.
“Colonel, I have to report that the bride is ready.”
To Vicky it seemed that all Mollie’s troubles would now melt in the warm
sunshine of happiness. She could not understand the reason for the
tremulous mist of tears in her sister’s soft eyes while she made the
responses. After the ceremony she flung herself into Mollie’s arms and
kissed her rapturously.
“I always wanted a sure enough prince for you, Mollie,” she whispered.
“And now you’ve got him. Don’t you dare not to be happy now.”
Mollie nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. She did not know whether
happiness was to be her portion or not. All she was sure of was that she
could walk through life beside the man she loved. And that, just now,
was all she asked.
CHAPTER XV
HUGH LEARNS OLD GRIMES IS STILL DEAD
Fortune picks her favourites strangely. While the McClintocks were away
at the war Robert Dodson, incompetent and worthless, developed from a
pauper to a millionaire. His was one of the sudden shifts of luck to
which Virginia City was becoming used.
Most men in the camp had a trunkful of mining stock picked up here and
there, a lot of it feet in wildcat concerns hawked about in exchange for
meal tickets, boots, shirts, liquor, and other supplies. This was
scattered so promiscuously that one could acquire reams of it without
giving much in actual value for it. Dodson’s rise to affluence was a
camp joke. It was said that he sold two bags of bones and a pile of
kindling for a million dollars. What he actually did was to swap his
ramshackle wagon and starving team for fifty feet in the Never Say Die,
twenty-five feet in the Gambler’s Luck, twenty in the Mollie Macrae, and
fifteen in the Road to China. He was given a quart of whisky to boot.
The trade was made while Dodson was drunk, and all his saloon cronies
chuckled over the way he had been sold. For all of these were stock
jobbing enterprises and nothing more. None of them were doing any
developing at all.
A mine adjacent to the Never Say Die and the Gambler’s Luck struck it
rich. There was a sympathetic boom in mines of surrounding territory.
The Never Say Die sank a shaft and ran a crosscut. This cut into a vein
that appeared to be a bonanza. Half seas over again, Dodson sold out his
interest in both prospects at the height of the boom. Within a week it
was known that the crosscut had run into only a small pocket.
Luck pursued Dodson. It would not let him alone. He took a flyer in
Ophir stock, and the Ophir soared. He invested in Crown Point and the
Belcher. Both were big winners.
Presently a younger brother of the new magnate appeared on the scene to
manage his interests. Ralph Dodson was a big athletic fellow with glossy
black hair and small black moustache. The dark eyes were keen and cold.
They roved a good deal, but it was noticeable that they came to pause
whenever they fell on a good-looking woman. He had a
hail-fellow-well-met manner, but there was something hard and icy in him
that frustrated his jollity.
The younger brother had a powerful influence over Robert Dodson. The man
pulled himself up and stopped drinking. He was of nature parsimonious,
and he hung on to his fortune in spite of the parasites who fawned on
him. Ralph’s cool business judgment was a factor in the rapid increase
of it.
Scot McClintock returned to civil life to find that the wastrel and
ne’er-do-well was an important figure in the community. He had the
responsibilities that go with wealth, and these always entail a certain
amount of public recognition. The bullet head of Robert Dodson might be
seen among the notables at the International Hotel. His shifty yellow
eyes looked down from the platform on various important occasions.
Both Scot and his brother had saved money. They had, too, a long credit
at the banks and among private friends. They went into freighting on an
extensive scale. They bought teams, increasing gradually the size of
their business. Ore and wood contracts were their specialties.
Dan De Quille has said that the Comstock is the tomb of the forests of
the Sierras. This is literally true. Already enough timber had been
buried in the Lode to build a city several times as large as San
Francisco was. The square-set system of timbering, invented by Philip
Deidesheimer, made it possible to develop the mines to a great depth in
spite of the tendency of the ground to cave. But this necessitated
hauling timber from a distance. The nearer slopes of the range were
already denuded.
Upon this need the McClintocks built their business. It prospered year
by year, for both members of the firm were shrewd and energetic.
Vicky had remained at school in Carson when Scot moved to Virginia City.
When she reached the age of sixteen Scot sent her to a young lady’s
seminary at San Francisco where she could have better advantages. For a
year she remained in the city at the Golden Gate.
It chanced that Hugh had not seen Vicky since the day when she first set
out for school at Carson years ago. Upon the occasions of her visits to
Mollie’s house he had been out of town on business. Once he had called
at Miss Clapp’s to see her, but Miss Victoria happened to be up King’s
Cañon gathering wild flowers.
“What’s she look like now?” Hugh asked Scot when he heard the girl was
returning from San Francisco. “Must be a right sizable little girl now,
I reckon. Last time I was in Sacramento I sent her a nigger toll. Here’s
the letter she wrote me. I’d think they’d teach her to spell better.”
Scot read the note.
Dere Mister Santa Claws,
I got the doll. Thank you very much for it. I like dolls. I am
lerning speling, reading, riting, gography, numbers, grammar,
and deportment. Deportment is when you say thanks to a kind
gentelman for giveing you a doll. We had bluebery pie for
dinner. Do you like bluebery pie? I do. Wel I must close for
this time your greatful little friend Victoria Lowell.
The older brother wiped a smile from his face as he looked at Hugh. The
note was like the little vixen who had written it. She was having her
fun with Hugh, who seemed to have forgotten that in the course of four
years children of Vicky’s sex have a habit of shooting up into young
ladies. A black doll! Well, Hugh had brought it on himself. Scot did not
intend to spoil sport. He told a part of the truth.
“She’s a pretty good match for the black doll herself—the blackest
little thing you ever saw. Hair flies wild. A good deal of long arms and
legs about her. Some whirlwind when she gets started.”
“Always was that,” Hugh said. “I can imagine how she looks. Blueberry
pie painted on her face when she wrote that letter probably.” He shifted
the conversation to business. “Are you going down to Piodie or do you
want me to go?”
Piodie was the newest camp in Nevada. Discovery of ore had just been
made and a stampede for the new diggings was on. They were said to be
very rich in both gold and silver. If this proved true, the handling of
freight to the new camp would be profitable.
“You go, Hugh. I don’t want to leave Mollie just now.”
In the mining country camps have their little day and cease to be. They
wallow in prosperity and never dream of the time when the coyote will
howl in their lonesome streets. A camp which “comes back” is as rare as
a pugilist who recovers a lost championship. Aurora’s star had set. The
live citizens were flitting, and the big mines were pulling their pumps.
The name on every tongue was Piodie.
“All right,” agreed Hugh. “I been wantin’ to have a look at that camp.”
“Take your time. No hurry. Look the ground over carefully. The business
will run right along while you’re away.”
“Hope Mollie gets along fine,” Hugh said awkwardly.
The young man was now a responsible member of a business firm which
handled a large trade. The days when he had ridden pony express, even
the ones when he had left the army with a sergeant’s stripes on his
sleeve, belonged to his adventurous past. Young as he was, Hugh served
on civic committees and attended board of trade banquets. In his heart
sometimes he rebelled. He did not look forward with eagerness to the day
when he would be a leading citizen with an equatorial paunch. The blood
of youth still sang in him a saga of untravelled trails.
Perhaps that was why he chose to ride to Piodie instead of taking a seat
beside “Pony” King on the stage. It was a day of the gods as he rode up
the Geiger Grade from B Street. His lungs drank in the rare air like
wine. The sky was crystal clear except for a long-drawn wisp of cloud
above the summit of Mt. Davidson. Below him a cañon cleft the hills, and
beyond its winding gorge was a glimpse of soft-toned desert through
which ran a gleaming silver ribbon edged with the green of cottonwood
foliage. Far away, at the horizon edge, were white mountain barriers,
the Sierras to the right, the Humboldt and the Pine Nut ranges to the
east.
It was noon when he reached Reno, the new town which had just changed
its name from End-of-the-Track. The Central Pacific, built the previous
year, had brought Reno into existence. It was still a little village. If
any one had predicted then that the day was coming when both Carson and
Virginia would be displaced in importance by the little railroad station
Reno, he would have been judged a poor guesser.
Hugh jogged along at the steady road gait which is neither quite a trot
nor a walk. The miles fell behind him hour after hour. The sun sank into
the hills and left behind it a great splash of crimson glory. This faded
to a soft violet, which in turn deepened to a lake of purple as the
evening shadows lengthened.
The traveller camped in the sage. He scooped out a hole in the soft sand
and built in it a fire of greasewood and brush. This he kept replenished
till it was full of live coals. He knew it would last till morning
without fresh fuel. Supper finished, he rolled up in his blanket and
found for a pillow the softest spot in the saddle.
His brain buzzed with thoughts of the old riding days when life had been
an adventure and not a humdrum business. Into his memory there sang
itself a chantey of the trail. He found himself now murmuring the words
drowsily:
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,
And looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would drift to that sweet by and by.
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll on.”
The tune of it followed in a rough way that of “My Bonnie Lies Over the
Ocean.” Stanza after stanza Hugh sang it softly, and each time as he
came to the chorus his brain was a little less active, his eyes a little
heavier.
“Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little—dogies—roll—on.”
He fell asleep with the words on his lips.
The gray of dawn was streaking the east when he awoke. After breakfast
he fell again into the jog-trot of travel. The sage hills slipped behind
him, and always there were others to replace the ones that had vanished.
The sun crept high and became a ball of fire in the sky. Dust in yellow
clouds, fine and penetrating, sifted over and into him. His eyes became
irritated with it and his throat caked.
It was late afternoon when he rode down through Piodie Cañon to the
flats where enterprising real estate agents were laying out suburbs of
the new camp. Hugh turned in at a feed corral and swung from the saddle
stiffly.
A familiar voice lifted itself in tuneless but cheerful song:
“He lived at peace with all mankind,
In friendship he was true;
His coat had pocket holes behind.
His pantaloons were blue.”
Hugh grinned. “The dawggoned old-timer. I ain’t seen him since I quit
ridin’,” he said aloud to himself.
“But poor old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortune’s frown;
He had a double-breasted vest,
The stripes ran up and down,”
continued the singer from the stable.
McClintock tiptoed forward and looked in. A man of Falstaffian girth was
oiling a set of harness.
“Ain’t old man Grimes wore out them blue pants yet?” asked Hugh,
dropping into the free-and-easy speech of his youth.
The fat man whirled. “Hell’s hinges! If it ain’t Kid McClintock. Where
did you drap from?” He fell on the young man and pounded him with his
hamlike fists. “Say, I’ll bet Byers’ll be plumb tickled to see you.”
“Byers here, too?”
“Sure as you’re a foot high. That damn railroad done run us outa
business. So we got this feed corral here. Didn’t you see the sign: Pony
Express Corral, Budd & Byers, Props?”
“You’re sure some prop, Jim. Don’t you reckon you’re most a pillar? By
jiminy, you been takin’ on flesh since I saw you.”
“Hmp! Nothin’ of the kind,” snorted Budd indignantly. “Shows what you
know. I been losin’ flesh, if you want the straight goods. Pillar,
shucks! If you had enough education to outfit a Piute you’d sabe that
‘Props.’ is short for Proprietors. It means we own this here place.”
Hugh registered intelligence. “Oh, I get you. Why, dad gum it, I’m a
prop, my own se’f. Freighting and Contracting, McClintock & McClintock,
Props.”
“Yes, I done heard you been keepin’ two jumps ahead of the wolf. I
reckon that’s why you come to a good town at last.” Budd’s body shook
with mirth like an immense jelly. This was his idea of repartee as was
repartee.
“_Is_ it a good camp?” asked Hugh seriously. “That’s what I came to find
out.”
“Kid, it’s a sockdolager. Them hills is full of silver. All you got to
do is to drive a pick in and find the ore.”
“That’s all you’ve got to do anywhere in these United States,” agreed
McClintock drily. “Question is, will you find it?”
Budd began to sputter with excitement. In the West it always has been
the first article of a man’s faith to believe in his town. One might
have slandered the fat man’s relatives and hoped to escape alive, but
for Piodie he would have fought at the drop of a hat.
“Why—why—doggone yore hide, kid, this camp’s got Virginia skinned four
ways from Sunday. It’s the best ever. Ore from the grass roots.
Everywhere—all ’round. Millions o’ tons of it.” He waved a fat hand
expansively as he warmed to his theme. “This here town is built in the
heart of nature’s storehouse, the mint where her auriferous deposits
were planted when the Sierras was a hole in the ground. Son, you tie up
to Piodie an’ you’ll sure do yorese’f proud.”
In the midst of his oration a small wiry man stepped unobtrusively into
the stable. Hugh deserted Budd to greet his partner.
Byers, always taciturn, broke a record and made a long speech. He said,
“Glad to see you.”
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE PIT OF NIGHT
Hugh strolled down Turkey Creek Avenue and lost himself in the crowd
which filled the walks and jostled its overflow into the road. Piodie
called itself a city, but it had as yet no street lights, no sewers, no
waterworks, no graded roads, and no sidewalks other than a few whipsawed
planks laid by private enterprise. It had, however, plenty of saloons,
dance halls, and gambling houses. These advertised their wares to the
world with a childlike candour, flinging shafts of light from windows
and open doors upon the muddy lane between the rows of buildings.
The night was alive with the jubilant and raucous gaiety of a young
mining camp. Pianos jingled and fiddles whined dance music to the
accompaniment of shuffling feet. The caller’s sing-song lifted above the
drone of voices.
“Alemane left. Right hand to yore pardner an’ grand right an’ left.
Swing yore pardners an’ promenade you know where.”
This was punctuated by loud and joyous whoops from a dancer who had been
imbibing not wisely but too well. Laughter, the rattle of chips, the
clink of glasses, the hum of inaudible words, all contributed to the
medley of sound rising into the starlit night.
McClintock weaved in and out, eyes and ears open to get a line on the
town. It was a live camp. So much was apparent at a glance. But how much
of this life was due to the money that had been brought here, how much
of it to the ore which had been taken out of the Piodie mines. He met
acquaintances, men he had known at Aurora and Virginia City. These
introduced him to others. From them he heard fabulous stories of
suddenly acquired wealth. Mike Holloway had bumped into a regular “glory
hole” to-day that would make him a millionaire. The Standard Union was
shipping ore assaying so much a ton that the amount had to be whispered.
Compared to this town, Aurora, Dayton, Gold Hill, and Eureka were built
on insignificant lodes. Hugh detected in much of this a note of
exaggeration, but he knew that at bottom there was a large sediment of
truth.
He went out again from the saloon where he had been gathering
information and joined the floating population outside. In sex it was
largely masculine. The feminine percentage was rouged and gaudily
dressed.
Without any plan he drifted down Turkey Creek Avenue enjoying the raw,
turbulent youth of the place. Two men were standing in the shadow of an
unlighted building as he passed. McClintock did not see them. One of the
men pressed the other’s arm with his hand to give a warning.
“That’s Hugh McClintock,” he whispered.
The second—a huge slouching figure with unkempt hair and beard—gave
from his throat a guttural snarl. Simultaneously his hand slipped back
toward his hip.
“Not right here, Dutch,” the smaller man murmured. “If you want him get
him from the alley as he’s comin’ back. You can do that an’ make yore
getaway back to Monument Street.”
Hugh wandered to the end of the street, unaware of the lumbering figure
that followed warily on the other side of the road. The street came to
an end at a sheer hill rise. Here the young man stood for several
minutes enjoying the quiet of the black night. Faintly the noise of
Piodie’s exuberance drifted on the light breeze. At this distance it was
subdued to a harmony not unpleasant to the ear.
After a time he turned and walked slowly back toward the business
section of town. He took his way leisurely. He had nothing to do but
turn in at his lodging place, and the night was still young. Out in the
open it was pleasanter than in a stuffy room, eight by eight.
The buildings had been put up in a haphazard fashion without much regard
to the street frontage, entirely as the fancy of the owners had
dictated. Hugh came to one abutting on the alley. It was a storage
warehouse, and it projected almost into the street. In the lee of it the
young man stopped to light a cigarette.
Something whizzed past his ear and stuck quivering in the wooden wall.
In the darkness streaks of fire flamed—one, two, three. The roar of the
shots, pent in the alleyway, boomed like those of a howitzer. With one
swift dive of his lithe body Hugh found cover behind a dry-goods box. In
transit his revolver leaped to air.
But he did not fire. He lay, crouched close against the box, listening
with taut nerves for any sound that might betray the position of his
enemy.
None came. Presently he peered round the corner of the box. The darkness
was Stygian. The blackness of the night was emphasized by the narrowness
of the alley. Somewhere in that dark pit before him the ambusher lay,
unless he had crept noiselessly away.
Protected by the box, Hugh might have crawled to the corner of the
building, turned it, and so escaped. But he had no thought of doing
this. He meant to find out if possible who this expert knife thrower
was. If he had in town an enemy who hated him enough to lie in wait to
do murder it was his business to discover who the man was. First, he
wanted to get the ruffian lying thirty or forty feet from him. Next, he
meant to try to gain possession of the knife sticking in the wall.
The second hand of his watch ticked away the minutes. The large hand
moved from the figures III to IV, crept on to V, passed the half-hour
mark. Hugh did not know how long he lay there. His guess would have been
hours. He began to think that the other man had made an escape.
On hands and knees, the barrel of his revolver clenched between his
strong white teeth, McClintock crawled round the box, hugging the wall
closely as he moved. His advance was noiseless, slow, so careful that it
was punctuated with a dozen stops to listen. Someone was beating a drum
down the street and the sound of it deadened any closer stir. He
calculated that this was an advantage as well as a drawback. If he could
not hear the other man, then it followed that the other man could not
hear him.
Plank by plank he followed the wall, each motion forecast and executed
so deliberately that it could not betray him. In the dense darkness he
could see nothing, but he estimated he must be close to the knife in the
wall.
He rose to his knees, still without a sound. His hand groped for the
hilt of the bowie. It closed on—a thick hairy wrist.
“Goddamighty!” a startled voice screamed, and the wrist was jerked
swiftly away.
Hugh’s brain functioned instantly. The owner of the knife, moved by the
same desire as himself, had crept forward to recover it.
McClintock plunged, head down and arms wide. His full weight back of the
drive, he crashed into the retreating enemy and flung him backward.
The marching years had developed Hugh. His stringiness was gone. He was
a large man, tall and straight, with hard-packed muscles. No wildcat of
the Sierras was more lithe and supple than he. But as he struggled with
this ruffian, now on top, now underneath, their legs thrashing wildly as
each tried to pin the other down, McClintock knew that the fellow with
whom he grappled was bigger than he, thicker through the body, broader
across the shoulders.
They whirled over and over. Thick thighs clamped themselves to Hugh’s
waist. Huge fingers closed on his throat. He threw up an arm, and at the
same time a jagged bolt of pain shot through it. In the flesh of the
biceps the blade of a bowie sheathed itself.
His breath shut off, the warm blood welling from his arm, Hugh gave a
desperate heave of his body and flung the man astride of him forward and
to the left. He spun round with pantherish swiftness and launched
himself at the bulk of energy gathering itself for another attack.
They went down together, Hugh on top. His wounded arm pinned down the
wrist with the knife. The assassin felt for McClintock’s eye socket with
his thumb and gouged at it. The niceties of civilized warfare had no
place in this conflict with a primordial brute. Dodging the thumb, Hugh
found his mouth pressed against the forearm he held captive. The strong
teeth that had been carrying the revolver until the two had come to
grips closed on the tendons of the hairy arm. The man underneath gave a
yell of pain. His fingers relaxed and opened. The handle of the bowie
slipped away from them.
With his free arm the gunman tried to drag out a revolver. Hugh’s fist,
hard as knotted pine, drove savagely into the bearded face. It struck
again and again, with the crushing force of a pile driver. Grunting with
pain, the murderer covered up to escape punishment. He was lying cramped
against the wall in such a way that he could not get at his six-shooter.
The man bellowed with rage and thrashed about to avoid that flailing
fist. His boot heel found a purchase against the wall and he used it to
pry himself out of the corner into which he had been flung.
The fighters rolled out from the building, for the moment free of each
other. A flying boot struck Hugh in the forehead and dazed him. He
scrambled to his feet. His foe was legging it down the alley with all
the grace of a bear in a hurry to get away.
McClintock started to pursue, then changed his mind abruptly. The man
was armed and he was not. If he should run him down the ruffian would
turn and murder him. At least he had written his John Hancock on the
fellow’s face and would know him again if he saw him soon.
The victor quartered over the ground. Presently he found his revolver
and the bowie knife that had slashed his arm. He slid the revolver into
its holster and the knife into his boot leg. From the alley he stepped
back to the street.
The drum was still booming. He guessed that the affray had not taken
more than five minutes from start to finish.
For the first time he became aware of a throbbing pain in his arm. When
he pulled up his sleeve he saw that it was soggy with blood. The sight
of the long jagged wound affected him oddly. He leaned against a
hitching post for support, overcome by a faintness which surged over
him.
He laughed grimly. “Blood beginnin’ to scare you at this late date,” he
said to himself aloud. This brought him a touch of sardonic amusement.
He had passed through three big pitched battles of the war, half-a-dozen
skirmishes, and had been slightly wounded twice.
For first aid he tied a handkerchief around the wound as best he could,
using his free hand and his teeth to make the knot. Ten minutes later he
was in the office of a doctor.
“You’re lucky,” the doctor said. “Knife ploughed along close to the
surface. Didn’t strike an artery. How’d you come to do it?”
“I didn’t do it. The other fellow did. With this.” Hugh pulled the bowie
from his boot leg.
After he had dressed the wound the doctor examined the murderous-looking
knife. He handed it back to Hugh with a dry comment.
“Did I say you were lucky? That’s a weak word for it. You must carry the
left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit caught in the dark of the moon. How
did he come to leave that knife behind?”
“He didn’t explain why. I kinda gathered he was in a hurry. Probably had
an engagement down the street.”
The doctor’s keen eyes took in the strong grave face, the splendid
figure, the imperturbable composure of the patient. It occurred to him
that a Sierra grizzly would be no more dangerous than this man if he
were aroused to action.
“Did you kill him?” he asked hesitantly.
“Not this time,” McClintock answered quietly.
When he left, the doctor’s gaze followed him out of the office. He
wondered who this light-stepping Hermes could be. In his years of
practice he had never met a finer specimen of humanity, judged on a
physical basis of health, strength, and coördination of nerves and
muscle.
CHAPTER XVII
A KNIFE WITH FOURTEEN NOTCHES
Hugh was feeding his horse next morning when a voice moved wheezily
toward him as its owner passed through the stable into the corral.
“Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
We ne’er shall see him more,”
Budd informed the world at large by way of announcing his arrival.
“When’s the funeral, Jim?” asked McClintock. “I’ll be there if it’s
soon. Like to be right sure he’s buried. Don’t mind pilin’ a big flat
rock on top o’ that single-breasted coat my own se’f.”
The fat man looked at him severely. “Young fella, I been hearin’ about
you. Met up with Doc Rogers. Says you got all cut up. How about it?”
“Doc Rogers ought to know.”
“Was it serious?”
“I’d say it was serious. Cost me twenty-five dollars.”
“Rogers ain’t no two-bit man,” Budd explained with pride. “Piodie is
sure one high tariff town. Nothing cheap about it.”
“Here’s where he’s gettin’ ready to stick me on my feed bill,” Hugh
mentioned to his buckskin.
“Not on yore tintype. Yore money’s no good at the Pony Express Corral,
Kid.”
“Much obliged to Budd & Byers, Props.”
“Sho, we’ll quit business when we can’t feed a friend’s bronc onct in a
while. Say, was you much hurt, Kid? An’ how come it? Never knew you to
go hellin’ around askin’ for trouble.”
“No, an’ you never will. I sure wasn’t askin’ for this.”
Byers had joined them. He nodded silently to Hugh.
“Who did it?” asked Budd.
“Wish you’d tell _me_ that, Jim. He didn’t leave his name.”
“What’d he look like?”
“He _felt_ like a ton of bricks when he landed on me. I don’ know how he
looked. It was darker than the inside of Jonah’s whale.”
“Tell it to us,” urged Budd.
Hugh told the story of the attack on him.
“An’ you don’t know who the scalawag was?” asked the fat man when he had
finished.
“I don’t _know_. I’ve got a guess—several of ’em.”
“For instance?”
“Is Sam Dutch living here?”
“Yep. He’s the handy man of the Dodsons—camp bouncer, killer, mine
jumper, general all-round thug.”
“The Dodsons are the big moguls here, seems to me from what I hear.”
“They come clost to it—own the Standard Union and the Katie Brackett,
have a controllin’ interest in both stamp mills, run the stage line an’
the Mammoth saloon.”
“And the big store, Dodson & Dodson. They own that, I reckon.”
“Yep, an’ the building it’s in. Fact is, they’ve got title to half the
lots in town.”
“They’re a sweet pair.”
“Sure are. Run the politics, too. The sheriff’s their property. The
job’s worth twenty thousand a year, an’ they elected him. Course he’s
good an’ grateful. Why shouldn’t he be?”
“So Dutch carries the Dodson brand, does he?”
“He does their dirty work.”
“And his own, too.”
“Sure.”
“I’ve a notion Mr. Dutch has my autograph stamped on his face this glad
mo’ning,” drawled Hugh.
“Sorry to hear that. It’ll mean trouble unless you leave.”
“That’s what he told me at Aurora,” Hugh answered quietly.
“I heard about that. You’ve got his number. So has yore brother. Makes
it worse. You’ll get no even break from him. It’ll be like last night. A
shot outa the dark. Only next time he won’t miss.”
“I’m not sure it was Dutch. I was one of the vigilance committee at
Aurora. We ran a bunch of thugs from town. Might be any one of that
gang. Or someone may have took me for Scot. He has enemies, of course.”
“An’ you’re the spittin’ image of him, Kid. That last is one good
guess.”
“Whoever he was he left his card behind him.” Hugh stooped and drew from
his boot leg a bowie knife with a horn handle. Upon the lower part of
the horn had been filed fourteen little notches. “This was the sticker
he flung at me. He was in a hurry and didn’t take it with him when he
vamosed.”
Byers examined the knife and spoke for the first time.
“Dutch claims fourteen.”
“Well, I’m going to advertise it in the paper and give the owner a
chance to reclaim his property,” McClintock said grimly.
“Won’t that be a call for a showdown?” Budd asked gravely.
“I aim to call for one. Then I’ll know Mr. Pig Sticker is sittin’ on the
other side of the table from me an’ ain’t pluggin’ me in the back.”
“If he stands for a showdown.”
“If he stands for one. If he don’t, well, I’ll call his bluff that he’s
chief of Piodie, anyhow.”
“You sure want to pack a good gun handy, then.”
Byers nodded agreement. The simple direct way always suited him.
The fat man glanced at his partner before he changed the subject. “We
had a talk yestiddy after you left, Kid, me’n Dan. We’re locatin’ a
bunch of claims on Bald Knob. Looks to us like a good chance. The
stampeders are all headed over Antelope Hill way, but there ain’t no
reason why there shouldn’t be ore acrost the valley, too. Anyhow, we’re
gonna take a crack at it. A bird in the hand gathers no moss, as the old
sayin’ ain’t. We had a notion to ask you to go in with us. Needs three
to handle the thing, account of claim jumpers in case we make a strike.
But I don’t reckon now you’d want to stay here permanent.”
“Why not?”
“This climate ain’t suitable for you. Too many gunmen who don’t like the
colour of yore hair. I reckon there are seven or eight of them birds you
helped run outa Aurora, let alone Dutch. Irish Tom is in our midst, as
the old sayin’ is, and Vance and that mule-skinner Hopkins. It’s a cinch
they don’t waste any time loving Kid McClintock.”
“If you’ve got a proposition that looks good to me, you can forget the
quick-on-the-trigger gang. I’m not the only Aurora vigilante in town.
Last night I met several. The gunmen won’t look for trouble on that
account. We might start something again.”
“We’ll sure talk turkey if you feel that way. What say we ride up Bald
Knob, an’ if you like the lay of the land, we’ll make our locations?”
“Suits me fine.”
Few people can live in a new and prosperous mining camp without catching
the contagion of the speculator. The magic word, whether it be gold,
silver, or oil, sets the blood afire with the microbe of unrest. Just
beyond reach of the hand lies a fortune. The opportunity of a lifetime
is knocking at the door. All the spirit of adventure in one leaps to the
risk. Sedate caution seems a dull-spirited jade at such a time.
Hugh was no exception to the rule. As he had passed to and fro among the
miners in the saloons and gaming halls last night the stories to which
he had listened quickened his blood.
He was ready for a hazard of new fortunes as soon as he could shake the
dice.
CHAPTER XVIII
APPLY TO HUGH McCLINTOCK
Hugh dropped into the office of the Piodie _Banner_ and paid for an
advertisement in the paper and for two hundred and fifty posters set
with display type.
The editor glanced over the copy. “I can get the bills out this
afternoon. The ad will appear in the morning.”
The sheet of paper handed in by McClintock bore no evidence of being
loaded with dynamite. Upon it was printed roughly with a pencil this
notice:
FOUND
In the Alley between Turkey Creek Avenue
And Monument Street
(At the Sacramento Storage Warehouse)
ONE BOWIE KNIFE WITH FOURTEEN NOTCHES
Owner Can Have Same By Claiming and Proving Title
To Property
Apply To Hugh McClintock
The owner of the printing plant looked the copy over a second time.
“’Course, I’m not here to turn business away, Mr. McClintock, but—well,
are the dodgers necessary? Wouldn’t the ad in the paper be enough?”
“Maybe so. But I want to be sure the owner sees it. I reckon I’ll take
the bills, too,” Hugh said easily.
He hired an old coloured man to tack up the bills on buildings, fences,
and posts. To make sure that they were in conspicuous places Hugh went
along himself. He also made arrangements with saloon keepers and
gambling house owners by which he was allowed to have the posters put on
the walls of these resorts. His manner was so matter of fact that not
one of his innocent accomplices suspected there was more behind the
advertisement than appeared on the face of it.
“Fourteen notches. Looks like it might be Sam Dutch’s bowie you found,
stranger,” one bartender suggested. “This camp sure howls, but I reckon
it ain’t got many fourteen notchers. Only one far as I know.”
“If the knife belongs to Mr. Dutch he can have it by applying for it,”
Hugh said mildly.
“I expect he can have ’most anything he wants in this man’s town if he
sure enough asks for it,” the man in the apron grinned.
In the middle of the afternoon, at which hour he first daily appeared to
the world, Sam Dutch slouched down town with a story already prepared to
account for his battered face. The tale he meant to tell was that in the
darkness he had fallen into a prospect hole and cut his cheeks,
forehead, and lips on the sharp quartz he had struck.
On a telegraph pole near the end of Turkey Creek Avenue a poster caught
his eye. He read it with mixed emotions. The predominating ones were
rage, a fury of hate, and an undercurrent of apprehension. He tore the
bill down and trampled it in the mud under his feet.
Half a minute later he saw a second bill, this time on the side of a
store. This, too, he destroyed, with much explosive language. Between
Rawhide Street and the Porphyry Lode saloon he ripped down three more
notices of the finding of a bowie knife with fourteen notches. When he
stopped at the bar and ordered a brandy sling the man was dangerous as a
wounded grizzly.
The bartender chatted affably. He was in the habit of saying that he had
not lost any quarrels with gunmen and he did not intend to find any.
“Fine glad day, Mr. Dutch. Nice change from Monday. Hotter’n hell or
Yuma then, I say.”
The bad man growled.
“I was sure enough spittin’ cotton. Went up the gulch with T. B. Gill.
Creek’s dry as a cork leg. Good rain wouldn’t hurt none,” the young
fellow went on.
“’Nother’fthesame,” snarled Dutch, his voice thick with uncontrollable
fury.
The bartender made a mental comment. “Sore’s a toad on a hot rock this
mo’ning.” He tried another subject, with intent to conciliate. “Young
fellow in a while back and wanted to hang up a bill. I said, ‘Sure, hop
to it.’ Ain’t lost any hog stickers myse’f, but maybe some other
gent——”
Dutch glared round, found the bill with his eyes, and dragged out a navy
revolver. Three bullets crashed through the poster and the wall back of
it. The killer whirled and flung the fourth shot at the man behind the
bar.
But that garrulous youth was fleeing wildly for safety. He had no
intention whatever of being Number Fifteen. Between him and the back
door was a table. He took it in his stride with all the ease of a
champion hurdler. Down the alley he went like a tin-canned cur with a
mob of small boys behind.
Inside of ten minutes Piodie knew that Sam Dutch was on the warpath
again and that no man who did not want a permanent home on Boot Hill
would be wise to mention posters or bowie knives to him. Piodie made a
good many guesses as to the truth of the situation. Something had taken
place that the town knew nothing about. The poster, Dutch’s battered
face, his rage, and the absence of his bowie knife from its accustomed
sheath in the man’s boot, all bore some relation to the mystery.
“Who is this Hugh McClintock, anyhow?” asked a citizen newly arrived
from Ohio. “Anybody know anything about him?”
Irish Tom Carberry grinned. He was at the post office getting his mail
when the innocent question drifted to him. He looked at the stranger.
“Sam Dutch knows him. So do I. We know him domn well.”
He gave no further information, but after he had gone another former
resident of Aurora whispered advice to the Ohioan. “Better not be so
curious in public, friend.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s liable to be a killin’ before night. Don’t you see
McClintock has served notice on Dutch that he can’t be chief of Piodie
while he’s here? It’s up to Sam to make good or shut up.”
“All I asked was——”
“We done heard what you asked. It ain’t etiquette in Nevada to ask
questions unless you aim to take a hand in the play. You ain’t declarin’
yoreself in, are you?”
“Bet your boots I’m not. None of my business.”
“You said something that time.” The former Aurora man walked away.
The man from the Western Reserve looked after him resentfully. “This is
the darndest place. I ask a question, and you’d think I’d made a break
of some kind. Is there any harm in what I said? I leave it to any of
you. Is there?” he asked querulously.
Jim Budd drew him aside and explained. “Hell’s bells, man, don’t be so
inquisitive! I knew a fellow lived to be a hundred onct ’tendin’ to his
own business. But I’ll tell you who Hugh McClintock is, since yore
system is so loaded with why-fors and who-is-hes. The Kid’s the man that
ran Dutch outa the Esmeralda country. He’s the man whose vote saved
Irish Tom from being hanged when the stranglers got busy at Aurora. He’s
the shotgun messenger who bumped off Black Hank Perronoud when he held
up the Carson stage. No gamer man ever threw leg over leather. I’d
oughta know, for he rode pony express for me two years through the
Indian country.”
“Are he and Dutch going to fight?”
“Great jumpin’ Jehosophat, how do I know?” rasped the fat man irritably.
“I’m no tin god on wheels, an’ I ain’t no seventh son of a seventh son.
If I was I’d go locate me a million-dollar mine _pronto_. You know the
layout well as I do. Do yore own guessin’, an’ _do it private_.”
Dutch whispered a word in the ears of his satellites Vance and Hopkins
later in the day. Those two gentlemen made together a tour of the town
and tore down all the bills McClintock had tacked up.
CHAPTER XIX
McCLINTOCK BILLS THE TOWN
Hugh’s advertisement did not appear in the _Banner_ next morning. The
editor had killed it as soon as he learned that its purpose was to annoy
Dutch. He knew several safer amusements than that. Young McClintock
might enjoy flirting with death, but as the responsible head of a family
the editor was in quite a different position.
To say that Hugh was enjoying himself is to stretch the truth. But
experience had taught him that the bold course is sometimes the least
hazardous. A line from a play he had seen at Piper’s Opera House not
long since flashed to his mind. “Out of this nettle danger, we pluck
this flower safety.” He would go through, if necessary, to a fighting
finish. The chances were that his scorn of risk would lessen it.
Accompanied by his faithful coloured bill sticker, Hugh redecorated the
town with posters.
Jim Budd came wheezing down Turkey Creek Avenue.
“You billin’ the town for a circus, Kid?” he asked, his fat paunch
shaking. And when Hugh had stepped forward to him he added a warning in
a lower voice: “Dutch is waitin’ for you in front of Dodsons’ store;
least, it looks to me like he’s aimin’ to call yore hand.”
“Any one with him?”
“Hopkins and Bob Dodson. I kinda figured they were lookout men for him.
Say, you don’t have to play a lone hand. I’d as lief sit in. Byers,
too.”
“No, Jim. My hand’s stronger if I play it alone. Much obliged, just the
same.”
Budd conceded this as a matter of principle, but he was reluctant to do
so in practice. “Well, don’t you get careless, Kid. Dutch is sudden
death with a gun. Sure is.”
Opposite Dodson & Dodson’s Emporium was the Mammoth Saloon.
“Tack one on the door, Uncle Ned,” said Hugh.
McClintock spoke without looking at the bill sticker. He was watching
three men standing in front of the store opposite. One of these hastily
retreated inside. The two who remained were Dutch and Hopkins.
The killer growled a warning. “Lay off on that bill stickin’. It don’t
go here.”
Hugh stepped across the street. He moved evenly and without haste.
“Well, well, if it ain’t Sam Dutch, chief of Virginia and Aurora, just
as big as life and as handsome. Lemme see, you were takin’ the
Candelabria stage last time I saw you.” Smilingly the young man began to
hum, “Git out de way, ole Dan Tucker.” But the smile was of the lips
only. His steely eyes held those of the big ruffian fast.
A snarling sound that might have been an oath fell from the ugly lips of
the gun-fighter. His face reflected his slow thoughts. Should he strike
now? He knew that a dozen men were waiting for the sound of a shot, that
they expected him to kill McClintock on sight. Well, he would kill him
all right—soon.
Without lifting his eyes for an instant from his enemy, Hugh gave the
old Negro the order a second time: “Nail up the bill, Uncle. Mr. Dutch
is joking. You _are_ joking, aren’t you?”
Dutch glared at Hugh furiously. He moistened his dry lips with his
tongue.
From the left boot leg McClintock drew a bowie knife. The horn handle
was marked in a peculiar way. Hugh had shown it to a dozen men, and most
of them had recognized it. One of the pleasant habits of Dutch was to
play with it threateningly before a fascinated circle of reluctant
admirers. Now the young man held it up in his left hand.
“I’m tryin’ to find an owner for this knife. Happen to know him, Mr.
Dutch?” The straight, swift probe of the eyes was cold as iron, hard as
hammered brass.
It was a call for a showdown. The men watching from the store windows,
from the saloon opposite, from the blacksmith shop below, knew that a
demand had been made on Dutch for a declaration of intentions. In the
silence which followed, men suspended their breathing. The shadow of
death hung low over the two tense figures standing out in relief.
Afterwards those present spoke of the contrast between the sullen sodden
killer and the erect, soldierly athlete facing him. The guttural snarl,
the great slouching apelike figure of the one suggested a throwback to
prehistoric days. The clear expressive eyes, the unconscious grace and
nobility of carriage, the quiet confidence of manner in the other were
products of a new land flowering to manhood.
Men breathed again. Their hearts functioned normally once more. Dutch
had chosen to dodge the challenge.
“I dunno as I know more about him than anybody else,” he had growled.
Hugh did not relax the thrust of his eyes. “No? Thought maybe you did. I
found it at the storage warehouse, corner of the alley, up the avenue.
Didn’t leave it there?”
Dutch did not answer at once. Inside, he surged with murderous impulse.
He might beat this fellow McClintock to the draw. He had always boasted
that he wanted no more than an even break with any man alive. Well, he
had it here.
“Who says I left it there?” he demanded.
“I’m asking if you did.”
The killer’s right hand hung motionless. A weight paralyzed his will.
These McClintocks had the Indian sign on him. Deep in him a voice
whispered that if he accepted the challenge he was lost. Better wait and
get this fellow right when he had no chance.
“No-o.” To Dutch it seemed that the husky monosyllable was dragged out
of him by some external force.
Tauntingly the cold voice jeered him. “Not you, then, that bushwhacked
me in the alley and tried to shoot me in the back? Wouldn’t do that,
would you, Dutch? Got all yore fourteen on the level, of course.”
“I aim to—to give every man a show,” the gunman muttered.
“Good of you. Then it couldn’t have been you that threw this knife at me
and tried to gun me. It was dark. I couldn’t make out his face, but I
left the marks of my fist on it a-plenty.”
Now that it seemed there was to be no gun-play the watchers had come
into the open. A battery of eyes focussed on the hammered face of Dutch.
Cut lips, a black eye, purple weals on the forehead, and swollen cheeks
told of recent punishment.
“I fell down a prospect hole,” the bad man mentioned.
A bark of laughter, quickly smothered, met this explanation. Dutch
glared round angrily.
“That prospect hole must have landed on you hard,” Hugh told him grimly.
“Take my advice. _Don’t fall down any more._ Next time the shaft might
shoot a hole through you.”
“I ain’t scared of you none. You can’t run on me,” Dutch growled
sulkily, to save his face. “One o’ these days I’m liable to get tired of
you and feed you to the buzzards.”
“Yes, I know you’re chief here, same as you were at Virginia and Aurora.
But just to show there’s no hard feelings you’ll help Uncle Ned tack up
that poster, won’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Again Dutch’s sullen eyes battled and were beaten. “I don’t have to,” he
flung out rebelliously.
“Not at all,” Hugh mocked. “But out of good will you’ll do it.”
The ruffian shuffled across the road, snatched a bill from the old
Negro, and with a hammer drove a tack through the middle of it.
Out of the Mammoth walked a big well-dressed man without a hat. He had
black glossy hair and a small black moustache. In his manner and bearing
was that dominance which comes to those who are successful. With a
glance he took in the situation.
“Tear that bill down, Dutch,” he said crisply.
The bad man looked at him, then at McClintock.
Hugh laughed. “You hear yore master’s voice, Dutch.”
Dutch ripped the bill down and tore it into a dozen pieces. Released
from the mastery that had held him, he broke into savage furious oaths.
At a word from the black-eyed man he would have fought it out with his
enemy.
But Ralph Dodson did not speak the word. His frowning attention was
fixed on Hugh.
“Mr. McClintock, the Mammoth is owned by me and my brother. If we want
bills on the walls we’ll put them there. Understand?” he demanded
arrogantly.
Hugh bowed, almost as mockingly and as gracefully as Scot himself could
have done it. “Quite. My fault, Mr. Dodson. I’ll explain. This knife was
sheathed two nights ago in my arm. A scoundrel waited for me in a dark
alley and tried to murder me.”
“Interesting, no doubt, but not my business,” retorted Dodson curtly.
“So I’m puttin’ up posters to find the owner of the knife.”
“Not here. You can’t put ’em up here.”
“Not necessary. Everybody here knows who owns the knife—or rather who
did own it. It’s mine now, unless someone claims it. That all right with
you, Dutch?”
The killer said nothing, but he said it with bloodshot, vindictive
eyes—eyes in which hate and fear and cunning and the lust to kill
struggled for victory.
Hugh turned on his heel and walked away, the sound of his footsteps
sharp and ringing. Not once did he look back to see whether the murderer
he had discredited would shoot him in the back.
Yet he was glad when he was out of range. Experiments in the psychology
of a killer might easily be carried too far.
CHAPTER XX
“LITTLE VICKY”
Jim Budd had a dozen reasons to offer why there must be gold in Bald
Knob. Like many others, he was letting his hopes influence his judgment.
When he had finished his argument Hugh grinned. “May be here. May not. A
fifty to one bet I’d call it, us on the short end. But that’s mining. No
can tell. Might as well stick up our notice here as anywhere. What say,
Dan?”
Byers said, “Suits me.”
“What about this fellow Singlefoot Bill who took up the claims
originally—sure he’s outa the country and won’t make a kick?”
“Handed in his checks last year at Austin. Anyhow, he never did any
assessment work here. You can see that. Just filed his location notice
and let it go at that,” Budd explained.
“Didn’t he patent any of his claims?”
“I reckon. But not these. He couldn’t have. There’s not been enough work
done on the ground. He jest scratched around.”
“If he patented there would be a record of it, of course.”
“I ain’t so sure of that, either. The house where they used to keep the
county papers burned down in the big fire a coupla years ago more or
less.”
“Well, the recorder would know.”
“Oh, he died a month since. But we’re in the clear. All you got to do is
to use yore eyes to see this land couldn’t a-been patented.”
Hugh used his eyes and they corroborated his friend’s opinion.
The partner surveyed roughly the claims they decided on, drove in corner
stakes, and put up their announcements of ownership. Four locations were
taken in partnership. Each of them filed on several individual claims.
Hugh took one in his brother’s name, the rest in his own. One of these
last was to be held in trust for Vicky until she became of age. It was a
custom of the country to take up mining prospects for friends.
Hugh wrote the notice for the partners. It read:
We, the undersigned, claim four claims of 300 feet each in this
silver and gold bearing quartz lead, or lode, extending north
and south from this notice, with all its dips, spurs, angles,
and variations, together with 50 feet of ground on either side
for working the same.
Each of the three signed the paper.
Similar location notices were posted on the individual claims.
Hugh took charge of operations. He hired men, bought tools and supplies,
selected the spot for the shaft, and himself tossed out the first shovel
of dirt. When operations were under way he turned the management over to
his partners and returned to Virginia City.
The business of the firm called him. Incidentally, he wanted to see his
week-old nephew, Alexander Hugh McClintock.
He went directly to his brother’s house on A Street. At his knock the
door was opened by a young woman. She was dark and slender, and at sight
of him her eyes flashed.
“You’re Mr. Hugh McClintock,” she cried.
“Yes. You’re the nurse, I suppose. How is Mollie?”
The face of the young woman held surprises. Mischief bubbled over it for
a moment. “Yes, I’m the nurse. Would you like to see—Mrs. McClintock?”
“If I may.”
The nurse led the way into the house. Presently, after disappearing for
a minute into Mollie’s room, she returned for Hugh. He trod softly, as
men do in the presence of sickness or some mystery of life or death that
awes them.
Mollie had never looked lovelier. A faint pink of apple blossoms
fluttered into her cheeks. In the crook of her arm lay Alexander Hugh
McClintock, a red and wrinkled little morsel of humanity. She smiled
with such a radiance of motherhood that the man’s bachelor heart
registered a pang of envy.
“Oh, Hugh, I’m so happy,” she whispered as he kissed her.
“That’s fine—fine,” he said gently.
“We named him after your father and you. Scot would have it, wouldn’t
he, Vicky?”
The dark young woman nodded.
Hugh felt the flush dyeing his face. “Little Vicky!” he stammered. “Why,
I thought——”
“Thank you for the dolls, kind sir,” she said, and curtsied.
He felt like a fool. How long was it since he had sent her a black doll
baby?
“I thought you were still a little girl,” he blurted. “Nobody told
me——”
“—that little girls grow up. They do.”
“You can’t be more than fourteen—or fifteen,” he charged, trying to
escape from his mistake.
“I’m going on seventeen, sir,” she said demurely.
“Your letter——”
“—was from a little girl to whom you sent a nigger doll.”
“You said in it——”
“I said thank you for the doll. Wasn’t it a proper letter for a little
girl to write to a kind gentleman?”
She asked it with a manner of naïve innocence, hardly a hint of mirth in
the dark, long-lashed eyes meeting his so directly.
Mollie laughed. “She wrote and asked us not to tell you she had grown
up, Hugh. We wondered when you would guess she wasn’t any longer a
child.”
“I’ve been several kinds of an idiot in my time, but this—this takes
the cake,” Hugh said ruefully.
Suddenly Victoria relented. She held out her hand impulsively. Her smile
was warm and kind.
“You don’t mind my little joke, do you?”
“Not a bit. I brought it on myself.”
“If you want to know, I thought it was dear of you to remember the
little girl away at school alone.” A faint shell pink beat into the
clear satiny cheeks.
“I liked that little girl. She had a lot of git-up-an’-git.”
Vicky laughed. “She was a terror, if that’s what you mean. Always in
mischief. Mollie will tell you that.”
“Yes, but she was a tender-hearted little cyclone,” smiled the older
sister.
Scot came into the room. “’Lo, Hugh,” he said. “When’d you get back?”
Without waiting for an answer he passed to the bed upon which were his
wife and his firstborn. Lightly his hand caressed her soft hair.
“Everything right, Mollie?”
Her eyes rested happily in his. “Everything in the world, Scot.”
“This nurse I got for you treating you proper?” With a motion of his
head he indicated Victoria.
“She’s spoiling me.”
“A. H. McClintock behaving himself?”
“He’s an angel.”
He kissed her. “Must take after his father then.”
“I hope he does. He looks like you.”
Scot laughed, and with a touch of embarrassment turned to his brother.
“You see what you’ll be letting yourself in for when you marry, Hugh.
Got to walk a straight and narrow line to keep your wife fooled about
you. And for a reward she’ll tell you that a red wrinkled little
skeezicks looks like you.”
“He’s the dearest little baby I ever saw,” protested Vicky warmly.
Scot poked a forefinger at the midriff of his heir. “I kind of like the
little grasshopper myself.”
“You know very well you’re _crazy_ about him,” Vicky answered
triumphantly.
Mollie only smiled. It was not necessary for her any longer to reassure
herself about Scot’s love. She knew him. The days of her doubts were
past.
Presently Scot left the bedside and sat down on the arm of a big chair.
“How’s Piodie, Hugh?”
“One live camp,” the younger brother answered. “Plenty of room for us
there. We can put an outfit in and get all the teaming we want. One
objection is that the Dodsons run the camp.”
“Run it how?”
“Own the biggest store, the stamp mills, a controlling interest in the
best producing mines, the stage line, half the town site, and the
sheriff.”
“Anything else?” asked Scot with a dry smile.
“A bunch of thugs and the courts. Our old friend Sam Dutch is their
handy man.”
“Did you see Dutch?”
“We met,” Hugh answered briefly. “I bumped into Jim Budd and Dan Byers,
too. They’re runnin’ a feed corral there. We located a bunch of
prospects together. I wrote you about that.”
“Yes.”
“Took up one in yore name.”
“And one in trust for Vicky, you said in the letter.”
Hugh flushed to the roots of his hair. He turned to the girl. “A part of
that fool mistake of mine. I kinda thought it might turn out a good
prospect and if so you’d have it when you grew up. I didn’t aim to—to
overstep.”
Victoria had been listening eagerly to every word they had said. She had
her own reasons for being interested in Piodie.
“Of course you didn’t. It was for that wild little Vicky you used to
know. I’ll thank you for her, but of course I can’t keep a claim you
took up for me on a misunderstanding.”
“I wish you would. Not likely it’ll amount to anything. But we’ve got
more than we can work now. You’re welcome as the sun in May.”
“Do you think that’s _really_ true—about his not wanting it?” Vicky
asked Scot. “I’d like to take it if—if you folks can’t use it. But I’m
not going to rob you and him.”
“I’d take it, Vicky,” Scot told her. “Chances are we’ll never do the
assessment work on our own claims. We’re not miners—not by business.
Hugh has all he can handle without yours.”
She turned to Hugh with a brisk little nod of the dark head. “Then I’ll
take it—and thank you.”
“What will you do with it now you have it?” Mollie asked.
“Do the assessment work—have a shaft dug,” answered Vicky. “I have four
hundred dollars left of the Virginia Dodson Fund, and, dear people, I’m
going to begin earning more week after next.”
“How?” asked her sister, surprised.
“I’ve been asked to teach school at Piodie and I accepted to-day.”
Mollie protested, and knew that her protest was in vain. Her young
sister was compact of energy. It expressed itself in the untamed joyous
freedom of her rhythmic tread, in the vitality of the spirit emanating
from the light erect figure of the bright-eyed vestal. If she had made
up her mind to go to Piodie to teach, there would be no stopping her.
All Mollie could do would be to see through Scot that the girl had a
good boarding place where she would be properly looked after.
CHAPTER XXI
IN THE BLIZZARD
The McClintocks decided after all not to put in a freight outfit to
Piodie. The Dodsons beat them to it by putting in a large number of
wagons as adjuncts to the stages they ran from Carson.
From Hugh’s partners word came at intervals of the progress made in
sinking the shaft of the Ground Hog, which was the name they had given
the mine. These messages reflected Budd’s enthusiasm. The postscript of
each of them, whether it came in the form of a letter or a word-of-mouth
greeting, was to the effect that he expected to strike the ledge now at
any time.
He wrote in one note:
Bald Knob is sure looking up. Ralph Dodson has done made some
locations above us, and two lads from American Flat of the name
of Jenson have staked out a claim just below us down the hill.
They’re running a tunnel in from the hillside. Well, Kid, look
out for news of a big strike soon. We’re sure right close to the
vein, looks like.
Hugh smiled when he read it. Budd had been on the verge of a discovery
so many times that his non-resident partner discounted the prophecy.
There was no use in building up hopes that would probably never be
realized.
In another letter the fat man mentioned a second piece of news. “Our
schoolmarm here, Miss Victoria Lowell, has begun scratching dirt right
lively on that claim you staked out for her. She has got a Swede on the
job, but she has been out ’most every Saturday to see how tricks are. I
notice Ralph Dodson has been mighty attentive to her. _You better drift
over, Kid, and do your assessment work on that claim if you aim to get
it patented in your name._ Me, if I was a high-stepping colt like you,
I’ll be doggoned if I’d let that smooth guy Dodson jump as rich a
prospect as the Little Schoolmarm.”
This time Hugh did not smile. Budd, of course, was on the wrong track.
He had leaped to the conclusion that Hugh was in love with the girl
because he had staked a claim for her, and in his blunt blundering way
he was giving his friend a tip. McClintock was troubled. He profoundly
distrusted Ralph Dodson, had disliked him from the first moment when
their eyes met. The fellow was a ravening wolf if he had ever seen one.
But he was handsome, well-dressed, the kind of man who is like wildfire
among women. He probably knew how to make love amazingly well.
And Vicky—impetuous, imperious little Vicky of the brave heart and
generous instincts—was just the girl to yield to the glamour of his
charm. He could see now her flashing face, finely cut like a rare
brilliant, full of fire and high lights. She had better be dead than the
wife of Ralph Dodson.
The thing worried him. It would not let him alone. At work and in his
leisure hours he thought of the girl with keen-edged anxiety. His
imagination began to play him tricks. At dusk, as he walked to his room,
he would see her filmily in front of him, moving like sweet music toward
the open arms of Dodson. Once she turned and gave Hugh her cryptic,
tantalizing smile.
Someone ought to interfere to save the girl from an event so ruinous. He
thought of telling Scot, but after all he had nothing better to go on
than the gossip of old Jim Budd.
On swift impulse he decided to go to Piodie himself. It would not do any
harm, anyhow, to have a look at the Ground Hog and see how it was
developing. While he was there maybe he could drop a casual hint to
Vicky. Perhaps he would discover that Budd’s warning was all moonshine.
Winter was white on the hills when Hugh started over the Geiger Grade to
Reno by stage. At Reno he found traffic tied up. The snow in the valleys
was deep and it drifted with the wind so fast that the cuts filled up
and prevented the stage from getting through. Hugh learned that a pack
train had broken trail the day before and had reached Stampede Notch in
safety. From there it was working across the divide to Piodie.
He bought a pair of snowshoes and set out on the long trip. The day was
warm and the snow soft. This made travel difficult, and McClintock made
slow progress until he was out of the Truckee Meadows. By afternoon he
was in the hills. The wind was whistling in gusts, sometimes wrathfully,
again in a plaintive whine. It was colder now and the snow less slushy.
In spite of fatigue he covered the miles faster than he had been able to
do in the valley.
Many times he glanced at the sky uneasily. It was heavy with dun clouds,
and unless he missed his guess snow would fall soon and in quantity.
Came dusk, and after dusk darkness. Hugh kept going. He was an old-timer
and could tell his direction by the wind, the dip of the land, and the
slope of the snow waves.
It was nearly midnight when he knocked at the door of a Mormon ranch
house and asked shelter for the night. Healthily fatigued in every
muscle, he slept like a schoolboy almost round the clock.
Before he took the road again it was noon. At intervals during the night
snow had fallen, but just now the storm had died down.
“Better stay another night,” the rancher advised. “Gettin’ her back up
for a blizzard, looks like.”
The taste of the air and the look of the sky backed his prophecy. There
was going to be more snow and a lot of it. Very likely there would be
snow and wind together. But Hugh did not want to be tied up for several
days in the hills. He decided to make a dash for Piodie. The town was
not more than twenty-five miles away. If his luck held he would be in by
supper time.
He had covered half the distance before the storm hit him hard. It began
with wind, heavy sweeping gusts of it driving over the hills and into
the ravines. Presently snow came, a hard sleet that pelted his face like
ground glass. The temperature was falling fast. Hugh set his teeth and
ploughed forward, putting his head down into the blizzard as a football
player does when he is bucking the line.
Young and warm-blooded though he was, the chill of the tempest bit to
his bones and sapped his vitality. The wind and the fine sleet were like
a wall that pressed closely and savagely on him. Now and again he raised
his head and took the full fury of the leaping storm to make sure that
he was still on the trail.
Far and near became relative words. The end of the world, as far as he
could tell, was almost within reach of his outstretched hand. The
whistle of the shrieking wind was so furious that it deadened all
sounds, even itself. The sleety snow was a silent stinging foe that
flogged him mile after mile as he wallowed on.
The afternoon had been dark, but an added murkiness told him that night
was at hand. He was nearly exhausted, and in the darkness, with the
raging blizzard all about him, he felt that directions would become
confused. He must be close to town now, but if he should get lost, a
quarter of a mile would be as far away as Carson.
And presently he knew that he was lost. He was staggering through the
deep snow on a hillside. Somehow he had got off the trail and it was
swallowed up in the bleak night. He had an extraordinary store of
strength, vitality, and courage. But it was not in human endurance to
stand up under the flailing of the wind and sleet that pelted him, to
keep going through the heavy drifts that had been swept into every
hollow and draw. The bitter cold penetrated closer to his heart. An
overpowering desire to lie down and sleep tugged at his will.
Not for a moment did he give up. One of his snowshoes was lost in a snow
bank. He kicked off the other. Now on his hands and knees, now on his
feet, weaving forward like a drunken man, all sense of direction gone,
he still plunged into the howling waste of desolation that hemmed him
in.
He followed the path of least resistance. It took him down hill into a
draw. His stumbling steps zigzagged toward a lower level and he followed
the arroyo to its mouth. A slight dip in the ground swung him to the
right.
His boots were clogged with snow. The muscles of his thighs were so
weary that each time he dragged a leg out of the drifts it felt as
though weighted with a cannon ball. There were times when he could make
ground only by throwing his body forward and beating down the white bank
that obstructed the way. Still he crawled on, an indomitable atom of
fighting humanity in a great frozen desert of death.
A groping hand struck something solid. The stiff fingers of the hand
searched the surface of the barrier. Hugh’s heart renewed hope. He had
come up against a pile of corded wood. It was cut in short lengths to
fit a stove. The chances were that somewhere within fifty feet of him
was a house.
But where? In what direction? The fury of the storm filled the night,
made it opaque as a wall. He could not see five feet in front of him.
The landmark that he had found he dared not leave, for if he wandered
from it the chances were that he would never find it again. It would be
of no use to shout. The shrieking wind would drown a voice instantly.
Yet he did call out, again and again.
The thing he did was born of the necessity of the situation. He dug
aside the snow from the top of the pile and with a loose piece of wood
hammered free others from the niche into which they were frozen. How he
did this he could never afterwards tell, for his muscles were so
paralyzed from cold that they would scarcely answer the call his will
made on them.
Then, hard and straight, he flung a stick out into the storm. His
reserves of strength were nearly gone, but he held himself to the job
before him. One after another he threw the pieces of firewood, following
a definite plan as to direction, in such a way as to make the place
where he stood the centre of a circle. His hope was to strike the house.
If he could do this, and if the door happened to be on the side of the
house nearest him, then the light of the lamp would perhaps penetrate
into the storm so that he could see it.
He knew it was a gamble with all the odds against him. He was backing a
series of contingencies each one of which must turn in his favour if he
was to win.
He collapsed on the woodpile at last from sheer physical exhaustion. For
a few moments he lay there, helpless, drifting toward that sleep from
which he would never awake in this world. But the will to live still
struggled feebly. He was of that iron breed which has won the West for
civilization against untold odds. It was not in him to give up as long
as he could force his tortured body forward.
Even now he did not forget the craft of the frontiersman which reads
signs and makes deductions from them. The corded wood was two lengths
deep. Near one end there was a sag in it two or three feet deep. This
depression was greater on the side next Hugh. He reasoned that it is
human nature to choose the easiest way. The people who lived in the
house would use first that part of the wood which was nearest. Therefore
it followed that the house must be on the same side of the corded pine
as he was, and it must be closest to the place from which the wood had
been carried to the kitchen stove.
He struck out at a right angle from the pile. Before he had gone three
steps he stumbled and fell. His prostration was so complete that he
could not at once get to his feet again. He lay inert for a time, then
crawled up again and lurched forward. A second time his knees buckled
under him. As he fell, an outstretched hand hit the wall of the house.
Weakly he felt his way along the wall till he came to a door. His hand
fumbled with the latch, but his frozen fingers could not work the catch.
He beat on the door.
It opened unexpectedly, and he plunged forward to the floor of the
cabin. He saw, as though a long way off, the faces of devils and of
angels lit by high lights. His body lost weight, and he floated into
space luxuriously. Pain and fatigue, devils and angels, all were blotted
out.
CHAPTER XXII
A HAVEN OF REFUGE
Vicky was enjoying herself tremendously. All her young life she had been
chaperoned and directed. Teachers had watched over and instructed her.
She had better do this; it was not ladylike to do that. The right kind
of a girl could not be too careful what she did and how she did it. The
sweet demureness of watchful waiting was the only proper attitude of a
nice young woman toward that important and vital business of getting
married. So much she had learned at school.
It happened that Vicky did not want to get married—not yet, at any
rate. She wanted to try her own wings. She wanted to flutter out into
the world and see what it was like.
Already she had made experiments and discoveries. One of them was that
if you smiled in the right way when you asked for it you could get
anything you wanted from men. She had wanted a globe and some new seats
for the schoolroom, and the directors had voted them cheerfully even
though the district was short of funds. Jim Budd had spent two hours
building some bookshelves she needed for her bedroom, just because she
had said pretty please to him.
Now, Mrs. Budd was different. She liked Victoria and fed her well and
saw that she wore her heavy coat when it was cold, but the young woman
understood that smiles would not have the least effect on any of that
plump mother’s decisions. In this Mrs. Budd was like the rest of her
sex. They did not go out of their way to please you because you were
a—well, a not exactly plain girl.
The experiments of the young school teacher were innocent enough. She
was not by nature a coquette. But the world was her oyster, and she
meant to have a perfectly delightful time prying it open. She found that
there were a good many people, at least fifty per cent. of whom were of
the masculine gender, ready to lend a hand at operating on the bivalve.
One of the most assiduous was Ralph Dodson.
Vicky discouraged his attentions. For one thing, he was the brother of a
man she had detested all her life. She did not want to have anything
whatever to do with a Dodson. After what had taken place it was not
decent that the families should have any relationship at all.
But she found Ralph Dodson not easily disheartened. He did not lay
himself open to a direct snub. A member of the board had properly
introduced him to her. If he came out of a store as she was going down
the street and walked a block beside her she could hardly rebuff him.
Before she had been at Piodie a month, the clerk of the school district
retired and Dodson was appointed in his place. This annoyed her, because
she now had to see a good deal of him; but she could not very well
accuse him of having brought about the change merely for that purpose.
Vicky found herself studying the man. She looked in him for the same
traits that had made her as a child hate his brother. It irritated her
that she did not find them. Ralph Dodson was strong, competent,
energetic. She would have liked to discover him mean, but instead she
uncovered in his view a largeness of vision in civic affairs that
surprised her. He believed in good schools even though they cost money.
One flaw she found in him. He had kept out of the army during the war
and made money while Scot and Hugh were fighting for the Union. But this
was true of many men in the far West, which was a long way from the
fighting line.
One day an accident took place that increased her unwilling admiration
of him. Near the schoolhouse was an abandoned mine tunnel, poorly
timbered, in which she had forbidden the children to play. Little Johnny
Haxtun, playing hide and seek, ventured into it and in the darkness
stumbled against a rotten post. At his weight the support crumbled.
There was a cave-in, and Johnny lay crushed beneath a mass of rock and
timber.
Among the first of the rescuers to arrive was Ralph Dodson. He told the
young school teacher, who was standing there white and shaken, to get a
doctor and have first-aid relief at hand in case Johnny should be alive
when he was released.
Then, axe in hand, he led the men into the tunnel. It was dangerous
work. The fallen timbering had to be cut and dug away. At any moment an
avalanche of rock and dirt might pour down from above and kill them all.
Dodson did not shirk. He stood up to his job deep in the tunnel,
regardless of the little slides trickling down that might at any instant
precipitate a hundred tons upon him. The worst of it was that the more
dirt and jammed timbers were removed, the greater the peril of a second
cave-in.
Johnny was still alive. A couple of crossed timbers had protected him
from the weight of rock and dirt. Vicky heard his whimpering and came
into the tunnel to comfort him. But Dodson would have none of that. He
ordered the girl into the open instantly.
“This isn’t a woman’s job. Get out,” he told her curtly.
Perhaps she resented his manner at the moment, but when half an hour
later he emerged from the tunnel carrying the maimed body of the little
fellow she forgot her pique. The man’s hands were torn and bleeding, his
face stained with sweat and streaks of dirt. The clothes of which he was
usually so careful were daubed with yellow clay. She remembered only
that he had risked his life to save Johnny.
Nor could she forget it when he called that evening at her boarding
house, ostensibly to tell her that the doctor had set Johnny’s broken
leg and found no other injury from the accident.
“It’s going to be hard on his mother. You know she’s a widow and takes
in washing,” Vicky said. “I wonder if we couldn’t give a school
entertainment for her benefit.”
“It won’t be necessary,” he said promptly. “It’s partly my fault the
accident happened. As school clerk I should have had the mouth of the
tunnel boarded up. I’m going to pay all the bills and see that Mrs.
Haxtun doesn’t lose anything by it.”
Victoria felt a glow at her heart. It always did her good to find out
that people were kinder and more generous than she had supposed. Her
judgment of Ralph Dodson had been that he was hard and selfish. Now she
was ashamed of herself for thinking so. She thought of the “Greater love
than this” verse, and in her soul she humbled herself before him. What a
little prig she had been to set herself up as arbiter of right and
wrong.
Dodson made the most of the opportunity chance had given him. He used it
as a wedge to open up a friendship with the girl. She was still
reluctant, but this was based on some subconscious impulse. All the fine
generosity in her was in arms to be fair to him regardless of his
brother.
As soon as he learned that she had a claim on Bald Knob that she wanted
to develop Dodson put his experience at her service. He helped her
arrange with a man to do the actual assessment work and he went over the
ground with her to choose the spot for the shaft. Afterwards he kept an
eye on Oscar Sorenson to see that he did a fair day’s work for the pay
he received.
On holidays Vicky usually walked or rode out to her claim to see how
Sorenson was getting along. She was pretty apt to meet Dodson on the way
to Bald Knob or else superintending operations there. Two or three times
he came down to her prospect at noon and they strolled up a little gulch
to pick wild flowers and eat their lunch together.
He knew so much more about the world than she did that she found his
talk interesting. The glimpse she had had of San Francisco had whetted
her appetite. Were other cities like the one by the Golden Gate, gay and
full of life and fashion which young girls at a finishing school were
not permitted to see? He told her of London and Paris and Vienna, and
her innocent credulity accepted what he said at face value. He had the
gift of talk, the manner of a man of the world. From the confident ease
of his descriptions she could not guess that he had never been in Paris
or Vienna and only once in London for a flying visit to float a mining
scheme.
“You’ll not be going to the mine to-day, dearie,” Mrs. Budd said to
Vicky one Saturday morning when the hills were white with a blanket of
snow.
“Yes. I promised Oscar to bring his mail and some tobacco. Besides, I
want to see how he’s been getting along.”
“If you take my advice you’ll stay comfy at home and not go traipsing
all over the hills gettin’ your feet an’ your skirts wet.”
One of the things Vicky rarely did was to accept advice and follow it. A
fault of her years and of her temperament was that she had to gain her
wisdom through experience.
“I love to get out in the snow and tramp in it,” Vicky said cheerfully,
helping herself to another hot biscuit. “And I’ll not get wet if I wear
arctics and tuck up my skirts when I’m out of town.”
“Hmp! If you’re set on it you’ll go. I know that well enough. But you’ll
come home early, won’t you? There’s a lot more snow up in the sky yet,
and by night we’re likely to have some of it.”
Vicky promised. When she struck the trail to Bald Knob she discovered
that the snow was deeper than she had supposed. But there was a
well-beaten track as far as the shoulder of the ridge. Beyond that she
had to break a path for herself.
It was heavy work. She grew tired long before she reached the mine. But
she kept going rather than turn back. It was nearly two o’clock when
Sorenson answered her hail.
Vicky did not stay long at the mine. She did not like the look of the
sky. The wind was rising, too, and the temperature falling. Once she
thought of asking Sorenson to go back to town with her, but she scouted
the idea promptly and dismissed it. It did not agree with her view of
the self-reliance she was cultivating. Incidentally, too, Sorenson was a
lazy, sulky fellow who would resent taking any unnecessary trouble. She
did not want to put herself under an obligation to him.
The wind had sifted a good deal of snow into the tracks she had made on
the way down from the shoulder of the hill. It came now in great
swirling gusts, filling the air with the light surface snow. By the time
she had passed the Dodson properties the wind had risen to a gale, a
biting wintry hurricane that almost lifted her from her feet. A stinging
sleet swept into her face and blinded her. She found it difficult to
make out the way.
Before she reached the foot of the slope below Bald Knob she was very
tired. The wind drifts had filled the path, so that she had to break her
own trail. The fury of the storm was constantly increasing.
In the comparative shelter of a little draw she stopped to decide what
she had better do. It was still a mile and a half to town. She did not
believe she could possibly make it even if she did not lose the way. Nor
could she climb Bald Knob again to the Dodson camp. That would not be
within her power. There was a little cabin in the next draw where Ralph
slept when he did not care to go to town after spending the day on his
Bald Knob property. It was usually stocked with supplies of food and
fuel. No doubt it would be unoccupied now.
She put her head down into the white blizzard and trudged round the edge
of the ridge that divided the two small gulches. Three minutes later she
pushed open the door of the cabin and walked in.
A man sitting at a table jumped to his feet with a startled oath.
“Goddamighty, who are you?” he demanded.
Vicky was as much taken aback as he. “I thought the cabin was empty,”
she explained. “I’m Victoria Lowell, the school teacher at Piodie. I’ve
been up to my claim.”
The man’s look was half a scowl and half a leer. He was a big
round-shouldered ruffian with long hair and tangled, unkempt beard.
There floated in her mind a vague and fugitive recollection of having
seen him before somewhere.
“Better dry yorese’f,” he said ungraciously.
From the fireplace a big twisted piñon knot threw out a glow of heat.
The girl took off her coat, shook the snow from the wet skirts, and
moved forward to absorb the warmth.
Her host pushed a chair toward her with his foot.
She sank into it, worn out. Presently the moist skirts began to steam
and the warmth of the fire made her drowsy. She aroused herself to
conversation.
“Sorry I had to trouble you. I was ’fraid I couldn’t make it to town.”
“Hell’v a day,” he agreed.
On the table were a whisky bottle and a glass. He indicated them with a
sweep of his hand. “Have a nip. Warm you up, miss.”
“No, thanks. I’m all right.”
Over her stole a delightful lassitude, the reaction from her fight with
the storm. She looked sleepily into the live coals. The howling of the
storm outside was deadened enough to make a sort of lullaby. Her head
began to nod and her eyelids closed. With a start she brought herself
awake again.
“Didn’t know I was so done up,” she murmured.
“’S all right. Sleep if you want to, miss,” the man told her.
Not for an hour or more did she open her eyes again. The table was set
for a meal. A coffeepot was heating on some coals and a black kettle
hung suspended from a crane above the fire.
“Come an’ get it, miss,” the man said gruffly when he saw that she was
awake.
Vicky discovered that she was hungry. She drank the coffee he poured out
and ate the stew he ladled from the kettle. He did not eat with her.
“If the storm would break I’d try to reach town,” she said presently.
“No chance. You stay here where you’re safe, miss.”
“My friends will worry.”
“Let ’em.”
“What was that?” the girl asked.
She had heard a sound of something striking the side of the house.
“Prob’ly a limb flung by the wind. Never saw such a night.”
Victoria shuddered. But for good fortune she might have now been
perishing in the snow.
“How long do you think it will last?” she asked.
“Can’t tell. Maybe till mo’ning. Maybe two-three days.”
“Oh, it couldn’t last that long,” the girl cried, appalled.
“Hmp! Guess you don’t know a Nevada blizzard.” Again he looked at her, a
leer on his heavy face. “You’re liable to have to put up with old Sam
for quite a spell, missie.”
Vicky did not answer. Her eyes were meeting his and the blood crept into
her cheeks. There was a furtive sinister menace between his narrowed
lips that reminded her of a wolf creeping toward its kill. She looked
away, her heart hammering fast. What sort of a creature was this man
with whom she was locked up a million miles away from all the safeguards
of society? In the glowing coals she found no answer to that question.
Presently she stole a sidelong look at him. He was pouring a drink from
the whisky bottle.
“How?” he said, lifting the glass toward her. He tilted back his hairy
throat and drained the tumbler.
A heavy pounding on the door startled the drinker. He listened.
Victoria was at the door instantly. She flung it open. A man lurched
forward and crumpled up on the floor.
CHAPTER XXIII
TWO PLUS ONE MAKES THREE
With a swift movement of her supple body Vicky was on her knees beside
the man. She slipped an arm under his head. Icy sleet encrusted his
clothes. It clung in icicles to his hair and eyebrows. It matted his
lashes and small Vandyke beard.
From her throat came an astonished little cry of recognition. The man
was Hugh McClintock. Over her shoulder she called to the big man at the
table.
“Bring me whisky and water—please.”
He brought it, then closed the door. Awkwardly he stood above her.
“Had a hell’v a close call,” he growled sulkily. It did not suit him to
entertain a second guest.
Vicky let the whisky drop between the lips. Presently Hugh opened his
eyes. He smiled feebly at her. Surprise wiped out the smile. “Little
Vicky,” he murmured.
“Ump-hu,” she nodded. Then, to the hulking figure behind her, the girl
gave order: “Help me carry him nearer the fire. He’s ’most frozen.”
The fellow shambled forward and stooped down. As he did so his eyes fell
on the face of the helpless traveller. He ripped out a savage oath. With
the sweep of an arm he dragged the girl to her feet and hurled her back
to the wall.
His fury struggled for expression. “Gotcha. Gotcha good an’ right. I’m
gonna stomp the life outa you. Gona put my heel on yore throat an’ crack
yore spine. Un’erstand?”
Victoria knew the ruffian now. A flash of memory carried her back to a
day in her childhood when she had seen a horrible apelike figure
standing over the prostrate body of a man from which life had just been
violently ejected. She saw the same gargoyle face, the same hulking
muscle-bound shoulders and long arms with hairy wrists projecting from
the coat sleeves. Her memory brought her a second picture of the same
incident. A smiling young fellow was lifting her gently from the ground.
His hand was caressing her hair softly as he spoke. She recalled even
his words. “Run right along into the wagon where yore dad is, li’l girl,
an’ don’t turn yore head.”
The girl’s arm rested on a shelf, in the same position where it had
fallen when she had been hurled back. Her fingers touched something
cold.
“You first. Yore brother next,” the guttural voice of Dutch went on, and
the horrible malice of it seemed unhuman. “I been waitin’ a mighty long
time, an’ I gotcha at last. Sure have. Thought I was scared of you an’
that damned high-heeled brother o’ yourn, did you? Me, I was settin’
back an’ waitin’—waitin’ for my chance. An’ it’s come, like I knew it
would. Beg. Whine like a papoose. It won’t do you no good, but go to it
jest the same. Hear me—before I turn you over an’ crack yore backbone
at the neck.”
His gloating was horrible. It sent chills through Victoria’s blood. Her
fingers spasmodically closed—on the ivory handle of a revolver. The
force of the recoil had flung her hand into contact with the revolver
Dutch had tossed on the shelf a few hours earlier.
“Don’tcha hear me? Beg me to let you go. Crawl over an’ lick my boots.
Maybe I’ll go easy on you like you two dern fools done with me.” A
jangle of hideous laughter accompanied his words. He kicked his opponent
in the side.
Hugh looked at him steadily, without a word.
“Thought you had the Injun sign on me, eh? Both of you? Well, I’ll say
right here there never was a minute I was scared of either one of
you—or both. Me, I’m Sam Dutch, a sure enough killer. An’ you—you’re
Number Fifteen. Ole Dan Tucker’s come to git his supper, an’ he ain’t
too late, neither.”
He was working himself up for murder. Soon his passion would be boiling
over. Then he would strike.
One thought dominated Vicky, drove out all others. She must save Hugh
McClintock. She forgot to be afraid, forgot to remember that this
scoundrel was the terror of Nevada. Noiselessly she crept forward and
pushed the revolver into his back just below the shoulders.
“If you move I’ll shoot you,” she said hoarsely.
The stream of curses died in the fellow’s throat. His jaw fell.
Ludicrously his immature mind groped with the situation.
Three slow taps rose from the floor. Dutch gasped. Those taps had always
heralded disaster for him.
Vicky drew a knife from his boot and a revolver from the belt he was
wearing. She dropped them on the floor.
“Walk to the door,” she ordered. “Go outside. If you come in before I
call you I’ll shoot holes in you.”
She hardly recognized her own voice. There was in it a new note. She
knew that if he refused to go she would kill him as she would a wolf.
Dutch whined. “You wouldn’t drive me into the storm after I done took
you in an’ fed you, miss. There can’t any one live in that blizzard. I
was jest a-funnin’ about him. Jest my li’l way.”
“Go on,” she told him inexorably. “Now.”
He went. She closed the door behind him.
McClintock crept toward the fire. Vicky gathered the weapons and put
them down beside her. Then she took one of his hands in hers and began
to rub it to restore circulation. She worked on the other hand, on his
ears, his face, his throat. She helped him to take off his boots and in
spite of his protests massaged his frozen feet.
The pain was intense as the circulation began to be renewed in his body.
He clamped his teeth to keep back the groans. He walked up and down
nursing his hands and his ears. But not a sound came from his lips.
“I know it’s awful,” Vicky comforted. “But the pain’s a good sign. Soon
as it’s gone you’ll be all right.”
He grinned. There was nothing to do but endure until the circulation was
fully restored. He beat the back of his hands against the palms. If
Dutch should grow troublesome he might need the use of his fingers
shortly.
A fist beat on the door.
“Shall I let him in?” the girl asked.
Hugh picked up one of the revolvers and crooked his stiff forefinger
over the trigger. He could make out to use it at a pinch.
“Yes, let him in,” he said.
Vicky took the second revolver. The knife Hugh thrust into one of his
boot legs.
When the girl opened the door Dutch slouched in. He was covered from
head to foot with frozen snow and sleet. His venomous eyes slanted first
at McClintock, then at the young woman. The sullen impotent hatred in
his heart was plain enough to send goose-quills down Vicky’s spine. She
knew that if ever he were top dog it would go hard with her or Hugh.
The man poured out half a tumbler of whisky and drank it neat. He
shuffled up to the fire, taking the opposite side to the one occupied by
his guests. Silently he glared at them. But for the moment he could do
nothing. They were armed. He was not.
Exhausted by his long battle with the storm, Hugh could hardly keep his
eyes open. His worn body called for sleep. But with that wild beast
crouched five feet away he dared not relax his vigilance for a moment.
Vicky whispered in his ear: “Cuddle down in the chair and sleep a while.
I’ll watch him.”
Hugh shook his head. No, that would never do. At some unexpected instant
the killer would fling his huge bulk on her and wrest the revolver from
her hand. Much as his system craved it, Hugh rejected sleep as unsafe.
He would stay awake and protect her.
But even as he was firmly resolving this his eyelids drooped. His head
relaxed against the back of the chair. He made an effort to throw off
the drowsiness pressing him down. It was a feeble and unsuccessful one.
Presently he was sound asleep.
From the summit of Bald Knob the storm swept down with a roar. It hurled
itself into the valley with screams like those of a lost soul. It beat
against the hut in furious gusts, rattling the windows and shaking the
door like some living monster intent on destruction. For hours its rage
continued unabated.
Meanwhile, from opposite sides of the fireplace, the desperado and the
girl watched each other. He had a feral cunning. It had served to keep
him alive more than once when he seemed at the end of his rope. Now he
piled the fuel high in the stone chimney and pretended to go to sleep.
The glow of the heat had the intended effect. It formed an alliance with
Vicky’s fatigue. She, too, began to nod at last, her wariness lulled by
the stertorous breathing of the big huddled figure opposite. The sense
of responsibility was still active in her mind. She decided afterwards
that she must have cat-napped, as drivers do on a long night trip, now
and again for a few seconds at a time.
From one of these she awakened with a start. Dutch was tiptoeing toward
her. Their eyes met. He crouched for the leap as her fingers busied
themselves with the revolver.
The roar of the explosion filled the cabin. The weight of the plunging
man flung Vicky to the floor. She lay face down, breathless, oppressed
by his huge bulk. The six-shooter had gone clattering beyond her reach.
The weight lifted from her. She heard scuffling feet and heavy grunts as
she recovered the weapon and fled to the wall. When she turned it was to
see the butt of a six-gun rising and falling. There was a gasp, a groan,
and one of the struggling figures sank down.
The one still standing was Hugh McClintock.
The man on the floor writhed painfully, turned over, and sank into
quietude.
“Are you hurt?” Hugh asked Vicky.
“No. Are you?”
He shook his head. “I fell asleep. Lucky it was no worse.”
“So did I. He was creeping on me when I woke. Is—is he dead?” she
asked, awed.
“No such luck. I tapped his bean with my gun.” He stooped over the
prostrate man and turned him on his back. “Hello! Here’s a wound in his
shoulder. You must have hit him.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Vicky cried.
She looked at the big revolver with a face of horror and threw it on the
shelf where she had found it some hours earlier.
“Probably saved my life,” Hugh told her quietly. “And you haven’t killed
him. He’ll be all right in a week or two. Good work, Vicky.”
“I—didn’t know what I was doing,” she sobbed. “My fingers just
pressed.”
Dutch groaned.
“Best thing could have happened,” Hugh said cheerfully. “He’ll not
trouble us any more. Have to dress the wound, though. If it makes you
sick to——”
“It won’t,” she cried eagerly. “Let me help. What can I do?” Her
reaction was toward activity. If she could help to look after the man
she might forget the awful thing she had by chance escaped doing.
“Rummage through that drawer. Find clean shirts or rags. Tear one into
strips,” Hugh told her.
She flew to the drawer and began tossing out socks, woollen shirts, old
gloves, a pipe, some “dog leg” tobacco, a pack of cards, a few ore
samples, and a vest or two of fancy patterns. Near the bottom she found
a cotton shirt. This she ripped up for bandages.
McClintock brought water and washed the wound. His enemy permitted it,
sulky as a sore bear. The wounded man winced when Hugh tried, as gently
as possible, to locate the bullet.
“Lay off o’ that,” he growled. “Doc Rogers’ll find the pill.”
“Expect you’re right about that,” Hugh agreed. “He can follow the drift
better than I can. Never worked on that level before myself. Doc will
sure strike the ore when he digs for it.”
Vicky passed the bandages to him as he needed them. He noticed once that
the blood had washed from her face and left it colourless.
“You’d better sit down,” he said gently. “I can manage alone.”
“No,” she told him firmly. In spite of the soft pallor of the neck and
throat there was a look of strength about her. He knew she would not
faint. The spirit of the girl shone in her eyes.
But afterwards, when Dutch had been ordered to lie down on the cot by
the window, Hugh took charge of Vicky without consulting her. He
arranged three chairs in such a way that they might serve for a bed,
padded them with sacks, and doubled a blanket so that the girl could lie
between its folds. An old coat belonging to Ralph Dodson did well enough
for a pillow. In five minutes she was breathing softly and regularly,
though she had told Hugh it would be impossible for her to sleep. The
firelight playing on her cheek reflected a faint and delicate colour.
When Vicky woke it was morning. A pale and wintry sunbeam stole through
the window. The storm had passed. Hugh was cooking at the fireplace, his
back to her. The desperado was sleeping noisily and restlessly.
She rose, flushed with embarrassment, and arranged her wrinkled and
disordered skirts.
“Good mo’ning,” the young man called cheerfully without turning.
“Good morning,” she answered shyly. For the first time since she had
come into the house a queer surge of timidity swept her blood. The
modesty of the girl was in arms.
“Your shoes are on the hearth warming.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
He carried hot water in a basin to a summer kitchen adjoining the main
cabin.
“Towel hangin’ on the nail,” he told her when he returned a moment
later.
Vicky gave him a grateful look and passed into the back room. Ten
minutes later she emerged flushed and radiant. The dark rebellious hair
had been smoothed down. To Hugh the blue dress looked miraculously fresh
and clean.
“Come an’ get it,” he called, just as he would have done to another man.
His matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation dissipated measurably her
sense of alarm at the shocked proprieties. If he were not disconcerted
at the intimacy into which the blizzard had plunged them, why should she
be? With the good healthy appetite of youth she ate eggs, bacon, corn
pone, and two flapjacks.
“When can we go?” she asked as he poured coffee into the tin cup before
her.
“Soon as we’ve eaten. Some job to buck the drifts to town but we’ll make
it.”
“And him?” A little lift of her head showed that Vicky’s elliptical
question referred to Dutch.
“I’ll notify his friends to come and look after him.”
Hugh broke trail and Vicky followed in his steps. They travelled slowly,
for in places the drifts were high. Usually the girl’s clear complexion
showed little colour, but now she glowed from exercise. Once when he
turned to lend her a hand through a bank of snow she shook her head
gaily.
“No, I’m doing fine. Isn’t it a _splendiferous_ day?”
It was. The sun had come out in all its glory and was driving the clouds
in ragged billows toward the horizon. The snow sparkled. It was crisp
and sharp beneath their feet. The air, washed clean by the tempest,
filled the lungs as with wine. Not on creation’s dawn had the world
looked purer or more unsullied.
Youth calls to youth. Vicky looked at Hugh with a new interest. She had
always admired his clean strength, the wholesome directness of his
character. To-day her eyes saw him differently. He belonged to her
generation, not that of Mollie and Scot. For the first time his
personality touched her own life. They could not be the same hereafter.
They would have to know each other better—or not at all.
In her childhood days, when fairy tales were still possible, she had
dreamed of a prince in shining silver armour, handsome as Apollo
Belvedere, valiant as Lancelot, a pure and ardent young Galahad. Now, as
she followed the trail breaker through the white banks, an involuntary
smile touched her lips. She was wondering, in the shy daring fashion of
a girl’s exploring mind, what Hugh McClintock was really like behind the
mask of his physical clothing. Certainly nobody could be less like the
shining knight of her dreams than he. For Hugh walked the straight plain
road of life without any heroic gestures. Ralph Dodson made a far more
romantic figure than Hugh. Even Scot, with his native touch of the grand
manner, had more glamour for her than the younger brother.
Good old Hugh, faithful and true. She could not think of anybody she
liked better.
CHAPTER XXIV
OLD DOG TRAY BARKS
Jim Budd had picked up a new song. Much to the relief of his sore-tried
wife, he occasionally monotoned it in place of the Grimes catalogue of
virtues and clothing.
Vicky could hear him in the kitchen singing it now.
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away.
He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never find
A better friend than old dog Tray.”
Oddly enough the words hummed themselves into Vicky’s musings. She was
standing before the mirror putting the finishing touches to a very
attractive picture, a picture of lovely youth, warm, vital, piquant.
Miss Vicky was expecting a caller, and though she hadn’t any desire to
dazzle this particular admirer—if he were an admirer, for she hadn’t
made sure of that yet—she did not choose to be so ungrateful as to
neglect any of the natural advantages with which a kind Providence had
endowed her.
She murmured the fat man’s refrain:
“He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never find
A better friend than——”
Mrs. Budd poked her head into the room. “Hugh McClintock,” she
announced. “In the parlour.”
“Here to see me?” asked Miss Lowell, just as though she had not known he
was coming.
“I kinda gather that notion. Anyhow, he asked for you. Were you dollin’
up for me an’ Jim?”
“I’ll be right down, tell him.”
“I would, dearie. He’s ce’tainly wearin’ out the rim of his hat makin’
it travel in circles.”
After which shot Mrs. Budd puffed downstairs and read the riot act
mildly to Jim for having tracked mud into her immaculate kitchen.
If Hugh was embarrassed it was because of the nature of his mission this
evening. He had plenty of native dignity, but he knew nothing of the
thought processes of young women going-on-eighteen. Would they take
well-meant advice in the same spirit in which it was given? He did not
know, but he intended to find out.
Indirectly Vicky gave him a lead. “I’ve just had a letter from Mollie.
What do you think? Scot’s going to run for secretary of state.”
“Made up his mind to run, has he? Knew he was thinkin’ about it. Wonder
if anybody else is goin’ after the Republican nomination.”
“Yes,” said the girl quietly.
Hugh looked a surprised question at her.
“Mr. Ralph Dodson is going to run,” she continued.
He let that sink in for a moment. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s liable to open
up the old sore.”
“Do you think it will?” she asked anxiously.
“Not unless the Dodsons make it a personal fight.”
“I don’t think Ralph would do that.”
“You know him pretty well?” He put his comment with the rising
inflection.
“Yes. That is, he comes to see me.” Vicky’s chin was up ever so little.
She sensed McClintock’s hostility. “I like him.”
“Do you? Can’t say I do. I don’t trust him.”
“Do _you_ know him well?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
The girl laughed. “You remind me of what Charles Lamb says in one of his
essays. We were reading it in school. Or maybe it was an anecdote about
him the teacher told us. Anyhow, he said he didn’t like a certain man. A
friend asked him if he knew him. ‘Of course I don’t,’ Lamb said. ‘If I
did I’d like him. That’s why I don’t want to know him.’ Is it like that
with you?”
He considered this gravely. “Maybe so. I’m prejudiced against him on
account of his brother.”
“But that’s no fair,” the girl cried quickly.
“And because of two or three things I’ve known him do.”
“What things?” she demanded.
Hugh did not care to discuss with Vicky the man’s amours. He shifted
ground. “He’s selfish through and through. Thinks only of himself.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. “When you say that it just shows how little
you know him. He’s the most generous man I ever met.”
“He’s good lookin’, and he’s hail fellow enough. That’s not what I
mean.”
“And it’s not what I mean,” she retorted, her temper beginning to rise.
“Two or three months ago he did the bravest thing I ever saw—risked his
life for hours in a caved tunnel, to save the life of a ragged little
boy. Was that selfish? Was that thinking only of himself?”
“He’s game. He’ll go through,” admitted Hugh. “I didn’t mean that way.”
Her stormy eyes challenged him. “Then just what _do_ you mean?”
Hugh flushed. He did not find it possible to tell her explicitly just
what he did mean. It was bad enough for him to be violating the
masculine instinct against exposing another man to one of the opposite
sex. He could not draw a bill of particulars about Dodson before an
innocent girl. Moreover, what he had heard of the man’s escapades was
merely town gossip—true enough, he felt sure, but not evidence that
could be held good before an ardent young advocate like Vicky.
“He’s not very scrupulous some ways,” he said lamely.
“What ways?”
McClintock felt himself being driven into a blind alley. He could not go
on, nor could he turn back.
“I wouldn’t want a sister of mine to know him too well,” was the best he
could do by way of explanation.
“That’s merely an expression of a personal feeling,” she flashed. “And
since I’m not your sister it does not weigh with me. You come here and
attack my friend. You say he’s selfish and—unscrupulous. I ask for
facts to back what you’ve said.”
Though he had been put helplessly in the wrong, Hugh felt that he was
right at bottom. Vicky had no business to have this fellow on the list
of her friends. He tried to break from the logic of the position into
which she had forced him by an appeal to their old friendship.
“I used to have a little partner named Vicky Lowell. We did not see much
of each other, but we were tillicums. Oughtn’t I to warn her when I see
her going with the wrong kind of man?”
“And oughtn’t I to ask you to _prove_ to me he’s the wrong kind? Or must
I take it for granted and give up any of my friends if you happen not to
fancy them?”
“I tell you he isn’t right—not right for a girl like you to know.”
“You admit yourself you’re prejudiced.”
“Not about that. If you’ll let me, I’ll call his hand for a showdown.
Let him prove to me he’s been slandered and I’ll——”
Vicky exploded. “If you dare, Hugh McClintock! Did Scot appoint you
deputy guardian of me? Do you think I can’t look after myself? Do you
think you can come here and slander my friends——?” She broke off,
white with anger.
He gave up, with a helpless lift of his hands. “I made a mistake. Sorry.
I believe every word I’ve said, but I reckon I blundered somehow. I
meant the best ever, Vicky, but—oh, well, you can’t see it my way. I’ll
say good-evenin’.”
Hugh rose. He offered his strong brown hand and with it a smile that
asked for forgiveness.
She hesitated. Her anger at him was not yet spent.
From the next room came Jim Budd’s wheezy refrain, tuneless and
monotonous:
“Old dog Tray ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away.
He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never find
A better friend than old—dog—Tray.”
“Just old dog Tray,” Hugh said, and his smile was a little wistful. “A
faithful old blunderer, but after all an honest friend.”
Vicky relented on swift impulse and gave him her hand. “All right—old
dog Tray. But I warn you that you’ll have grief enough to drive you away
if you behave like this again.”
“I’ll come back even though you throw stones at me,” he said, and this
time his grin was gay. “Maybe I’ll bark again at yore friends and maybe
I won’t. We’ll see.”
“Take my advice and don’t,” she warned.
“You didn’t take mine.”
“And that’s only half of it. I’m not going to,” the girl flung back,
looking at him with a flash of mischief in her eyes.
“Well, I can’t help that. It’s good medicine.” He added a suggestion:
“Tell Dodson that I warned you against him if you like.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
“I don’t want to feel underhanded about it. I’d rather you did tell
him.”
“Well, I won’t,” she said with decision. “What kind of a girl do you
think I am?”
“If you want me to tell you how nice a girl I think you are——”
“Now—now,” she protested, laughing. “That’s not what old dog Trays are
for.”
“Thought you asked me,” he replied with deep innocence.
“First you were Mr. Goodman to me. Then you were Santa Claus. Then Mr.
Hugh McClintock. Now you’re old dog Tray. I wonder what you’ll be next,”
she queried.
For a flash their eyes met before the mask fell. She drew back,
startled; then decided that she had been mistaken. For in that beat of
time it seemed to her that his soul had answered her question and told
her what he meant to be to her next.
Of course, she had imagined it.
CHAPTER XXV
THE KILLER STRIKES
It was generally recognized that the Republicans would carry the state
that year. The war was still so near that it would have a determining
influence on thousands of voters. The chief local interest centred in
the race for the nomination of the dominant party for secretary of
state.
This was due to several factors. Chief of these was the fight between
two candidates of outstanding personality, a fight which rapidly
developed into a bitter one. Scot McClintock was still the most
picturesque figure in Nevada, though he had left behind him his wild
escapades and his gay irresponsibility. The mining camps were yet full
of the rumour of his adventures. In any assembly his good looks, charm,
and qualities of leadership made him a marked figure. His audacity and
courage fitted the time and the place. Men tremendously admired him
because they saw in him what they would like to be themselves.
The character of Ralph Dodson made no appeal to men’s affections. He was
too cold and calculating, his ambition too ruthless. But they recognized
his strength. He would travel a long way in the world.
The big mining interests supported Dodson. Scot was too much a tribune
of the people to suit them. At any time he might embarrass the mine
owners by some quixotic gesture inspired by his sense of justice.
Scot went out into the camps and the agricultural valleys to make a
personal campaign. If he had been dealing with the voters individually
he could have made a runaway race of it. But delegates to conventions,
then as now, were under the influence of leaders, who in turn took
orders from the men who financed the campaign. He was under a tremendous
handicap because he had only an individual following to oppose a party
machine.
Yet he made headway, and so fast that his opponent became alarmed.
Dodson came out in the _Enterprise_ with a savage attack on his rival in
which he accused him of being an ex-gambler and a bawdy-house brawler.
Scot kept his temper and made no counter charges. From the stump he
replied that at least he had always been a square gambler. His fighting
record, he said carelessly, must take care of itself.
Vicky met Ralph Dodson on the Avenue at Piodie while the campaign was at
its height. She fired point blank a charge at him.
“I read what you said in the _Enterprise_ about Scot.”
He laughed a little, but his eyes watched her warily. “You’d think once
in a while some newspaper reporter would get a story right,” he said
easily.
“Oh! Wasn’t it true that you said it?” Her level gaze met his steadily.
“I was annoyed, and I said something. Don’t remember just what.
Certainly I didn’t intend to insult any of your family.”
“Then you’ll deny it in the paper?”
“Is it quite worth-while? Everybody knows what newspapers are—how
they’re keen to make everything one says sensational.”
“If you don’t deny it people will think you said it.”
“We-ell, in a political campaign men get excited. It doesn’t greatly
matter what folks say—just part of the game, you know.”
“Is it part of the game to tell lies about a good man?” she asked
flatly.
He threw up his hands gaily. “I surrender at discretion. Will a note to
the _Enterprise_ correcting the error suit your Majesty?”
“You’re not doing it for me,” she told him, her dark eyes shining.
“You’re doing it because it’s the fair thing.”
“Hang the fair thing,” he answered, laughing. “I’m doing it for Miss
Victoria Lowell.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” She dimpled to a smile. “Because I’m against
you and for Scot in this fight.”
“Then I’ll give up the race,” he mocked. “I think you ought at least to
be neutral.”
Dodson played his hand under cover after that. He saw that McClintock
was kept under a steady fire of newspaper attack and that none of it
could be traced to him. No paper dared make any reference to the origin
of the trouble between Colonel McClintock and the Dodsons, but hired
assassins of reputation whispered evil stories in which the names of
Mollie and Scot appeared. These became so numerous that at last Scot in
a speech full of eloquence and fierce indignation referred to the
traducers of his wife as snakes in the grass who dared not come into the
open for fear of having the life trampled out of them.
The bitterness grew, became acute. Robert Dodson, still full of venom
and hatred, whispered in the ears of killers. The word was passed around
quietly that McClintock might be shot down any time. Friends came to
warn him. They carried the word to Hugh, who dropped his business at
once and joined Scot at Austin. From this time the younger man, in spite
of the Colonel’s good-humoured protest, travelled over the state with
his brother as a lookout.
At Carson the killers struck.
Scot had addressed an enthusiastic meeting, at which he had been heckled
by supporters of Dodson and had turned upon them with such witty scorn
that they had slipped out of the hall discomfited. With Hugh beside him
the speaker had returned to the Ormsby House. The younger brother was
putting up at the house of a friend. He left Scot in his room ready to
undress.
But when the colonel felt in his waistcoat pocket for a cigar he found
none. He stepped down to the barroom to get one. Baldy Green, the old
stage driver, was sitting by the office stove. The two fell into talk
and Scot sat down to smoke his cigar with the old-timer.
A man whom Scot did not know lounged into the office and out again. In
the darkness outside he whispered to two men. One of them was the
ex-mule-skinner Hopkins, a dyed-in-the-wool bad man; the other was Sam
Dutch.
The hotel office had three doors. One opened from the street, a rear one
led to the rooms, the third was a double swing door separating the
office from the bar. Scot’s chair was so placed that he faced the
entrance from the street and the bar. His back was half-turned to the
rear one.
The stage driver was talking. “You betcha, Colonel. If us old-timers had
the say-so we’d elect you by a mile. Sure would. That slick scalawag
Dodson, why he—he——”
Scot’s first warning came from Baldy’s consternation. His eyes popped
out. They were staring at some apparition in the back of the room. The
words of his sentence stuck in the roof of his mouth. Almost
simultaneously came the click McClintock knew from of old.
He whirled in the chair dragging at his revolver. It caught on his coat.
Two bolts of lightning flamed. The crash of heavy thunder filled the
room. Scot sagged in his seat, the curly head falling forward heavily on
the chest. From his slack fingers the revolver dropped.
Again the guns boomed. Another jagged knife thrust of pain went through
and through Scot’s body.
“Got him. Got him good, Sam,” an exultant voice announced hoarsely
through the smoke.
A hulking figure slouched forward cautiously. The victim lay huddled in
the chair motionless, both hands empty of weapons. No sign of life
showed in the lax body.
“Always said I’d git him.” Dutch broke into a storm of oaths. He
reversed his revolver and struck the fallen head savagely with the butt.
“We’d better make a getaway,” the other man said hurriedly. “This ain’t
no healthy place for us.”
The gorilla-man struck again and broke the hammer of his revolver.
“Out this way,” he said, and pushed through the swinging doors to the
bar.
The heavy blows had beaten McClintock down so that he slid from the
chair. The doctor who attended him afterwards said that the effect of
them was temporarily to act as a counter-shock to the bullet wounds. His
senses cleared and his hand found the revolver. He was cocking it as the
second assassin vanished through the swing doors.
Scot concentrated his strength and energy, focussing every ounce of
power left in him to do the thing in his mind. With his left hand as a
support he raised the six-shooter and fired through the swing door.
Then, inch by inch, he crawled forward to the barroom entrance, shoved
the door open with his shoulder, and tried again to lift the forty-five.
It was not in his ebbing forces to raise the heavy weapon from the
floor.
But there was no need to use it again. The mule-skinner Hopkins lay face
down on the floor, arms flung wide. Scot’s shot through the swing door
had killed him instantly.
Baldy knelt beside his friend. “Did they get you, old-timer?” he asked,
his voice shaking.
“I’m still kicking. Send for Hugh,” the wounded man gasped.
Half an hour later Hugh stood beside the bedside of his brother. Scot’s
face was bloodless to the lips. He was suffering a good deal and was
very weak. The doctor had told Hugh that he would not live till morning.
“I’m going—to—make it,” Scot said faintly.
“Wire—for—Mollie. Tell her—not to—worry.”
Mollie came down from Virginia. She reached Carson by daybreak. Scot was
still living, still holding his own, though the doctors held out no hope
of recovery. At the end of forty-eight hours he was in a high fever, but
his strength was unabated. The fever broke. He came out of it weak but
with the faint, indomitable smile of the unconquered on his face.
His hand pressed Mollie’s softly. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I’ll make
it sure,” he promised.
The tears welled into her eyes. His courage took her by the throat and
choked her, for the doctors still gave her no encouragement.
“Yes,” she whispered, and tried to keep the sob out of her voice.
“What’s a li’l’ thing like three bullets among one perfectly good man?”
he asked whimsically.
“You’re not to talk, the doctor says,” she reproved.
“All right. Where’s Hugh?”
“He left yesterday to ’tend to some business.”
“What business?” A frown of anxiety wrinkled his pale forehead.
“He didn’t say.”
“Where did he go?”
“I didn’t ask him. He said he’d be back to-day or to-morrow, one.”
Scot thought this over, still with a troubled face. He guessed what this
important business was that had called Hugh from his bedside at such a
critical time. But he did not hint to Mollie his suspicion.
“When he comes back will you let me know right away, Honey? Or if he
wires?”
“Yes. Now you must stop talking and take this powder.”
The smile that was a messenger to carry her all his love rested in his
eyes. “I’ll be good, Mollie.”
He took the medicine and presently fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXVI
HUGH HITS THE TRAIL
While Hugh was still at the bedside of his brother he began to make
arrangements for the thing he meant to do. Already he knew that Sam
Dutch had left town. Word had come to him that two horsemen in a
desperate hurry had clattered down the street from Doc Benton’s stable.
They had disappeared in the darkness. But the man who had seen them go
had not recognized the companion of Dutch. Nor could he tell whether the
riders had turned off Carson Street into King’s Cañon road, had swung to
the right along the foothills road, or had held to a straight course
toward Reno.
The news of the outrage spread fast. Friends of the McClintocks poured
into the Ormsby House by scores to see if there was anything they could
do. Among them were the Governor, a Justice of the Supreme Court,
half-a-dozen state senators and representatives, and the sheriff of the
county.
It was characteristic of Hugh that even in the anguish he felt at seeing
his brother stricken from lusty health by the bullets of assassins his
mind worked with orderly precision. When he thought of the murderers a
cold, deadly anger possessed him, but if possible he meant his vengeance
to come within the law.
“There’s one thing you can do, Phil,” he said to the sheriff. “Swear me
in as a special deputy. I’m goin’ out to get Dutch.”
“To bring him back here, you mean?” asked the officer.
McClintock’s eyes were inscrutable. “Of course.”
“Now, looky here, son, that’s our job,” the sheriff remonstrated. “I’m
gonna git that fellow. He’s run on the rope too long. You stay right
here with Scot.”
“No. I want Dutch. He’s mine. Hands off till I can leave Scot, Phil.”
The sheriff argued, but he could not move the grim-faced man from his
purpose. At last he gave way with a shrug of his shoulders. A wilful man
must have his way.
“All right, son, I’ll swear you in if you’ll promise to bring Dutch back
to Carson providin’ you git him.”
“I promise that.”
“Alive,” the sheriff added.
“Alive,” agreed Hugh, meeting him eye to eye.
Baldy Green showed his teeth in a mirthless grin. “A few of us here in
town’ll guarantee that if you bring him alive he won’t go away alive.”
The officer turned on him angrily. “That’s a fine way to talk, Baldy.
You hold yore lines tighter. Monkey with my prisoner an’ I’ll show you a
scatter gun that throws buckshot all over Carson.”
Meanwhile Hugh kept the wires hot with messages. He telegraphed friends
at Virginia, Reno, Piodie, and Genoa, asking for news of the fugitives.
His suspicion fastened on Robert Dodson as the man who was riding with
Dutch. He knew the man had been in town earlier in the day, and he could
not through his friends locate him here now. The night travellers might
make for Virginia, where Dutch could lie hidden in one of the Dodson
mines till the excitement was past. Or they might be making for Genoa
with the intention of crossing the Sierras to California. More likely
still they were headed for Piodie, where the sheriff, the law machinery,
and the town bad men were all friendly to the Dodson interests. So Hugh
reasoned it out.
The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t look to me like Dodson would mix
himself up with Dutch now. Maybe he hired him to do this killing. I
don’t say he did. I don’t know. But it ain’t reasonable that he’d give
himself away by ridin’ hellamile outa town with him.”
“Ralph Dodson wouldn’t, but you can’t tell what his brother might do. My
notion is he didn’t intend to go, but afterwards lost his nerve and
wouldn’t stick it out here alone.”
“That’d be like Bob Dodson,” Baldy confirmed. “He’s got a sure enough
rabbit heart.”
None of the answers to his telegrams brought Hugh the message he hoped
for. The fugitives had not been seen at Virginia, Genoa, or Reno, though
it was quite possible they might have reached or passed through any of
these places unnoticed. He decided to play what would nowadays be called
a hunch. The natural place for them to go was Piodie, and it was there
he meant to look for them.
The doctors gave him no hope for Scot, but they now believed that his
remarkable vitality would keep him alive several days. Hugh arranged to
keep in touch with Baldy Green by wire. Now that the railroad was in
operation he could get back to town within a few hours if an emergency
call came for him.
He rode down to Reno and there boarded the Overland. A couple of hours
later he left it at a small way station and engaged a saddle horse. He
guessed that if the fugitives had gone to Piodie they would leave
watchers to report on any strangers who might come to town. Therefore,
four miles out of Piodie he left the road, took a cow trail that swung
round Bald Knob, and dropped down a little gulch that led to the back of
the Pony Express Corral, and under cover of dusk slipped into the
stable.
Byers was there alone. “How’s Scot?” he asked.
“Bad,” said Hugh, and his haggard face twitched. “Doctor don’t think
he’ll make it. What about Dutch?”
“Got in last night.”
“Dodson with him?”
The small man nodded. He was always parsimonious of words.
“Know where he is now?”
“At the Katie Brackett. Rode right out there.”
Hugh knew that this meant his enemies were playing it safe. The Katie
Brackett was owned and controlled by the Dodsons. Here they were on home
territory, surrounded by adherents. If a sheriff’s posse appeared on the
road leading to the mine Dutch would be safely underground in one of the
levels long before it reached the shaft house. There he would be as
secure as a needle in a haystack. Even if the sheriff elected to search
the mine, the bad man could play hide and seek with the posse in a
hundred stopes, drifts, and crosscuts.
“Ralph Dodson in town?”
“No. Virginia.”
This was one piece of good news. With the younger mine owner absent he
would have one less enemy to contend with, and the most dangerous of the
three. For Ralph was game, audacious, and brainy. It would hardly have
been possible to get the killer out of Piodie with young Dodson running
the campaign for him.
“I’m goin’ up after him,” Hugh said quietly.
“With that gang round him?”
“Maybe I’ll catch him alone.”
“And maybe not.” Byers stepped to the wall and took down from a peg a
belt to which was attached a revolver. He strapped on the belt.
“No, Dan,” Hugh told him. “I’m playin’ a lone hand. My only chance is to
lie low and surprise Dutch before he knows I’m within a hundred miles.”
“Hmp! What if he surprises you?”
“I’ll be Number Sixteen. But he won’t. I’m goin’ to take him back to
Carson.”
There was a sound of feet moving at a shuffling run. A man burst through
the doorway and stopped at sight of them. The runner was Jim Budd. For a
few moments he stood panting, unable to find his breath for speech.
“What’s up, Jim?” asked Hugh.
The fat man wheezed out an answer. “H-hell to pay! The Katie Brackett’s
afire, an’ the day shift’s down in her, caught in a drift.”
CHAPTER XXVII
TRAPPED
As the three friends hurried up Pine Nut Gulch toward the Katie Brackett
the youngest of them reflected that the method of approach had been made
smooth for him. It was not now necessary for him to skulk up through the
sage. The whole town was on its way to the scene of the disaster. A
stream of people was headed for the mine. Nimble boys passed them on the
run. Less active citizens they overtook and left behind. The sounds of
voices, of movements of many people, came to them through the darkness.
Hugh still carried his sawed-off shotgun. He might need it. He might
not. He realized that for the moment his vengeance must take second
place. The common thought and effort of Piodie must centre on the
business of saving the poor fellows trapped in that fiery furnace six
hundred feet below ground.
The superintendent of the mine was calling for volunteer rescuers just
as Hugh and Dan reached the shaft house. McClintock hid his shotgun
under a pile of lumber and stepped forward. The cage was a double
decker. There was a rush of men to get on the lower floor. They knew
well enough the danger that faced them, but it is a risk a brave miner
is always willing to take for the lives of doomed companions.
“Hold on! Get back there. Don’t crowd!” ordered the superintendent. “No
married man can go. You, Finlay—and Trelawney—and Big Bill. That makes
six. All right.”
The lower compartment dropped and the second level was even with the
ground. The superintendent stepped into the cage. Byers crowded in next.
Budd, puffing hard, pushed close. With an elbow driven hard into his
midriff Hugh thrust him back. “Don’t you hear? No married men wanted,
Jim.”
McClintock vaulted over the edge of the cage and dropped into it.
A big Ayrshire mucker shouted at the superintendent. “An’ when did ye
divorce your wife an’ twa weans, boss?”
“I’ve got to go, Sandy. It’s my job,” the mine boss called back. “That’s
all. No room for more. Jam that gate shut.”
The engineer moved a lever and the bucket dropped into the darkness.
Every few seconds there was a flash of light as the cage passed a
station. Except for that the darkness was dense.
Hugh heard someone beside him say, “I hear Dodson’s caught in a drift.”
Carstairs, the superintendent, answered: “Yes. Dutch is with him. They
went to look at that new vein we struck yesterday.”
No accident contains more terrible possibilities than a fire in a mine.
Flame and gas pursue the trapped victims as they fly. Cut off from the
shaft, buried hundreds of feet in the ground, the miners run the risk of
being asphyxiated, burned, or blown up in an explosion of released
gases.
The shaft, the drifts, the crosscuts, and the tunnels all act as flues
to suck the flames into them. At Piodie, as at Virginia City, the danger
was intensified by the great quantity of fuel with which these natural
chimneys were lined. In the Katie Brackett whole forests were buried.
Every drift and tunnel was braced with timbers. Scores of chutes, with
vertical winzes, all made of wood, led from one level to another. The
ore chambers were honeycombed with square sets of timber mortised
together and wedged against the rock walls and roof. Upon each set
floors of heavy planking were laid. In these were trap doors, through
which steps ran leading from the lower level to the one above.
The fire was in the north drift. Carstairs led the men forward
cautiously. Already their eyes were inflamed from the smoke that rolled
out at them. As they moved forward heat waves struck them. The rock
walls were so hot that the rescuers could with difficulty keep going.
Hugh was at the nozzle of the hose they were dragging. He kept a stream
playing on the rock and the charred timber. Presently he fell back,
overcome by the intense heat, and Carstairs took his place. Byers
succeeded the superintendent at the apex of the attack.
Steam, sulphur, fumes, and gas released from the minerals swept the
rescuers back. The air was so foul that the workers could not breathe it
without collapsing. An air pipe was led in from the main blower above,
and the volunteers renewed their efforts.
At times the swirling smoke was too much for them. It either drove them
to the shaft or it forced them to lie with their faces close to the
ground where the air was purer. Farther down the tunnel they could see
red tongues of flame licking at them. The roar of the fire as it leaped
forward was far more appalling than that of any wild beast could have
been.
The faces of the firemen were smoke-blackened and grimy. Already several
had collapsed from the intense heat. These were helped back to the shaft
and sent up. Others came down to take their places.
Hugh’s eyebrows crisped from the heat. The men were all naked from the
waist up. Below this they wore only cotton overalls and boots. These
were licked to a char thin and fragile as paper. The skin peeled from
Hugh’s body in flakes where anything touched it.
From above came an ominous sound.
“Back,” ordered Carstairs.
The roof came down, an avalanche of dirt and rock and timber. So close
was McClintock to it that the air shock almost knocked him down.
Before the dust had settled Carstairs sent his sappers at the job of
clearing out and timbering the tunnel.
Steadily the rescuers gained ground. Every few minutes they relayed each
other. Each man knew that his position was one of great danger. The fire
might reach the shaft and cut them off from above. A cave of rock might
release gases which might kill either by explosion or asphyxiation. A
change of draught might fling a great tongue of fire at them and wipe
the whole party out in a few seconds. Yet the work went on, hour after
hour, steadily and without ceasing. For somewhere in one of the
crosscuts which they were approaching, a group of haggard, anxious men
were awaiting rescue, unless the fire had already snuffed out their
lives.
“The crosscut’s just ahead,” Carstairs announced.
Byers was at the nozzle. The little man had stuck it out gamely. Only
four of the original party were still working. The others had been
relieved and sent to the surface.
McClintock had just returned from the shaft where he had been with a man
overcome by the heat. He was for the moment the freshest man in the
group.
“Two volunteers to search the crosscut while the rest hold back the
fire,” called Carstairs.
“I’ll go,” said a Maine lumberjack.
“Same here,” added Hugh.
They waited, watching for a chance to plunge into the side tunnel when
the fire was momentarily low.
“Now,” said McClintock, and he dived at the opening in the wall.
The lumberjack followed him. So intense was the heat at the entrance to
the crosscut that a little pool of water on the rock floor was boiling
angrily. As they pushed deeper into it the heat decreased.
Hugh shouted. A voice answered his call.
He moved forward and presently stumbled over a body.
“How many in here?” he asked.
“Eleven.”
“Where are the others?”
“Dead,” came the answer. “Cut off by fire damp before we reached the
crosscut.”
“All of you able to travel?”
“Yes.”
Hugh heard the sound of footsteps stumbling toward him. Men came abreast
of him and went past. He counted them—eleven. Then he stooped and
picked up the body at his feet. In another minute he was staggering into
the drift with his burden.
The fire fighters fell back past the charred timbers and the hot rocks
of the wall.
“You’re through, boys,” Carstairs said. “I’ll send a fresh crew in to
blast down the mouth of the drift and build a bulkhead against the fire.
Then we’ll close the shaft and let ’er die down for lack of air.”
The first thing Hugh did when he reached the foot of the shaft was to
find the revolver he had hidden beneath a car; the next was to look over
the rescued men for the one he wanted. He found him, standing beside
Robert Dodson close to the cage. The mine owner was sobbing with the
strain he had undergone. His nerve had gone. The big hulking figure at
his back was Sam Dutch.
Hugh kept in the background. He did not want to be recognized just yet.
Meanwhile, he slipped into his trousers, shirt, and coat. In the pocket
of his coat was something that jingled when he accidentally touched the
wall.
The rescued men were in much better condition than the ones who had
fought the fire to save them. They had reached the precarious safety of
the crosscut in time to avail themselves of its comparatively fresh air.
The volunteers were worn out, fagged, and burned to a toast. Some of
them had inhaled gases and smoke that would enfeeble their lungs for
months. They moved like automatons, their energy gone, their strength
exhausted.
The cage came down and the men began to pile in. Hugh was standing close
behind a huge man whom his eyes never left. He pushed into the lower
level of the cage after him.
The car shot upward. Hugh drew something from his pocket. In the
darkness his hand moved gently to and fro. It found what it was seeking.
There was a click, a second click, a furious, raucous oath of rage like
the bellow of a maddened bull elephant. Hugh had slipped handcuffs on
the thick wrists of Dutch and locked them.
His thumb jammed hard into the spine of the desperado. “Steady in the
boat,” he murmured. “This gun’s liable to spill sudden.”
The car rose into the fresh daylight of the young morning.
CHAPTER XXVIII
“AS GOOD AS THE WHEAT”
Through the crowd at the mouth of the mine word flashed that the cage
was coming up. All night they had waited there, the wives and children
of the imprisoned miners, the residents of Piodie who knew one or
another of the men caught in the raging inferno below. The women and the
little ones had wept themselves dry of tears long since. They stood now
with taut nerves, eyes glued to the cage as it swept into sight.
Someone started a cheer as the first of the rescued men stepped out to
the platform. A wail of anguish rose above it and killed the cheer. It
came from a young wife with a shawl over her head. She had asked a
question of one of the men and learned that her husband was dead.
The crowd pressed close to those who had come up from the fire. A woman
gave a sob of joy and fell into the arms of a grimy Cousin Jack. Another
caught a glimpse of her husband’s face and fainted.
In the excitement two men pushed through the crowd toward a pile of
lumber. The one in front moved with sullen reluctance. Only the pressure
against his back kept him going. Nobody noticed that he was handcuffed.
From underneath the lumber pile the second man drew a sawed-off shotgun.
“We’ll be movin’ down to town,” he told his captive.
Dutch shouted one word, “Dodson.”
The mine owner swung round, and at the first glance understood the
situation. He turned pale and stepped behind Carstairs. Not for a moment
did he doubt that McClintock had come to kill Dutch. Would he make a
clean sweep of it and shoot him, too? Convicted of guilt, he crouched
behind his superintendent shaking like an aspen.
“Don’t let him kill me,” he begged.
Hugh spoke, his voice cold and hard. “I’m not on the shoot to-day,
Dodson—unless you force my hand, you black-hearted murderer. I’m here
to take Dutch back to Carson with me. The yellow wolf shot my brother in
the back.”
“No such thing. I got him in a fair fight,” blustered Dutch. “An’ I
ain’t goin’ to Carson with you, either.”
“You’re going, _dead or alive_.” McClintock’s face and voice were as
inexorable as the day of judgment.
“He’s aimin’ to take me there to be killed,” Dutch cried out. “You boys
won’t stand for that.” He named two or three of the men with whom he
consorted, picking them out of the crowd.
“Sure we won’t.” A gunman stepped forward briskly. “You can’t pull that
over here, McClintock. You don’t own this camp, an’ you can’t play chief
here.”
Two men lined up with Hugh, one on each side of him. The man on his
right was a whale of a fat man. Deftly he slid McClintock’s revolver
from its holster. The second ally was a small wiry fellow. From a grimy
blackened face keen eyes peered intently.
The fat man spoke. “Don’t run on the rope, Sloan. We’re with the kid on
this. He’s a deputy sheriff, an’ it’ll sure be ‘Let’s gather at the
river’ for some of you anxious gents if you overplay yore hand.”
Sloan hesitated. He could not very well look round to see whether the
gang of which he was one were present in numbers, and, if so, whether
they would support him. He knew these three men of old. They belonged to
the pony express outfit, as hard-riding and fast shooting a group of men
as the West has known. It was certain that Dutch could not be rescued
without a fight, and Sloan was hardly in a position to call for a
showdown. He was game enough. With McClintock alone he would have taken
a chance. But the three of them were too many for him.
The sheriff of the county saved his face. He bustled forward.
“Tut, tut! What’s all this?” he asked fussily. “There’s good law in this
town, lots of it. No need of gun plays. If Mr. Dutch is wanted, there’s
a right an’ proper way to get him, but that way ain’t at the point of a
gun.”
“McClintock’s a deputy sheriff,” put in Budd.
There was rivalry between him and the sheriff. Budd was a candidate for
the party nomination at the coming primaries. The wise politicians
admitted that even with the Dodsons against him the fat man had a
chance.
“You’d oughta know better’n that, Budd, an’ you a candidate for
sheriff,” the officer reproved. “Say he is a deputy. He can’t go
cavortin’ round all over Nevada, California, and Utah arrestin’ any one
he’s a mind to. Where’s his warrant? Whyn’t he come to me with it like a
reasonable man would—that is, if he’s got one.”
With his left hand Hugh felt in his pocket and produced a warrant. He
handed it to the sheriff. That gentleman ran his eye over it. He
returned it.
“Good only in Ormsby County,” he snapped. “What arrestin’ is done here I
do—leastways, at present,” he added with a sarcastic grin at Budd.
The fat man was caught. He knew nothing about the technicalities of
arrests. What the sheriff said might or might not be true. He tried a
bluff.
“This here’s an extra-territorial warrant that runs ex judicio,” he
explained largely.
“That so?” asked the sheriff ironically. “Well, it sure don’t hold water
here. Bad men can’t get on the prod with me. No, siree!”
The cage had descended to bring up a second load of miners. Meanwhile,
the interest of the crowd centred on the dispute that had arisen. Those
on the outskirts pressed forward, eager to hear what was being said.
Sloan had fallen back and was whispering in the ears of a few choice
spirits.
Hugh spoke out straight and strong. His words were not for the sheriff,
but for the judgment of the unbiased public.
“I came here as an officer with a warrant to get this man. Three days
ago he shot down from behind the best man in Nevada, Scot McClintock.
Most of you know my brother, a first-class citizen and soldier. He ran
this scalawag out of Virginia, and he made the mistake of not killin’
him right then. I’ve made that same mistake myself three times. Yet yore
sheriff says I’m a bad man because I come here to arrest a fifteen-times
murderer. How about that, boys?”
The crowd was with Hugh at once. The Dodsons controlled the camp. A good
many of these men were dependent upon them financially. But even Ralph
Dodson was hardly popular. As for Dutch, their camp bully, everybody
feared him and nobody trusted him. He was so confirmed a gunman that at
any moment while in drink he might slay any of them.
The sheriff had not volunteered to go down into the mine with one of the
rescue parties; nor had Sloan or any of his cronies. But this young
fellow with the fire-blackened face and hands, whose haggard eyes looked
out with such quiet grim resolution, had gone into that hell below to
save their friends. Byers, the man on his left, had been another of the
rescuers. The fat man had volunteered three times and been rejected.
“His warrant goes in Piodie,” someone shouted.
“Sure does,” echoed another voice.
“Not on yore tintype,” retorted the sheriff. “Ormsby County don’t run
our affairs. Not none.”
The Maine lumberjack lined up beside Hugh, an axe shaft in his hand. He
had observed that Dodson and Sloan were gathering the camp toughs for a
rescue.
“His warrant’s good with me—good as the wheat,” the big woodsman said.
“He made it good, boys, when he stood up to that hose nozzle down below
and stuck there while he baked. He made it good again when he went in to
the crosscut where our friends were trapped.”
Sloan and his crowd moved forward. One of them spoke to the sheriff. “If
you want to swear in some deputies to enforce the law, Dick, why, we’re
right here handy.”
From out of the crowd a girl darted, light as a deer. She stood directly
in front of Hugh, face to face with the gunmen of the camp. A warm
colour breathed in her cheeks. Her dark eyes flashed with indignation.
“Don’t you touch him. Don’t you dare touch him,” she cried. “It was my
brother this—this villain killed. He did shoot him from behind. I’ve
had a letter. It was murder.”
A murmur of resentment passed like a wave through the crowd. They knew
the slim young school teacher told the truth.
“Don’t I know?” she went on ardently, beautiful in her young
unconsciousness of self as a flaming flower. “Wasn’t I there when he
tried to kill Hugh here—and Hugh frozen from the blizzard so that he
couldn’t lift a hand to help himself? Oh, he’s—he’s a terrible man.”
“He is that,” an Irishwoman’s voice lifted. “But glory be, there’s wan
man not afraid to comb his whiskers for him. An’ it’s a brave colleen
y’are to spake up for your fine young man like that.”
A roar of approval went up into the air. Men surged forward, and women,
too, to express their gratitude by standing between this young man and
the Dodson faction. Vicky, rosy with embarrassment, vanished in the
crowd.
“I reckon you don’t get a chance to use yore scatter gun this trip,”
Budd said with a grin. “Prospects look bilious for this killer you got
rounded up. Sure do. I never did see such a son-of-a-gun as you, Kid.
Me, I’d ’a’ bet an ounce of gold against a dollar Mex you never would
’a’ walked into Piodie an’ took Sam Dutch out. But that there miracle is
what you’re gonna pull off, looks like.”
“Went right down into the Katie Brackett after him,” chuckled Byers.
“Brought him from that hell hole with the cuffs on him.”
“Sho! It’s you boys that helped me out,” said Hugh. “And I haven’t got
him to Carson yet, anyhow. Sloan won’t give up without makin’ a try to
get Dutch from me.”
Evidently the gunmen knew better than to challenge public opinion at
present. They drew off to the mine boarding house and left Hugh free to
return to Piodie with his prisoner.
McClintock thanked the lumberjack and others who had come to his aid,
and started down the gulch, accompanied by a straggling guard of
townspeople returning to their homes for breakfast after a long and
anxious night.
Dutch shambled in front of him through the sage. After a period of
violent cursing he had fallen into a savage and vindictive silence. He,
too, believed that his allies would not desert him without a fight.
Beneath the superficial needs of the moment Hugh’s thoughts were of
Vicky. He had all the average man’s healthy reluctance at being defended
by a woman, but deeper than this was his admiration for the spirit of
the girl. He had never seen anything lovelier, more challenging, than
the slender girl glowing with passionate indignation on his behalf. She
had looked like a picture he had seen of Joan of Arc standing before the
French army, her sword outflung and her young body clad in shining
armour.
CHAPTER XXIX
VICKY FINDS A WAY
Vicky, in her bedroom at Mrs. Budd’s, flogged herself with a whip of
scorn. She had acted on imperative impulse, just as she used to do when
she was a little girl. Her cheeks flamed again when she recalled what
the Irishwoman had said. Of course! Everybody would think she had done
it because she was in love with Hugh McClintock.
Savagely she mocked her own heroics. She had behaved ridiculously. There
was no excuse for her at all. Probably Hugh, too, was laughing at her or
else flattering himself that he had made a conquest. Her pride rebelled.
And yet—when she saw again in imagination the group of gunmen under
Sloan moving forward to attack, she knew that she would probably do the
same thing a second time, given the same circumstances.
Mrs. Budd knocked on the door. “Breakfast ready, deary.”
Miss Lowell became aware suddenly that she was very hungry. But she did
not want to meet Jim Budd. He would probably start teasing her, and if
he did she would certainly lose her temper. She fibbed.
“I’m not hungry yet. If you don’t mind I’ll come down and get a bite out
of the pantry later.”
“Mr. McClintock is here. He wants to thank you,” the landlady said
gently.
Hugh McClintock was the last man in the world that Vicky wanted to see
just now, but she would not for a month’s salary have let him know it.
“He needn’t trouble, I’m sure,” she said carelessly. “But I’ll be down
presently.”
She came to breakfast stormy-eyed. Hugh rose to meet her from his seat
next the door. He offered his hand.
For a fraction of a second she looked at it, apparently surprised. It
was as though she said, a little disdainfully, “What’s the use of all
this fuss about nothing?” Then her hand met his.
He said, in a low voice, “Old dog Tray’s mighty grateful, Vicky.”
But he spoke with a smile, words unstressed. She drew a breath of
relief. Hugh understood, anyhow. He was not imagining any foolishness.
“Oh, I didn’t want them to take that villain from you,” she explained.
“I’ll not be satisfied till he’s hanged. What have you heard about
Scot?”
“A telegram last night and one this mo’ning. He’s still holdin’ his own,
the doctors say. But they’re not hopeful. One of the bullets went into
his intestines.”
Tears brimmed her eyes. “Isn’t it dreadful—when people are happy, like
Scot and Mollie, that——”
He nodded, his throat tightening.
“Don’t let these buckwheats get cold,” Mrs. Budd said cheerfully,
bustling in with a hot plateful.
Jim Budd was sitting in the kitchen guarding the prisoner, but Byers,
Hugh, and Vicky, with an occasional word from Mrs. Budd, discussed plans
for getting Dutch to Carson.
Both Hugh and Byers were exhausted. The night through which they had
just come had been a terrible one. Their bodies from which the skin
peeled in flakes at several points of contact with their clothes, were a
torment to them. Eyebrows, eyelashes, and some of the front hair had
crisped away. The faces of both of them were fire-red, and from sunken
sockets blear-eyed old age gazed listlessly. They needed sleep
certainly, medical attention possibly.
The girl’s dark eyes softened as she looked at them. They had fought a
good fight, just as a matter of course and all in the day’s work. She
had been down a mine. Her imagination filled in the horrors of the
fearful hours in that hell’s cauldron from which they had at last
dragged the imprisoned miners.
“Let me send for Doctor Rogers,” she said gently.
“You feelin’ sick, Vicky?” Hugh asked with a flare of humour.
“I mean, to look at you and Mr. Byers.”
“We ain’t much to look at right now. I expect he’d rather see us some
time when we’re not so dog tired. Find us more entertainin’.”
“Then you’d better go upstairs and sleep. Mr. Budd says he’ll watch your
prisoner till night.”
“And what then?” asked Hugh. “We can’t just saddle up and hit the trail
for Carson. Never in the world get there. By this time they’ve wired to
Ralph Dodson. He’s on the job at the other end of the line.”
“What makes you think so?” Vicky asked.
“Because Bob Dodson hired Dutch to shoot Scot. He showed it when he lit
out with him in the middle of the night. Dodson has got to stand by
Dutch to keep him from telling all he knows. He’s sure sent a hurry-up
call for help to brother Ralph. Their play is to prevent me from
reaching Carson with Dutch a prisoner. Once there, with feeling in the
town high against him, the killer would be liable to tell who was back
of the shooting. He’d do it out of revenge because he had not been
rescued.”
“I can telegraph to Carson for help and have friends come and meet you.”
“That would mean a pitched battle. Can’t have that.”
“Oh, well, you go to bed and sleep,” Vicky said imperatively. “We can
decide later about how you’re going to reach Carson.”
Hugh nodded. “You’ll have me wakened if any word comes about Scot?”
“Of course.”
Within a few minutes both men, and Dutch, too, were sound asleep. It was
late in the afternoon when Mrs. Budd knocked on Hugh’s door to awaken
him.
He found Vicky waiting for him in the sitting room.
“You look better,” she said.
“I feel a hundred years younger,” he answered. “Any news about Scot?”
“No.”
“I’ll leave to-night. Can’t stay away any longer.”
“Yes. That would be best.”
“Is the house watched?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t help it. I’ll go soon as I’ve eaten.”
“I’m going, too,” she told him. “I ought to be with Mollie.”
“You come to-morrow—not to-day. There may be trouble.”
“No, there won’t be any trouble—and I’m going with you,” she answered.
There was a queer little smile on her face, a smile of friendly mockery.
“I’m not going alone, you know,” he explained. “Dutch travels with me.”
“Then there’ll be three of us.” She stepped to the kitchen door, but
before she opened it mirth bubbled in her face and broke to laughter.
“Come in, Mr. Dutch. We start on a long journey about dusk.”
Dutch shuffled into the room—at least the man was Dutch in walk, in
manner, dress, and beard. Hugh looked at him again, and still a third
time, before he discovered that this was Jim Budd made up for the part
of the desperado.
The young man’s puzzled eyes asked a question of Vicky.
“We three are going after supper,” she explained. “Their lookout is over
at Schmidt’s blacksmith shop. Mr. Budd will seem to have his hands tied.
Of course he’ll think it’s your prisoner.”
“If Jim doesn’t begin to tell him all about old Grimes,” McClintock said
drily.
“Yes, you mustn’t sing, Mr. Budd. You know there aren’t many voices like
yours,” the girl replied, laughing. “He’ll notify his friends, and
they’ll follow us. Probably they’ll telegraph ahead that we’re coming.
Very likely a welcome party will come to meet us. By that time Mr. Budd
will be Mr. Budd, and somebody will be sold.”
“Good enough,” agreed Hugh. “But haven’t you forgot one small detail?
The real Dutch has got to go to Carson. That’s what I came here for—to
get him.”
“He’ll go. As soon as the sheriff’s posse has clattered past after us,
Mr. Byers and your prisoner will take a very quiet walk up the gulch and
round Bald Knob. Horses are waiting there somewhere; I don’t know just
where. Your friend the lumberjack with the axe handle took them. He and
Mr. Byers will ride across the hills with the prisoner to Carson.”
Hugh looked at the eager, vital girl with frank admiration. “You’re a
wonder, Vicky, one sure enough whirlwind when you get going. Sounds
reasonable—if Dodson’s crowd let us get goin’ as you figure they will.
But you can’t tell. They may stop us right when we start up the cañon.
Then they’ll know Jim here isn’t Dutch, and the fat will certainly be in
the fire.”
“No, Hugh, we’ve had a message from a friend in the enemy’s camp.”
“Yes?”
“From Irish Tom.”
“Carberry?”
“Yes. At least, we think it’s from him. One of my little boys brought me
a note. Here it is.”
Hugh read the words scribbled on a sheet of torn note paper.
Tell McClintock to look out for trouble near Bell’s Camp. He’ll
be caught between two fires if he tries to take Dutch with him.
A Friend.
“What makes you think Carberry wrote this?” asked Hugh.
“Ned described the man who gave it to him,” Budd explained. “He’s sure a
ringer for Carberry—even to that red shirt he wears.”
“Might be Tom,” agreed Hugh. “My vote saved his life from the vigilantes
at Aurora. Tom’s not such a bad sort.”
“You see we’re safe till we reach Bell’s Camp,” interpreted Vicky. “The
sheriff and the gunmen he appoints as deputies will follow behind us and
we’ll be driven into the arms of those who come to meet us. That’s the
plan.”
“Yes—if Irish Tom wrote this and it’s not a trap.”
“Oh, well, beggars can’t be choosers,” she cried impatiently. “I don’t
suppose you have a better way to suggest.”
“Only in one particular, Vicky. No need of you going. There might be
shooting. I don’t say there will, but there might be.”
“Fiddlesticks! There won’t be, not if I’m there. Think I don’t know
Ralph Dodson?”
Budd came unexpectedly to her aid. “Miss Lowell’s sure right, Hugh. You
_know_ if she’s with us there won’t be no gun-play.”
Hugh hesitated. What his friends said was true enough. The West, even at
its worst, was very careful of its good women. No weapons would be used
in the presence of Victoria Lowell. But there was in him an extreme
reluctance to use her skirts as a protection behind which to hide. He
wanted to play his own hand and take Dutch out openly in the face of
opposition.
Yet he knew this was not possible. Vicky had worked out a feasible plan
of operations. It was only fair to give it a tryout.
“All right,” he conceded rather ungraciously. “Have it yore own way,
good people. Vicky, you’re road boss of this outfit. Go to it. When do
we start, did you say?”
Vicky dimpled with delight. “Right after supper.”
CHAPTER XXX
AT BELL’S CAMP
A boy rode up the street leading two saddled horses. He stopped in front
of the Budd house, from which three persons emerged in answer to his
shrill whistle. The lookout in the shadow of Schmidt’s blacksmith shop
leaned forward to peer into the failing light. First came a huge,
shambling man, hairy and bearded, his hands tied together in front of
him. At his heels walked a straight lithe figure recognized instantly by
the watcher as McClintock. The deputy carried a revolver. A young woman
in riding dress brought up the rear.
McClintock handed his revolver to the lady after he had helped her
mount. He adjusted the stirrups of all the saddles. To the watcher up
the street it seemed that all his movements were hurried and furtive.
Plainly the travellers wanted to be gone.
No sooner had they started into the cañon than the lookout was off to
make his report. Inside of five minutes a party of four horsemen swung
round the bend of the road into the gorge.
Half a mile up the cañon Hugh stopped to free Budd’s hands. This done,
he waited a moment to listen. On the night breeze came faintly the ring
of a horse’s hoof on granite.
“Our anxious friends aren’t losin’ any time,” he said, grinning.
“You’re damn whistlin’,” agreed Bud. “Beg pardon, ma’am. I done forgot
you was here. I meant to say he was doggoned right.”
From the cañon they emerged into a rough country of basaltic rocks
twisted and misshapen. Once a rabbit scurried from almost under the feet
of Vicky’s horse. The scent of the sage was strong in her nostrils, and
the taste of alkali in her throat.
But the girl was happy. This night ride, with her face against the wind
and the eternal stars above, made the blood in her body sing. She
vibrated with excitement. The rapid motion, the knowledge of the armed
pursuit, the touch of peril in the situation, appealed to all the
adventure zest in her heart. As they rode knee to knee through the
darkness the movements of the horses occasionally pushed her and Hugh
into contact. A new delightful thrill flamed through her. Shyly she
looked at him and was glad of the night. Her eyes were too bright and
her cheeks too hot to be seen even by old dog Tray.
Old dog Tray! She knew the metaphor was inept. Jim Budd, now, was a good
old dog Tray, but not this light-stepping young Apollo who somehow
contrived to be the partner of all the dramatic moments in her life. She
would never forget him as he had faced Sloan and his gang at the mouth
of the pit from which he had come with all the anguish of the night
written on his face. There had been something indomitable in his
gesture, a spark in the sunken eye struck from the soul of a man quite
sure of himself. Vicky knew—and knew it with a strange reluctant
dread—that her feelings would insist on a retrial of the case of Hugh
McClintock at the bar of her judgment. Vaguely she divined that the true
romance is not of outward trappings but straight from the heart of life.
The miles of their journey stole the hours. It was far past midnight
when Hugh turned to Vicky with a smile not free from anxiety.
“Bell’s Camp just ahead,” he said. “Don’t make any mistake. When we’re
ordered to halt, all our hands go straight up in the air.”
He wished now that he had not let the girl come with them. It had been
easy to reason in the light of day that she would be quite safe. But
Dodson did not know she was in the party. Suppose someone got excited
and fired in the darkness. Hugh’s imagination began to conjure disaster.
But the affair worked out quite simply. From behind rocks on both sides
of the road men rose suddenly and covered the party with rifles.
“Stick ’em up. Reach for the sky,” a voice ordered curtly.
Six hands went up instantly, almost as though they had been waiting for
the cue.
“You may pull yours down, Dutch,” the voice went on.
Hugh spoke suavely: “Must be some mistake, gentlemen. Mr. Dutch isn’t
with us.”
“Not with you! What’s the use of lying? Speak up, Dutch.”
“If you’re meanin’ me, my name’s Budd—Jim Budd from Piodie,” spoke up
the fat man.
The challenger stepped close and stared up at his face. “Where’s Dutch?
What have you done with him?” he demanded.
“Why, we left him at Piodie. The sheriff didn’t want us to bring him,”
Budd said with bland innocence, grinning down at his questioner. “Is
this here a hold-up, or what?”
“One of ’em’s a girl,” cried another of the armed men in sharp surprise.
“A girl!”
Vicky spoke now. “Isn’t that Mr. Dodson—Mr. Ralph Dodson?” she asked
quietly.
“Miss Lowell! What are you doing here?”
“I might ask that about you, Mr. Dodson,” she retorted. “I’m going with
Mr. McClintock and Mr. Budd to Carson. Haven’t you heard that two
ruffians tried to murder Colonel McClintock?” Her voice rang out like a
bell. It accused him, if not of conspiracy to murder, at least of aiding
and abetting the escape of the murderer.
After just an instant’s hesitation Dodson spoke gravely. “Yes, I’ve
heard, Miss Lowell. Believe me, I have been greatly distressed. If
there’s anything I can do——”
“You can help us bring to justice the desperado who escaped,” she cried
hotly.
Dodson chose his words with care. He knew they were likely to be
reported by some of his men to the gang at Piodie. “If someone got into
a quarrel with Colonel McClintock and——”
“They didn’t get into a quarrel with him,” Vicky flung out indignantly.
“They crept up behind him and shot him down while he wasn’t looking.
Even rattlesnakes give warning. These reptiles didn’t.”
“I really don’t know the facts, Miss Lowell. But if you’re correctly
informed certainly——”
“Oh, if—if—if,” exploded the girl. “Just words. The attack on Scot was
the most dastardly, cowardly cruel thing I ever heard of. The men who
did it and those who had it done are as bad as red Indians.” Her eyes
stabbed into him. They were filled with the passionate intolerance of
youth.
“Well, I can’t talk about that because I don’t know anything about it,”
Dodson said, his surface smile working. “We’re here under orders from
the sheriff at Piodie. He sent us word that someone was attempting
illegally to abduct Sam Dutch. There seems to be some mistake.”
“So that it remains for you to apologize for having drawn guns on us,”
Vicky said tartly. “Then we’ll move on.”
Dodson flushed. “I’m certainly sorry if we alarmed you, Miss Lowell.
Under the circumstances it couldn’t be helped. If we had known you were
out riding with friends——” He stopped, leaving his sarcastic sentence
suspended in air.
“Much obliged, Mr. Dodson,” she answered angrily. “I suppose you felt
you had to say that pleasant farewell remark. I wouldn’t be out riding
with friends at this time of night, as you would have put it if you had
the courage, if your friends hadn’t laid in wait to kill my brother
Thursday evening.”
Hugh spoke quietly and evenly. “We’ll say good-night, Mr. Dodson, that
is, if you’re quite satisfied we’re not concealing Mr. Dutch about our
persons.”
Dodson fell back with a wave of his hand. The rifles were lowered. In a
moment the travellers were on their way. The mine owner looked after
them with a frown on his brow. He was not satisfied. He believed he had
been tricked, but for the life of him he could not tell how.
Budd was the first of the three to speak. “You got us out of that fine,
Miss Lowell. Had him busy explainin’ why-for the whole time.”
But Vicky was not willing to leave the case as it stood. She was annoyed
at herself. Yet her judgment defended her course.
“I acted like a vixen,” she said. “But I wanted to put him on the
defence. The easiest way to meet an attack is to attack first, Scot once
told me. So I tried to ride roughshod over him so that he wouldn’t dare
take us back to Piodie with him.”
“He couldn’t fight Miss Victoria Lowell,” Hugh told her, smiling. “If it
hadn’t been for you he ce’tainly would have taken us to Piodie. But you
had him right. He couldn’t do a thing but let us go. We’re much obliged
to you.”
Presently, out of the darkness, while Budd was riding a few yards ahead
of them, Vicky’s voice came with unwonted humility:
“You were right, Hugh, and I was wrong. I heard something about him the
other day. Mrs. Budd told me, and it came direct. No matter what it was,
but—I don’t want to be friends with him any more.”
Hugh’s heart lifted, but all he said was, “I’m glad, Vicky.”
CHAPTER XXXI
HUGH TAKES THE STUMP
They found Scot still defying the predictions of the doctors by hanging
on to the thread of life that tied him to this world. He was asleep when
the travellers arrived. Within a few minutes Hugh was in the saddle
again and on the way to meet Byers and his prisoner. Before morning they
had Dutch behind bars in the Carson jail.
When Hugh tiptoed in to see Scot a second time, the wounded man smiled
at him reproachfully. The Colonel’s hand slid weakly along the bedspread
to meet his brother’s brown palm.
“Glad you’re back safe,” he said in a low voice.
“We brought Dutch along,” Hugh said by way of explaining his absence.
A faint flash of amusement lit the drawn face. “Buck much, did he?”
“Oh, he reckoned he wouldn’t come along. Then he reckoned he would.”
Scot asked a question: “What have you been parboiling your face for?”
“Got caught in a mine fire. How are you feelin’, Scot?”
“Fine and dandy,” murmured the older brother indomitably. “Mollie’s
spoiling me. Everybody’s mighty good. When I don’t feel so trifling I’ll
say thank you proper.”
Mollie kissed him and said gently, “Now, you’ve talked enough.”
Business, much neglected of late, called Hugh to Virginia City. Every
two or three days he ran down to Carson for a few hours. The doctors
became more hopeful. The great vitality of their patient was beginning
to triumph over the shock his system had endured.
Meanwhile, Scot’s political campaign had died down. If the Dodsons had
been willing to let it alone, Ralph would probably have been nominated
without opposition. But this was just what they could not do. They knew
themselves that they had played a poor part in the contest with the
McClintocks, and they were afraid that Nevada’s private judgment would
be the same.
Sinister whispers passed from mouth to mouth. They found a discreet echo
in the newspapers friendly to the Dodson candidacy. Scot McClintock had
broken up the home of Robert Dodson. He belonged to Nevada’s past and
not her present. The disgraceful affair at Carson showed him to be a
desperate man, in the same class as the men Hopkins and Dutch. This was
hinted in veiled language and not openly charged by the press.
It was at the Maison Borget, as good a French restaurant as could be
found between New York and San Francisco, that Hugh first learned of
these rumours. He had been too busy to read any newspaper except a local
one.
Senator Stewart, seated alone at a small side table, called to him. The
young man took the place opposite him.
“How’s the Colonel?” asked the senator.
“He’s not out of danger, but we think he’s gaining.”
“Fine. Glad to hear it. What about his campaign?”
“It seems to have dropped by the wayside, Senator.”
The big man stroked his long yellow beard. “Pity. I’d like to see him
win. With these stories going around——”
“What stories?”
The senator told him. He ended with a startling question.
“Why don’t you take the stump and answer the lies, Hugh?”
“Me? I’m no orator.”
“None needed. You can talk straight, can’t you? Call a lie a lie?”
“I reckon. But it’s a game I don’t savvy, Senator. If I was going
gunnin’ for statesmen I’d never snap a cap at Hugh McClintock.”
“Just hit out hard from the shoulder. Talk right out for Scot as though
you were with two or three friends. Carry the war into the enemy’s camp.
Show how they’ve stacked the cards against your brother.”
McClintock’s eyes blazed. “I’ll do it, Senator. I’ll give Scot a run for
his white alley yet.”
He did. To every camp and town in the state he fared forth and told the
story. He told it at mine shafts, in saloons, around hotel stoves, and
in public meetings called for that purpose. Much to his surprise he
developed a capacity for public speaking. His strength lay in the
direct, forceful simplicity of what he said. He was so manifestly a
sincere and honest champion that men accepted at face value what he
said.
At one town Captain Palmer, who had organized the Aurora vigilance
committee, introduced him in characteristic fashion.
“You see the big head on his broad shoulders. It’s up to you to decide
whether there’s anything in it,” he said bluntly.
Hugh plunged straight at his subject.
“I’m here to speak for a man who lies at Carson wounded by three bullets
from the revolvers of two murderers. I’m here to answer the whispers set
going by the men who profit most by that attempted assassination, men
who would never have the courage to say any of these things face to face
with Colonel McClintock.”
He reviewed his brother’s life and tried to interpret it.
“They say he was a gambler. So he was, at a time when nine tenths of the
men in this state gambled hard and often. But they can’t say he wasn’t a
straight gambler. There never was a crooked hair in the head of Scot
McClintock. Everybody knows that.”
Without gloves he took up the charge that Scot had broken up Robert
Dodson’s home. He showed that Dodson was a drunken ne’er-do-well who had
smothered his own baby and had afterwards been rescued from a mob of
lynchers by McClintock, that he was a wife beater and a loafer who by
chance had later stumbled into a fortune, a man always without honour or
principle.
“It was this same man who rode out of Carson at breakneck speed fifteen
minutes after my brother had been shot down from behind, rode with the
red-handed murderer Sam Dutch. It was this same man and his brother
Ralph Dodson who tried to keep me and my friends from bringing Dutch
back to Carson as a prisoner.
“From the beginning of this campaign they have smeared mud on the
reputation of Scot. Even now, when he lies at the point of death at the
hands of their hired killers, they go about hissing poisonous lies. The
record of Scot McClintock is an open book. You know all his faults. They
are exposed frankly to all men’s eyes. If he was wild, at least his
wildness was never secret. It was a part of his gay and open-hearted
youth.”
Hugh passed to his later years, to his brilliant career as a soldier,
and to his public services as a citizen since the close of the war. He
named Scot’s qualifications for the office he sought and concluded with
an appeal for justice in the form of a vindication.
Nevada was young. It understood men like the McClintocks and it liked
them. Ralph Dodson was of a type it neither knew nor wanted to know. The
verdict was unmistakable. The political bosses gave way to the public
demand, and Scot McClintock was nominated on the first ballot by a large
majority.
Hugh took the Carson stage to carry his brother the news.
CHAPTER XXXII
FATHER MARSTON PROPHESIES
Sulky, morose, sluggish as a saurian, Dutch lay in his cell and waited
for deliverance. The weeks passed. The Dodsons sent him word to say
nothing, that when the time came they would set him free.
He suspected them as he suspected everybody. If they failed him he meant
to betray them. But the time had not come for that yet.
As he grew weary of confinement his restlessness found vent in a plan of
escape. From his boot he worked the tin piece used as a stiffener for
the leg. With this as a tool and a piece of a broken bed slat as
material he began to shape a wooden pistol. He worked only when he knew
he would be alone. The shavings that came in thin slivers from the pine
he hid in the mattress upon which he slept. When the weapon was finished
he rubbed it with lamp black till it took in a measure the colour of
steel.
It was in the man’s temperament to be patient as an Apache when he found
it to his advantage. He waited for his chance and found it when the
jailer made his round one evening to see that all was secure.
The moonlight was shining through the barred window on the bed in
checkered squares of light. Dutch was pacing up and down his cell when
the guard appeared. He moved forward to the door.
“Gimme a chew, Hank,” he said ingratiatingly.
The killer was a sullen and vindictive prisoner. The jailer had tried to
placate him, for now that Scot McClintock was getting better it would be
only a question of time till Dutch would again be loose on the world.
“Sure, Sam.”
The jailer dived into his right hip pocket, found a plug of tobacco, and
handed it through the grating to his prisoner.
Dutch caught the man’s wrist and twisted it down against the iron bar of
the lattice. Simultaneously a pistol barrel gleamed through the opening.
“Gimme yore six-shooter. . . . Now unlock the door. Let out a squawk an’
I’ll pump lead into you.”
The jailer obeyed orders. Dutch hustled him into the cell, then tied and
gagged him. He took the keys, went downstairs, unlocked the outer door,
and walked into the night a free man.
He stood for a moment at the door, hesitating. Which way should he go?
The first thing was to get a horse at some stable. That would be easy
enough. All he had to do was to go in and ask for it. But should he go
back to Piodie, try Virginia City, or cut across the Sierras to
California and say good-bye to Nevada?
Before he had made up his mind which road to take his thoughts were
deflected into another channel. A young woman passed on the other side
of the street. He recognized her immediately. The light, resilient step,
the gallant poise of the slender body identified their owner as Victoria
Lowell. He was sure of it even before the moonlight fell full upon her
profile.
His eyes lit with a cunning tigerish malice. Softly he padded down the
street after her. There was in his mind no clear idea of what he meant
to do. But he was a born bully. She was alone. He could torment her to
his heart’s content.
He moved faster, came abreast of her after she had turned into a dark
side street. His step kept pace with hers. She looked up to see who her
companion was.
A gasp of surprise broke from her throat.
His grin was a leer, hideous and menacing. “How are you, m’dear? Didn’t
expect to meet up with old Sam, did you? But tickled—plumb tickled to
death to see him.”
Involuntarily she quickened her step. His arm shot out and his great
hand closed on her wrist. A shriek welled up inside her, but she
smothered it unvoiced. The shudder that ran through her body she could
not control.
He purred on: “Came to meet old Sam soon as he got out. Had to see him
right away, didn’t you? Couldn’t wait a minute.”
With a twist of her forearm she tried to break away. His rough fingers
crushed deeper into her soft flesh.
“You in a hurry, sweetheart?” he went on, and his heavy body shook with
unholy mirth. “Afraid of old Sam’s winnin’ ways? Don’t like to trust
yore feelin’s with them, I reckon.”
“Let me go,” she ordered, and her voice shook.
Instantly his mood changed. He thrust his hairy gorilla-like head close
to hers. “When I get good an’ ready, missie. Think you can boss Sam
Dutch, do you? Think I’ve forgot how you shot me onct when I took you in
outa the storm? Think I care for yore cry-baby ways? You’ll do jest like
I say.”
“I’m going home. Don’t you dare stop me.” She could not make her
quavering voice quite as confident as she would have liked.
“Home. So you’re going home?” His slow thoughts struck another tangent.
“Good enough. I’ll trail along an’ see you get there safe, missie. Like
to say ‘How-d’ye-do’ to Colonel McClintock whilst I’m there.” His teeth
uncovered in a snarl of rage.
Vicky’s fears for herself fled, swallowed up in the horror of a picture
struck to life by her imagination. She saw Scot lying helpless on his
bed with this ruffian gloating over him. A flash of memory carried her
back to another scene. This time it was Hugh who lay at the ruffian’s
mercy—Hugh spent and all but senseless, his muscles paralyzed by the
cold of the blizzard that raged outside.
A week before this Scot had been moved from the hotel to a small private
house put at the family’s disposal by friends who were temporarily in
California. He and Mollie would be alone. She dared not lead the killer
to the house. What ought she to do?
The killer now knew what was the first thing he meant to do. He would go
and finish the job he had left undone some weeks earlier.
“Home it is, m’dear. Hot foot it. I got no time to waste. Where do you
live?”
Her thoughts flew. Since he did not know where the house was she could
mark time at least. They were close to a corner. She turned to the
right.
“This way,” she said, and led him away from the house where Scot was
lying in bed.
He shuffled beside her, still holding fast to her wrist. His presence
was repugnant to her. The touch of his flesh made hers creep.
“You’re hurting me. Why don’t you let me go? I’ll not run away,” she
promised.
“I know you’ll not—if you don’t git a chance, sweetie.” His fangs
showed again in an evil grin. “If I hurt you some it ain’t a
circumstance to the way you hurt me onct. I ain’t aimin’ to let you play
me no tricks like you done then.”
They came to a house, set a little back from the road in a young
orchard. Victoria opened the gate and they walked in. Her brain had
registered an inspiration. Straight to the porch she went.
Dutch warned her. “Remember. No tricks, missie. You lead right into the
room where he is an’ don’t say a word. Un’erstand?”
“Yes. You’ll promise not to hurt him?”
“My business. I got an account to settle with both them McClintocks.”
“At any rate, you won’t hurt anybody else in the house,” she said
faintly. “You’ve got to promise that.”
“Suits me. I ain’t intendin’ to run wild.”
“Swear it,” she insisted.
He swore it.
Vicky, still with his hateful fingers about her wrist, opened the door
and walked into the house. At her touch a second door swung. Before
Dutch could recover from the surprise of what he saw, he had moved
forward with the girl into a room.
A man was sitting at a desk writing. He looked up, astonished at this
interruption. The man was Father Marston.
“He wants me to take him to Scot,” Vicky said simply.
Her explanation sufficed. Dutch, a many times killer, stood before him
with a drawn revolver in his hand.
The minister rose. “So you brought him here instead. Well done, Vicky.”
The desperado ripped out a violent oath. “Make a fool of Sam Dutch, will
you?”
His fingers moved up to the fleshy part of the girl’s forearm and
tightened. She could not keep back a cry of pain.
Marston stepped forward. He had served through the war as a chaplain and
the spirit of a soldier was in him.
“Hands off, Dutch!”
The teeth of the bad man ground together audibly. “You sittin’ in,
Parson?” he asked in a thick, furious voice.
“Yes. Take your hands off her.”
The gaunt gray-eyed preacher faced the killer’s rage and overmatched it.
He had both moral courage and the physical to back it.
“Where’s Scot McClintock?” demanded Dutch.
“We’ll take that up when you’ve turned Miss Lowell loose.”
“By God, you’re not runnin’ this.”
“Get your hand away.”
The bully felt that he either had to kill this man or do as he said. He
dare not shoot him down. Father Marston was too well beloved in Nevada.
His was one of those staunch souls which commanded an immense respect.
Back of him now the gunman felt the whole weight of civilized opinion in
the state. It was a spiritual power too potent to be ignored.
The fingers loosened from Vicky’s arm and fell away.
“Where’s McClintock at?” the man with the revolver asked again hoarsely.
“First tell me this. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in prison
where you belong?”
“Because I broke out. Tha’s why.”
“Then I’ll give you a piece of advice. Get out of town. Now. Quick as
you can hit the road.”
“I’m askin’ you where McClintock’s at, Parson.”
Again the eyes of the two battled.
“Sam Dutch, your name stands in this country for murder, treachery,
drunkenness, and all other evils known to man. You’re as black-hearted a
villain as ever I knew. If you’ve got one redeeming trait I don’t know
what it is. Now, listen. You’re going to get out of town now. Right
away. You’re not going to murder Scot McClintock. You’ll walk with me
straight to Doc Benton’s stable. You’ll arrange with him for a horse.
And you’ll drop into the saddle and light a shuck out of Carson.” The
voice of the preacher rang harsh. It carried conviction, but Dutch
wanted to know what was back of this edict.
“Who says I’ll do all that?” he sneered.
“I say it. If you don’t I’ll rouse the town and hang you in front of the
jail. That’s a promise made before God, Dutch. I’ll keep it, so help
me.”
The killer’s mind dodged in and out cunningly and could find no way of
escape. He dared not kill Marston. He dared not let him go out and rouse
the town against him. Though he was armed and Marston was without a
weapon, it was he who was defenceless and the preacher who held him
covered.
The bad man threw up his hands. “All right. You got me, Parson. I’ll
light a shuck, but God help you if I ever get you right. I’ll sure fix
you so you’ll never do me another meanness.”
The preacher stood before him straight as a sycamore.
“My life is in God’s hand, Sam Dutch. You strut across the stage of
life, poor braggart, and think yourself mighty powerful. You’re no more
than a straw in the wind. His eye is on you, man. You can’t lift a
finger without His permission. And in His scripture He has said a word
about you. ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’
And again, ‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’
That’s His plain promise, Dutch. I tell you that your hour is close.
It’s at hand. Repent and flee from the wrath to come.”
Marston had the orator’s gift of impressive speech. As he faced the
killer, hand lifted in a gesture of prophecy, eyes flashing the fire of
his conviction, Vicky felt a shiver run over her. The preacher was, so
she felt for the moment, a messenger of destiny pronouncing doom upon a
lost soul. In the light of what so swiftly followed she was to recall
many times his burning and passionate prediction.
Dutch sneered, to cover the chill that passed through him. “The bullet
ain’t moulded yet that can kill Sam Dutch,” he bragged.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE BOOMING OF THE FORTY-FIVES
At the gate Father Marston stopped. “You run along home, Vicky,” he
said. “I’ll drop in after a while and see how the Colonel is.”
The girl hesitated. “Hadn’t I better go with you?” she said. It was not
necessary for her to say in words that she was afraid to leave the
chaplain alone with Dutch. All three of them understood it.
Marston laughed, rather grimly. “No, child. Mr. Dutch and I understand
each other first rate. We’ll get along fine. See you later.”
She left them, reluctantly. The men took a side street that led toward
Benton’s stable. Dutch was anxious to be gone from Carson. The
preacher’s words had filled him with foreboding. He would not feel easy
until the dust of the capital had long been shaken from his horse’s
hoofs.
His surly voice took on a whine. It was his way of attempting to
propitiate fate. “I got a bad name, Parson, an’ so folks don’t feel
right to me. Lemme say that there’s a heap of worse men than Sam Dutch.
I’ve shot men sure enough, but I ain’t ever shot one that wasn’t better
dead. Most folks don’ know that. They think I go round killin’ to see
’em kick. Well, I don’t. Live an’ let live would be my motto, if gunmen
would only lemme alone. But you know yorese’f how it is, Parson. They
git to thinkin’ if they can bump off Sam Dutch they’ll be chief. So they
come lookin’ for trouble, an’ I got to accommodate ’em.”
A man came down the street walking as though he loved it. His stride
rang out sharp in the still night. He was singing softly the words of a
trail song:
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,
And looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would drift to that sweet by and by.
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll——”
Marston’s heart lost a beat. He felt rather than saw the figure of the
man at his side grow tense as it crouched. Steel flashed in the
moonlight. The preacher struck at a hair-matted wrist as the gun roared.
The singer stopped in his tracks. With incredible quickness he dragged
out a revolver and fired. The chaplain thrust Dutch from him and stepped
back into the road out of the direct line of fire.
The boom of the forty-fives seemed continuous while the short sharp
flashes stabbed the darkness.
A man groaned and clutched at his breast. He sank down, still firing. On
his knees, supporting the weight of his body with the palm of his hand
thrust against the ground, Dutch emptied his revolver, ferocious as a
wounded grizzly. From his throat there issued a sound that was half a
sob and half a snarl of rage.
The thunder of the guns died. The singer moved forward, warily, his gaze
fastened on the huge huddled figure slowly sinking lower. One glance had
been enough to tell him that Marston was not an enemy. Therefore he
concentrated his attention on the centre of danger.
Marston ran to the fallen man and knelt down beside him. He tore open
the coat and vest. A single look was sufficient. Three bullets had torn
into the great barrel-like trunk of his body. One had pierced the right
lung. A second had struck just below the heart. The third had raked from
right to left through the stomach.
“Take my boots off,” gasped the desperado.
The chaplain knew that Dutch was aware he had been mortally wounded.
This request showed it. The Western gunman wanted always to be without
his boots on when he died.
Father Marston eased his head while Hugh McClintock removed the boots.
A gargoyle grin was on the face of the bad man. He meant to “die game,”
after the manner of his kind.
“You sure rang a bull’s eye, Parson, when you pulled them Bible texts on
me. At that, maybe I’d ’a’ fooled you if you hadn’t spoiled my aim that
first shot.”
“You realize——”
“—that I got more’n I can carry? Sure do.”
Marston forgot that this man was the worst desperado Nevada had ever
known. He remembered only that the soul of Sam Dutch, a poor erring
human being, was about to meet its Maker.
“His mercy endureth for ever. Repent. Repent and be saved,” he exhorted
earnestly.
“Too late, Parson,” Dutch answered feebly. “I’m a—dyed-in-the-wool
sinner—an’ I’m—hittin’ the trail—for hell.”
“It’s never too late. ‘While the light holds out to burn, the vilest
sinner may return.’ That’s you, Sam.”
“That’s sure me, but—I don’t reckon—I’ll——”
His body stiffened suddenly, then relaxed limply. He was dead.
The two men rose and looked at each other. Hugh spoke first.
“I had to do it, Father. It was Dutch or me.”
“Yes, you had to do it.”
“He didn’t give me any choice. Came a-shootin’ before I knew even who he
was.”
“I saw what he was doing just in time to hit his arm.”
“I reckon that saved me. You were that quick. I can’t thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Hugh. Thank God.” He looked soberly down at the dead
man. “There, but for His grace, lies Hugh McClintock.”
“Yes,” agreed Hugh solemnly.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE BALD KNOB STRIKE
The room with the bullet hole in the swing door at the Ormsby House had
become a place of pilgrimage. The proprietor of the hotel and its
patrons pointed it out with pride to strangers and told the story of how
Scot McClintock, left for dead, had come to life by sheer will power and
killed one of the murderers through the door without even seeing him.
In Scot’s actions there had always been a quality which distinguished
them from those of other men. He had the gift of the heroic
touch—somehow struck from men’s imaginations a spark of fire. His
gaiety and spirit, the sunny grace of his bearing, made for romance.
The affair at the Ormsby House capped the climax. It bordered on the
Homeric. To be taken at advantage by the two most redoubtable killers of
the West, to be shot through and through and left for dead, and to take
immediate vengeance on one of them under almost impossible circumstances
was a combination of dramatic effect so unusual as to pinnacle even
Colonel McClintock.
But it had remained for Hugh to write the last act of the drama. He
found men looking at him with a new respect. Even old friends showed a
slight deference. It was not only that he had killed in a duel the
terrible Dutch, though this in itself was a sufficient exploit. The
manner in which justice had at last found the killer satisfied men’s
sense of fitness. The story was told everywhere, and with a touch of
awe, that Father Marston had prophesied to Dutch the swift avengement of
God. On the heel of that prediction the lightnings had flamed from Hugh
McClintock’s revolver.
That Hugh had been the instrument of justice was felt to be especially
meet. He had dragged back to Carson, from the pit of hell where he had
been buried, the attempted murderer of his brother. He had struck with
such deadly accuracy that any one of the three bullets flung by him
would have been fatal.
Without intention on his part, Hugh’s subsequent conduct increased the
respect in which he was held. He refused to be lionized, declined even
to tell the story of the killing except to the coroner’s jury.
Inevitably there began to rise a legend of the prowess of the
McClintocks which cast a spell over romantic minds.
The immediate result was that Scot was elected secretary of state by the
largest majority in the history of Nevada. When he was sworn into office
the management of the firm’s business devolved wholly upon Hugh. The
Virginia & Truckee railroad was partly completed. Within a few years
fifty or sixty trains a day would be twisting to and fro over the most
tortuous bit of track in the United States. The McClintocks saw the
handwriting on the wall and began to reduce the number of their teams,
ore wagons, and freight outfits.
From Piodie came a telegram to Hugh. It was signed by Jim Budd, newly
elected sheriff of that county:
The Ground Hog is on a rampage. Big strike. Come at once.
Hugh found Piodie buzzing with excitement. The strike on Bald Knob
aroused keen interest because this was a new field. There had been a
good deal of development work done there, but the Ground Hog strike was
the first worth-while one that had been made. Prospectors stampeded for
the scene and located every unoccupied inch for miles. The wiser heads
besieged the owners of claims on the Knob for leases.
Byers drove Hugh out to Bald Knob, and the two looked over the Ground
Hog together. If the assays that had been made held good in general,
they estimated that from ten to fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of ore
had been raised within the week from the shaft. Afterwards Hugh visited
the claims held by himself, Scot, and Vicky, to make sure that the
assessment work had been properly done. He knew that if there was any
excuse for it whatever somebody would jump these claims. He decided that
the best thing to do would be to get leasers on the properties as soon
as possible, for if possession is not nine points of the law it is at
least one or two points.
“I want to tell you that yore claims would have been jumped before
this,” Sheriff Budd told Hugh later with a wise nod of his head, “if it
hadn’t been that you McClintocks are such darned go-getters nobody
wanted to take a chance.”
“How about Miss Lowell’s claim?” asked Hugh.
“Well, she’s done a heap of work on it. I don’t reckon any one could
hardly get away with it, her bein’ so popular here, too, an’ a lone,
defenceless girl at that. Piodie would be liable to rare up on its hind
laigs an’ say, ‘Hands off!’ But it’s different with you an’ Scot.
Someone with guts is apt to jump them claims any minute.”
Hugh dropped around to the schoolhouse that afternoon to walk home with
the lone girl who was popular. He found her administering corporal
punishment vigorously to a red-headed youth who promised with sobs never
to do it again. She was not at that moment at all popular with red-head
Hugh judged, and she did not look exactly defenceless.
At sight of her visitor Miss Lowell went red as a flame. She did not
often use the switch, and when she did she regarded it as a confession
of failure to handle the case wisely. It was embarrassing to be caught
in the rôle of a stormy Amazon. It seemed to her that Hugh was always
getting glimpses into the unlovely and vixenish side of her character.
Yet she knew she had whipped the boy only after forcing herself to do
it.
“I’ve told Tommie time and again he mustn’t bully the little boys. I’ve
talked it all over with him and argued with him. But he’s a perverse
little imp. To-day he had three small chaps crying. He practically
defied me. When I threatened to whip him he said he’d like to see me try
it. After that I had to do it.” Vicky sighed, close to tears herself.
“He’s the only child in school I haven’t got along with. Most of them
like me.”
“Of course they do, and so does Tommie,” Hugh told her confidently.
“It’s just his way of making you pay attention to him. Probably he’s in
love with you.”
“Well, he won’t be any more,” the young teacher said, laughing
regretfully.
“Oh, yes, he will. He’ll like you-all the better. He’ll be glad he’s
found his boss. I know Tommie’s kind. You’ve taken just the right course
with him. Some boys have to be appealed to once vigorously through the
cuticle. Now you’ll have no more trouble with him.”
“I hope you’re right.” Vicky changed the subject. They were walking home
together along a path that led to the main street of the town. “Isn’t it
splendiferous news about the Ground Hog? I’m so glad you’ve made a
strike.”
“I wanted to speak with you about that. There’s some danger of our
claims being jumped—not the Ground Hog, but those on which we have been
doing only assessment work. Byers and I looked over yours. I don’t see
how yours can be in any danger. You’ve done too much developing. But you
can never be sure.”
“I’ve paid out nearly three hundred dollars for wages,” she said
quickly.
“Yes, I know. Did you take receipts?”
“No, I didn’t. Ought I?”
“Better get ’em. What are your plans?”
“A dozen people have been around to ask me for leases. I hardly know
what to do. What do you think?”
“The more men you get working there the better. You can’t afford to pay
wages, so you’d better sign a lease. I wouldn’t give it to a single
person, but to two or three in partnership. Tie ’em up tight. Have a
good lawyer make the papers out, so that there isn’t anything left in
doubt. Be sure you get the proper terms.”
“And good leasers,” she suggested.
“Yes, that’s important.”
“Will you go with me when we’re arranging the lease?” she asked, a
little shyly.
“Glad to, of course.”
They talked of Scot and his recovery to health, of Mollie’s joy in her
baby, and of young Alexander Hugh himself, who was developing wonderful
intelligence, if the letters of his mother were worthy of credence.
In front of the Mammoth Saloon they met Ralph Dodson. He bowed, and Hugh
answered his bow stiffly. Since the attempt on his brother’s life and
the subsequent political campaign, McClintock did not pretend to
anything but contempt for those of the name of Dodson. He acknowledged
the salute only because he was with Vicky.
The girl flushed angrily. “We’re not friends any more, but he keeps that
smile of his working just the same,” she told Hugh. “I told him what I
thought of the way they fight. He pretended to be amused, but he was
furious when I asked him not to speak to me when we met. He’s really
more dangerous than his brother.”
“Yes, because he’s far abler.”
Mrs. Budd met them at the front door and hustled Hugh quickly into the
house. “I’ve just had a message from Jim. There’s a warrant out for your
arrest. It’s for killin’ Sam Dutch, I expect. Who ever heard the like?
But Jim’s got to serve it, he says. So I’m to hide you in the attic.
When he comes he’ll look for you and won’t find you.”
“What’s the use? If they’ve got a warrant out for me they’ll get me
sooner or later. The verdict of the coroner’s jury was that Dutch came
to his death at the hands of God. It’s some trick. They can’t make it
stick.”
“That’s what Jim says. It’s a trick. Irish Tom told him there is
something in the air. He doesn’t know just what. But the Dodsons are
back of it. So Jim says for you to lie low and see what happens.”
“All right, Mrs. Budd. We’ll let Jim run this,” Hugh said. “I’m in the
hands of my friends, like the willin’ candidates for office say they
are.”
“Supper’ll be ready in a little. I’ll have Bennie watch the road so as
to give you time to get upstairs if any one comes. I expect you’re
hungry.”
“I’m always hungry when Mrs. Budd gives me an invitation to eat,” he
answered, smiling. “She’s the best cook in Nevada, and a two-bit
restaurant doesn’t draw me a-tall on those glad occasions.”
It was on the tip of Mrs. Budd’s sharp tongue to say that the company at
her table might have something to do with that, but since she was
manœuvring to bring about a certain match between two young people
present she refrained from comment.
Hugh did very well on steak, roast wild duck, potatoes, home-made bread,
honey, and dried-apple pie. It is probable that he did not enjoy himself
less because a young woman sat opposite him whose dark eyes flashed soft
lights of happiness at him and whose voice played like sweet music on
his heart.
Mrs. Budd was urging on him another piece of pie when Bennie ran in with
news.
“Dad’s comin’ down the road with two other men,” he shouted in a lifted
key of youthful excitement.
Hugh retired to the garret.
Sheriff Budd came wheezing into the house followed by his deputies.
“Seen anything of Hugh McClintock?” he asked his wife.
“Where would I see him? I haven’t been out of the house,” his plump
helpmate answered tartly.
“Well, I got to search the house. Some folks seem to think he’s here.”
“What’s he done?” asked Vicky.
“Why, he kidnapped that good kind citizen Sam Dutch, a man who hadn’t
murdered but fourteen or fifteen people, and who never packed more’n two
guns an’ a pig-sticker at one time,” the sheriff said dryly. “Such
lawlessness sure ought to be punished severe. I’d say send this
McClintock fellow to Congress or somethin’ like that. Make a sure enough
example of him.”
Jim waddled into the dining room. His eye fell on the devastation of the
supper table. If he noticed the extra plate at the table he made no
comment upon it. Neither did the deputies. The sheriff had hand-picked
them carefully. Little Bennie followed, wriggling with excitement. Up to
date this was the big adventure of his young life.
Jim’s eyes asked a question of his wife and received an answer. He
learned from the wireless that had passed between them that his
instructions had been carried out.
“Look through the kitchen and the hen house, boys,” the sheriff gave
orders. “Then we’ll move upstairs. I don’t reckon he could be here
without Mrs. Budd knowin’ it. But the way to make sure is to look.”
They presently trooped upstairs. While the deputies were searching the
bedrooms Budd puffed up to the garret. In order to establish his
identity he sang a solo:
“Old dog Tray ever faithful
Grief cannot drive him away.
He’s gentle and he’s kind,
And you’ll never, never——”
The sheriff opened the door of the attic and stepped in. Hugh was
straddling a chair with his elbows across the back of it. He grinned at
his friend.
“I’d talk about being faithful if I was you, Jim,” he murmured lazily.
“Here you’ve deserted that good old friend Grimes whose coat was so
unusual it buttoned down before and——”
Budd shut the door hurriedly. “No use tellin’ the boys you’re here. What
they don’t know won’t hurt them none.”
“True enough. What’s up, Jim? Why all this hide-and-go-seek business?”
“I dunno what’s up, but somethin’s gonna be pulled off. The Dodsons want
you locked up in the calaboose while the fireworks are on. If they want
you in, we want you out. That’s how I figure it.”
“Why not oblige ’em and put me in jail? Then they’ll be easy in their
minds an’ start in on their programme. You can fix it so I escape when
I’m needed.”
But Budd had opinions of his own on that point. “No, sir, I don’t aim to
let any prisoners break outa my jail if I can help it. While I’m sheriff
I’ll be a sure enough one. Onct you git behind the bars you’re my
prisoner an’ I’m an officer sworn to keep you there. But now I’m old Jim
Budd an’ you’re Kid McClintock.”
This seemed to Hugh a distinction without a difference, but he
understood that to Budd it made the line of cleavage between what was
the square thing and what was not. He did not attempt to argue with him.
“All right. Have it yore own way, old-timer.”
The sheriff went downstairs and reported to his men that they would go
down and search the corral stable for the man they wanted.
“Some of us ce’tainly would have seen him if he’d been in this house,”
he concluded.
One of the deputies, who was rolling a cigarette, grinned down at the
makings. It chanced that he had heard voices in the attic.
“Some of us sure would,” he agreed affably. “Me, I ain’t lost McClintock
awful bad anyhow.”
CHAPTER XXXV
McCLINTOCK READS TENNYSON
Miss Lowell, schoolmarm, sat in the parlour of her boarding house and
corrected spelling papers. Across the lamplit table from her was Hugh
McClintock. He was browsing through a volume of poems written by the man
who had been for two decades and still was the world’s most popular
philosopher of progress. The book was Vicky’s, and she handed it to him
with a word of youth’s extravagant praise.
“I think he’s the greatest poet that ever lived.”
Hugh smiled. “He’ll have to step some.” He mentioned Shakespeare and
others.
But Vicky flamed with the enthusiasm of a convert. “It’s not only the
music of his words. It’s what he says. He shakes the dead bones so. If
you haven’t read ‘In Memoriam’ you must.”
“I’ve read it.”
“Did you ever read anything so—so inspiring?”
“It’s great. Remember that Flower-in-the-crannied-wall piece. I don’t
recollect how it goes exactly, but he pulls it out by the roots an’
talks at it. Says if we knew what it was and how it had come we’d know
what God and man are. I reckon that’s right. He sure set me thinking.”
“I love him.” The girl’s face was aglow in the lamplight. “He’s just
wonderful, that’s all.”
It is difficult now to understand the tremendous influence of Tennyson
among all the English-speaking peoples fifty years ago. Before Darwin
was accepted and even before he had published, the Victorian poet was
pointing the way with prophetic vision. He was the apostle of the new
age, of the intellectual freedom that was to transform the world. His
voice penetrated to the farthest corners of Australia and America. The
eager and noble minds of youth turned everywhere to him for guidance.
To-night, however, Hugh was nibbling at verse less profound. He was
reading “The Gardener’s Daughter.” A descriptive phrase flashed at him:
A certain miracle of symmetry,
A miniature of loveliness, all grace
Summed up and closed in little.
Involuntarily his glance swept to the dusky head on the other side of
the table. Her shining-eyed ardour seemed to him the flowering of all
young delight. Another verse leaped out at him from the page:
. . . those eyes
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair
More black than ashbuds in the front of March.
He turned the pages abruptly and began “The Charge of the Light
Brigade.” It would never do for him to get sentimental.
Mrs. Budd opened the door and pushed her head into the room. “Mr. Ralph
Dodson’s here an’ would like to see you—on business,” she announced.
“To see me?” asked Hugh.
“No. Miss Lowell.”
“I wonder what about,” murmured that young woman, putting down the paper
she was marking.
“He didn’t say.”
“Well, I don’t care to see him.”
“Hadn’t you better?” suggested Hugh. “If he’s got something up his
sleeve we might as well know what it is.”
“All right. He can come in.”
Hugh rose to go, but she made a little gesture that asked him to stay.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, smiling at him.
“Not a bit. He probably knows I’m here, anyhow.”
Dodson bowed to Vicky, more stiffly to McClintock. The man from Virginia
City just acknowledged his greeting.
“If you’ve come to see me about my claim, Mr. Dodson, you can speak
before Mr. McClintock. He’s my business adviser,” Vicky said.
The big mine owner was ever so slightly taken aback. “My business is
rather private,” he said.
“Do you mean that it is a secret?”
“Oh, no. I have an offer to make you. But first I ought to preface it
with a statement of fact,” he said formally. “Your title to the claim
you’ve been working isn’t good, I’m afraid.”
“Why isn’t it?” she asked sharply.
“A prior interest in it was held by Singlefoot Bill, an old prospector
who located on Bald Knob and worked all over it.”
“He did no work on my claim to speak of. When I began my assessment work
there wasn’t a hole two feet deep on the location.”
He smiled. “That will be a matter for the courts to determine, I
suppose.”
“The courts. What do you mean?” she snapped. “This old prospector never
did any real digging on my claim. He’s dead, anyhow. Who is there to
make trouble?”
“Nobody will make you trouble, I’m sure, Miss Lowell,” said Dodson with
a suave smile. “My brother and I will be pleased to sign over the claim
to you.”
“Sign it over to me? What have _you_ got to do with it?”
“We own it. We own practically all the Bald Knob group of mines.”
Hugh spoke for the first time. “News to me, Mr. Dodson. When did you get
’em?”
“Almost two years ago. We bought out Singlefoot Bill.”
“Who didn’t own ’em.”
“We think he did. The courts will probably have to pass on the title.”
“He never patented them. How could he, when he had done no work to speak
of on them?”
“We’ll prove he did, Mr. McClintock,” purred Dodson. “He seems to have
done all that was required.”
“How can you claim that? He hardly stuck a pick in any of the claims
that are being worked by us or our friends.”
“I think we’ll be able to furnish evidence to show that he did,” Dodson
answered smoothly.
“I don’t doubt that,” retorted McClintock. “You could get witnesses to
swear that you are Napoleon Bonaparte. But it’s too raw. You can’t put
it over.”
Dodson smiled a thin-lipped smile. “No need to discuss that now.
Fortunately Nevada has courts above reproach.”
“It’s plain robbery,” Victoria said indignantly.
“Attempted robbery,” amended Hugh. “It won’t succeed.”
“I’m not here to bandy names. What I came to say is that my brother and
I want to do justice, Miss Lowell. You’ve been spending money on the
claim you thought was yours. We intend to relinquish it to you.”
“I won’t take it,” the girl answered hotly, her cheeks stained with high
colour. “I’ll stand or fall with my friends. You can’t buy me off.”
“If you look at it that way, of course there’s nothing more to be said,”
replied Dodson with dignity. “I’m sorry. I’ll say good-evening, Miss
Lowell.”
“Just a moment, sir.” Hugh’s voice was like the sound of steel on steel.
“What’s this about a warrant for my arrest?”
Dodson looked at him, eye to eye. “Well, what about it?”
“I killed Sam Dutch in self-defence. The coroner’s jury was satisfied.”
“Then so am I. I’m told this warrant charges conspiracy to kidnap and
kidnapping.”
Dodson turned contemptuously to the door. At the same instant it opened
and Byers stepped into the room. His glance travelled from Dodson to
McClintock.
“They’ve jumped our claims,” he said quietly.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SIGNED BY WILLIAM THORNTON
When Byers spoke Dodson looked hurriedly at his watch.
Hugh was the first to speak. “Who told you?”
“Jim Flynn. He hustled right down from Bald Knob.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“No. Our boys threw up their hands. Jumpers had the drop on ’em.”
“Flynn know any of the gunmen?”
“Sloan was one,” answered Byers.
McClintock turned to Dodson. “Do you pay yore gun-fighters by the job or
by the day?” he asked contemptuously.
“I don’t answer questions put that way, McClintock,” said Dodson
stiffly. “Your manner is an insult, sir.”
“It’s an insult if these roughs are not being paid by you. Can you tell
me that they’re not?” demanded Hugh, eyes cold as the steel-gray waters
of Lake Tahoe on a wintry morning.
“I’ll tell you nothing under compulsion, sir.”
“Which means that I’m right. You and yore brother are back of this
outrage. You think you can get away with our property by wholesale
bribery. I should think you’d know the men you’re fightin’ better than
that.”
“We ask for nothing that’s not ours. We don’t intend to let ourselves be
bulldozed out of anything that is.” The dark colour flashed into the
cheeks of Dodson. His anger, envenomed by months of repression, boiled
out of him as red-hot lava from a crater. “I’ll show you McClintocks
whether you run this state. If it takes every cent I’ve got in the world
I’ll ruin you both. To hear and see you a man would think you were in
partnership with God Almighty. You’ve got folks buffaloed. But not
me—not me!” He slammed his fist down hard on the table so that the lamp
jumped.
He whirled and strode from the room in a fury.
“War, looks like,” said Hugh, turning with a smile to his friends.
“I never knew him to lose his temper before,” said Vicky. “You spoke
pretty straight to him. Do you think that was wise?”
“Why not? He’s been our enemy for a long time. Might as well bring him
into the open.”
“He knew the claims were going to be jumped, you think?”
“Yes, but his machine slipped a cog. D’you see him look at his watch
when Dan told us? He knew what was on the programme, but it took place
earlier in the evenin’ than he had arranged for. That’s how I figure it
out, anyhow.”
“What are we going to do about it?” asked Vicky.
She knew that the history of the Nevada and California mining camps was
full of tragedies due to disputes over mining locations. Claim jumping
was not infrequent, and in a good many cases the jumpers finally won the
day. Usually the stronger characters won, regardless of the justice of
the case.
“We’re going to get our claims back,” Hugh replied.
Byers nodded. He was as decided on that point as his partner. The only
question was in what way.
Sheriff Budd, greatly excited, waddled in; Mrs. Budd was hard on his
heels.
“Hell’s hinges, boys!” he broke out. “Have you-all heard what them
scalawags have done pulled off?”
“I been expectin’ it,” Mrs. Budd announced calmly. She was a woman
impossible to surprise. She made a good wife and mother, but there were
moments when Jim wished she wouldn’t say “I told you so” quite as often
as she did.
“Then I hope you’re expectin’ us to re-jump ’em, Mrs. Budd,” Hugh said
with a grin.
They discussed ways and means. If possible, they meant to get back their
property without bloodshed.
“If this was Sloan’s play all we’d have to do would be to throw him out.
But there’s brains back of this move. We’re dealin’ with Ralph Dodson.
If we gain possession we still have the courts to reckon with. So we’ve
got to move carefully and see we don’t blunder into any mistake,” Hugh
said.
“You’re shoutin’, Kid,” the sheriff agreed. “It wouldn’t he’p us a whole
lot to go up to the Supreme Court with two-three killings on the record
against our title.”
They slept on their problem and discussed it again next day. Hugh sent
to Virginia City for Scot and a good lawyer. There were more
conferences. Out of them came one or two decisions. Scot, Hugh, and
their lawyer called at the office of the Katie Brackett and asked to see
Ralph Dodson. He was out, but his brother Robert was in. At first he
refused to meet them, but his visitors were so insistent that they would
not take no for an answer.
Dodson had them admitted to his office. Sloan sat beside him. Another
gunman was in the room. From the yellow-gray eyes of the mine owner a
furtive look slid round at the McClintocks and their lawyer.
“Now, looky here, Browning,” he said irritably to the lawyer, “there’s
no manner o’ use in you pesterin’ me. See Ralph. He’ll talk turkey with
you. I got nothin’ to do with this.”
“All we want is to see the paper you and Singlefoot Bill signed up.
We’re entitled to see it. You’ve jumped the Ground Hog and other claims
owned by my group of clients. We’d like to look over your title. Of
course we’re all anxious to avoid trouble. The only way to do that is to
let us know where you stand.”
Dodson listened sourly. But he was not a fool. He knew Browning could
get a court order to look at the paper. There was no real objection to
it, and when one is playing an underhanded game it is better to give an
impression of bluff frankness.
“You’ll gimme yore word not to keep the paper nor to injure it—you or
yore clients either?”
“Of course. This is business, not highway robbery.”
Dodson shot a slant look of warning at Sloan and went to the safe. He
returned with a sheet of foolscap paper upon which had been written an
agreement by which William Thornton, known as Singlefoot Bill,
relinquished all rights in certain designated patented mining claims on
Bald Knob to Robert and Ralph Dodson in consideration of three thousand
dollars now paid him in hand.
Browning copied the paper exactly, word for word, and comma for comma.
Meanwhile, Sloan, his gun in his hand, watched him and the McClintocks
every second of the time. Both brothers looked the contract over.
The lawyer pushed the paper back to Dodson. “Much obliged. Of course
it’s not worth the price of the ink on it, but you probably won’t be
satisfied of that till the courts have said so.”
“You can bet yore boots we make it good,” retorted Dodson, his dodging
eyes jumping to the men he hated so bitterly.
The three callers left the office. From the time they had entered it
till the time they left, the McClintocks had not said a word except in
asides to their lawyer.
“I don’t know on how solid a foundation their case rests,” Browning said
as they walked along Turkey Creek Avenue. “But it never does to
underestimate your opponents. First, we’ll check up and try to learn if
the claims ever were patented. Then we’ve got to find out all about that
contract, the circumstances under which it was signed, whether there was
any record of it made at Austin. We ought to be able to discover if old
Singlefoot showed any evidence of having money immediately after it was
signed. Think I’ll go to Austin and make some investigations.”
“Yes, let’s get to the bottom of it,” Scot agreed. “It looks fishy to me
that they’d pay Singlefoot three thousand for claims not worth a cent
then.”
“Especially when he had no valid title and all they had to do was to
relocate them,” added Hugh.
“Not like the Dodson way of doing business,” admitted Browning. “I don’t
know where the nigger in the woodpile is, but he’s there somewhere.”
“Think you’d better go to Austin with Mr. Browning, Scot,” Hugh said.
“You have so many friends there you might be able to find out something
important.”
Scot dropped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Want to cut me out of
the fun here, do you? Couldn’t think of leaving yet. But I’ll tell you
what I will do. I’ll join Browning at Austin soon as we’ve taken the
next trick.”
“Which is——?”
“To get possession of the Ground Hog and the other claims.”
“You ought not to figure in that, Scot,” the younger brother protested.
“You’re a public character now. You’ve got to look at the future.
Politically——”
“I’ve got to live with myself a few years, Hugh. How would I feel if I
ducked out and left you to handle this job? No, I’ll go through. It’s up
to us to use some strategy so as to get our properties back without
killing anybody. That’s what our brains are for.”
Hugh did not push his point. He knew when he was beaten.
“I’ve been millin’ over an idea that might work out,” he said.
“What is it?”
“I haven’t got it quite worked out yet. In an hour or two maybe I’ll
unload it from my mind.”
As soon as Browning had left them he sketched his plan to Scot.
Colonel McClintock’s eyes began to shine. “Ought to work out fine, if
the valley lies as you say. Let’s go right to it to-night.”
“To-night suits me,” said Hugh. “But we’ll have to hustle the
arrangements.”
They spent a busy day.
CHAPTER XXXVII
HUGH EXPLAINS
Back of Piodie, on the other side of a high ridge, is a deep valley
hemmed in by rock-rimmed walls. Its area is about ten or fifteen acres.
The McClintocks climbed the ridge and looked down into the park. It was
filled with dead and down piñon. Two years before a fire had started
there, had raged furiously for a day, and had died down before the
persistent attack of a heavy snowstorm. Since that time a new growth of
underbrush had come up.
Scot and Hugh circled the rim, studying carefully the contour of the
slopes. The upper half of these were rock-ribbed. The timber had climbed
up to these boulder outcroppings and had there given up the fight to
reach the summit, driven back by the lack of soil in which to root. Down
in the basin the dead trees had crashed and lay across each other in
confusion.
“The fire never could have got out of the valley even if the snow hadn’t
stopped it,” Scot said.
“That’s how it looks to me,” Hugh agreed. “The only thing that could
make it dangerous would be a high wind.”
“It would have to be a gale to spread the fire outside. The rocks made a
break as safe as a fireplace.”
They covered every inch of the rim to make sure of this. They did not
want to take any chance of setting fire to the town. Before they left
the valley they were satisfied that a fire inside it could not do any
damage.
Budd and Byers, who knew the people of the town better than the
McClintocks did, set about gathering allies for the night campaign.
Piodie was full of lawless adventurers ready to take a hand in any
enterprise directed against the Dodsons. The difficulty was not to get
enough of them, but to select the ones with cool heads not likely to be
carried away by excitement.
As Vicky was walking home from school she met Hugh.
“Tell me everything. What have you done? Did he let you see the
contract? Have you plans made yet?” In her eagerness the words of her
questions tumbled over each other.
Hugh told her all he thought it was good for her to know. He trusted
implicitly her discretion, but it was possible there might be blood shed
in the attempt to win back the claims, and he did not want to make her a
party to it.
“I wish I could help,” she sighed. “It’s horrid sometimes to be a girl.
If it wasn’t for my school I could go to Austin, though, and look up the
contract.”
“Yes, you could do that fine. But the fact is I want to get Scot away
from here. Robert Dodson hates him. I don’t think he’s safe on the
streets. You know how it is with gunmen. Their trigger fingers itch to
kill men with reputations for gameness. Ever since that affair at the
Ormsby House, Scot has been a shining mark. If Dodson should egg them
on——”
The girl looked at him with an odd smile. “I suppose _you’re_ safe
enough here.”
“Oh, yes. They won’t bother me.”
“No, I suppose not,” she answered with a touch of sarcasm. “You’re only
the man that killed Sam Dutch, the one that dragged him away from his
friends to jail. Nobody would want to interfere with anybody as
inoffensive as you.”
“I didn’t drag him away, Vicky. You did that when you stopped the rescue
at the mine and planned a way to get him out of town.”
“Both you and Scot are too foolhardy,” she scolded. “You go along with
your heads up and a scornful ‘Well-here-I-am,
shoot-me-down-from-behind-if-you-want-to’ air that there’s no sense in.
A man owes something to his friends and his relatives, doesn’t he? No
need of always wearing a chip on your shoulder, is there?”
“Does Scot carry a chip on his shoulder?” Hugh asked, smiling.
“Oh, well, you know what I mean. He could try to dodge trouble a
little—and so could you. But you’re both so stiff-necked.”
“I reckon Scot figures that the safest way to duck danger is to walk
right through it,” he said gently. “There are times when you can’t run
away from it. I always run when I can. Different with Scot. _You_ blow
him up good. He needs to take better care of himself, what with Mollie
an’ the baby dependent on him.”
“_Yes_, you run,” she scoffed. “Were you running from it when you
plastered this town with handbills about Sam Dutch’s knife? I’ve heard
all about it.”
“A man’s got to throw a bluff sometimes, or get off the earth and eat
dirt.”
“And the time you ran him out of Aurora.”
“Hmp! If I’d weakened then he’d ’a’ followed me an’ made me Number
Twelve or Thirteen in his private graveyard.”
“You make excuses, but there’s something in what Ralph Dodson says—that
you act as though you had some kind of partnership with Providence that
protected you.”
“If you can point out a single time when either Scot or I went out
lookin’ for trouble, Vicky, I’ll plead guilty to being too high-heeled.
All we ask is to be let alone. When it’s put up to him and forced on
him, a man can’t crawl out of danger. He’s got to go through.”
She smiled. “You put me in the wrong, of course. I know you don’t either
of you want trouble. You’ve used the right word yourself. You
McClintocks are high-heeled. You walk as though you were king of
Prussia.”
“I’ve got him backed off the map. I’m an American citizen,” he answered,
meeting her smile.
But though Vicky scolded him, she knew that she would not want Hugh to
carry himself a whit less debonairly. Her spirit went out in kinship to
meet his courage. She gloried in it that he would not let himself be
daunted by the enmity of men less scrupulous and clean of action, that
he went to meet unsmilingly whatever fate might have in store for him.
Surely it was only in her beloved West that men like the McClintocks
were bred.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE BATTLE OF BALD KNOB
After night had fallen men drifted inconspicuously to the Pony Express
Corral. They were armed, all of them with revolvers, two or three with
rifles. If any one had studied the faces of the group that gathered
round the lantern held by Byers, he would have voted these men hard
citizens. Their eyes were steady. They wasted no words and no gestures.
Byers had picked them because, as he had put it, “they would stand the
gaff.”
Without any discussion of the subject Scot naturally took command of the
expedition. He had learned the habit of it during the war.
“You know what we’re going to do,” he said quietly. “The Dodsons have
jumped our claims and put up dummies to hold them. We’ll not stand for
it. We plan to get the claims back by strategy. Later I’ll tell you how.
I suppose Dan has explained to you where you come in. We’ll give leases
on Bald Knob to those who go through with us. Understand one thing.
We’re not looking for trouble. I don’t want a single shot fired if we
can help it. We’re not going to kill anybody. It won’t be necessary. But
you boys know Sloan’s gang. They’ll fight if they get a chance. It’s up
to us to see that they don’t get that chance.”
An old-timer who had come round the Horn spoke up: “Sounds good,
Colonel. How do you aim to get these bully puss men of Dodson’s to give
up without snappin’ a cap at us? You sure got me guessin’.”
“That part of the programme comes a little later, Buck,” Scot said,
smiling at him. “I think we can pull it off, but I’m not sure. There’s a
risk for us. I don’t deny that. They might get one of us. We’ve got to
take a chance on that.”
“Let’s get this right, Colonel. Do you mean if they shoot at us we’re
not to give ’em what for back?”
“I mean that if there’s only a wild shot or two we’re not to fire back.
This isn’t a feud. We want possession of our property. The whole thing
will have to be fought out in the courts later, so we don’t want to go
to law with a black record of any killings against us. Besides, we’re
peaceable citizens who want our rights. We’re not gun-fighters.”
“All right,” grinned Buck. “You’re runnin’ this shebang. I never was in
a drift just like this before, but I reckon it’s all right. If I’m the
one they get, Colonel, you’ll have to be chief mourner at the plantin’.”
“Don’t worry, Buck. Our diamond drill’s going to strike pay ore sure.
It’s the Dodson crowd that’s likely to be in borrasca. Now if you’re all
ready we’ll be travelling.”
Byers led the way up the gulch back of the corral. Before the party had
gone far a young moon came out and lit the path. They picked their trail
through the sage and greasewood to the head of the ravine and followed a
draw which took into the cow-backed hills. The pony express rider wound
round to the rear of Bald Knob and climbed a spur upon which grew a
fairly thick grove of pine nut. Here he stopped.
“Better camp here, I reckon.”
The men unrolled their blankets and prepared a fireless camp. Soon most
of them were sound asleep. Scot and Byers moved up the shoulder of the
hill to reconnoitre. They knew that guards would be watching to prevent
a surprise, so they took precautions against being seen. By following a
swale through the brush they were able to come close enough to see dimly
the shaft house of the Ground Hog and the slaty dump which straggled
below like a thin beard.
“Looks quiet enough,” Scot whispered.
Byers nodded.
“Hugh won’t begin to paint the sky till after midnight,” the Colonel
went on. “About that time we’ll bring the men up here into the draw and
have them ready. You’re sure that little fellow Madden is all right? He
won’t betray us?”
“You can tie to him,” Byers said.
“I don’t doubt his good will. What about his judgment? He looks simple.
That’s all right, too, if he’s not shrewd enough not to make a mistake.”
“He won’t.”
“If they suspect a thing it’s all up with the plan.”
“Gotta take a chance.”
“Yes.”
They lay in the sage for hours, the multitudinous voices of the night
all about them in whispers of the wind, rustlings of furtive desert
dwellers, the stirring of foliage under the caress of the breeze.
McClintock read midnight on the face of his watch and murmured to his
companion, “Time to get the men up.”
Byers rose without a word and disappeared in the darkness.
Far away toward the north a faint pink began to paint the sky. The
colour deepened till the whole sky above Piodie took on a rose-coloured
tint.
The men from the camp below joined Scot. One whispered to another, “Look
at the sky, Ben.”
“Fire, looks like. Bet it’s Piodie,” the other said, startled.
“No, it’s not Piodie. It’s the valley back of the big hill north of
town,” McClintock told them.
“How do you know, Colonel?” asked the first speaker.
“Because that painted sky is a part of our fireworks,” he answered.
“I’ll explain the programme, boys. Madden is to run across the shoulder
of the hill toward the Ground Hog. When the guard stops him he’ll shout,
‘Fire in Piodie; whole town burning up.’ He’ll explain that Dodson wants
them all to come back to fight fire. My guess is that they’ll take one
look at the sky and start north _muy pronto_. For most of the men
guarding the mine own houses in Piodie. The news will spread down the
hill, and all we’ll have to do is to walk in and take possession. That
is, if we’re lucky.”
“Wow! Some strategy, Colonel. Did they learn you that in the war?” asked
the old-timer who had come round the Horn.
“Afraid I can’t take credit for it. Another man made the plan of
campaign. It’s up to us to execute it. Ready, Madden?”
“Y’betcha, Colonel.”
McClintock drew him to one side and gave careful instructions. “They’re
likely to ask you a lot of questions. Take your time to answer them.
You’ll be breathless and panting, because you’ve run all the way from
town to bring the news and to get their help. If you can’t think of a
good answer tell them you don’t know. You can say the fire was coming
down Turkey Creek Avenue when you left and that it was spreading to the
residence streets. But don’t know too much. That’s the safest way. You
met Bob Dodson and he asked you to come out for help.”
“I’ll say I met him just as I come out from my room fastenin’ my
suspenders,” contributed Madden, entering into the spirit of it. “I’ll
say I lit a shuck for Bald Knob an’ only hit the high spots on the way.”
“Good. Well, good luck to you.” Scot gave him one more suggestion. “They
may leave a man or two at the Ground Hog. If they do, try to lead them
round to the north side of the shaft house. We’ll creep up as close as
we can and try to surprise them.”
The reaction of Dodson’s mine guards to the news that Piodie was on fire
was exactly what the McClintocks had anticipated.
Madden, halted by the sentry, gasped out his message. In an incredibly
short time the men were out of their bunks listening to it. Not the
faintest gleam of suspicion touched the minds of one of them. Wasn’t the
proof of Madden’s story written red in the sky for any of them to read?
They plunged back into the bunk house and got into more clothes. As fast
as they were ready the men went straggling downhill toward town. Much
against his will they had elected a young teamster to stay on guard at
the Ground Hog. Madden volunteered to stay with him on duty.
It was easy to lead the teamster round to the north side of the shaft
house, from which point they could better view the angry sky and
speculate on the progress of the flames.
“Doggone it, tha’s just my luck to be stuck up here whilst the rest of
the boys go to town an’ see the fun,” the faithful guard lamented. “I
wisht I’d joined the hook an’ ladder comp’ny when I was asked, then I’d
sure enough have to go.”
Madden sympathized. It was tough luck. If he wasn’t all tired out
running from town he certainly would like to see the fire himself. Sure
enough it was an A-1 fire.
They sat down on a pile of timbers that had been hauled up to the Ground
Hog for sets to be used in underground work.
A man came round the corner of the shaft house and moved toward them.
The guard caught sight of him and remembered what he was there for. He
jumped up and pulled out a revolver.
“Keep back there!” he ordered excitedly.
The man moved evenly toward him, hands buried in his trousers pockets.
The guard backed away. “Who are you? Git back there. Hear me? Git back.”
In a duel of wits the man who is certain of himself has the advantage of
the one who is not sure. Scot McClintock did not lose a stride. His
unhurried indolence radiated confidence.
“Want a little talk with you,” he said quietly. “Thought probably——”
“Git back or I’ll plug you. Sure will.”
“Oh, no. No sense in that. Bob Dodson now——”
The teamster had backed to the wall. He did not know what to do. He
could not shoot a man lounging toward him with his hands in his pockets.
Perhaps Dodson had sent him, anyhow.
“Did Dodson——?”
The question died in his throat with a gasp of consternation. He
recognized now this easy-mannered intruder as the redoubtable Colonel
McClintock, and he was not sufficiently alert-minded to meet the
situation. If the man had come at him six-shooter in hand, he would have
known quickly enough what to do. But in the fraction of time given him
he hesitated. McClintock was a big man in the state. The teamster was
not sure how far Dodson would back him. He had been hired by Sloan to
take orders and not to show initiative. Before he could make up his mind
the chance was lost. A dozen men poured round the corner of the house.
Irritably he barked out a question: “What in Mexico you-all doin’ here?”
Colonel McClintock held out his hand smilingly. “Your six-gun please.”
Voice and eyes both carried an imperative.
The teamster clung to his long navy revolver. “Looky here. I’m in charge
here. Dodson won’t like you fellows hellin’ around the Ground Hog.” His
wandering eye took in the flushed sky, and found there a momentary
inspiration. “Mebbe you don’t know Piodie is burnin’ up right now.
You-all better light out for town.”
McClintock did not answer in words. His steady eyes still held the man
with the weapon. His hand was still extended. Reluctantly, against his
own volition it seemed, the teamster’s arm moved forward. He was still
telling himself he did not intend to give up the six-shooter when Scot’s
fingers closed on the barrel.
The two stood a moment, eye to eye. The mine guard’s hand dropped slowly
from the butt of the weapon.
“You carry good life insurance, Colonel?” asked drily the old
forty-niner.
McClintock divided his command. One third of the men he left with Byers
in charge of the Ground Hog. The rest he took with him to the other
claims that had been jumped. One of these was deserted. At another they
found the guard asleep. The jumpers on Scot’s claim surrendered at
discretion to superior numbers. Those who had been left at Vicky’s fired
a few wild shots, but as soon as they learned that the Ground Hog had
been captured they gave up with the honours of war.
The battle of Bald Knob had been won by the attackers with no
casualties.
CHAPTER XXXIX
SLEUTHING
Scot was called back to Carson on official business, so that it was Hugh
who entrained for Austin to join Browning on his search for evidence. In
the old days of the pony express the boy rider had seen Austin a score
of times. It was in the heart of a desert that stretched six hundred
miles from east to west, a desert walled in by the Rockies on one side
and the Sierras on the other. The town lay huddled between the sides of
a cañon which ran sharply up from the Reese River valley. Houses were
built everywhere and anywhere, on ground so steep that one side of a
house often had a story more than the other. It was a place of dirty
sprawling shacks surrounded by dry dusty plains upon which no birds or
wild beasts could be seen. The note of the place was its raw crudeness.
For here, half a thousand miles from San Francisco, the first wave of
Pacific Coast migration had spent itself.
Yet even Austin had its social amenities—its churches, its schools, its
first-class French restaurant, its theatre, and its daily paper. When
Samuel Bowles of Springfield, Massachusetts, passed through the town in
the middle ’sixties he found its barber shops as well equipped as those
of New York and its baths as luxurious as continental ones.
Over a Chateaubriand with mushrooms, following a soup that could have
been inspired only by a Gallic brain, Browning and McClintock sat at a
small table in the famous French restaurant and discussed the problem
before them. The lawyer had made small headway. He knew the date of
William Thornton’s death. The man had fallen down a shaft while drunk
two weeks after the date of the contract which the Dodsons held. He had
found no evidence of any irregularity. Nobody he had met recalled a
visit made by the Dodsons to town, but in the ebb and flow of the camp’s
busy life they might have been here. For in the boom days hundreds of
men drifted in and out each week.
Browning had worked at the court house. Hugh mixed with people at the
post office and in saloons. A dozen times that day he turned the
conversation upon Singlefoot Bill. He picked up a good deal of
information about the habits of that eccentric character, but none of it
seemed very much to the point. The first lead he struck was at the
Mammoth Lager Beer Saloon, a big resort on the corner of Main and
Virginia.
An old-timer had been telling a story about Thornton. After he had
finished he pulled himself up and ruminated. “Doggone it, that wasn’t
Singlefoot, either. It was his brother Chug.”
This was news to Hugh. “Had he a brother?”
“Sure had.” The old-timer chuckled. “Lived in cabins side by side an’
didn’t speak to each other for years. I reckon the good Lord never made
two more contrary humans than Chug an’ Singlefoot.”
“Where’s Chug now?”
“He’s been daid two years.” He referred the matter to another
tobacco-stained relic. “When was it Chug died, Bill?”
Bill made a stab at the date. His friend promptly and indignantly
disagreed with him. They argued the matter with acrimony, but Hugh
learned nothing definite from the quarrel.
He remembered that newspaper editors are encyclopædias of information
and departed from the saloon, even though he had read in an
advertisement that “Votaries of Bacchus, Gambrinus, Venus, or Cupid can
spend an evening agreeably at the Mammoth.”
The editor made Hugh free of his files. He was not sure about the dates
of the two old fellows’ deaths. One had died about three months before
the other, but he could not even tell which one had passed away first.
“They were alike as two peas from the same pod,” he explained. “Both
cranky, gnarled, and tough old birds. Even their names were almost
identical. One was Willis Thornton and the other William Thornton.”
Hugh’s eye quickened. He had an intuition that he was on the edge of an
important discovery, though he could not guess what it was. He looked
through the back files till he came to the issue of August 14th of two
years earlier. A short story on the back page was the one he wanted. The
last sentence of it sent a pulse of excitement beating through his
blood. The story read:
OBITUARY
We regret to record the death of our esteemed fellow citizen
William Thornton, due to an accident which occurred Thursday
night while on his way home after an evening spent down town. It
appears that Mr. Thornton must have strayed from the path in the
darkness of the gulch and fallen down a deserted prospect hole.
His head struck the rocks below and death was probably
instantaneous. His body was discovered there next morning by Jim
Simpkins who works a claim near by.
Thornton was one of the first settlers at Austin and has lived
here ever since. He was an eccentric character and had become an
institution of the town. His brother Willis Thornton, the
well-known prospector called Singlefoot Bill, died last June, it
will be recalled.
Hugh read the last sentence a second and a third time.
“His brother Willis Thornton, the well-known prospector called
Singlefoot Bill, died last June . . .”
Either the reporter was in error or Hugh had stumbled on a fact of prime
importance, one that knocked the props out from under the whole Dodson
case. For if Singlefoot Bill was Willis and not William, and if he had
died in June and not in August, then he could not have relinquished his
claim to the Dodsons on July 29th of the same year. The claimants must
either have bought from “Chug” Thornton instead of Singlefoot, or else
the paper was a forgery pure and simple. One phrase of the document
stuck in Hugh’s memory. The conveyor of the property had been referred
to as “William Thornton, known as Singlefoot Bill.” But surely “Chug”
Thornton, before signing so important a paper, would have corrected an
error so flagrant as a reference to himself as Singlefoot Bill. The fact
that this mistake in identity had been allowed to stand pointed to
forgery. Probably the Dodsons had learned the date of William Thornton’s
death, had never heard of his brother, and had jumped to the conclusion,
just as Browning and Hugh had done, that he was the old prospector who
had worked Bald Knob.
All of which reasoning was based on the hypothesis that the story he had
just read was true as to facts. Hugh proceeded to run it down. He looked
over the June files of the paper and found the obit of Willis Thornton.
At least three times in the story he was referred to as Singlefoot. It
even mentioned the fact that he had prospected for years at Piodie.
From the newspaper office Hugh went to the undertaker. That gentleman
was drowning his sorrows at the Mammoth, but he was one of that class of
drinkers whose mind is clear only when he has had a few drinks.
“Don’t remember which was Willis and which William,” he told Hugh, “but
I know I buried Singlefoot in June and Chug in August. Whyn’t you go out
to the graveyard an’ look up the tombstones?”
“That’s good advice. I’ll take it.”
Hugh wandered through the bleak graveyard perched on the side of a hill
across which the wind always seemed to sweep. He found the graves of the
brothers, and above each a clapboard upon which had been lettered their
names, cognomens, and the dates of their deaths. These, too, confirmed
what he had learned from the paper and from the undertaker.
When Browning found out what Hugh had discovered he thumped the table in
his room with an excited fist.
“We’ve got ’em right. We’ll spring our surprise on Dodson, trap him out
of his own mouth, and throw the case out of court before it ever goes to
a jury,” he cried.
CHAPTER XL
IN THE MESH OF HIS OWN NET
But after full discussion, the Bald Knob mine owners decided to let the
case go to the jury. They wanted to put the Dodsons on record in order
to make stronger a criminal action against them later.
The evidence of the plaintiffs consisted of testimony to the effect that
Singlefoot Bill had worked the claims, that he had a patent, and that he
had sold the properties to the Dodsons. The contract of sale itself was
offered in evidence. Both Robert and Ralph Dodson gave supplementary
evidence as to the conditions under which the contract was made. Their
story was clear, concise, and apparently unshaken. The only fact which
had apparently not been clearly established was that Thornton had ever
patented the claims. The records did not show the patent, but it was
urged that the papers had been destroyed in the big fire. Oral testimony
was introduced to substantiate this contention.
Ralph Dodson was the last witness for the plaintiffs. He was a good
witness, quiet, very certain of his facts, smilingly sure of the issue.
Plainly he had impressed the jury of farmers who were trying the case.
They knew nothing of the history of the ground in dispute, and were
ready to accept what they heard on its _prima facie_ merits.
In cross-examination Browning asked a brisk and careless question. “You
bought direct from this prospector Singlefoot Bill, Mr. Dodson?”
“Yes.”
“Not from any of his heirs or assigns or creditors?”
“No. The contract shows that I bought from William Thornton, known as
Singlefoot Bill, the man who originally located and worked the claims.”
“Let me see. The date was——?”
“July 29th, 1867.”
“Quite sure that was the day on which you bought from this Singlefoot
Bill?”
“Yes. The contract shows that.” Dodson spoke with contemptuous
impatience.
“As I understand it, your title rests on the fact that you bought from
William Thornton, known as Singlefoot Bill, on July 29th, 1867.”
“Yes, and on the fact that we have since continued to hold the property
without selling it.”
“Bought from Singlefoot Bill himself, in person?”
“Yes. I’ve said so already twice.”
“You were there when he signed the contract, Mr. Dodson?”
“Yes.”
“Did he read it before signing?”
“Yes.”
“Casually or carefully?”
“Very carefully. I remember how long he was reading it.”
“You think he understood it all—knew exactly what he was doing?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“That is all.”
Dodson was surprised. He had expected a savage gruelling, a fierce
attack on every point of his testimony. Instead of which the opposing
lawyer had asked a few harmless questions and waved him aside.
Fifteen minutes later Ralph Dodson’s face had faded to an ashen gray.
Browning had proved by competent witnesses, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, that Singlefoot Bill was named Willis Thornton and not William
Thornton, and that he was buried just six weeks before the date upon
which it was claimed he had signed the contract.
The lawyer was now introducing evidence to prove that Singlefoot Bill
had admitted three weeks before his death, before several witnesses,
that he thought he would drop work on Bald Knob without patenting any of
his prospects. Ralph was not listening to it. His face was a sneering
mask, but inside he was a cauldron of seething emotion. What a fool he
had been, yet how natural had been his folly. He had made sure of the
date of William Thornton’s death and had obtained a specimen of his
signature. This William was a prospector. He answered accurately the
description of Singlefoot Bill. Who under Heaven could have guessed
there was another Thornton to rise up from the dead and confront him
with his guilt?
He knew the Bald Knob cases were lost. That was the least of a train of
evils he had let loose on himself. For the first time he had been
exposed to the public gaze as a crook. He had put himself within reach
of the law. If his hired witnesses deserted him he might even go to the
penitentiary.
But the emotion which predominated in him was not fear. It was hatred.
As the trial progressed he saw clearly that Hugh McClintock had been the
rock upon which his plans had shipwrecked, just as he had been the cause
that had brought defeat to him when he ran for office and when he wooed
Victoria Lowell. The fellow was for ever in his way. He blocked his
vision so that he could find no pleasure in life. With all the
bitterness of a vain man whose hopes and ambitions have been thwarted,
he hated the man who had fought him to a standstill.
His hatred grew. For after the McClintocks and their friends had won the
Bald Knob cases Ralph Dodson found his place in Nevada less secure. The
big men at Virginia and Carson, so he chose to think, at least, were a
bit less cordial to him. They could forgive shady work if it were not
exposed, but if it failed they had no sympathy for it. He had made many
enemies, and now they rallied round the McClintocks. He and his brother
were indicted for forgery and for conspiracy to defraud by uttering a
forgery. The Katie Brackett was pinching out. It began to look as though
the firm had over-extended itself financially. His bitterness centred on
one man, the one he chose to think responsible for the accumulation of
trouble that was heaping upon him.
His brother came to him and whispered in his ear. They were in the
office of the Katie Brackett at the time. The yellow-dotted eyes dodged
furtively about the room. They rested on a map of the Piodie mines, on a
calendar, on the waste-paper basket, on a broken pane in the window,
anywhere but in the eyes of the man to whom he was mouthing a proposal.
For once Ralph did not want to meet his gaze. He listened sullenly.
“I’ll not have a thing to do with it—not a thing,” he said at last.
“It’s too dangerous. We’ve got too many men already who can ruin us by
talking. Better drop it.”
“I’m not askin’ you to mix up in it. But I’ll tell you the truth. I’m
scairt of that fellow. He’ll send us to the pen sure as he’s alive. I’ll
fix his clock. You keep out of it.”
“I don’t want to hear a word about it. Not a word. Understand. I’ve
forgotten what you told me. You’d better forget it, too.”
“Hmp! Mebbe you wantta go to serve time. I don’t. With that fellow outa
the way we’d be all right. You don’t have to know a thing about it. I
got a way to fix things. Sure have.”
“Well, don’t come to me about it. I’ll not listen to a word.”
Robert Dodson showed his bad teeth in an evil grin. He understood that
he had been told to go ahead and play his own hand.
CHAPTER XLI
FROM THE JUNIPERS
Tommie the red-headed stayed after school to bring in kindling and a
supply of piñon wood for the big drum stove in the centre of the room.
Ever since his teacher had whipped him he had been her eager and willing
slave. His eye was always alert to anticipate the needs of the slim,
vital young woman he adored.
So wholly was his heart hers that Vicky was more touched than amused. He
was a forlorn little orphan, sometimes underfed, she suspected, and she
mothered him in such ways as she found possible. Perhaps she favoured
him ever so little in the assignment of school privileges dear to
children, such as letting him pass the water more often than she did
others.
“I got kindlin’ an’ wood ’n everythin’, teacher. What’ll I do now?” he
asked.
Vicky, working over next day’s lessons at the desk, smiled her thanks.
“That’s all, Tommie. You’re a great help. Run along home now.”
“Must I?” he pleaded. “Can’t I go home when you go?”
“No, Tommie. I’ve a lot of work to do yet. And you know you promised to
clean up the yard for Mrs. Fenway.”
Under pretense of seeing whether her pencil needed sharpening, Tommie
sidled up to the desk close to his teacher. She knew what he wanted. If
she had kissed him his masculine vanity would have been wounded, but the
lonely child in him craved affection. Her arm slipped round his shoulder
and she gave him a quick hug, scolding him a little at the same time
because his coat was torn.
Tommie grinned and ran out of the building. A moment later she heard his
carefree whoop outside.
It happened that the boy was at that particular stage of life when his
imagination revelled in make-believes. It was impossible for him to walk
home sedately along the path. He told himself he was Kit Carson, and he
hunted Indians as he dodged through the sage toward town.
The young scout’s heart gave a little jump of fear. For in the clump of
junipers to which his stealthy steps had brought him two men lay
stretched on the ground. One of them carried a rifle.
“I got it fixed,” the other was saying, almost in a murmur. “Sent him a
note from that li’l tiger cat the schoolmarm for him to come an’ walk
home with her. He’ll be along sure.”
Tommie recognized the man as Robert Dodson, the biggest figure in the
camp’s life.
“You’ll protect me, Dodson? You’ll not go back on me?”
“Sure we’ll protect you—me’n Ralph both—to a finish.”
“If you don’t, by God, I’ll peach on you sure.”
“Sho! It’s plumb safe. You do the job, then light out. No danger
a-tall.”
“All right. You c’n run along. I’ll git him sure as he passes along that
path,” the man with the rifle promised.
“Don’t you make any mistake. Get him right. No need to take any
chances.”
“I never missed at this distance in my life. He’s my meat.”
“Soon as you’re sure of him light out an’ come down Coyote Gulch. I got
an alibi all ready for you.”
Tommie, face ashen, his knees buckling under him, crept back on all
fours out of the junipers. As soon as he had reached the open sage the
fear in him mastered discretion. He ran wildly, his heart pumping
furiously. Fortunately, he was by that time too far away to attract the
attention of the two men.
Into the schoolroom he burst and flung himself on Vicky. One glance at
his face told her that he was very frightened.
“What is it, Tommie?” she asked, her arms about his shaking body.
He gasped out his news. She went white to the lips. It seemed to her for
a moment that her heart stopped beating. It must be Hugh McClintock they
were ambushing. She guessed they were luring him to his death by means
of a forged note from her.
What could she do? She must move quickly and surely. There were two ways
to town from the schoolhouse, one by the cut, the other over the hill.
The assassin was lying close to the point where these paths met. She
could not watch both and reach Hugh in time to save him.
Vicky did not know where Hugh was nor how to find him with a warning.
Five minutes loss of time in finding him might be fatal. She thought of
Ralph Dodson. Was he implicated in this? Even so, she knew he would cry
back if he knew the plot was discovered. He was always at his office at
this time of day, and that office was at this edge of town. If she could
get word to him . . .
“Listen, Tommie,” she cried. “You know Mr. Dodson’s office—Mr. Ralph
Dodson. Go to him quick as you can and tell him to come to me—right
away—at the cave-in where he rescued Johnny. Tell him he must come at
once—that I need him now. Understand?”
Tommie nodded. Already she was leaving the building with him.
“You go by the cut, and if you see Hugh McClintock tell him what you’ve
told me and that he’s to stay in town, she explained.
“Yes’m,” Tommie said. “I’ll ’member.”
“Don’t tell Mr. Dodson anything except that I want him just as soon as
he can get to me.”
“No’m, I won’t.” His heart beat fast with excitement, but he crushed
back the fear that mounted in him.
They separated. Tommie hurried along through the cut and Vicky climbed
the hill to the summit. She knew that the man lying in the junipers
could see her. If she had known exactly where he was, she would have
gone straight to him and forced him to give up his plan by remaining at
his side. But in the thick underbrush she knew there would be small
chance of finding him.
At the brow of the hill she stopped and swept the path with her eyes.
Nobody was coming toward her along it from town. Her heart was in a
tumult of alarm. If Hugh came by the cut and Tommie failed to meet him
or to impress him sufficiently of the danger, he would walk straight
into the ambush prepared for him.
She was torn by conflicting impulses. One was to hurry down the hill to
town with the hope of finding Hugh before he started. Another was to
retrace her steps toward the junction of paths and wait for him there.
Perhaps if the bushwhacker saw her there he would not dare to risk a
shot. But she rejected this as a vain hope. He could fire in perfect
security from the brush and slip away in the gathering dusk without any
likelihood of detection.
It was not in her nature to wait in patience while Hugh might be
hurrying into peril. She turned and walked swiftly back along the path
she had just climbed. The shadow of dusk was falling. Objects at a
distance began to appear shadowy, to take on indistinctness of outline.
The panic in her grew with the passing minutes. A pulse in her parched
throat beat fast. Sobs born of sheer terror choked her as she stumbled
forward.
She stopped, close to the tunnel where the little boy had been entombed.
With all her senses keyed she listened. No sound came to her tortured
brain, but waves of ether seemed to roll across the flat and beat upon
her ears. She waited, horrible endless minutes of agonized distress. In
a small voice she cried out to the man in the chaparral that she was
watching him, that if he fired she would be a witness against him. But
her hoarse voice scarce carried a dozen yards.
From out of the junipers a rifle cracked. She ran down the path blindly,
in an agony of fright. Before she had taken three steps the rifle
sounded again. A scream filled the dusk, a scream of fear and pain and
protest.
The lurching figure of a man moved out of the gloom toward the running
girl. It stumbled and went down.
With a sob of woe Vicky flung herself down upon the prostrate body.
“Hugh!” she cried, and the word carried all her love, fears, dreads, and
terrors.
No sound came from the still form her arms embraced.
CHAPTER XLII
HUGH RIDES TO AN APPOINTMENT
Bald Knob hummed with activities. The Ground Hog was taking out
quantities of rich ore. On Vicky’s claim the leasers had struck a vein
which might or might not develop into a paying proposition. A dozen
other shafts were going down and from the side of the hill a tunnel was
progressing at a right angle toward the Ground Hog drift.
The fame of the new discovery had spread over the state and from all
directions prospectors were stampeding to the diggings. A steady stream
of wagons wound up and down the hill. They brought to the camp flour,
bacon, whisky, coal oil, dynamite, canned goods, clothing, lumber,
chickens, honey, hay, and the thousand other staples needed by the young
camp. Stores at Piodie set up branch establishments in tents and flimsy
shacks. Other merchants came in from Eureka and Virginia. Freight
outfits moved bag and baggage to Bald Knob, wagons loaded to the side
boards with supplies. Gamblers and women of loose reputation joined the
rush, keen to help reap the harvest always ripe in a young live mining
camp.
The most important and the busiest man in the new camp was Hugh
McClintock. He was a third owner of the Ground Hog and he had claims of
his own in addition. He managed the teaming and contracting business of
himself and his brother, now with temporary headquarters at Budd & Byers
corral. Moreover, he was looked on as unofficial father of the camp. To
him came drifters out of work, men who proposed the incorporation of a
town in the saddle of the dromedary-backed hill, solicitors for
contributions to an emergency hospital, and scores of others who had
troubles or difficulties they wanted to unload.
On the afternoon of a sunny day came to him also a barefoot Negro boy
with a note. The note read:
Are you awf’lly busy, Hugh? I want to see you. Meet me at the
schoolhouse at five-thirty to-day. Be sure and come. It is very
important.
Vicky Lowell.
If Vicky said it was important for him to meet her, he knew she was not
overstressing it. That young woman was impulsive and sometimes
imperious, but it was not in her character to call a busy man from his
work without a valid reason. It was her custom to stay at the
schoolhouse and prepare the lessons for next day so that she might have
the evenings free to read or to go out with friends. Twice he had gone
out to the schoolhouse and walked home with her in order to talk over
some difficulty that had arisen in regard to the leasing of her claim.
But he had gone of his own volition and not at her request.
There were moments during the afternoon, while he was talking over
business matters with the people who poured into his office, when his
pulses quickened delightfully, when he was aware of an undertug of
excitement coursing through his blood. Was it possible that Vicky sent
for him because—because she cared for him?
He rejected this, too, as out of character, as a kind of treason to her.
She was proud and held her self-respect in high esteem. Even if she
cared for him she would let him travel the whole road to her. Her lover
must come out into the open and ask for all he hoped to gain.
There had been hours of late when Hugh’s heart had been lifted with
hope, hours when their spirits had met in the mountain tops and they had
rejoiced in the exploration of each other’s minds. The mentality of
girls was a _terra incognita_ to him. He had lived among men from his
youth. Never before had he met a soul so radiant, so quick with life, so
noble in texture, as hers, he told himself. The glamour of her
personality coloured all his thoughts of her. The lift of her throat as
she would turn the beautifully poised little head, the dark flash of her
eyes so mobile in expression, the soft glow of colour in her clear
complexion, even the intellectual quality of her immature thinking, went
to his head like strong wine.
He was in love, with all the clean strength of his nature—and he
rejoiced in his love and let it flood his life. It permeated all his
actions and thoughts, quickened his vitality. Because he had gone so far
in life sufficient to himself the experience was wonderful and amazing
to him. His imagination halted at the threshold of his house of dreams.
He dared not let it take free rein. He would tell himself humbly that
this golden girl was not for him, and next moment he was planning how he
might see her soon and what he would say to her.
He was detained a few moments by a business detail that had to be
settled with a foreman, and after that a committee of citizens met in
his office to decide about the organization of a fire department for the
camp. He was on edge to be gone, but he could not very well walk out
from a meeting he himself had called. When at last he got away he knew
that he was nearly fifteen minutes late for his appointment with Vicky.
Knowing that he would be rushed for time, he had ordered a saddle horse
to be in waiting outside the office. He cantered down the road,
pretending not to hear the shout of an old prospector who wanted to
discuss a lease with him. To-morrow would do well enough for Tim Murphy,
anyhow. The important business of his life just now was to get to Miss
Vicky Lowell as soon as his horse could cover the intervening miles.
He travelled fast. It was only a few minutes later when he rode down
Turkey Creek Avenue at a gallop. He did not stop the horse in town, but
passed through it to the suburb at the farther edge of which the school
had been built.
Carelessly, without any special interest, he saw a man entering the cut
two hundred yards in front of him. He glanced at his watch. The time was
5:49. He would be more than twenty minutes late for his appointment with
Vicky.
Hugh rode into the cut. Halfway through it he pulled up his horse
abruptly. The crack of a rifle had stopped him automatically. He swung
from the saddle and eased the revolver in its scabbard. The sound of
another shot echoed in the cut. A scream shrilled through the dusk.
He tied the horse to a sapling with a slip knot and stepped forward. He
guessed that murder had been done. The shriek that still rang in his
brain had come from a man in mortal agony. Warily as a panther he moved,
for he knew the murderer had a rifle, and against a rifle at a hundred
yards a forty-five is as effective as a popgun.
Hugh edged round the corner of the bend beyond the cut. Instantly
caution vanished. In the gathering gloom a woman was flying down the
road toward him. She flung herself down to gather up in her arms a
figure lying sprawled across the path. McClintock broke into a run. Even
in the growing darkness he had recognized that light and lissom form.
“Vicky!” he cried as he reached her.
A face bloodless to the lips looked up pitifully at him. In the eyes he
read amazement, incredulity, doubt. Then, quite without warning, the
girl quietly toppled over in a dead faint.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE SACRIFICE
Vicky floated back to consciousness and a world that for a moment did
not relate itself to her previous experience. Hugh McClintock’s arms
were round her, his anxious face looking into hers. The touch of the
night wind was in the air, and apparently she was lying on the ground.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You fainted,” he explained.
“Oh!” she said vaguely. Then her eyes fell upon the still body stretched
beside her. Her memory picked up lost threads again and she shuddered.
“I—I thought—it was you.” She clung to him, her arms round him, as
though she had not yet fully escaped from the horror that had held her.
“Thought it was me?” he said, and there was not such a thing as grammar
in the world just then. “Why should you think that?”
“They meant to—to—kill you. One of my little boys heard them.” She
began to sob softly into his coat.
Hugh’s arms tightened about her. His body glowed with a soft warm
happiness. He had never known Vicky before unstrung and helpless. It was
golden luck for him that he should be the man to whom she clung.
“How could they know I’d be here?” he asked gently.
“Didn’t you get a note? Bob Dodson wrote it.”
“A decoy, to bring me here?”
“Yes. They pretended it was from me.”
She disengaged herself from his arms. The instinct of sex defence
against even the favoured lover was reasserting itself.
Hugh tried to put the bits of the puzzle together. His eyes fell upon
the dead body at his feet. “Then—this man—they must have shot him in
place of me.”
“Yes,” her dry throat gasped out.
McClintock stooped to feel the heart. It did not beat. He turned the
body for a look at the face. Then, “God!” he cried.
The face that stared up at him with sightless eyes was the face of Ralph
Dodson.
Vicky wailed in distress. “Oh, Hugh! I did it. I killed him! I brought
him here.”
“How? What do you mean?”
She caught her hands together in a gesture of despair. “I sent Tommie
for him—told him to come. I wanted him to save you.”
Hugh looked down at the face of the man who had hated him so bitterly.
His face muscles twitched. He was greatly touched.
“He died in my place—to save me,” he said gently.
“No. I didn’t tell him what I wanted him for—only that I wanted him
right away. And he came—and——” She broke down utterly. Innocently she
had been the cause of the death of a man who loved her. Without thought
she had lured him into the ambush his own brother had prepared for his
enemy.
The arms that went round her were those of Old Dog Tray and not those of
her lover. Hugh comforted her as best he could.
“You’re not to blame—not in the least. The men who contrived my murder
are guilty of his death. You called on him for help. That’s all. He had
lots of sand. Even if he had known what would happen to him he would
have come to you. That’s the way game men are. They go through. If he
were here and could speak to you he wouldn’t blame you—not a bit of it.
He’d say it was just the luck of the day.”
“Yes, but—but——”
His voice went on, cheerful, even, matter of fact. The very sound of it
banished despair. Her sobs diminished.
He led her to his horse.
“What—what’ll we do with—him?” she asked.
“I’ll arrange that when I get to town,” he told her.
Hugh made a foot rest of his hand and Vicky climbed to the saddle. He
walked along the path beside her.
Once his hand went up comfortingly to find and press hers in the
darkness.
She whispered, in a small voice she could not make quite steady, “You’re
so good to me.”
He did not answer. What could he say, except that if it would help her
he would cheerfully let red Indians torture him? And that somehow did
not seem an appropriate reply.
CHAPTER XLIV
UNDER THE STARS
Robert Dodson, appalled at the horrible thing he had done, fled with his
accomplice during the night. They reached Reno, were hidden on the
outskirts of the town by a friend, and crossed the Sierras furtively to
California. Here the trail was lost. Nobody was very anxious to find it,
for Dodson carried with him his own punishment.
Years later a man from Virginia City met in a San Francisco dive a
drunken wreck who reminded him of the fugitive. He called him by name,
but the man shrank from him, slid to the door, and disappeared into the
night. This was the last time Dodson was ever recognized. A rumour
floated to Nevada that he died of yellow fever soon after this in
Mexico, but no proof of this was ever given out.
The Dodson fortune collapsed with the death of Ralph. The firm had
over-extended its operations and a tight money market closed it out. If
Ralph had lived he might have been able to weather the storm, but
without his guiding hand the Dodson properties became liabilities
instead of assets. A sheriff’s sale of the mines paid creditors almost
in full.
The death of Ralph was the nine-days talk of the town. From the evidence
of red-headed Tommie it was clear that he had directly or indirectly
approved of the plan to make away with Hugh McClintock. Most Christians
felt it to be a judgment of Providence that he had stepped into the trap
prepared for his enemy. The pagans of the community voted it a neat
piece of luck for Hugh and buried Dodson complacently and without
regrets.
Hugh had been summoned by business out of town the morning after the
tragedy and did not return for nearly a week. He called on Vicky the
evening of the same day.
Both of them were ill at ease and self-conscious. Vicky felt that she
ought to be mistress of the situation, but she could not get out of her
mind the memory of how she had clung to this man and sobbed in his arms.
The conventional parlour, with its plush album, its shell ornaments, and
its enlarged photographs of Jim Budd and his wife, stifled all Hugh’s
natural impulses. He had never learned how to make small talk.
“Whew! It’s hot here. Let’s take a walk,” he blurted out at last.
“I want to borrow a book from Mrs. Sinclair. We might walk up there,”
Vicky said.
As Vicky moved up Turkey Creek Avenue beside this strong and
self-contained man she marvelled at herself for ever having thought him
the Old Dog Tray type. The lights from the saloons and gambling houses
flashed on a face that had stirred her imagination. He never posed or
played to the gallery. He never boasted. He never made the heroic
gesture. Yet she knew him for one among ten thousand, first among all
the men she had met. He was clean and simple and direct, yet it had come
about that he held in his keeping the romance of her life. He was the
prince in shining armour she had dreamed about from her childhood.
They walked up the street toward the suburbs of the town. As they passed
the Sacramento Storage Warehouse the girl, eager to keep up a desultory
conversation, nodded at the alley.
“Mr. Budd told me that was where the man Dutch shot at you one night,”
she said.
“Yes. He waited for me as I passed. Missed three shots.”
She shuddered. Even now she did not like to think of the dangers through
which he had come to her in safety.
“All past,” he said cheerfully. “Strange, when you come to think of it.
All our enemies, Scot’s and mine, dead or driven out. Yet from first to
last all we ever did was to defend ourselves.”
They came to the end of the road, as he had done on that other night to
which she had referred. They looked up into the stars and the clean
wonder of the night took hold of them. The blatant crudeness of Piodie,
its mad scramble for gold and for the pleasures of the senses, faded for
this hour at least from their lives. The world had vanished and left
them alone—one man and one woman.
When at last he spoke it was quite simply and without any introduction
to what was in his mind.
“There’s never been any woman but you in my life. Even when you were a
li’l trick and I bought that first doll for you—even then I was getting
ready to love you and didn’t know it.”
“I’ve got that doll yet. It’s the _dearest_ doll,” she said softly, the
adjective flashing out as words were wont to do in her childhood.
He smiled. “And the black doll—have you that?”
“Yes, I have that, too. I just loved the boy that sent it to me.”
“Do you love the man he’s grown into, Vicky?”
“Yes.” She said it bravely, without any pretense of doubt. She was proud
of her love. The truth was too fine to cloud with any feminine
sinuosities.
He drew a deep long breath of joy. His dreams had come true.
With the stars as witnesses they plighted troth to each other.
THE END
There’s More to Follow!
More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author
of this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of
world-wide reputation, in the Authors’ Alphabetical List which
you will find on the _reverse side_ of the wrapper of this book.
Look it over before you lay it aside. There are books here you
are sure to want—some, possibly, that you have _always_ wanted.
It is a _selected_ list; every book in it has achieved a certain
measure of _success_.
The Grosset & Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good
Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally
accepted Standard of Value. It will pay you to
Look on the Other Side of the Wrapper!
_In case the wrapper is lost write to the publishers for a
complete catalog_
=NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE=
=W I L L I A M M a c L E O D R A I N E=
=May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list=
==BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, THE==
==BRAND BLOTTERS==
==BUCKY O’CONNOR==
==CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT==
==DAUGHTER OF THE DONS, A==
==DESERT’S PRICE, THE==
==FIGHTING EDGE, THE==
==GUNSIGHT PASS==
==HIGHGRADER, THE==
==IRONHEART==
==MAN FOUR SQUARE, A==
==MAN-SIZE==
==MAVERICKS==
==OH, YOU TEX!==
==PIRATE OF PANAMA, THE==
==RIDGWAY OF MONTANA==
==ROADS OF DOUBT==
==SHERIFF’S SON, THE==
==STEVE YEAGER==
==TANGLED TRAILS==
==TEXAS RANGER, A==
==TROUBLED WATERS==
==VISION SPLENDID, THE==
==WYOMING==
==YUKON TRAIL, THE==
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.
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