The Rules of the Game

by Stewart Edward White

  XXVI

  In delivering his instructions to Oldham, Baker had, of course, nothought of extreme measures. Indeed, had the direct question been put tohim, he would most strongly and emphatically have forbidden them.Nevertheless, he was glad to leave his intentions vague, feeling that inthus wilfully shutting his eyes he might avoid personal responsibilityfor what might happen. He had every confidence that Oldham--a man ofmore than average cultivation--while he might contemplate lawlessness,was of too high an order to consider physical violence. Baker wasinclined to believe that on mature reflection Bob would yield to theaccumulation of influence against him. If not, Oldham intimated with nouncertain confidence, that he possessed information of a sort to coercethe Forest officer into silence. If that in turn proved unavailing--acontingency, it must be remembered that Baker hardly thought worthentertainment--why, then, in some one of a thousand perfectly legal waysOldham could entangle the chief witness into an enforced absence fromthe trial. This sort of manoeuvre was, later, actually carried out inthe person of Mr. Fremont Older, a witness in the graft prosecutions ofSan Francisco. In short, Baker's intentions, while desperately illegal,contemplated no personal harm to their victim. He gave as general ordersto his subordinate: "Keep Orde's testimony out of court"; and shruggedoff minute responsibilities.

  This command, filtered through a second and inimical personality, gainedin strength. Oldham was not of a temperament to contemplate murder. Hisnerves were too refined; his training too conventional; his imaginationtoo developed. He, too, resolutely kept his intentions a trifle vague.If Orde persisted, then he must be kidnapped for a time.

  But Saleratus Bill, professional gun-man, well paid, took hisinstructions quite brutally. In literal and bald statement he closed thecircle and returned to Baker's very words: "Keep Orde's testimony out ofcourt." Only in this case Saleratus Bill read into the simple command amore sinister meaning.

  The morning after his return from the lower country, Bob saddled up toride over to the mill. He wished to tell Welton of his meeting Taylor;and to consult him on the best course to pursue in regard to the briberycharges. With daylight many of his old perplexities had returned. Herode along so deep in thought that the only impression reaching him fromthe external world was one of the warmth of the sun.

  Suddenly a narrow shadow flashed by his eyes. Before his consciousnesscould leap from its inner contemplation, his arms were pulled flat tohis sides, a shock ran through him as though he had received a heavyblow, and he was jerked backward from his horse to hit the ground withgreat violence.

  The wind was knocked from his body, so that for five seconds, perhaps,he was utterly confused. Before he could gather himself, or evencomprehend what had happened, a heavy weight flung itself upon him. Thebeginnings of his feeble struggles were unceremoniously subdued. When,in another ten seconds, his vision had cleared, he found himself boundhand and foot. Saleratus Bill stood over him, slowly recoiling the_riata,_ or throwing rope, with which he had so dexterously caught Bobfrom behind. After contemplating his victim for a moment, Saleratus Billmounted his own animal, and disappeared.

  Bob, his head humming from the violence of its impact with the ground,listened until the hoof beats had ceased to jar the earth. Then with amethodical desperation he began to wrench and work at his bonds. All hisefforts were useless; Saleratus Bill understood "hog-tying" too well.When, finally, he had convinced himself that he could not get away, Bobgave over his efforts. The forest was very still and warm. After a timethe sun fell upon him, and he began to feel its heat uncomfortably. Theaffair was inexplicable. He began to wonder whether Saleratus Billintended leaving him there a prey to what fortune chance might bring.Although the odds were a hundred to one against his being heard, heshouted several times. About as he had begun once more to struggleagainst his bonds, his captor returned, leading Bob's horse, and cursingaudibly over the difficulty he had been put to in catching it.

  Ignoring Bob's indignant demands, the gun-man loosed his ankles, taking,however, the precaution of throwing the riata over the young man'sshoulders.

  "Climb your horse," he commanded briefly.

  "How do you expect me to do that, with my hands tied behind me?"demanded Bob.

  "I don't know. Just do it, and be quick," replied Saleratus Bill.

  Bob's horse was nervous and restive. Three times he dropped his masterheavily to earth. Then Saleratus Bill, his evil eye wary, extended ahelping hand. This was what Bob was hoping for; but the gun-man was toowily and experienced to allow himself within the captive's fetteredreach.

  When Bob had finally gained his saddle, Saleratus Bill, leading thehorse, set off at a rapid pace cross country. To all of Bob's questionsand commands he turned a deaf ear, until, finally, seeing it was uselessto ask, Bob fell silent. Only once did he pause, and then to breathe andwater the horses. The country through which they passed was unfamiliarto Bob. He knew only that they were going north, and were keeping towestward of the Second Ranges.

  Late that evening Saleratus Bill halted for the night at a littlemeadow. He fed Bob a thick sandwich, and offered him a cup of water;after which he again shackled the young man's ankles, bound his elbows,and attached the helpless form to a tree. Bob spent the night in thiscase, covered only by his saddle blanket. The cords cut into his swelledflesh, the retarded circulation pricked him cruelly. He slept little. Atearly dawn his captor offered him the same fare. By sun-up they wereunder way again.

  All that day they angled to the northwest. The pine forests gave way tooaks, buckthorn, chaparral, as they entered lower country. Several timesSaleratus Bill made long detours to avoid clearings and ranches. Bob, inspite of his strength and the excellence of his condition, reeled fromsheer weariness and pain. They made no stop at noon.

  At two o'clock, or so, they left the last ranch and began once moreleisurely to climb. The slope was gentle. A badly washed and erodedwagon grade led them on. It had not been used for years. The horses, nowvery tired, plodded on dispiritedly.

  Then, with the suddenness of a shift of scenery, they topped what seemedto be a trifling rounded hill. On the other side the slope dropped sheeraway. Opposite and to north and south were the ranks of great mountains,some dark with the blue of atmosphere before pines, others glitteringwith snow. Directly beneath, almost under him, Bob saw a valley.

  It was many thousand feet below, mathematically round, and completelysurrounded by lofty mountains. Indeed, already evening had there spreadits shadows, although to the rest of the world the sun was still hourshigh. Through it flowed a river. From the height it looked like a pieceof translucent green glass in the still depths; like cotton-wool wherethe rapids broke; for the great distance robbed it of all motion. Thisstream issued from a gorge and flowed into another, both so narrow thatthe lofty mountains seemed fairly to close them shut.

  Through the clear air of the Sierras this valley looked like a toy, aminiature. Every detail was distinct. Bob made out very plainly thepleasant trees, and a bridge over the river, and the roofs of manyhouses, and the streets of a little town.

  To the left the wagon road dropped away down the steep side of themountain. Bob's eye could follow it, at first a band, then a ribbon,finally a tiny white thread, as it wound and zigzagged, seeking itscontours, until finally it ran out on the level and rested at the bridgeend. Opposite, on the other mountain, he thought to make out here andthere faint suggestions of another way.

  Though his eye thus embraced at a glance the whole length of the route,Bob found it a two-hours' journey down. Always the walls of themountains rose higher and higher above him, gaining in majesty and aweas he abandoned to them the upper air. Always the round valley grewlarger, losing its toy-like character. Its features became, not moredistinct, but more detailed. Bob saw the streets of the town werepleasantly shaded by cotton woods and willows; he distinguished dwellinghouses, a store, an office building, a mill building for crushing ofore. The roar of the river came up to him more clearly. As though somepower had released the magic of the stream,
the water now moved. Rushingfoam and white water tumbled over the black and shining rocks; deeppools eddied, dark and green, shot with swirls.

  As it became increasingly evident that the road could lead nowhere butthrough this village, Bob's spirits rose. The place was well built. Bobcaught the shimmer of ample glass in the windows, the colour of paint onthe boards, and even the ordered rectangles of brick chimneys! Evidentlythese things must have been freighted in over the devious steep grade hewas at that moment descending. Bob well knew that, even nearer thesource of supplies, such mining camps as this appeared to be were mostoften but a collection of rude, unpainted shanties, huddled together fora temporary need. The orderly, well-kept, decent appearance of thishamlet, more like a shaded New England village than a Western camp,argued old establishment, prosperity, and self-respect. The inhabitantscould be no desperate fly-by-nights, such as Saleratus Bill would mostlikely have sought as companions. Bob made up his mind that the gun-manwould shortly try to threaten him into a temporary secrecy as to thecondition of affairs. This Bob instantly resolved to refuse.

  Bob found it two hours' journey down]

  Saleratus Bill, however, rode on in an unbroken silence. Long after thebrawl of the river had become deafening, the road continued to dip anddescend. It is a peculiar phenomenon incidental to the descent of thesheer canons of the Sierra Nevada that the last few hundred feet downseem longer than the thousands already passed. This is probably because,having gained close to the level of the tree-tops, the mind, strung tautto the long descent, allows itself prematurely to relax its attention.Bob turned in his saddle to look back at the grade. He could not fail toreflect on how lucky it was that the inhabitants of this village couldhaul their materials and supplies _down_ the road. It would have beenprohibitively difficult to drag anything up.

  After a wearisome time the road at last swung out on the flat, and soacross the meadow to the bridge. Feed was belly deep to the horses. Thebridge proved to be a suspension affair of wire cables, that swungalarmingly until the horses had to straddle in order to stand at all.Below it boiled the river, swirling, dashing, turning lazily andmysteriously over its glass-green depths, the shimmers and folds ofeddies rising and swaying like air currents made visible.

  They climbed out on solid ground. The road swung to the left and back,following a contour to the slight elevation on which the houses stood.Saleratus Bill, however, turned up a brief short-cut, which landed themimmediately on the main street.

  Bob saw two stores, an office building and a small hotel, shaded bywooden awnings. Beyond them, and opposite them, were substantial bunkhouses and dwelling houses, painted red, each with its elevated, roofedverandah. Large trees, on either side, threw a shade fairly across thethoroughfare. An iron pump and water trough in front of the hotel savedthe wayfarer from the necessity of riding his animals down to the river.The vista at the end of the street showed a mill building on a distantmountain side, with the rabbit-burrow dumps of many shafts and prospectholes all about it.

  They rode up the street past two or three of the houses, the hotel andthe office. Bob, peering in through the windows, saw tables and chairs,old chromos and newer lithographs on the walls. Under the tree at theside of the hotel hung a water _olla_ with a porcelain cup atop. Nearthe back porch stood a screen meat safe.

  But not a soul was in sight. The street was deserted, the houses empty,the office unoccupied. As they proceeded Bob expected from one moment tothe next to see a door open, a figure saunter around a corner. Save forthe jays and squirrels, the place was absolutely empty.

  For some minutes the full realization of this fact was slow in coming.The village exhibited none of the symptoms of abandonment. The windowglass was whole; the furniture of such houses as Bob had glanced intowhile passing stood in its accustomed places. A few strokes of the broommight have made any one of them immediately fit for habitation. Theplace looked less deserted than asleep; like one of the enchantedpalaces so dear to tales of magic. It would not have seemed greatlywonderful to Bob to have seen the town spring suddenly to life inobedience to some spell. If the mill stamps in the distant crusher hadcreaked and begun to pound; if dogs had rushed barking around cornersand from under porches; if from the hotel mine host had emerged,yawning and rubbing his eyes; if from the shops and offices and houseshad issued the slow, grumbling sounds of life awakening, it would allhave seemed natural and to be expected. Under the influence of thisstrange effect a deathly stillness seemed to fall, in spite of thebawling and roaring of the river, and the trickle of many streamletshurrying down from the surrounding hills.

  So extraordinary was this effect of suspended animation that Bob againessayed his surly companion.

  "What place do you call this?" he inquired.

  Saleratus Bill had dismounted, and was stretching his long, lean armsover his head. Evidently he considered this the end of the long andpainful journey, and as evidently he was, in his relief, inclined to bebetter natured.

  "Busted minin' camp called Bright's Cove," said he; "they took about tenmillion dollars out of here before she bust."

  "How long ago was that?" asked Bob.

  "Ten year or so."

  The young man gazed about him in amazement. The place looked as thoughit might have been abandoned the month before. In his subsequent sojournhe began more accurately to gauge the reasons for this. Here were nosmall boys to hurl the casual pebble through the delightfully shimmeringglass; here was no dust to be swirled into crevices and angles, no windto carry it; to this remote cove penetrated no vandals to rob, mutilateor wantonly disfigure; and the elevation of the valley's floor was lowenough even to avoid the crushing weights of snow that every winterbrought to the peaks around it. Only the squirrels, the birds and thetiny wood rats represented in their little way the forces ofdestruction. Furthermore, the difficulties of transportation absolutelyprecluded moving any of the small property whose absence so stronglyimpresses the desertion of a building. When Bright's Cove moved, it hadmerely to shut the front door. In some cases it did not shut the frontdoor.

  Saleratus Bill assisted Bob from the saddle. This had become necessary,for the long ride in bonds had so cramped and stiffened the young manthat he was unable to help himself. Indeed, he found he could not stand.Saleratus Bill, after looking at him shrewdly, untied his hands.

  "I guess you're safe enough for now," said he.

  Bob's wrists were swollen, and his arms so stiff he could hardly usethem. Saleratus Bill paused in throwing the saddles off the weariedanimals.

  "Look here," said he gruffly; "if you pass yore word you won't try toget away or make no fight, I'll turn you loose."

  "I'll promise you that for to-night, anyway," returned Bob quickly.

  Saleratus Bill immediately cast the ropes into a corner of the verandah.