by Max Brand
He came behind the chair of the tall master of The Corner, and while Nelly Lebrun stopped her glass halfway to her lips and stared at the ragged stranger, Donnegan was whispering in the ear of Jack Landis: “I’ve got to see you alone.”
Landis turned his head slowly and his eye darkened a little as he met the reddish, unshaven face of the stranger. Then, with a careless shrug of distaste, he drew out a few coins and poured them into Donnegan’s palm; the latter pocketed them.
“Lou Macon,” said Donnegan.
Jack Landis rose from his chair, and it was not until he stood so close to Donnegan that the latter realized the truly Herculean proportions of the young fellow. He bowed his excuses to Nelly Lebrun, not without grace of manner, and then huddled Donnegan into a corner with a wave of his vast arm.
“Now what do you want? Who are you? Who put that name in your mouth?”
“She’s in The Corner,” said Donnegan, and he dwelt upon the face of Jack Landis with feverish suspense. A moment later a great weight had slipped from his heart. If Lou Macon loved Landis it was beyond peradventure that Landis was not breaking his heart because of the girl. For at her name he flushed darkly, and then, that rush of color fading, he was left with a white spot in the center of each cheek.
CHAPTER 13
First his glance plunged into vacancy; then it flicked over his shoulder at Nelly Lebrun and he bit his lip. Plainly, it was not the most welcome news that Jack Landis had ever heard.
“Where is she?” he asked nervously of Donnegan, and he looked over the ragged fellow again.
“I’ll take you to her.”
The big man swayed back and forth from foot to foot, balancing in his hesitation. “Wait a moment.”
He strode to Nelly Lebrun and bent over her; Donnegan saw her eyes flash up—oh, heart of the south, what eyes of shadow and fire! Jack Landis trembled under the glance; yes, he was deeply in love with the girl. And Donnegan watched her face shade with suspicion, stiffen with cold anger, warm and soften again under the explanations of Jack Landis.
Donnegan, looking from the distance, could read everything; it is nearness that bewitches a man when he talks to a woman. When Odysseus talked to Circe, no doubt he stood on the farther side of the room!
When Landis came again, he was perspiring from the trial of fire through which he had just passed.
“Come,” he ordered, and set out at a sweeping stride.
Plainly he was anxious to get this matter done with as soon as possible. As for Donnegan, he saw a man whom Landis had summoned to take his place sit down at the table with Nelly Lebrun. She was laughing with the newcomer as though nothing troubled her at all, but over his shoulder her glance probed the distance and followed Jack Landis. She wanted to see the messenger again, the man who had called her companion away; but in this it was fox challenging fox. Donnegan took note and was careful to place between him and the girl every pillar and every group of people. As far as he was concerned, her first glance must do to read and judge and remember him by.
Outside Landis shot several questions at him in swift succession; he wanted to know how the girl had happened to make the trip. Above all, what the colonel was thinking and doing and if the colonel himself had come. But Donnegan replied with monosyllables, and Landis, apparently reconciling himself to the fact that the messenger was a fool, ceased his questions. They kept close to a run all the way out of the camp and up the hillside to the two detached tents where Donnegan and the girl slept that night. A lantern burned in both the tents.
“She has made things ready for me,” thought Donnegan, his heart opening. “She has kept house for me!”
He pointed out Lou’s tent to his companion and the big man, with a single low word of warning, threw open the flap of the tent and strode in.
There was only the split part of a second between the rising and the fall of the canvas, but in that swift interval, Donnegan saw the girl starting up to receive Landis. Her calm was broken at last. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were starry with what? Expectancy? Love?
It stopped Donnegan like a blow in the face and turned his heart to lead; and then, shamelessly, he glided around the tent and dropped down beside it to eavesdrop. After all, there was some excuse. If she loved the man he, Donnegan, would let him live; if she did not love him, he, Donnegan, would kill him like a worthless rat under heel. That is, if he could. No wonder that the wanderer listened with heart and soul!
He missed the first greeting. It was only a jumble of exclamations, but now he heard: “But, Lou, what a wild idea. Across the mountains—with whom?”
“The man who brought you here.”
“Who’s he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? He looks like a shifty little rat to me.”
“He’s big enough, Jack.”
Such small praise was enough to set Donnegan’s heart thumping.
“Besides, father told me to go with him, to trust him.”
“Ah!” There was an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis’ voice. “The colonel knows him? He’s one of the colonel’s men?”
Plainly the colonel was to him as the rod to the child.
“Why didn’t you come directly to me?”
“We thought it would be better not to.”
“H’m-m. Your guide—well, what was the colonel’s idea in sending you here? Heavens above, doesn’t he know that a mining camp is no place for a young girl? And you haven’t a sign of a chaperon, Lou! What the devil can I do? What was in his mind?”
“You haven’t written for a long time.”
“Good Lord! Written! Letters! Does he think I have time for letters?” The lie came smoothly enough. “Working day and night?”
Donnegan smoothed his whiskers and grinned into the night. Landis might prove better game than he had anticipated.
“He worried,” said the girl, and her voice was as even as ever. “He worried, and sent me to find out if anything is wrong.”
Then: “Nonsense! What is there to worry about? Lou, I’m half inclined to think that the colonel doesn’t trust me!”
She did not answer. Was she reading beneath the boisterous assurance of Landis?
“One thing is clear to me—and to you, too, I hope. The first thing is to send you back in a hurry.”
Still no answer.
“Lou, do you distrust me?”
At length she managed to speak, but it was with some difficulty: “There is another reason for sending me.”
“Tell me.”
“Can’t you guess, Jack?”
“I’m not a mind reader.”
“The cad,” said Donnegan through his teeth.
“It’s the old reason.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
A shadow swept across the side of the tent; it was Landis waving his arm carelessly.
“If that’s all, I can fix you up and send you back with enough to carry the colonel along. Look here—why, I have five hundred with me. Take it, Lou. There’s more behind it, but the colonel mustn’t think that there’s as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch ’em every minute, I tell you!”
He sighed noisily.
“But the end of it is, dear”—how that small word tore into the heart of Donnegan, who crouched outside—“that you must go back tomorrow morning. I’d send you tonight, if I could. As a matter of fact, I don’t trust the red-haired rat who—”
The girl interrupted while Donnegan still had control of his hair-trigger temper.
“You forget, Jack. Father sent me here, but he did not tell me to come back.”
At this Jack Landis burst into an enormous laughter.
“You don’t mean, Lou, that you actually intend to stay on?”
“What else can I mean?”
“Of course it makes it awkward if the colonel didn’t expressly
tell you just what to do. I suppose he left it to my discretion, and I decide definitely that you must go back at once.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Lou, don’t you hear me saying that I’ll take the responsibility? If your father blames you let him tell me—”
He broke down in the middle of his sentence and another of those uncomfortable little pauses ensued. Donnegan knew that their eyes were miserably upon each other; the man tongue-tied by his guilt; the girl wretchedly guessing at the things which lay behind her fiancé’s words.
“I’m sorry you don’t want me here.”
“It isn’t that, but—”
He apparently expected to be interrupted, but she waited coolly for him to finish the sentence, and, of course, he could not. After all, for a helpless girl she had a devilish effective way of muzzling Landis. Donnegan chuckled softly in admiration.
All at once she broke through the scene; her voice did not rise or harden, but it was filled with finality, as though she were weary of the interview.
“I’m tired out; it’s been a hard ride, Jack. You go home now and look me up again any time tomorrow.”
“I—Lou—I feel mighty bad about having you up here in this infernal tent, when the camp is full, and—”:
“You can’t lie across the entrance to my tent and guard me, Jack. Besides, I don’t need you for that. The man who’s with me will protect me.”
“He doesn’t look capable of protecting a cat!”
“My father said that in any circumstances he would be able to take care of me.”
This reply seemed to overwhelm Landis.
“The colonel trusts him as far as all that?” he muttered. “Then I suppose you’re safe enough. But what about comfort, Lou?”
“I’ve done without comfort all my life. Run along, Jack. And take this money with you. I can’t have it.”
“But, didn’t the colonel send—”
“You can express it through to him. To me it’s—not pleasant to take it.”
“Why, Lou, you don’t mean—”
“Good night, Jack. I don’t mean anything, except that I’m tired.”
The shadow swept along the wall of the tent again. Donnegan, with a shaking pulse, saw the profile of the girl and the man approach as he strove to take her in his arms and kiss her good night. And then one slender bar of shadow checked Landis.
“Not tonight.”
“Lou, you aren’t angry with me?”
“No. But you know I have queer ways. Just put this down as one of them. I can’t explain.”
There was a muffled exclamation and Landis went from the tent and strode down the hill; he was instantly lost in the night. But Donnegan, turning to the entrance flap, called softly. He was bidden to come in, and when he raised the flap he saw her sitting with her hands clasped loosely and resting upon her knees. Her lips were a little parted, and colorless; her eyes were dull with a mist; and though she rallied herself a little, the wanderer could see that she was only half-aware of him.
The face which he saw was a milestone in his life. For he had loved her jealously, fiercely before; but seeing her now, dazed, hurt, and uncomplaining, tenderness came into Donnegan. It spread to his heart with a strange pain and made his hands tremble.
All that he said was: “Is there anything you need?”
“Nothing,” she replied, and he backed out and away.
But in that small interval he had turned out of the course of his gay, selfish life. If Jack Landis had hurt her like this—if she loved him so truly—then Jack Landis she should have.
There was an odd mixture of emotions in Donnegan; but he felt most nearly like the poor man from whose hand his daughter tugs back and looks wistfully, hopelessly, into the bright window at all the toys. What pain is there greater than the pain that comes to the poor man in such a time? He huddles his coat about him, for his heart is as cold as a Christmas day; and if it would make his child happy, he would pour out his heart’s blood on the snow.
Such was the grief of Donnegan as he backed slowly out into the night. Though Jack Landis were fixed as high as the moon he would tear him out of his place and give him to the girl.
CHAPTER 14
The lantern went out in the tent; she was asleep; and when he knew that, Donnegan went down into The Corner. He had been trying to think out a plan of action, and finding nothing better than to thrust a gun stupidly under Landis’ nose and make him mark time, Donnegan went into Lebrun’s place. As if he hoped the bustle there would supply him with ideas.
Lebrun’s was going full blast. It was not filled with the shrill mirth of Milligan’s. Instead, all voices were subdued to a point here. The pitch was never raised. If a man laughed, he might show his teeth but he took good care that he did not break into the atmosphere of the room. For there was a deadly undercurrent of silence which would not tolerate more than murmurs on the part of others. Men sat grim-faced over the cards, the man who was winning, with his cold, eager eye; the chronic loser of the night with his iron smile; the professional, ever debonair, with the dull eye which comes from looking too often and too closely into the terrible face of chance. A very keen observer might have observed a resemblance between those men and Donnegan.
Donnegan roved swiftly here and there. The calm eye and the smooth play of an obvious professional in a linen suit kept him for a moment at one table, looking on; then he went to the games, and after changing the gold which Jack Landis had given as alms so silver dollars, he lost it with precision upon the wheel.
He went on, from table to table, from group to group. In Lebrun’s his clothes were not noticed. It was no matter whether he played or did not play, whether he won or lost; they were too busy to notice. But he came back, at length, to the man who wore the linen coat and who won so easily. Something in his method of dealing appeared to interest Donnegan greatly.
It was jackpot; the chips were piled high; and the man in the linen coat was dealing again. How deftly he mixed the cards!
Indeed, all about him was elegant, from the turn of his black cravat to the cut of the coat. An inebriate passed, shouldered and disturbed his chair, and rising to put it straight again, the gambler was seen to be about the height and build of Donnegan.
Donnegan studied him with the interest of an artist. Here was a man, harking back to Nelly Lebrun and her love of brilliance, who would probably win her preference over Jack Landis for the simple reason that he was different. That is, there was more in his cravat to attract astonished attention in The Corner than there was in all the silver lace of Landis. And he was a man’s man, no doubt of that. On the inebriate he had flashed one glance of fire, and his lean hand had stirred uneasily toward the breast of his coat. Donnegan, who missed nothing, saw and understood.
Interested? He was fascinated by this man because he recognized the kinship which existed between them. They might almost have been blood brothers, except for differences in the face. He knew, for instance, just what each glance of the man in the linen coat meant, and how he was weighing his antagonists. As for the others, they were cool players themselves, but here they had met their master. It was the difference between the amateur and the professional. They played good chancey poker, but the man in the linen coat did more—he stacked the cards!
For the first moment Donnegan was not sure; it was not until there was a slight faltering in the deal—an infinitely small hesitation which only a practiced eye like that of Donnegan’s could have noticed—that he was sure. The winner was crooked. Yet the hand was interesting for all that. He had done the master trick, not only giving himself the winning hand but also giving each of the others a fine set of cards.
And the betting was wild on that historic pot! To begin with the smallest hand was three of a kind; and after the draw the weakest was a straight. And they bet furiously. The stranger had piqued them with his consistent victories. Now they were out for blood. Chips having been exhausted, solid gold was piled up on the table—a small fortune!
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br /> The man in the linen coat, in the middle of the hand, called for drinks. They drank. They went on with the betting. And then at last came the call.
Donnegan could have clapped his hands to applaud the smooth rascal. It was not an affair of breaking the others who sat in. They were all prosperous mine owners, and probably they had been carefully selected according to the size of purse, in preparation for the sacrifice. But the stakes were swept into the arms and then the canvas bag of the winner. If it was not enough to ruin the miners it was at least enough to clean them out of ready cash and discontinue the game on that basis. They rose; they went to the bar for a drink; but while the winner led the way, two of the losers dropped back a trifle and fell into earnest conversation, frowning. Donnegan knew perfectly what the trouble was. They had noticed that slight faltering in the deal; they were putting their mental notes on the game together.
But the winner, apparently unconscious of suspicion, lined up his victims at the bar. The first drink went hastily down; the second was on the way—it was standing on the bar. And here he excused himself; he broke off in the very middle of a story, and telling them that he would be back any moment, stepped into a crowd of newcomers.
The moment he disappeared, Donnegan saw the other four put their heads close together, and saw a sudden darkening of faces; but as for the genial winner, he had no sooner passed to the other side of the crowd and out of view, than he turned directly toward the door. His careless saunter was exchanged for a brisk walk; and Donnegan, without making himself conspicuous, was hard pressed to follow that pace.
At the door he found that the gambler, with his canvas sack under his arm, had turned to the right toward the line of saddle horses which stood in the shadow; and no sooner did he reach the gloom at the side of the building than he broke into a soft, swift run. He darted down the line of horses until he came to one which was already mounted. This Donnegan saw as he followed somewhat more leisurely and closer to the horses to avoid observance. He made out that the man already on horseback was a big Negro and that he had turned his own mount and a neighboring horse out from the rest of the horses, so that they were both pointing down the street of The Corner. Donnegan saw the Negro throw the lines of his lead horse into the air. In exchange he caught the sack which the runner tossed to him, and then the gambler leaped into his saddle.