VI. THE DESIRE OF THE WORLD
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Soon after eight o’clock, the Englishman, with his spade over his shoulder, and the perspiration streaming from his face, came toiling up the gorge, all unconscious of the fact that he was being watched by three people. Mr. Hamilton, duly prepared for any little unpleasantness that might take place, was skulking in the dark interior of his shanty, with a long knife in his belt, and his revolver on the table before him. He had no intention of going down to work until he saw what was to be the result of his morning’s expedition. In public he felt that any contest between the Englishman and himself would have to be conducted according to the camp’s notions of fair play. Here, on the contrary, he would have full advantage of certain methods known only to himself and in which by frequent practice he had attained a singular proficiency. So he sat smoking his pipe, and watching the tall, stalwart figure climbing up the valley, with a grim smile on his dark face.
There were two others who watched his progress. Pete Morrison, who stood at the door of his cabin, equipped for the day’s toil, and ready to start off and take his place; and Myra, who was of the three certainly the most anxious. Directly she saw Pete Morrison step out as though to intercept his partner, she hurried forward to the edge of the gorge, and waved both her hands to hasten him on. If she had felt sure of her footing, she would have scrambled down to meet him Anything to have reached him first—anything to prevent the knowledge of the morning’s adventure reaching him from any one else save herself.
She took one step down the gorge, steadying herself with a low-hanging alder bough. The Englishman saw her, and waved her back.
“Hold on!” he cried, in surprise. “I’m coming!”
“Hurry, then!” she called back. “Breakfast is just spoilt!”
Pete, too, had taken his pipe from his mouth, and seemed about to address his partner, now immediately below him. At the sound of the girl’s voice, however, he paused and glanced up to the broad green platform on which she was standing, her hair waving in the breeze, and her slim figure clearly outlined against the blue sky. He was too far away to read her expression, but something in her voice and her quick, anxious glance in his direction struck him curiously. He checked his forward movement, and contented himself with a gruff good-morning, as the Englishman passed on below, and commenced to scramble up the gorge.
“Going down, Pete?” he called out.
“Right away!” was the brief reply.
“Hold on a bit!”
He lounged forward to meet his partner, who was scrambling up towards him. During the interval of his waiting, he glanced up to where the girl was watching the two men, in a manner which he meant to be reassuring.
“She’ll tell him right enough,” he reflected. “Guess she’ll try and smooth it down. Just as lief she would! Hullo, mate, what’s up?” he added aloud.
The Englishman’s face was all aglow. He had something tightly clenched in his left hand, and after a quick glance around, he held it out towards his partner, and slowly unclasped his fingers. Even Pete Morrison’s set features relaxed for once. A gleam of enthusiasm shone in his hard face. Then he glanced suspiciously over towards Mr. Hamilton’s abode.
“Keep it snug!” he said coolly. “I ain’t seen Jim go down this morning, and I’d just as lief he didn’t know of this, yet. Any more?”
“Heaps! More in my pockets. It’s the biggest find yet!”
Pete Morrison looked away for a moment, and his coat-sleeve brushed across his eyes. He had turned towards the Blue Hills, but he saw only a woman’s worn, pale face, thin and harassed, yet with a soft, pleasant light in the keen gray eyes. It was gone almost directly.
“I was thinking—of my old woman!” he remarked apologetically. “It seems kinder hard!”
The Englishman made a gesture as though to stretch out his hand. Pete stopped him.
“Thank ‘ee, mate!” he said hurriedly. “We won’t shake. I guess that Jim’s watching us from yonder. He’s a bad lot, is Jim—a cursed bad lot!”
The other nodded silently, and they separated. Pete shouldered his spade, and after one more doubtful glance at the slim figure watching them so earnestly from the summit, slouched off. Myra watched him with relief. He had not told. A single glance in the Englishman’s face was sufficient to assure her of that.
“Hungry, little woman?” he cried out cheerfully, throwing down the spade, and drawing her into the shanty. “Come inside, and hear some news!”
He pulled the door to after them, and drawing her pale face up to his, kissed her once or twice.
“You’ve brought us luck, after all, you little puss!” he said heartily. “Sit down and give me my breakfast. I want to be off back at work. Look at that first, though!”
He held out his left hand, and she saw a lump of dull brown metal here and there glittering brightly. She balanced it in her fingers and gave it back to him.
“Is it gold?” she asked, half-fearfully.
“Gold! Ay, to be sure it is,” he answered, “and gold such as hasn’t been found hereabouts yet. There’s more, too, heaps more—piles and piles of it. My God! To think of its coming so suddenly as I was on the point of giving up! It’s wonderful!”
He was standing up in the centre of the hut, his eyes gleaming, and his whole face lit up. The fever of the thing was upon him. After so much useless toil, success such as this was intoxicating. His companion’s apathy amazed him.
“Don’t you understand, Myra?” he exclaimed, passing his arm around her. “We’re going to be rich, going to have heaps and heaps of money. This little brown nugget here,” he went on, touching it enthusiastically, “means the key to another world. It means diamonds and Paris dresses and a carriage for you, and for me, more than all that! For me—”
He stopped abruptly. A dark shade had stolen into his face; the light had died away. It was several moments before he spoke again.
“Yes, it means more than all that for me!” he added quietly. “It shall mean it. With this gold to aid me, I shall succeed. Come, Myra, breakfast! I must be off again!”
He ate and drank heartily, but a curious abstraction seemed to have settled down upon him. Every now and then he muttered to himself. Myra watched him with tears in her eyes. He was taking no notice of her whatever.
Her heart was aching to tell him everything; to creep into his arms, and sob out her miserable story. And then a chill stole into her blood and through her veins. If they sent her away she would have to go alone. Now that they had at last found gold, all chance of his leaving with her was gone. Perhaps he would be angry when he heard that she had been discovered, that those rough men who had constituted themselves the moral guardians of the camp were to be appealed to, that she might be driven out. Perhaps—but, no, she would not dream for a moment of anything so horrible as that. He would never dare to suggest her compromising in any way with the man who had discovered her. He had been rough to her sometimes, but he was a man—he would not do that! Oh, if only she could fall at his feet and tell him everything. Her brain was dizzy and tired with horrible imaginings, and her heart was sick with fears and memories. She looked into his face with despairing longing; if only he would look at her he must see the trouble she was in. But it was hopeless. He was almost unconscious of her presence. His sudden good fortune seemed to have awakened a train of memories completely and absolutely absorbing. She watched him in mute despair as he rose, lit his pipe, and prepared to go. Yet she must say something before he left her. He must know, at any rate, of the morning’s adventure. If she did not tell him, Pete Morrison would.
“Bryan!” she began hesitatingly. He turned sharply around. He had been about to leave the place without even bidding her good-bye.
“What is it, Myra?”
“J wanted to talk to you for a few minutes. Are you in a great hurry?
“Of course I am,” he answered impatiently. “Whatever it is, to-night must do! I can’t stop now.”
She tried to speak again, but the words died away upon her lips. Before she could recover herself, he was gone. She listened to his long, swinging steps as he strode away and disappeared over the gorge side. Even then she could scarcely believe it. She stood just as he had left her, white to the lips, and nervously clasping and unclasping her fingers. Gone with never a word or a glance to comfort her! For the whole day she must remain alone, alone with this hideous ghostly stock of memories to bear her company, and this precipice, deep and black, still yawning at her feet. It was too much.
* * * * *
The sun was high in the heavens when she opened her eyes. She had fallen across the floor face downwards, and the blood from a slight cut in the temple had dried upon her face. She staggered to her feet, and looked half-fearfully around. She was alone. There were no signs of any one having been in. Presently, she fetched a pail of water and bathed her face, arranged her disordered hair, and sat down at the door.
Below in the valley there was a little hum of excitement. The news of a great find had spread like wildfire, and every one was working with feverish energy. She could see the dark figures all crowded together near the lucky claim, and now and then she could hear some hoarse murmurings of many voices. A new thought worked itself into her dull brain. Perhaps, in this great wave of excitement, they would let her alone, and he would not be able to carry out his threat. She had done nobody any harm; perhaps they would not turn her out after all. Gradually, she worked herself into a state, if not of cheerfulness, at least of some hope. She got up and tidied the place, made herself a cup of tea, and some faint vestige of her natural light-heartedness reasserting itself, she began even to sing. She had not much fear of another visit from Mr. Hamilton, for she knew him well enough to guess what the effect of the gold find would be upon him. He would work for awhile, at any rate. She could picture him to herself, half-naked, and covered with dirt and sweat, digging with feverish energy, and cursing through his white teeth at every empty spadeful he flung up. Until night, at least, she would be safe from him.
The afternoon stole on, and as the heat seemed to grow fiercer rather than to decrease, she flung herself down upon the bed, and closed her eyes. How long she slept she could scarcely tell, but she suddenly woke up with a start. She found herself trembling in every limb. All the old terror was back again. She knew that it was no idle start which found herself trembling in every limb. All the old terror had awakened her so suddenly. She was not alone. Across the floor on which her startled eyes were riveted, was the long, dark shadow of a man.
VII. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE EAST
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“I beg your pardon, young lady. I am sorry to intrude, but as this is the first sign of a habitation I’ve seen for several days, I took the liberty of looking in. I’m sorry to have disturbed your siesta.”
The voice was a strange one. The new-corner was certainly not the man of whose intrusion she was in such abject dread, nor was, apparently, any one from the camp below. She rose to her feet and faced him.
“Won’t you come in and sit down?” she said.
He staggered rather than walked to the bench, and sank down with a little exclamation of relief. He was evidently completely exhausted. She poured out some brandy into a cup and gave it to him. He almost snatched it from her fingers, and drained it to the last drop. Then he sat up, and a little colour began to creep into his cheeks. Myra looked at him curiously.
“Had a rough time?” she inquired. “Are you hungry?”
He shook his head and pointed down into the valley.
“I have a donkey—I mean a mule—down there,” he explained. “Plenty of provisions, but nothing to drink. I’ve come all the way from San Francisco,” he continued. “What a journey! No roads, and not a single inn!”
She laughed gaily.
“Why, you didn’t expect hotels all along the track, did you?” she exclaimed. “Seems to me that you’re not used to this sort of country. Where are you from?”
He leaned forward, his hands upon his knees, an odd little figure with sallow, cunning face, and little bright eyes set a good deal too close together. Myra was not in the least afraid of him. She could have lifted him up and thrown him out of the shanty with the utmost ease.
“My dear young lady,” he said deliberately, “you have exactly hit it. I am not used to this sort of country, and I don’t mind telling you that I never should get used to it. I don’t like it, and I don’t like the people. Now I appeal to you,” he continued, waving his hand, and leaning back on the bench with his legs crossed, “I appeal to you, young lady, as an impartial and unprejudiced witness. I come over to San Francisco from—never mind from where, but I conic over to get gold. I am a perfect stranger to the country, the people, and their customs. Gold seeking being my mission, as it were, I desired naturally to associate with—er—people of that profession, or, at any rate, people who knew something about it. For that purpose I frequented a restaurant entitled the ‘Cafi Josi,’ at the back of Seventh Avenue. Perhaps you know the place?”
A slight shudder passed through the girl’s whole body. She looked at the stranger with suddenly reawakened suspicion. What did he mean by coining here and talking to her of the “Cafi Josi?” He returned her gaze, however, with as much openness as could be expected from a man with such a physiognomy. The fierce, searching light of the girl’s black eyes seemed to surprise him a little. That was all.
“I have heard of it,” she said shortly, seeing that he waited for some response from her.
“Just so. Well, at that place I met a man who professed to understand the whole rigmarole of gold-digging. We talked of it every night for a week. He was going to start himself almost directly, it seemed. He was just waiting for some money to come in for stores, and all that sort of thing. I ain’t boring you, am I?”
“Oh, no,” she answered, starting at his abrupt question. “Go on.”
“Just so. Well, the long and short of it is, that we arranged a partnership. He was to purchase tools, stores, and everything that was necessary, and I was to plank down the brass. See?
“Perfectly,” she answered, smiling. “It’s very simple.”
“Lord! I was the simple,” he groaned. “Ten days ago we left San Francisco on donkeys—I mean mules, and I don’t mind telling you, though I never let on to that chap, I’d never been on the back of any animal before in my life, except a Margate donkey for about two minutes. But, I forgot, you don’t know what a Margate donkey is, of course. Whew! how I did suffer, and how that chap did laugh! We had an animal apiece, and another one to carry the stores and a tent, and our tools. Well—but I ain’t told you about my dream yet, have I?”
“I guess not,” she admitted.
“Well, one night, night after I got to San Francisco, I dreamed that I was picking up gold as fast as I could lay my hands on it, lumps and heaps of it, all big and glittering. Well, there warn’t anything odd in my dreaming that, with my mind all running on gold-diggings, but I’m blowed if I didn’t dream the very name of the place. It was the Blue River valley.”
She looked up.
“That’s where you are now,” she remarked.
“Worse luck!” he answered gloomily. “Well, I told this chap I’d fallen in with, when I heard that there was such a place, that the Blue River valley was the spot that I’d made up my mind for. He tried all he knew to dissuade me. There’s a place called Christopher’s Creek he was sweet on, and that was where he wanted to go. However, when he saw that I warn’t to be moved, he gave in, and we started for here.”
“Where is he now? You said you were alone, didn’t you?” she asked.
“In hell, I hope!” he snapped viciously. “Beg pardon. I’m a peaceful man—perhaps because there ain’t size enough about me for fighting—but it does make my blood boil when I think of that chap. We’d been six days out when we came to a place where the track forked out into two. All of a sudden he pulls his mule up short, and whips out a revolver. I thought he
’d gone mad, but I warn% going to sit still to be shot at, so off I jumped and got behind my donkey. Lord, you should have heard him laugh!”
“Look ‘ere, matey,’ he says, you’re about the queerest pard I ever took up with, and I’ve had about enough of you. You reckon you want to go to the Blue River valley, don’t you? Well, there’s your trail straight ahead, and if you lose it, why, make for that mountain there, and you’re all right. I’m off to Christopher’s Creek, and I guess we part here.’
“‘What about my stores, and my tools, and my donkey?’ I cried out, for he was leading the spare animal, and had got the rope round his wrist. ‘If you’re going to leave me here, give up my property.’”
“What did he say to that?” asked the girl, biting her lip.
“Say? He didn’t say much, but you should have heard him laugh. He stuck his great brawny fists in his sides, and leaned back on his donkey, yelling. Presently he wiped his eyes, and undoing one of our packages, he tossed me some tins and a pound of biscuits.
“Here you are,’ he shouted. ‘This’ll keep the life in your ugly little carcase till you get to Blue River,’ and with that he hitched up, kicked his donkey, and rode off, laughing till you’d have thought he’d have burst. What do you think of that for villainy, eh?” he asked, his little eyes twinkling fiercely. “Rode off with my mules, my stores, my everything. Why, even the clothes that were on his back were mine, bought and paid for with my money, and he made me change donkeys with him just before, so that he should leave me with the worst. Damn him!”
Myra looked at him in half contemptuous sympathy. He was surely the strangest little animal who had ever wandered into this great western world, where every man must fight his own battle, and be ready to fight it at any moment and in any place. His sallow, pallid little face, set with dark, ferret-like eyes, was surmounted by a shock of black, unkempt hair. He wore a black tail-coat, travel-stained and devoid of buttons, the trousers and boots of a city clerk, and a linen shirt and crushed dirty collar. He was like a parasite of the town. Certainly he had no place in this great open country, where men needed hearts and muscles of iron, and rejoiced in a stalwart independence. She had lost all her distrust in him—it was merged in contempt. Surely no one would be so mean and debased a thing as to invent such a story as he had told. At his own reckoning he must be accepted as a miserable little coward without mind or muscle. What was to become of him out here?
The World's Great Snare Page 5