Gabriel Conroy

by Bret Harte

  CHAPTER II.

  IN WHICH THE TREASURE IS FOUND--AND LOST.

  As no word has been handed down of the conversation that night betweenOlly and her sister-in-law, I fear the masculine reader must view theirsubsequent conduct in the light of Gabriel's abstract proportion. Thefeminine reader--to whose well-known sense of justice and readiness toacknowledge a characteristic weakness, I chiefly commend thesepages--will of course require no further explanation, and will be quiteready to believe that the next morning Olly and Mrs. Conroy wereapparently firm friends, and that Gabriel was incontinently snubbed byboth of these ladies as he deserved.

  "You don't treat July right," said Olly, one morning, to Gabriel, duringfive minutes that she had snatched from the inseparable company of Mrs.Conroy.

  Gabriel opened his eyes in wonder. "I hain't been 'round the house much,because I allowed you and July didn't want my kempany," he beganapologetically, "and ef it's shortness of provisions, I've fooled awayso much time, Olly, in prospectin' that ledge that I had no time to clarup and get any dust. I reckon, may be the pork bar'l _is_ low. But I'llfix thet straight soon, Olly, soon."

  "But it ain't thet, Gabe--it ain't provisions--it's--it's--O! you ain'tgot no sabe ez a husband--thar!" burst out the direct Olly at last.

  Without the least sign of resentment, Gabriel looked thoughtfully at hissister.

  "Thet's so--I reckon thet _is_ the thing. Not hevin' been married afore,and bein', so to speak, strange and green-handed, like as not I don'texactly come up to the views of a woman ez hez hed thet experience. Andher husband a savang! a savang! Olly, and a larned man."

  "You're as good as him!" ejaculated Olly, hastily, whose parts of speechwere less accurately placed than her feelings, "and I reckon she lovesyou a heap better, Gabe. But you ain't quite lovin' enough," she added,as Gabriel started. "Why, thar was thet young couple thet came up fromSimpson's last week, and stayed over at Mrs. Markle's. Thar was no endof the attentions thet thet man paid to thet thar woman--fixin' hershawl, histin' the winder and puttin' it down, and askin' after herhealth every five minnits--and they'd sit and sit, just likethis,"----here Olly, in the interests of domestic felicity, improvisedthe favourite attitude of the bridegroom, as far as the great girth ofGabriel's waist and chest could be "clipped" by her small arms.

  "Wot! afore folks?" asked Gabriel, looking down a little shamefully onthe twining arms of his sister.

  "Yes--in course--afore folks. Why, they want it to be known thet they'remarried."

  "Olly," broke out Gabriel desperately, "your sister-in-law ain't thetkind of woman. She'd reckon thet kind o' thing was low."

  But Olly only replied by casting a mischievous look at her brother,shaking her curls, and with the mysterious admonition, "Try it!" lefthim, and went back to Mrs. Conroy.

  Happily for Gabriel, Mrs. Conroy did not offer an opportunity for theexhibition of any tenderness on Gabriel's part. Although she did notmake any allusion to the past, and even utterly ignored any previousquarrel, she still preserved a certain coy demeanour toward him, that,while it relieved him of an onerous duty, very greatly weakened hisfaith in the infallibility of Olly's judgment. When, out of respect tothat judgment, he went so far as to throw his arms ostentatiously aroundhis wife's waist one Sunday, while perambulating the single long publicstreet of One Horse Gulch, and that lady, with great decision, quietlyslipped out of his embrace, he doubted still more.

  "I did it on account o' what you said, Olly, and darn my skin if sheseemed to like it at all, and even the boys hangin' around seemed tothink it was queer. Jo Hobson snickered right out."

  "When was it?" said Olly.

  "Sunday."

  Olly, sharply--"Where?"

  Gabriel--"On Main Street."

  Olly, apostrophising heaven with her blue eyes--"Ef thar ever was ablunderin' mule, Gabe, it's YOU!"

  Gabriel, mildly and thoughtfully--"Thet's so."

  Howbeit, some kind of a hollow truce was patched up between these threebelligerents, and Mrs. Conroy did not go to San Francisco on business.It is presumed that the urgency of her affairs there was relieved bycorrespondence, for during the next two weeks she expressed much anxietyon the arrival of the regular tri-weekly mails. And one day it broughther not only a letter, but an individual of some importance in thishistory.

  He got down from the Wingdam coach amid considerable local enthusiasm.Apart from the fact that it was well known that he was a rich SanFrancisco banker and capitalist, his brusque, sharp energy, his easy,sceptical familiarity and general contempt for and ignoring ofeverything but the practical and material, and, above all, hisreputation for success, which seemed to make that success a wholesomebusiness principal rather than good fortune, had already fascinated thepassengers who had listened to his curt speech and half oracular axioms.They had forgiven dogmatisms voiced in such a hearty manner, andemphasised possibly with a slap on the back of the listener. He hadalready converted them to his broad materialism--less, perhaps, by hiscurt rhetoric than by the logic of his habitual business success, andthe respectability that it commanded. It was easy to accept scepticismfrom a man who evidently had not suffered by it. Radicalism anddemocracy are much more fascinating to us when the apostle is incomfortable case and easy circumstances, than when he is clad infustian, and consistently out of a situation. Human nature thirsts forthe fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but wouldprefer to receive it from the happy owner of a latch-key to the Gardenof Eden, rather than from the pilferer who had just been ejected fromthe premises.

  It is probable, however, that the possessor of these admirable qualitieshad none of that fine scorn for a mankind accessible to this weaknesswhich at present fills the breast of the writer, and, I trust, thereader, of these pages. If he had, I doubt if he would have beensuccessful. Like a true hero, he was quite unconscious of the quality ofhis heroism, and utterly unable to analyse it. So that, without anyprevious calculations or pre-arranged plan, he managed to get rid of hisadmirers, and apply himself to the business he had in hand withouteither wilfully misleading the public of One Horse Gulch, or giving theslightest intimation of what that real business was. That the generalinterests of One Horse Gulch had attracted the attention of thispowerful capitalist--that he intended to erect a new Hotel, or "start"an independent line of stage-coaches from Sacramento, were among theaccepted theories. Everybody offered him vast and gratuitousinformation, and out of the various facts and theories submitted to himhe gained the particular knowledge he required without asking for it.Given a reputation for business shrewdness and omnipresence in any oneindividual, and the world will speedily place him beyond the necessityof using them.

  And so in a casual, general way, the stranger was shown over the lengthand breadth and thickness and present and future of One Horse Gulch.When he had reached the farther extremity of the Gulch he turned to hisescort--"I'll make the inquiry you ask now."

  "How?"

  "By telegraph--if you'll take it."

  He tore a leaf from a memorandum-book and wrote a few lines.

  "And you?"

  "Oh, I'll look around here--I suppose there's not much beyond this?"

  "No; the next claim is Gabriel Conroy's."

  "Not much account, I reckon?"

  "No? It pays him grub!"

  "Well, dine with me at three o'clock, when and where you choose--youknow best. Invite whom you like. Good-bye!" And the great man's escort,thus dismissed, departed, lost in admiration of the decisive promptitudeand liberality of his guest.

  Left to himself, the stranger turned his footsteps in the direction ofGabriel Conroy's claim. Had he been an admirer of Nature, or accessibleto any of those influences which a contemplation of wild scenery is aptto produce in weaker humanity, he would have been awed by the gradualtransition of a pastoral landscape to one of uncouth heroics. In a fewminutes he had left the belt of sheltering pines and entered upon theascent of a shadowless, scorched, and blistered mountain, that here andthere in places of vegetation had put on th
e excrescences of scoria, ora singular eruption of crust, that, breaking beneath his feet inslippery grey powder, made his footing difficult and uncertain. Had hebeen possessed of a scientific eye, he would have noted here and therethe evidences of volcanic action, in the sudden depressions, the abruptelevations, the marks of disruption and upheaval, and the river-likeflow of d['e]bris that protruded a black tongue into the valley below. ButI am constrained to believe the stranger's dominant impression wassimply one of heat. Half-way up the ascent he took off his coat andwiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Nevertheless, certainpeculiarities in his modes of progression showed him to be notunfamiliar with mountain travel. Two or three times during the ascent hestopped, and, facing about, carefully resurveyed the path beneath him.Slight as was the action, it was the unfailing sign of the mountaineer,who recognised that the other side of the mountain was as yet anundetermined quantity, and was prepared to retrace his steps ifnecessary. At the summit he paused and looked around him.

  Immediately at his feet the Gulch which gave its name to the settlement,and from which the golden harvest was gathered, broadened into a thicklywooded valley. Its quivering depths were suffused by the incense ofodorous gums and balms liberated by the fierce heat of the noonday sunthat rose to his face in soft, tremulous waves, and filled the air withits heated spices. Through a gap in the ca[~n]on to the west, a faint,scarcely-distinguishable line of cloud indicated the coast range. Northand south, higher hills arose heavily terraced with straight colonnadesof pines, that made the vast black monolith on which he stood appearblacker and barer by contrast. Higher hills to the east--one or twopeaks--and between them in the sunlight odd-looking, indistinct, vacantintervals--blanks in the landscape as yet not filled in with colour orexpression. Yet the stranger knew them to be snow, and for a few momentsseemed fascinated--gazing at them with a fixed eye and rigid mouth,until, with an effort, he tore himself away.

  Scattered over the summit were numerous holes that appeared to have beenrecently sunk. In one of them the stranger picked up a fragment of thecrumbled rock, and examined it carelessly. Then he slowly descended thegentler slope towards the west, in the direction of a claim wherein hisquick eye had discovered a man at work. A walk of a few moments broughthim to the bank of red clay, the heap of tailings, the woodensluice-box, and the pan and shovel which constituted the appurtenancesof an ordinary claim. As he approached nearer, the workman rose from thebank over which he was bending, and leaning on his pick, turned his faceto the new-comer. His broad, athletic figure, his heavy blonde beard,and serious, perplexed eyes, were unmistakable. It was Gabriel Conroy.

  "How are ye?" said the stranger, briskly extending a hand, which Gabrieltook mechanically. "You're looking well! Recollect _you_, but you don'trecollect me. Eh?" He laughed curtly, in a fashion as short andbusiness-like as his speech, and then fixed his eyes rather impatientlyon the hesitating Gabriel.

  Gabriel could only stare, and struggle with a tide of thick-comingremembrances. He looked around him; the sun was beating down on the oldfamiliar objects, everything was unchanged--and yet this face, thisvoice.

  "I am here on a matter of business," continued the stranger briskly,dismissing the question of recognition as one unessential to thebusiness on hand--"and--what have you got to propose?" He leaned lightlyagainst the bank and supported himself by thrusting Gabriel's pickaxeagainst the bank, as he waited a reply.

  "It's Peter Dumphy," said Gabriel, in a awe-stricken voice.

  "Yes. You recollect me now! Thought you would. It's five years andover--ain't it? Rough times them, Gabriel--warn't they? Eh! But _you're_lookin' well--doin' well, too. Hey? Well--what do you propose to doabout this claim? Haven't made up your mind--hey? Come then--I'll make aproposition. First, I suppose your title's all right, hey?"

  It was so evident from Gabriel's dazed manner that, apart from hisastonishment at meeting Peter Dumphy, he did not know what he wastalking about, that Dumphy paused.

  "It's about these specimens," he added, eyeing Gabriel keenly, "thespecimens you sent me."

  "Wot specimens?" said Gabriel vaguely, still lost in the past.

  "The ones your wife sent me--all the same thing, you know."

  "But it ain't," said Gabriel, with his old truthful directness. "Youbetter talk to her 'bout thet. Thet's her look-out. I reckon now she_did_ say suthin'," continued Gabriel, meditatively, "about sendin' rockto Frisco to be tested, but I didn't somehow get to take an interest init. Leastways, it's her funeral. You'd better see her."

  It was Mr. Dumphy's turn to be perplexed. In his perfect misapprehensionof the character of the man before him, he saw only skilful businessevasion under the guise of simplicity. He remembered, moreover, that inthe earlier days of his prosperity as Dumphy and Jenkins, CommissionMerchants, he was himself in the habit of referring customers with whomhe was not ready to treat, to Jenkins, very much as he had just now beenreferred to Mrs. Conroy.

  "Of course," he said briskly; "only I thought I'd save time, which isshort with me to-day, by coming directly to you. May not have time tosee her. But you can write."

  "Thet's so," said Gabriel, "p'r'aps it's just as well in the long run.Ef ye don't see her, she'll know it ain't your fault. I'll let on thatmuch to her." And having disposed of this unimportant feature of theinterview, he continued, "Ye haven't heard nought o' Grace--ye mindGrace? Dumphy!--a purty little girl ez was with me up thar. Ye ain'theerd anything o' her--nor seen her, may be--hev you?"

  Of course this question at such a moment was to Mr. Dumphy susceptibleof only one meaning. It was that Mrs. Conroy had confessed everything toGabriel, and that he wished to use Dumphy's complicity in the deceit asa lever in future business transactions. Mr. Dumphy felt he had to dealwith two consummate actors--one of whom was a natural hypocrite. For thefirst time in his life he was impatient of evil. We never admire truthand sincerity so highly as when we find it wanting in an adversary.

  "Ran off with some fellow, didn't she? Yes, I remember. You won't seeher again. It's just as well for you! I'd call her dead, anyway."

  Although Dumphy was convinced that Gabriel's interest in the fate of hissister was hypocritical, he was not above a Christian hope that thismight wound a brother's feelings. He turned to go.

  "Can't you come back this way and hev a little talk about ol' times?"said Gabriel, warming toward Dumphy under the magic of old associations,and ignoring with provoking unconsciousness the sting of his lastspeech. "There's Olly ez 'ud jest admire to see ye. Ye mind Olly?--thebaby, Grace's little sister, growed a fine likely gal now. See yer,"continued Gabriel with sudden energy, putting down his pick and shovel,"I'll jess go over thar with ye now."

  "No! no!" said Dumphy quickly. "Busy! Can't! 'Nother time! Good-day; seeyou again some time. So long!" and he hurriedly departed, retracing hissteps until the claim and its possessor were lost in the interveningfoliage.

  Then he paused, hesitated, and then striking across the summit of thehill, made his way boldly to Gabriel's cottage.

  Either Mrs. Conroy was expecting him, or had detected him coming throughthe woods, for she opened the door to him and took him into her littleparlour with a graciousness of demeanour and an elaboration of toiletthat would have been dangerous to any other man. But, like most men witha deservedly bad reputation among women, Mr. Dumphy always rigidlyseparated any weakness of gallantly from his business.

  "Here only for a few moments. Sorry can't stay longer. You're lookingwell!" said Mr. Dumphy.

  Mrs. Conroy said she had not expected the pleasure of a personalinterview; Mr. Dumphy must be _so_ busy always.

  "Yes. But I like to bring good news myself. The specimens you sent havebeen assayed by first-class, reliable men. They'll do. No gold--buteighty per cent silver. Hey! P'r'aps you expected it."

  But Mr. Dumphy could see plainly from Mrs. Conroy's eager face that shehad not expected it.

  "Silver," she gasped--"eighty per cent!"

  He was mystified, but relieved. It was evident that she had notconsulted any
body else, and that he was first on the ground. So he saidcurtly--

  "What do you propose?"

  "I don't know," began the lady. "I haven't thought"----

  "Exactly!" interrupted Dumphy. "Haven't got any proposition. Excuseme--but" (taking out his watch) "time's nearly up. Look here. Eighty percent's big thing! But silver mine takes gold mine to run it. All expensefirst--no profit till you get down. Works, smelting--cost twenty percent. Here's my proposition. Put whole thing in joint-stock company; 100shares; five millions capital. You take fifty shares. I'll taketwenty-five--dispose of other twenty-five as I can. How's that? Hey? Youcan't say! Well--think of it!"

  But all Mrs. Conroy could think of was two and a half millions! Itstared at her, stretching its gigantic ciphers across the room. Itblazed in golden letters on cheques,--it rose on glittering piles ofsilver coin to the ceiling of the parlour. Yet she turned to him with ahaggard face, and said--

  "But this--this money--is only in prospective."

  "Cash your draft for the sum ten minutes after the stock's issued.That's business."

  With this certainty Mrs. Conroy recovered herself.

  "I will talk--with--my husband," she said.

  Mr. Dumphy smiled--palpably, openly, and shamelessly. Mrs. Conroycoloured quickly, but not from the consciousness Mr. Dumphy attributedto her, of detected cunning. She had begun to be ashamed of the positionshe believed she occupied in this man's eyes, and fearful that he shouldhave discovered her husband's indifference to her.

  "I've already seen him," said Mr. Dumphy quietly.

  The colour dropped from Mrs. Conroy's cheeks.

  "He knows nothing of this," she said faintly.

  "Of course," said Dumphy half contemptuously, "he said so; referred toyou. That's all right. That's business."

  "You did not tell him--you dared not"----she said excitedly.

  Mr. Dumphy looked curiously at her for a moment. Then he rose and shutthe door.

  "Look here," he said, facing Mrs. Conroy in a hard, matter-of-fact way,"do you mean to say that what that man--your husband--said, was true?That he knows nothing of you; of the circumstances under which you camehere?"

  "He does not--I swear to God he does not," she said passionately.

  It was inexplicable, but Mr. Dumphy believed her.

  "But how will you explain this to him? You can do nothing without him."

  "Why should _he_ know more? If he has discovered this mine, it is_his_--free of any gift of mine--as independent of any claim of mine asif we were strangers. The law makes him the owner of the mine that hediscovers, no matter on whose land it may be found. In personating hissister, I only claimed a grant to the land. He has made the discoverywhich gives it its value! Even that sister," she added with a suddenflash in her eyes--"even that sister, were she living, could not take itfrom him now!"

  It was true! This woman, with whose weakness he had played, hadoutwitted them all, and slipped through their fingers almost withoutstain or blemish. And in a way so simple! Duped as he had been, he couldhardly restrain his admiration, and said quite frankly and heartily--

  "Good--that's business!"

  And then--ah me! this clever creature--this sharp adventuress, thisAnonyma Victrix began to cry, and to beg him not to tell _her husband_!

  At this familiar sign of the universal feminine weakness, Dumphy pickedup his ears and arts again.

  "Where's your proof that your husband is the first discoverer?" he saidcurtly, but not unkindly. "Won't that paper that Dr. Devarges gave hissister show that the doctor was really the discoverer of this lead?"

  "Yes; but Dr. Devarges is dead, and I hold the paper."

  "Good!" He took out his watch. "I've five minutes more. Now look here.I'm not going to say that you haven't managed this thing well--youhave!--and that you can, if you like, get along without me--you can!See! I'm not going to say that I went into this thing without theprospect of making something out of it myself. I have! That's business.The thing for you to consider now is this: understanding each other aswe do, couldn't you push this thing through better with my help--andhelping me--than to go elsewhere! Understand me! You could find a dozenmen in San Francisco who would make you as good an offer and better! Butit wouldn't be to their interest to keep down any unpleasant remindersof the past as it would be mine. You understand?"

  Mrs. Conroy replied by extending her hand.

  "To keep my secret from every one--from _him_," she said earnestly.

  "Certainly--_that's_ business."

  Then these two artful ones shook hands with a heartfelt and loyaladmiration and belief for each other that I fear more honest folks mighthave profited by, and Mr. Dumphy went off to dine.

  As Mrs. Conroy closed the front door, Olly came running in from the backpiazza. Mrs. Conroy caught her in her arms and discharged her pent-upfeelings, and, let us hope, her penitence, in a joyful and passionateembrace. But Olly struggled to extricate herself. When at last she gother head free, she said angrily--

  "Let me go. I want to see him."

  "Who--Mr. Dumphy?" asked Mrs. Conroy, still holding the child, with ahalf-hysterical laugh.

  "Yes. Gabe said he was here. Let me go, I say!"

  "What do you want with him?" asked her captor with shrill gaiety.

  "Gabe says--Gabe says--let me go, will you? Gabe says he knew"----

  "Whom?"

  "My dear, dear sister Grace! There! I didn't mean to hurt you--but Imust go!"

  And she did, leaving the prospective possessor of two and a halfmillions, vexed, suspicious, and alone.