by Bret Harte
CHAPER II.
With the closing of the little door behind them they seemed to have shutout the turmoil and vibration of the storm. The reason became apparentwhen, after a few paces, they descended half a dozen steps to a lowerlanding. This disclosed the fact that the dwelling part of the SidonGeneral Store was quite below the level of the shop and the road, andon the slope of the solitary undulation of the Tasajara plain,--a littleravine that fell away to a brawling stream below. The only arboreousgrowth of Tasajara clothed its banks in the shape of willows and aldersthat set compactly around the quaint, irregular dwelling which straggleddown the ravine and looked upon a slope of bracken and foliage on eitherside. The transition from the black, treeless, storm-swept plain to thissheltered declivity was striking and suggestive. From the opposite bankone might fancy that the youthful and original dwelling had ambitiouslymounted the crest, but, appalled at the dreary prospect beyond, hadgone no further; while from the road it seemed as if the fastidiousproprietor had tried to draw a line between the vulgar trading-post,with which he was obliged to face the coarser civilization of the place,and the privacy of his domestic life. The real fact, however, was thatthe ravine furnished wood and water; and as Nature also provided onewall of the house,--as in the well-known example of aboriginal cavedwellings,--its peculiar construction commended itself to Sidon on theground of involving little labor.
Howbeit, from the two open windows of the sitting-room which they hadentered only the faint pattering of dripping boughs and a slight murmurfrom the swollen brook indicated the storm that shook the upper plain,and the cool breath of laurel, syringa, and alder was wafted throughthe neat apartment. Passing through that pleasant rural atmospherethey entered the kitchen, a much larger room, which appeared to serveoccasionally as a dining-room, and where supper was already laid out.A stout, comfortable-looking woman--who had, however, a singularlypermanent expression of pained sympathy upon her face--welcomed them intones of gentle commiseration.
"Ah, there you be, you two! Now sit ye right down, dears; DO. Youmust be tired out; and you, Phemie, love, draw up by your poor father.There--that's right. You'll be better soon."
There was certainly no visible sign of suffering or exhaustion on thepart of either father or daughter, nor the slightest apparent earthlyreason why they should be expected to exhibit any. But, as alreadyintimated, it was part of Mrs. Harkutt's generous idiosyncrasy to lookupon all humanity as suffering and toiling; to be petted, humored,condoled with, and fed. It had, in the course of years, imparted asingularly caressing sadness to her voice, and given her the habit ofending her sentences with a melancholy cooing and an unintelligiblemurmur of agreement. It was undoubtedly sincere and sympathetic, but attimes inappropriate and distressing. It had lost her the friendship ofthe one humorist of Tasajara, whose best jokes she had received withsuch heartfelt commiseration and such pained appreciation of the evidentlabor involved as to reduce him to silence.
Accustomed as Mr. Harkutt was to his wife's peculiarity, he was notabove assuming a certain slightly fatigued attitude befitting it. "Yes,"he said, with a vague sigh, "where's Clemmie?"
"Lyin' down since dinner; she reckoned she wouldn't get up to supper,"she returned soothingly. "Phemie's goin' to take her up some sass andtea. The poor dear child wants a change."
"She wants to go to 'Frisco, and so do I, pop," said Phemie, leaningher elbow half over her father's plate. "Come, pop, say do,--just for aweek."
"Only for a week," murmured the commiserating Mrs. Harkutt.
"Perhaps," responded Harkutt, with gloomy sarcasm, "ye wouldn't mindtellin' me how you're goin' to get there, and where the money's comin'from to take you? There's no teamin' over Tasajara till the rain stops,and no money comin' in till the ranchmen can move their stuff. Thereain't a hundred dollars in all Tasajara; at least there ain't been thefirst red cent of it paid across my counter for a fortnit! Perhaps ifyou do go you wouldn't mind takin' me and the store along with ye, andleavin' us there."
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Harkutt, with sympathetic but shamelesstergiversation. "Don't bother your poor father, Phemie, love; don't yousee he's just tired out? And you're not eatin' anything, dad."
As Mr. Harkutt was uneasily conscious that he had been eating heartilyin spite of his financial difficulties, he turned the subject abruptly."Where's John Milton?"
Mrs. Harkutt shaded her eyes with her hand, and gazed meditatively onthe floor before the fire and in the chimney corner for her only son,baptized under that historic title. "He was here a minit ago," she saiddoubtfully. "I really can't think where he's gone. But," assuringly, "itain't far."
"He's skipped with one o' those story-books he's borrowed," said Phemie."He's always doin' it. Like as not he's reading with a candle in thewood-shed. We'll all be burnt up some night."
"But he's got through his chores," interposed Mrs. Harkuttdeprecatingly.
"Yes," continued Harkutt, aggrievedly, "but instead of goin' to bed, oraddin' up bills, or takin' count o' stock, or even doin' sums or suthin'useful, he's ruinin' his eyes and wastin' his time over trash." He roseand walked slowly into the sitting-room, followed by his daughter and amurmur of commiseration from his wife. But Mrs. Harkutt's ministrationfor the present did not pass beyond her domain, the kitchen.
"I reckon ye ain't expectin' anybody tonight, Phemie?" said Mr. Harkutt,sinking into a chair, and placing his slippered feet against the wall.
"No," said Phemie, "unless something possesses that sappy little Parmleeto make one of his visitations. John Milton says that out on the roadit blows so you can't stand up. It's just like that idiot Parmlee to beblown in here, and not have strength of mind enough to get away again."
Mr. Harkutt smiled. It was that arch yet approving, severe yetsatisfied smile with which the deceived male parent usually receives anydepreciation of the ordinary young man by his daughters. Euphemia wasno giddy thing to be carried away by young men's attentions,--notshe! Sitting back comfortably in his rocking-chair, he said, "Playsomething."
The young girl went to the closet and took from the top shelf anexcessively ornamented accordion,--the opulent gift of a recklessadmirer. It was so inordinately decorated, so gorgeous in the blaze ofpapier mache, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell on keys and keyboard,and so ostentatiously radiant in the pink silk of its bellows that itseemed to overawe the plainly furnished room with its splendors. "Youought to keep it on the table in a glass vase, Phemie," said her fatheradmiringly.
"And have HIM think I worshiped it! Not me, indeed! He's conceitedenough already," she returned, saucily.
Mr. Harkutt again smiled his approbation, then deliberately closed hiseyes and threw his head back in comfortable anticipation of the comingstrains.
It is to be regretted that in brilliancy, finish, and even cheerfulnessof quality they were not up to the suggestions of the keys and keyboard.The most discreet and cautious effort on the part of the young performerseemed only to produce startlingly unexpected, but instantly suppressedcomplaints from the instrument, accompanied by impatient interjectionsof "No, no," from the girl herself. Nevertheless, with her prettyeyebrows knitted in some charming distress of memory, her little mouthhalf open between an apologetic smile and the exertion of working thebellows, with her white, rounded arms partly lifted up and wavingbefore her, she was pleasantly distracting to the eye. Gradually, as thescattered strains were marshaled into something like an air, she beganto sing also, glossing over the instrumental weaknesses, fillingin certain dropped notes and omissions, and otherwise assisting theineffectual accordion with a youthful but not unmusical voice. The songwas a lugubrious religious chant; under its influence the house seemedto sink into greater quiet, permitting in the intervals the murmur ofthe swollen creek to appear more distinct, and even the far moaning ofthe wind on the plain to become faintly audible. At last, having fairlymastered the instrument, Phemie got into the full swing of the chant.Unconstrained by any criticism, carried away by the sound of her ownvoice, and perhaps a youthful love for mere
uproar, or possibly desirousto drown her father's voice, which had unexpectedly joined in with adiscomposing bass, the conjoined utterances seemed to threaten the frailstructure of their dwelling, even as the gale had distended the storebehind them. When they ceased at last it was in an accession of drippingfrom the apparently stirred leaves outside. And then a voice, evidentlyfrom the moist depths of the abyss below, called out,--
"Hullo, there!"
Phemie put down the accordion, said, "Who's that now?" went to thewindow, lazily leaned her elbows on the sill, and peered into thedarkness. Nothing was to be seen; the open space of dimly outlinedlandscape had that blank, uncommunicative impenetrability with whichNature always confronts and surprises us at such moments. It seemed toPhemie that she was the only human being present. Yet after the feelinghad passed she fancied she heard the wash of the current against someobject in the stream, half stationary and half resisting.
"Is any one down there? Is that you, Mr. Parmlee?" she called.
There was a pause. Some invisible auditor said to another, "It's a younglady." Then the first voice rose again in a more deferential tone: "Arewe anywhere near Sidon?"
"This is Sidon," answered Harkutt, who had risen, and was now quiteobliterating his daughter's outline at the window.
"Thank you," said the voice. "Can we land anywhere here, on this bank?"
"Run down, pop; they're strangers," said the girl, with excited, almostchildish eagerness.
"Hold on," called out Harkutt, "I'll be thar in a moment!" He hastilythrust his feet into a pair of huge boots, clapped on an oilskin hatand waterproof, and disappeared through a door that led to a lowerstaircase. Phemie, still at the window, albeit with a newly added senseof self-consciousness, hung out breathlessly. Presently a beam of lightfrom the lower depths of the house shot out into the darkness. It washer father with a bull's-eye lantern. As he held it up and clamberedcautiously down the bank, its rays fell upon the turbid rushing stream,and what appeared to be a rough raft of logs held with difficultyagainst the bank by two men with long poles. In its centre was a rollof blankets, a valise and saddle-bags, and the shining brasses of someodd-looking instruments.
As Mr. Harkutt, supporting himself by a willow branch that overhungthe current, held up the lantern, the two men rapidly transferred theirfreight from the raft to the bank, and leaped ashore. The action gavean impulse to the raft, which, no longer held in position by thepoles, swung broadside to the current and was instantly swept into thedarkness.
Not a word had been spoken, but now the voices of the men rose freelytogether. Phemie listened with intense expectation. The explanationwas simple. They were surveyors who had been caught by the overflowon Tasajara plain, had abandoned their horses on the bank of TasajaraCreek, and with a hastily constructed raft had intrusted themselves andtheir instruments to the current. "But," said Harkutt quickly, "there isno connection between Tasajara Creek and this stream."
The two men laughed. "There is NOW," said one of them.
"But Tasajara Creek is a part of the bay," said the astonished Harkutt,"and this stream rises inland and only runs into the bay four mileslower down. And I don't see how--
"You're almost twelve feet lower here than Tasajara Creek," said thefirst man, with a certain professional authority, "and that's WHY.There's more water than Tasajara Creek can carry, and it's seeking thebay this way. Look," he continued, taking the lantern from Harkutt'shand and casting its rays on the stream, "that's salt drift from theupper bay, and part of Tasajara Creek's running by your house now! Don'tbe alarmed," he added reassuringly, glancing at the staring storekeeper."You're all right here; this is only the overflow and will find itslevel soon."
But Mr. Harkutt remained gazing abstractedly at the smiling speaker.From the window above the impatient Phemie was wondering why he keptthe strangers waiting in the rain while he talked about things that wereperfectly plain. It was so like a man!
"Then there's a waterway straight to Tasajara Creek?" he said slowly.
"There is, as long as this flood lasts," returned the first speakerpromptly; "and a cutting through the bank of two or three hundred yardswould make it permanent. Well, what's the matter with that?"
"Nothin'," said Harkutt hurriedly. "I am only considerin'! But come in,dry yourselves, and take suthin'."
The light over the rushing water was withdrawn, and the whole prospectsank back into profound darkness. Mr. Harkutt had disappeared withhis guests. Then there was the familiar shuffle of his feet onthe staircase, followed by other more cautious footsteps that grewdelicately and even courteously deliberate as they approached. At whichthe young girl, in some new sense of decorum, drew in her pretty head,glanced around the room quickly, reset the tidy on her father's chair,placed the resplendent accordion like an ornament in the exact centre ofthe table, and then vanished into the hall as Mr. Harkutt entered withthe strangers.
They were both of the same age and appearance, but the principal speakerwas evidently the superior of his companion, and although their attitudeto each other was equal and familiar, it could be easily seen thathe was the leader. He had a smooth, beardless face, with a criticalexpression of eye and mouth that might have been fastidious andsupercilious but for the kindly, humorous perception that temperedit. His quick eye swept the apartment and then fixed itself upon theaccordion, but a smile lit up his face as he said quietly,--
"I hope we haven't frightened the musician away. It was bad enough tohave interrupted the young lady."
"No, no," said Mr. Harkutt, who seemed to have lost his abstraction inthe nervousness of hospitality. "I reckon she's only lookin' after hersick sister. But come into the kitchen, both of you, straight off, andwhile you're dryin' your clothes, mother'll fix you suthin' hot."
"We only need to change our boots and stockings; we've some dry ones inour pack downstairs," said the first speaker hesitatingly.
"I'll fetch 'em up and you can change in the kitchen. The old womanwon't mind," said Harkutt reassuringly. "Come along." He led the way tothe kitchen; the two strangers exchanged a glance of humorous perplexityand followed.
The quiet of the little room was once more unbroken. A far-offcommiserating murmur indicated that Mrs. Harkutt was receiving herguests. The cool breath of the wet leaves without slightly stirred thewhite dimity curtains, and somewhere from the darkened eaves there wasa still, somnolent drip. Presently a hurried whisper and a half-laughappeared to be suppressed in the outer passage or hall. Therewas another moment of hesitation and the door opened suddenly andostentatiously, disclosing Phemie, with a taller and slighter youngwoman, her elder sister, at her side. Perceiving that the room wasempty, they both said "Oh!" yet with a certain artificiality of mannerthat was evidently a lingering trace of some previous formal attitudethey had assumed. Then without further speech they each selected achair and a position, having first shaken out their dresses, and gazedsilently at each other.
It may be said briefly that sitting thus--in spite of their unnaturalattitude, or perhaps rather because of its suggestion of a photographicpose--they made a striking picture, and strongly accented their separatepeculiarities. They were both pretty, but the taller girl, apparentlythe elder, had an ideal refinement and regularity of feature which wasnot only unlike Phemie, but gratuitously unlike the rest of her family,and as hopelessly and even wantonly inconsistent with her surroundingsas was the elaborately ornamented accordion on the centre-table. She wasone of those occasional creatures, episodical in the South and West,who might have been stamped with some vague ante-natal impression of amother given to over-sentimental contemplation of books of beauty andalbums rather than the family features; offspring of typical men andwomen, and yet themselves incongruous to any known local or even generaltype. The long swan-like neck, tendriled hair, swimming eyes, and smallpatrician head, had never lived or moved before in Tasajara or theWest, nor perhaps even existed except as a personified "Constancy,""Meditation," or the "Baron's Bride," in mezzotint or copperplate. Eventhe girl's common pink print d
ress with its high sleeves and shoulderscould not conventionalize these original outlines; and the hand thatrested stiffly on the back of her chair, albeit neither over-white norwell kept, looked as if it had never held anything but a lyre, a rose,or a good book. Even the few sprays of wild jessamine which she hadplaced in the coils of her waving hair, although a local fashion, becameher as a special ornament.
The two girls kept their constrained and artificially elaboratedattitude for a few moments, accompanied by the murmur of voices in thekitchen, the monotonous drip of the eaves before the window, and thefar-off sough of the wind. Then Phemie suddenly broke into a constrainedgiggle, which she however quickly smothered as she had the accordion,and with the same look of mischievous distress.
"I'm astonished at you, Phemie," said Clementina in a deep contraltovoice, which seemed even deeper from its restraint. "You don't seem tohave any sense. Anybody'd think you never had seen a stranger before."
"Saw him before you did," retorted Phemie pertly. But here a pushingof chairs and shuffling of feet in the kitchen checked her. Clementinafixed an abstracted gaze on the ceiling; Phemie regarded a leaf onthe window sill with photographic rigidity as the door opened to thestrangers and her father.
The look of undisguised satisfaction which lit the young men's facesrelieved Mr. Harkutt's awkward introduction of any embarrassment, andalmost before Phemie was fully aware of it, she found herself talkingrapidly and in a high key with Mr. Lawrence Grant, the surveyor, whileher sister was equally, although more sedately, occupied with Mr.Stephen Rice, his assistant. But the enthusiasm of the strangers, andthe desire to please and be pleased was so genuine and contagious thatpresently the accordion was brought into requisition, and Mr. Grantexhibited a surprising faculty of accompaniment to Mr. Rice's tenor, inwhich both the girls joined.
Then a game of cards with partners followed, into which the rivalparties introduced such delightful and shameless obviousness ofcheating, and displayed such fascinating and exaggerated partisanshipthat the game resolved itself into a hilarious melee, to which peace wasrestored only by an exhibition of tricks of legerdemain with thecards by the young surveyor. All of which Mr. Harkutt supervisedpatronizingly, with occasional fits of abstraction, from hisrocking-chair; and later Mrs. Harkutt from her kitchen threshold, wipingher arms on her apron and commiseratingly observing that she "declared,the young folks looked better already."
But it was here a more dangerous element of mystery and suggestion wasadded by Mr. Lawrence Grant in the telling of Miss Euphemia's fortunefrom the cards before him, and that young lady, pink with excitement,fluttered her little hands not unlike timid birds over the cards to bedrawn, taking them from him with an audible twitter of anxiety andgreat doubts whether a certain "fair-haired gentleman" was in hearts ordiamonds.
"Here are two strangers," said Mr. Grant, with extraordinary gravitylaying down the cards, "and here is a 'journey;' this is 'unexpectednews,' and this ten of diamonds means 'great wealth' to you, which yousee follows the advent of the two strangers and is some way connectedwith them."
"Oh, indeed," said the young lady with great pertness and a toss of herhead. "I suppose they've got the money with them."
"No, though it reaches you through them," he answered with unflinchingsolemnity. "Wait a bit, I have it! I see, I've made a mistake with thiscard. It signifies a journey or a road. Queer! isn't it, Steve? It's THEROAD."
"It is queer," said Rice with equal gravity; "but it's so. The road,sure!" Nevertheless he looked up into the large eyes of Clementina witha certain confidential air of truthfulness.
"You see, ladies," continued the surveyor, appealing to them withunabashed rigidity of feature, "the cards don't lie! Luckily we are ina position to corroborate them. The road in question is a secret knownonly to us and some capitalists in San Francisco. In fact even THEYdon't know that it is feasible until WE report to them. But I don't mindtelling you now, as a slight return for your charming hospitality, thatthe road is a RAILROAD from Oakland to Tasajara Creek of which we'vejust made the preliminary survey. So you see what the cards mean isthis: You're not far from Tasajara Creek; in fact with a very littleexpense your father could connect this stream with the creek, and have aWATERWAY STRAIGHT TO THE RAILROAD TERMINUS. That's the wealth the cardspromise; and if your father knows how to take a hint he can make hisfortune!"
It was impossible to say which was the most dominant in the face of thespeaker, the expression of assumed gravity or the twinkling of humor inhis eyes. The two girls with superior feminine perception divinedthat there was much truth in what he said, albeit they didn'tentirely understand it, and what they did understand--except the man'sgood-humored motive--was not particularly interesting. In fact theywere slightly disappointed. What had promised to be an audaciouslyflirtatious declaration, and even a mischievous suggestion of marriage,had resolved itself into something absurdly practical and business-like.
Not so Mr. Harkutt. He quickly rose from his chair, and, leaning overthe table, with his eyes fixed on the card as if it really signified therailroad, repeated quickly: "Railroad, eh! What's that? A railroad toTasajara Creek? Ye don't mean it!--That is--it ain't a SURE thing?"
"Perfectly sure. The money is ready in San Francisco now, and by thistime next year--"
"A railroad to Tasajara Creek!" continued Harkutt hurriedly. "What partof it? Where?"
"At the embarcadero naturally," responded Grant. "There isn't but theone place for the terminus. There's an old shanty there now belongs tosomebody."
"Why, pop!" said Phemie with sudden recollection, "ain't it 'LigeCurtis's house? The land he offered"--
"Hush!" said her father.
"You know, the one written in that bit of paper," continued the innocentPhemie.
"Hush! will you? God A'mighty! are you goin' to mind me? Are you goin'to keep up your jabber when I'm speakin' to the gentlemen? Is that yourmanners? What next, I wonder!"
The sudden and unexpected passion of the speaker, the incomprehensiblechange in his voice, and the utterly disproportionate exaggeration ofhis attitude towards his daughters, enforced an instantaneous silence.The rain began to drip audibly at the window, the rush of the riversounded distinctly from without, even the shaking of the front partof the dwelling by the distant gale became perceptible. An angry flashsprang for an instant to the young assistant's eye, but it met thecautious glance of his friend, and together both discreetly sought thetable. The two girls alone remained white and collected. "Will you go onwith my fortune, Mr. Grant?" said Phemie quietly.
A certain respect, perhaps not before observable, was suggested in thesurveyor's tone as he smilingly replied, "Certainly, I was only waitingfor you to show your confidence in me," and took up the cards.
Mr. Harkutt coughed. "It looks as if that blamed wind had blown suthin'loose in the store," he said affectedly. "I reckon I'll go and see." Hehesitated a moment and then disappeared in the passage. Yet even here hestood irresolute, looking at the closed door behind him, and passing hishand over his still flushed face. Presently he slowly and abstractedlyascended the flight of steps, entered the smaller passage that led tothe back door of the shop and opened it.
He was at first a little startled at the halo of light from thestill glowing stove, which the greater obscurity of the long room hadheightened rather than diminished. Then he passed behind the counter,but here the box of biscuits which occupied the centre and cast a shadowover it compelled him to grope vaguely for what he sought. Then hestopped suddenly, the paper he had just found dropping from his fingers,and said sharply,--
"Who's there?"
"Me, pop."
"John Milton?"
"Yes, sir."
"What the devil are you doin' there, sir?"
"Readin'."
It was true. The boy was half reclining in a most distorted posture ontwo chairs, his figure in deep shadow, but his book was raised above hishead so as to catch the red glow of the stove on the printed page.Even then his father's angry interruption scarcely d
iverted hispreoccupation; he raised himself in his chair mechanically, with hiseyes still fixed on his book. Seeing which his father quickly regainedthe paper, but continued his objurgation.
"How dare you? Clear off to bed, will you! Do you hear me? Prettygoin's on," he added as if to justify his indignation. "Sneakin' in hereand--and lyin' 'round at this time o' night! Why, if I hadn't come inhere to"--
"What?" asked the boy mechanically, catching vaguely at the unfinishedsentence and staring automatically at the paper in his father's hand.
"Nothin', sir! Go to bed, I tell you! Will you? What are you standin'gawpin' at?" continued Harkutt furiously.
The boy regained his feet slowly and passed his father, but not withoutnoticing with the same listless yet ineffaceable perception of childhoodthat he was hurriedly concealing the paper in his pocket. With the sameyouthful inconsequence, wondering at this more than at the interruption,which was no novel event, he went slowly out of the room.
Harkutt listened to the retreating tread of his bare feet in the passageand then carefully locked the door. Taking the paper from his pocket,and borrowing the idea he had just objurgated in his son, he turned ittowards the dull glow of the stove and attempted to read it. But perhapslacking the patience as well as the keener sight of youth, he was forcedto relight the candle which he had left on the counter, and reperusedthe paper. Yes! there was certainly no mistake! Here was the actualdescription of the property which the surveyor had just indicated asthe future terminus of the new railroad, and here it was conveyed tohim--Daniel Harkutt! What was that? Somebody knocking? What did thiscontinual interruption mean? An odd superstitious fear now mingled withhis irritation.
The sound appeared to come from the front shutters. It suddenlyoccurred to him that the light might be visible through the crevices. Hehurriedly extinguished it, and went to the door.
"Who's there?"
"Me,--Peters. Want to speak to you."
Mr. Harkutt with evident reluctance drew the bolts. The wind, stillboisterous and besieging, did the rest, and precipitately propelledPeters through the carefully guarded opening. But his surprise atfinding himself in the darkness seemed to forestall any explanation ofhis visit.
"Well," he said with an odd mingling of reproach and suspicion. "Ideclare I saw a light here just this minit! That's queer."
"Yes, I put it out just now. I was goin' away," replied Harkutt, withill-disguised impatience.
"What! been here ever since?"
"No," said Harkutt curtly.
"Well, I want to speak to ye about 'Lige. Seein' the candle shinin'through the chinks I thought he might be still with ye. If he ain't, itlooks bad. Light up, can't ye! I want to show you something."
There was a peremptoriness in his tone that struck Harkutt disagreeably,but observing that he was carrying something in his hand, he somewhatnervously re-lit the candle and faced him. Peters had a hat in his hand.It was 'Lige's!
"'Bout an hour after we fellers left here," said Peters, "I heard therattlin' of hoofs on the road, and then it seemed to stop just by myhouse. I went out with a lantern, and, darn my skin! if there warn't'Lige's hoss, the saddle empty, and 'Lige nowhere! I looked round andcalled him--but nothing were to be seen. Thinkin' he might have slippedoff--tho' ez a general rule drunken men don't, and he is a good rider--Ifollowed down the road, lookin' for him. I kept on follerin' it down toyour run, half a mile below."
"But," began Harkutt, with a quick nervous laugh, "you don't reckon thatbecause of that he"--
"Hold on!" said Peters, grimly producing a revolver from his side-pocketwith the stock and barrel clogged and streaked with mud. "I found THATtoo,--and look! one barrel discharged! And," he added hurriedly, asapproaching a climax, "look ye,--what I nat'rally took for wet from therain--inside that hat--was--blood!"
"Nonsense!" said Harkutt, putting the hat aside with a newfastidiousness. "You don't think"--
"I think," said Peters, lowering his voice, "I think, by God! HE'S BINAND DONE IT!"
"No!"
"Sure! Oh, it's all very well for Billings and the rest of thatconceited crowd to sneer and sling their ideas of 'Lige gen'rally asthey did jess now here,--but I'd like 'em to see THAT." It was difficultto tell if Mr. Peters' triumphant delight in confuting his latecompanions' theories had not even usurped in his mind the importance ofthe news he brought, as it had of any human sympathy with it.
"Look here," returned Harkutt earnestly, yet with a singularly clearedbrow and a more natural manner. "You ought to take them things over toSquire Kerby's, right off, and show 'em to him. You kin tell him how youleft 'Lige here, and say that I can prove by my daughter that he wentaway about ten minutes after,--at least, not more than fifteen." Likeall unprofessional humanity, Mr. Harkutt had an exaggerated conceptionof the majesty of unimportant detail in the eye of the law. "I'd go withyou myself," he added quickly, "but I've got company--strangers--here."
"How did he look when he left,--kinder wild?" suggested Peters.
Harkutt had begun to feel the prudence of present reticence. "Well," hesaid, cautiously, "YOU saw how he looked."
"You wasn't rough with him?--that might have sent him off, you know,"said Peters.
"No," said Harkutt, forgetting himself in a quick indignation, "no,I not only treated him to another drink, but gave him"--he stoppedsuddenly and awkwardly.
"Eh?" said Peters.
"Some good advice,--you know," said Harkutt, hastily. "But come, you'dbetter hurry over to the squire's. You know YOU'VE made the discovery;YOUR evidence is important, and there's a law that obliges you to giveinformation at once."
The excitement of discovery and the triumph over his disputants beingspent, Peters, after the Sidon fashion, evidently did not relishactivity as a duty. "You know," he said dubiously, "he mightn't be dead,after all."
Harkutt became a trifle distant. "You know your own opinion of thething," he replied after a pause. "You've circumstantial evidenceenough to see the squire, and set others to work on it; and," he addedsignificantly, "you've done your share then, and can wipe your hands ofit, eh?"
"That's so," said Peters, eagerly. "I'll just run over to the squire."
"And on account of the women folks, you know, and the strangers here,I'll say nothin' about it to-night," added Harkutt.
Peters nodded his head, and taking up the hat of the unfortunate Elijahwith a certain hesitation, as if he feared it had already lost itsdramatic intensity as a witness, disappeared into the storm and darknessagain. A lurking gust of wind lying in ambush somewhere seemed to swoopdown on him as if to prevent further indecision and whirl him away inthe direction of the justice's house; and Mr. Harkutt shut the door,bolted it, and walked aimlessly back to the counter.
From a slow, deliberate and cautious man, he seemed to have changedwithin an hour to an irresolute and capricious one. He took the paperfrom his pocket, and, unlocking the money drawer of his counter, foldedinto a small compass that which now seemed to be the last testament ofElijah Curtis, and placed it in a recess. Then he went to the back doorand paused, then returned, reopened the money drawer, took out thepaper and again buttoned it in his hip pocket, standing by the stove andstaring abstractedly at the dull glow of the fire. He even went throughthe mechanical process of raking down the ashes,--solely to gain timeand as an excuse for delaying some other necessary action.
He was thinking what he should do. Had the question of his right toretain and make use of that paper been squarely offered to him an hourago, he would without doubt have decided that he ought not to keep it.Even now, looking at it as an abstract principle, he did not deceivehimself in the least. But Nature has the reprehensible habit ofnot presenting these questions to us squarely and fairly, and it isremarkable that in most of our offending the abstract principle is neverthe direct issue. Mr. Harkutt was conscious of having been unwillinglyled step by step into a difficult, not to say dishonest, situation,and against his own seeking. He had never asked Elijah to sell him theproperty; he had distinctly declined
it; it had even been forced uponhim as security for the pittance he so freely gave him. This proved (tohimself) that he himself was honest; it was only the circumstances thatwere queer. Of course if Elijah had lived, he, Harkutt, might have triedto drive some bargain with him before the news of the railroad surveycame out--for THAT was only business. But now that Elijah was dead, whowould be a penny the worse or better but himself if he chose to considerthe whole thing as a lucky speculation, and his gift of five dollars asthe price he paid for it? Nobody could think that he had calculated upon'Lige's suicide, any more than that the property would become valuable.In fact if it came to that, if 'Lige had really contemplated killinghimself as a hopeless bankrupt after taking Harkutt's money as a loan,it was a swindle on his--Harkutt's--good-nature. He worked himself intoa rage, which he felt was innately virtuous, at this tyranny of coldprinciple over his own warm-hearted instincts, but if it came to theLAW, he'd stand by law and not sentiment. He'd just let them--bywhich he vaguely meant the world, Tasajara, and possibly his ownconscience--see that he wasn't a sentimental fool, and he'd freeze on tothat paper and that property!
Only he ought to have spoken out before. He ought to have told thesurveyor at once that he owned the land. He ought to have said: "Why,that's my land. I bought it of that drunken 'Lige Curtis for a song andout of charity." Yes, that was the only real trouble, and that came fromhis own goodness, his own extravagant sense of justice and right,--hisown cursed good-nature. Yet, on second thoughts, he didn't know why hewas obliged to tell the surveyor. Time enough when the company wanted tobuy the land. As soon as it was settled that 'Lige was dead he'd openlyclaim the property. But what if he wasn't dead? or they couldn't findhis body? or he had only disappeared? His plain, matter-of-fact facecontracted and darkened. Of course he couldn't ask the company towait for him to settle that point. He had the power to dispose of theproperty under that paper, and--he should do it. If 'Lige turned up,that was another matter, and he and 'Lige could arrange it between them.He was quite firm here, and oddly enough quite relieved in getting ridof what appeared only a simple question of detail. He never suspectedthat he was contemplating the one irretrievable step, and summarilydismissing the whole ethical question.
He turned away from the stove, opened the back door, and walked with amore determined step through the passage to the sitting-room. But herehe halted again on the threshold with a quick return of his old habitsof caution. The door was slightly open; apparently his angry outbreak ofan hour ago had not affected the spirits of his daughters, for he couldhear their hilarious voices mingling with those of the strangers. Theywere evidently still fortune-telling, but this time it was the propheticand divining accents of Mr. Rice addressed to Clementina which were nowplainly audible.
"I see heaps of money and a great many friends in the change that iscoming to you. Dear me! how many suitors! But I cannot promise you anymarriage as brilliant as my friend has just offered your sister. You maybe certain, however, that you'll have your own choice in this, as youhave in all things."
"Thank you for nothing," said Clementina's voice. "But what are thosehorrid black cards beside them?--that's trouble, I'm sure."
"Not for you, though near you. Perhaps some one you don't care much forand don't understand will have a heap of trouble on your account,--yes,on account of these very riches; see, he follows the ten of diamonds. Itmay be a suitor; it may be some one now in the house, perhaps."
"He means himself, Miss Clementina," struck in Grant's voice laughingly.
"You're not listening, Miss Harkutt," said Rice with half-seriousreproach. "Perhaps you know who it is?"
But Miss Clementina's reply was simply a hurried recognition of herfather's pale face that here suddenly confronted her with the openingdoor.
"Why, it's father!"