by Bret Harte
CHAPTER II.
Key's attention was presently directed to something more important tohis present purpose. The keen wind which he had faced in mounting thegrade had changed, and was now blowing at his back. His experience offorest fires had already taught him that this was too often only thecold air rushing in to fill the vacuum made by the conflagration, andit needed not his sensation of an acrid smarting in his eyes, and anunaccountable dryness in the air which he was now facing, to convincehim that the fire was approaching him. It had evidently traveledfaster than he had expected, or had diverged from its course. He wasdisappointed, not because it would oblige him to take another route toSkinner's, as Collinson had suggested, but for a very different reason.Ever since his vision of the preceding night, he had resolved torevisit the hollow and discover the mystery. He had kept his purpose asecret,--partly because he wished to avoid the jesting remarks of hiscompanions, but particularly because he wished to go alone, from a verysingular impression that although they had witnessed the incident hehad really seen more than they did. To this was also added thehaunting fear he had felt during the night that this mysterioushabitation and its occupants were in the track of the conflagration.He had not dared to dwell upon it openly on account of Uncle Dick'sevident responsibility for the origin of the fire; he appeased hisconscience with the reflection that the inmates of the dwelling nodoubt had ample warning in time to escape. But still, he and hiscompanions ought to have stopped to help them, and then--but here hepaused, conscious of another reason he could scarcely voice then, oreven now. Preble Key had not passed the age of romance, but like otherromancists he thought he had evaded it by treating it practically.
Meantime he had reached the fork where the trail diverged to the right,and he must take that direction if he wished to make a detour of theburning woods to reach Skinner's. His momentary indecisioncommunicated itself to his horse, who halted. Recalled to himself, helooked down mechanically, when his attention was attracted by anunfamiliar object lying in the dust of the trail. It was a smallslipper--so small that at first he thought it must have belonged tosome child. He dismounted and picked it up. It was worn and shaped tothe foot. It could not have lain there long, for it was not filled nordiscolored by the wind-blown dust of the trail, as all other adjacentobjects were. If it had been dropped by a passing traveler, thattraveler must have passed Collinson's, going or coming, within the lasttwelve hours. It was scarcely possible that the shoe could havedropped from the foot without the wearer's knowing it, and it must havebeen dropped in an urgent flight, or it would have been recovered.Thus practically Key treated his romance. And having done so, heinstantly wheeled his horse and plunged into the road in the directionof the fire.
But he was surprised after twenty minutes' riding to find that thecourse of the fire had evidently changed. It was growing clearerbefore him; the dry heat seemed to come more from the right, in thedirection of the detour he should have taken to Skinner's. This seemedalmost providential, and in keeping with his practical treatment of hisromance, as was also the fact that in all probability the fire had notyet visited the little hollow which he intended to explore. He knew hewas nearing it now; the locality had been strongly impressed upon himeven in the darkness of the previous evening. He had passed the rockyledge; his horse's hoofs no longer rang out clearly; slowly andperceptibly they grew deadened in the springy mosses, and were finallylost in the netted grasses and tangled vines that indicated thevicinity of the densely wooded hollow. Here were already some of thewider spaced vanguards of that wood; but here, too, a peculiarcircumstance struck him. He was already descending the slightdeclivity; but the distance, instead of deepening in leafy shadow, wasactually growing lighter. Here were the outskirting sentinels of thewood--but the wood itself was gone! He spurred his horse through thetall arch between the opened columns, and pulled up in amazement.
The wood, indeed, was gone, and the whole hollow filled with thealready black and dead stumps of the utterly consumed forest! Morethan that, from the indications before him, the catastrophe must havealmost immediately followed his retreat from the hollow on thepreceding night. It was evident that the fire had leaped theintervening shoulder of the spur in one of the unaccountable, but by nomeans rare, phenomena of this kind of disaster. The circling heightsaround were yet untouched; only the hollow, and the ledge of rockagainst which they had blundered with their horses when they wereseeking the mysterious window in last evening's darkness, were calcinedand destroyed. He dismounted and climbed the ledge, still warm fromthe spent fire. A large mass of grayish outcrop had evidently been thefocus of the furnace blast of heat which must have raged for hours inthis spot. He was skirting its crumbling debris when he startedsuddenly at a discovery which made everything else fade into utterinsignificance. Before him, in a slight depression formed by a faultor lapse in the upheaved strata, lay the charred and incineratedremains of a dwelling-house leveled to the earth! Originally halfhidden by a natural abattis of growing myrtle and ceanothus whichcovered this counter-scarp of rock towards the trail, it must havestood within a hundred feet of them during their halt!
Even in its utter and complete obliteration by the furious furnaceblast that had swept across it, there was still to be seen anunmistakable ground plan and outline of a four-roomed house. Whileeverything that was combustible had succumbed to that intense heat,there was still enough half-fused and warped metal, fractured ironplate, and twisted and broken bars to indicate the kitchen and toolshed. Very little had, evidently, been taken away; the house and itscontents were consumed where they stood. With a feeling of horror anddesperation Key at last ventured to disturb two or three of theblackened heaps that lay before him. But they were only vestiges ofclothing, bedding, and crockery--there was no human trace that he coulddetect. Nor was there any suggestion of the original condition andquality of the house, except its size: whether the ordinary unsightlycabin of frontier "partners," or some sylvan cottage--there was nothingleft but the usual ignoble and unsavory ruins of burnt-out humanhabitation.
And yet its very existence was a mystery. It had been unknown atCollinson's, its nearest neighbor, and it was presumable that it wasequally unknown at Skinner's. Neither he nor his companions haddetected it in their first journey by day through the hollow, and onlythe tell-tale window at night had been a hint of what was even then sosuccessfully concealed that they could not discover it when they hadblundered against its rock foundation. For concealed it certainly was,and intentionally so. But for what purpose?
He gave his romance full play for a few minutes with this question.Some recluse, preferring the absolute simplicity of nature, or perhapswearied with the artificialities of society, had secluded himself herewith the company of his only daughter. Proficient as a pathfinder, hehad easily discovered some other way of provisioning his house from thesettlements than by the ordinary trails past Collinson's or Skinner's,which would have betrayed his vicinity. But recluses are not usuallyaccompanied by young daughters, whose relations with the world, notbeing as antagonistic, would make them uncertain companions. Why not awife? His presumption of the extreme youth of the face he had seen atthe window was after all only based upon the slipper he had found. Andif a wife, whose absolute acceptance of such confined seclusion mightbe equally uncertain, why not somebody else's wife? Here was a reasonfor concealment, and the end of an episode, not unknown even in thewilderness. And here was the work of the Nemesis who had overtakenthem in their guilty contentment! The story, even to its moral, wascomplete. And yet it did not entirely satisfy him, so superior is theabsolutely unknown to the most elaborate theory.
His attention had been once or twice drawn towards the crumbling wallof outcrop, which during the conflagration must have felt the fullforce of the fiery blast that had swept through the hollow and spentits fury upon it. It bore evidence of the intense heat in crackedfissures and the crumbling debris that lay at its feet. Key picked upsome of the still warm fragments, and was not surpris
ed that theyeasily broke in a gritty, grayish powder in his hands. In spite of hispreoccupation with the human interest, the instinct of the prospectorwas still strong upon him, and he almost mechanically put some of thepieces in his pockets. Then after another careful survey of thelocality for any further record of its vanished tenants, he returned tohis horse. Here he took from his saddle-bags, half listlessly, aprecious phial encased in wood, and, opening it, poured into anotherthick glass vessel part of a smoking fluid; he then crumbled some ofthe calcined fragments into the glass, and watched the ebullition thatfollowed with mechanical gravity. When it had almost ceased he drainedoff the contents into another glass, which he set down, and thenproceeded to pour some water from his drinking-flask into the ordinarytin cup which formed part of his culinary traveling-kit. Into this heput three or four pinches of salt from his provision store. Thendipping his fingers into the salt and water, he allowed a drop to fallinto the glass. A white cloud instantly gathered in the colorlessfluid, and then fell in a fine film to the bottom of the glass. Key'seyes concentrated suddenly, the listless look left his face. Hisfingers trembled lightly as he again let the salt water fall into thesolution, with exactly the same result! Again and again he repeatedit, until the bottom of the glass was quite gray with the fallenprecipitate. And his own face grew as gray.
His hand trembled no longer as he carefully poured off the solution soas not to disturb the precipitate at the bottom. Then he drew out hisknife, scooped a little of the gray sediment upon its point, andemptying his tin cup, turned it upside down upon his knee, placed thesediment upon it, and began to spread it over the dull surface of itsbottom with his knife. He had intended to rub it briskly with hisknife blade. But in the very action of spreading it, the first strokeof his knife left upon the sediment and the cup the luminous streak ofburnished silver!
He stood up and drew a long breath to still the beatings of his heart.Then he rapidly re-climbed the rock, and passed over the ruins again,this time plunging hurriedly through, and kicking aside the charredheaps without a thought of what they had contained. Key was not anunfeeling man, he was not an unrefined one: he was a gentleman byinstinct, and had an intuitive sympathy for others; but in that instanthis whole mind was concentrated upon the calcined outcrop! And hisfirst impulse was to see if it bore any evidence of previousexamination, prospecting, or working by its suddenly evicted neighborsand owners. There was none: they had evidently not known it. Nor wasthere any reason to suppose that they would ever return to their hiddenhome, now devastated and laid bare to the open sunlight and open trail.They were already far away; their guilty personal secret would keepthem from revisiting it. An immense feeling of relief came over thesoul of this moral romancer; a momentary recognition of the Most Highin this perfect poetical retribution. He ran back quickly to hissaddle-bags, drew out one or two carefully written, formal notices ofpreemption and claim, which he and his former companions had carried intheir brief partnership, erased their signatures and left only his ownname, with another grateful sense of Divine interference, as he thoughtof them speeding far away in the distance, and returned to the ruins.With unconscious irony, he selected a charred post from the embers,stuck it in the ground a few feet from the debris of outcrop, andfinally affixed his "Notice." Then, with a conscientiousness bornpossibly of his new religious convictions, he dislodged with hispickaxe enough of the brittle outcrop to constitute that presumption of"actual work" upon the claim which was legally required for itsmaintenance, and returned to his horse. In replacing his things in hissaddle-bags he came upon the slipper, and for an instant so completewas his preoccupation in his later discovery, that he was about tothrow it away as useless impedimenta, until it occurred to him, albeitvaguely, that it might be of service to him in its connection with thatdiscovery, in the way of refuting possible false claimants. He was notaware of any faithlessness to his momentary romance, any more than hewas conscious of any disloyalty to his old companions, in hisgratification that his good fortune had come to him alone. Thissingular selection was a common experience of prospecting. And therewas something about the magnitude of his discovery that seemed to pointto an individual achievement. He had made a rough calculation of therichness of the lode from the quantity of precipitate in his rudeexperiment; he had estimated its length, breadth, and thickness fromhis slight knowledge of geology and the theories then ripe; and theyield would be colossal! Of course, he would require capital to workit, he would have to "let in" others to his scheme and his prosperity;but the control of it would always be HIS OWN.
Then he suddenly started as he had never in his life before started atthe foot of man! For there was a footfall in the charred brush; andnot twenty yards from him stood Collinson, who had just dismounted froma mule. The blood rushed to Key's pale face.
"Prospectin' agin?" said the proprietor of the mill, with his wearysmile.
"No," said Key quickly, "only straightening my pack." The blooddeepened in his cheek at his instinctive lie. Had he carefully thoughtit out before, he would have welcomed Collinson, and told him all. Butnow a quick, uneasy suspicion flashed upon him. Perhaps his late hosthad lied, and knew of the existence of the hidden house. Perhaps--hehad spoken of some "silvery rock" the night before--he even knewsomething of the lode itself. He turned upon him with an aggressiveface. But Collinson's next words dissipated the thought.
"I'm glad I found ye, anyhow," he said. "Ye see, arter you left, I sawye turn off the trail and make for the burning woods instead o' goin'round. I sez to myself, 'That fellow is making straight for Skinner's.He's sorter worried about me and that empty pork bar'l,'--I hadn'toughter spoke that away afore you boys, anyhow,--'and he's takin' risksto help me.' So I reckoned I'd throw my leg over Jenny here, and lookarter ye--and go over to Skinner's myself--and vote."
"Certainly," said Key with cheerful alacrity, and the one thought ofgetting Collinson away; "we'll go together, and we'll see that thatpork barrel is filled!" He glowed quite honestly with this sudden ideaof remembering Collinson through his good fortune. "Let's get onquickly, for we may find the fire between us on the outer trail." Hehastily mounted his horse.
"Then you didn't take this as a short cut," said Collinson, with dullperseverance in his idea. "Why not? It looks all clear ahead."
"Yes," said Key hurriedly, "but it's been only a leap of the fire, it'sstill raging round the bend. We must go back to the cross-trail." Hisface was still flushing with his very equivocating, and his anxiety toget his companion away. Only a few steps further might bring Collinsonbefore the ruins and the "Notice," and that discovery must not be madeby him until Key's plans were perfected. A sudden aversion to the manhe had a moment before wished to reward began to take possession ofhim. "Come on," he added almost roughly.
But to his surprise, Collinson yielded with his usual grim patience,and even a slight look of sympathy with his friend's annoyance. "Ireckon you're right, and mebbee you're in a hurry to get to Skinner'sall along o' MY business, I oughtn't hev told you boys what I did." Asthey rode rapidly away he took occasion to add, when Key had reined inslightly, with a feeling of relief at being out of the hollow, "I wasthinkin', too, of what you'd asked about any one livin' hereunbeknownst to me."
"Well," said Key, with a new nervousness.
"Well; I only had an idea o' proposin' that you and me just took a lookaround that holler whar you thought you saw suthin'!" said Collinsontentatively.
"Nonsense," said Key hurriedly. "We really saw nothing--it was all afancy; and Uncle Dick was joking me because I said I thought I saw awoman's face," he added with a forced laugh.
Collinson glanced at him, half sadly. "Oh! You were only funnin',then. I oughter guessed that. I oughter have knowed it from UncleDick's talk!" They rode for some moments in silence; Key preoccupiedand feverish, and eager only to reach Skinner's. Skinner was not onlypostmaster but "registrar" of the district, and the new discoverer didnot feel entirely safe until he had put his formal notification andcl
aims "on record." This was no publication of his actual secret, norany indication of success, but was only a record that would in allprobability remain unnoticed and unchallenged amidst the many otherhopeful dreams of sanguine prospectors. But he was suddenly startledfrom his preoccupation.
"Ye said ye war straightenin' up yer pack just now," said Collinsonslowly.
"Yes!" said Key almost angrily, "and I was."
"Ye didn't stop to straighten it up down at the forks of the trail, didye?"
"I may have," said Key nervously. "But why?"
"Ye won't mind my axin' ye another question, will ye? Ye ain'tcarryin' round with ye no woman's shoe?"
Key felt the blood drop from his cheeks. "What do you mean?" hestammered, scarcely daring to lift his conscious eyelids to hiscompanion's glance. But when he did so he was amazed to find thatCollinson's face was almost as much disturbed as his own.
"I know it ain't the square thing to ask ye, but this is how it is,"said Collinson hesitatingly. "Ye see just down by the fork of thetrail where you came I picked up a woman's shoe. It sorter got me!For I sez to myself, 'Thar ain't no one bin by my shanty, comin' orgoin', for weeks but you boys, and that shoe, from the looks of it,ain't bin there as many hours.' I knew there wasn't any wiminhereabouts. I reckoned it couldn't hev bin dropped by Uncle Dick orthat other man, for you would have seen it on the road. So I allowedit might have bin YOU. And yer it is." He slowly drew from hispocket--what Key was fully prepared to see--the mate of the slipper Keyhad in his saddle-bags! The fair fugitive had evidently lost them both.
But Key was better prepared now (perhaps this kind of dissimulation isprogressive), and quickly alive to the necessity of throwing Collinsonoff this unexpected scent. And his companion's own suggestion wasright to his hand, and, as it seemed, again quite providential! Helaughed, with a quick color, which, however, appeared to help his lie,as he replied half hysterically, "You're right, old man, I own up, it'smine! It's d--d silly, I know--but then, we're all fools where womenare concerned--and I wouldn't have lost that slipper for a mint ofmoney."
He held out his hand gayly, but Collinson retained the slipper while hegravely examined it.
"You wouldn't mind telling me where you mought hev got that?" he saidmeditatively.
"Of course I should mind," said Key with a well-affected mingling ofmirth and indignation. "What are you thinking of, you old rascal?What do you take me for?"
But Collinson did not laugh. "You wouldn't mind givin' me the size andshape and general heft of her as wore that shoe?"
"Most decidedly I should do nothing of the kind!" said Key halfimpatiently. "Enough, that it was given to me by a very pretty girl.There! that's all you will know."
"GIVEN to you?" said Collinson, lifting his eyes.
"Yes," returned Key sharply.
Collinson handed him the slipper gravely. "I only asked you," he saidslowly, but with a certain quiet dignity which Key had never beforeseen in his face, "because thar was suthin' about the size, and shape,and fillin' out o' that shoe that kinder reminded me of some 'un; butthat some 'un--her as mought hev stood up in that shoe--ain't o' thatkind as would ever stand in the shoes of her as YOU know at all." Therebuke, if such were intended, lay quite as much in the utter ignoringof Key's airy gallantry and levity as in any conscious slur upon thefair fame of his invented Dulcinea. Yet Key oddly felt a stronginclination to resent the aspersion as well as Collinson's gratuitousmorality; and with a mean recollection of Uncle Dick's last evening'sscandalous gossip, he said sarcastically, "And, of course, that someone YOU were thinking of was your lawful wife."
"It war!" said Collinson gravely.
Perhaps it was something in Collinson's manner, or his ownpreoccupation, but he did not pursue the subject, and the conversationlagged. They were nearing, too, the outer edge of the presentconflagration, and the smoke, lying low in the unburnt woods, orcreeping like an actual exhalation of the soil, blinded them so that attimes they lost the trail completely. At other times, from the intenseheat, it seemed as if they were momentarily impinging upon the burningarea, or were being caught in a closing circle. It was remarkable thatwith his sudden accession of fortune Key seemed to lose his usual frankand careless fearlessness, and impatiently questioned his companion'swoodcraft. There were intervals when he regretted his haste to reachSkinner's by this shorter cut, and began to bitterly attribute it tohis desire to serve Collinson. Ah, yes! it would be fine indeed, ifjust as he were about to clutch the prize he should be sacrificedthrough the ignorance and stupidity of this heavy-handed moralist athis side! But it was not until, through that moralist's guidance, theyclimbed a steep acclivity to a second ridge, and were comparativelysafe, that he began to feel ashamed of his surly silence or surlierinterruptions. And Collinson, either through his unconquerablepatience, or possibly in a fit of his usual uxorious abstraction,appeared to take no notice of it.
A sloping table-land of weather-beaten boulders now effectuallyseparated them from the fire on the lower ridge. They presently beganto descend on the further side of the crest, and at last dropped upon awagon-road, and the first track of wheels that Key had seen for afortnight. Rude as it was, it seemed to him the highway to fortune,for he knew that it passed Skinner's and then joined the greatstage-road to Marysville,--now his ultimate destination. A few rodsfurther on they came in view of Skinner's, lying like a dingy forgottenwinter snowdrift on the mountain shelf.
It contained a post-office, tavern, blacksmith's shop, "general store,"and express-office, scarcely a dozen buildings in all, but alldiffering from Collinson's Mill in some vague suggestion of vitality,as if the daily regular pulse of civilization still beat, albeitlanguidly, in that remote extremity. There was anticipation andaccomplishment twice a day; and as Key and Collinson rode up to theexpress-office, the express-wagon was standing before the door ready tostart to meet the stagecoach at the cross-roads three miles away. Thisagain seemed a special providence to Key. He had a brief officialcommunication with Skinner as registrar, and duly recorded his claim;he had a hasty and confidential aside with Skinner as generalstorekeeper, and such was the unconscious magnetism developed by thisembryo millionaire that Skinner extended the necessary credit toCollinson on Key's word alone. That done, he rejoined Collinson in highspirits with the news, adding cheerfully, "And I dare say, if you wantany further advances Skinner will give them to you on Parker's draft."
"You mean that bit o' paper that chap left," said Collinson gravely.
"Yes."
"I tore it up."
"You tore it up?" ejaculated Key.
"You hear me? Yes!" said Collinson.
Key stared at him. Surely it was again providential that he had notintrusted his secret to this utterly ignorant and prejudiced man! Theslight twinges of conscience that his lie about the slippers had causedhim disappeared at once. He could not have trusted him even in that;it would have been like this stupid fanatic to have prevented Key'spreemption of that claim, until he, Collinson, had satisfied himself ofthe whereabouts of the missing proprietor. Was he quite sure thatCollinson would not revisit the spot when he had gone? But he wasready for the emergency.
He had intended to leave his horse with Skinner as security forCollinson's provisions, but Skinner's liberality had made thisunnecessary, and he now offered it to Collinson to use and keep for himuntil called for. This would enable his companion to "pack" his goodson the mule, and oblige him to return to the mill by the wagon-road and"outside trail," as more commodious for the two animals.
"Ye ain't afeared o' the road agents?" suggested a bystander; "theyjust swarm on galloper's Ridge, and they 'held up' the down stage onlylast week."
"They're not so lively since the deputy-sheriff's got a new idea aboutthem, and has been lying low in the brush near Bald Top," returnedSkinner. "Anyhow, they don't stop teams nor 'packs' unless there's achance of their getting some fancy horseflesh by it; and I reckon tharain't much to tempt them thar," he added, with a satirical si
de glanceat his customer's cattle. But Key was already standing in theexpress-wagon, giving a farewell shake to his patient companion's hand,and this ingenuous pleasantry passed unnoticed. Nevertheless, as theexpress-wagon rolled away, his active fancy began to consider this newdanger that might threaten the hidden wealth of his claim. But hereflected that for a time, at least, only the crude ore would be takenout and shipped to Marysville in a shape that offered no profit to thehighwaymen. Had it been a gold mine!--but here again was theinterposition of Providence!
A week later Preble Key returned to Skinner's with a foreman and tenmen, and an unlimited credit to draw upon at Marysville! Expeditions ofthis kind created no surprise at Skinner's. Parties had before thisentered the wilderness gayly, none knew where or what for; the sedateand silent woods had kept their secret while there; they hadevaporated, none knew when or where--often, alas! with an unpaidaccount at Skinner's. Consequently, there was nothing in Key's partyto challenge curiosity. In another week a rambling, one-storied shedof pine logs occupied the site of the mysterious ruins, and containedthe party; in two weeks excavations had been made, and the whole faceof the outcrop was exposed; in three weeks every vestige of formertenancy which the fire had not consumed was trampled out by the alienfeet of these toilers of the "Sylvan Silver Hollow Company." None ofKey's former companions would have recognized the hollow in itsblackened leveling and rocky foundation; even Collinson would not haveremembered this stripped and splintered rock, with its heaps of freshdebris, as the place where he had overtaken Key. And Key himself hadforgotten, in his triumph, everything but the chance experiment thathad led to his success.
Perhaps it was well, therefore, that one night, when the darkness hadmercifully fallen upon this scene of sylvan desolation, and its stillmore incongruous and unsavory human restoration, and the low murmur ofthe pines occasionally swelled up from the unscathed mountain-side, aloud shout and the trampling of horses' feet awoke the dwellers in theshanty. Springing to their feet, they hurriedly seized their weaponsand rushed out, only to be confronted by a dark, motionless ring ofhorsemen, two flaming torches of pine knots, and a low but distinctvoice of authority. In their excitement, half-awakened suspicion, andconfusion, they were affected by its note of calm preparation andconscious power.
"Drop those guns--hold up your hands! We've got every man of youcovered."
Key was no coward; the men, though flustered, were not cravens: butthey obeyed. "Trot out your leader! Let him stand out there, clear,beside that torch!"
One of the gleaming pine knots disengaged itself from the dark circleand moved to the centre, as Preble Key, cool and confident, steppedbeside it.
"That will do," said the immutable voice. "Now, we want Jack Riggs,Sydney Jack, French Pete, and One-eyed Charley."
A vivid reminiscence of the former night scene in the hollow--of hisown and his companions voices raised in the darkness--flashed acrossKey. With an instinctive premonition that this invasion had somethingto do with the former tenant, he said calmly:--
"Who wants them?"
"The State of California," said the voice.
"The State of California must look further," returned Key in his oldpleasant voice; "there are no such names among my party."
"Who are you?"
"The manager of the 'Sylvan Silver Hollow Company,' and these are myworkmen."
There was a hurried movement, and the sound of whispering in thehitherto dark and silent circle, and then the voice rose again:
"You have the papers to prove that?"
"Yes, in the cabin. And you?"
"I've a warrant to the sheriff of Sierra."
There was a pause, and the voice went on less confidently:--
"How long have you been here?"
"Three weeks. I came here the day of the fire and took up this claim."
"There was no other house here?"
"There were ruins,--you can see them still. It may have been aburnt-up cabin."
The voice disengaged itself from the vague background and came slowlyforwards:--
"It was a den of thieves. It was the hiding-place of Jack Riggs andhis gang of road agents. I've been hunting this spot for three weeks.And now the whole thing's up!"
There was a laugh from Key's men, but it was checked as the owner ofthe voice slowly ranged up beside the burning torch and they saw hisface. It was dark and set with the defeat of a brave man.
"Won't you come in and take something?" said Key kindly.
"No. It's enough fool work for me to have routed ye out already. But Isuppose it's all in my d--d day's work! Good-night! Forward there!Get!"
The two torches danced forwards, with the trailing off of vague shadowsin dim procession; there was a clatter over the rocks and they weregone. Then, as Preble Key gazed after them, he felt that with them hadpassed the only shadow that lay upon his great fortune; and with thelast tenant of the hollow a proscribed outlaw and fugitive, he washenceforth forever safe in his claim and his discovery. And yet, oddlyenough, at that moment, as he turned away, for the first time in threeweeks there passed before his fancy with a stirring of reproach avision of the face that he had seen at the window.