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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19472-8.txt b/19472-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..498c4fc --- /dev/null +++ b/19472-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8783 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Branded, by Francis Lynde + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Branded + +Author: Francis Lynde + +Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #19472] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRANDED *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: The resemblance . . . transformed itself slowly into the +breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up . . . into the face of +Cummings.] + + + + + + +BRANDED + + +BY + +FRANCIS LYNDE + + + +AUTHOR OF + +THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, THE CITY OF NUMBERED DAYS, ETC. + + + + +FRONTISPIECE BY + +ARTHUR E. BECHER + + + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS ---------- NEW YORK + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + +Published April, 1918 + +Reprinted April, 1918 + + + + + To the one who, more clearly than + any other, can best understand and + appreciate the motive for its writing, + this book is affectionately inscribed by + + THE AUTHOR + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. THE HEATING OF THE IRON + II. THE SEARING TOUCH + III. IN THE NAME OF THE LAW + IV. SCARS + V. THE DOWNWARD PATH + VI. A GOOD SAMARITAN + VII. THE PLUNGE + VIII. WESTWARD + IX. THE CUP OF TREMBLING + X. THE PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN + XI. NUMBER 3126 + XII. A CAST FOR FORTUNE + XIII. FOR THE SINEWS OF WAR + XIV. PAPER WALLS + XV. THE BROKEN WAGON + XVI. IN THE OPEN + XVII. ALADDIN'S LAMP + XVIII. "THE WOMAN . . . WHOSE HANDS ARE AS BANDS" + XIX. A RECKONING AND A HOLD-UP + XX. BROKEN FAITH + XXI. THE END OF A HONEYMOON + XXII. A WOMAN'S LOVE + XXIII. SKIES OF BRASS + XXIV. RESTORATION + XXV. THE MOUNTAIN'S TOP + + + + +BRANDED + + +I + +The Heating of the Iron + +It was not until the evening when old John Runnels, who had been the +town marshal in my school days, and was now chief of police under the +new city charter, came into the dingy little private banking room to +arrest me that I began to realize, though only in a sort of dumb and +dazed fashion, how much my promise to Agatha Geddis might be going to +cost me. + +But even if the full meaning of the promise had been grasped at the +time when my word was given, it is an open question if the earlier +recognition of the possible consequences would have made any +difference. Before we go any farther, let it be clearly understood +that there was no sentiment involved; at least, no sentimental +sentiment. Years before, I, like most of the other town boys of my +age, had taken my turn as Agatha's fetcher and carrier; but that was +only a passing spasm--a gust of the calf-love which stirs up momentary +whirlwinds in youthful hearts. The real reason for the promise-making +lay deeper. Abel Geddis had been crabbedly kind to me, helping me +through my final year in the High School after my father died, and +taking me into his private bank the week after I was graduated. And +Agatha was Abel Geddis's daughter. + +Over and above the daughterhood, she was by far the prettiest girl in +Glendale, with a beauty of the luscious type; eyes that could toll a +man over the edge of a bluff and lips that had a trick of quivering +like a hurt baby's when she was begging for something she was afraid +she wasn't going to get. All through the school years she had been one +of my classmates, and a majority of the town boys were foolish about +her, partly because she had a way of twisting them around her fingers; +partly, perhaps, because her father was the rich man of the community +and the president of the Farmers' Bank. + +She had sent for me to come up to the big house on the hill the night +before this other night of old John Runnels's call. I went, taking it +as a matter of course that she wished to talk to me about the trouble +at the bank, and saying to myself that I was going to be iron and steel +and adamant; this when I might have known that I should be only putty +in her hands. She met me on the porch, and made me sit with my back to +the window, which was open, while she faced me, sitting in the hammock +where the house lights fell fairly upon her and I could get the full +benefit of the honeying eyes and baby lips as she talked. + +She had begun by saying in catchy little murmurings that I knew better +than any one else what it was going to mean to her--to all of them--if +her father's crookedness (she called it his "mistake") in using the +depositors' money for his own speculations should be published abroad; +and I did. She was engaged to young Wheeland, son of the copper +magnate Wheeland, of New York, and the wedding date was set. Black +ruin was staring them all in the face, she said, and I could save them, +if I only would. What would be shouted from the housetops as a +penitentiary offense in the president of the bank would be condoned as +a mere error in judgment on the part of a hired bookkeeper. + +If I would only consent to let the directors think that I was the one +who had passed upon and accepted the mining-stock collateral--which had +taken the place in the bank's vault of the good, hard money of the +depositors--well, I could see how easily the dreadful crisis would be +tided over; and besides earning the undying gratitude of the family, +her father would stand by me and I would lose nothing in the end. + +For one little minute she almost made me believe what she didn't +believe herself--that the crime wasn't a crime. Her father, "our +eminent and public-spirited fellow-citizen, the Hon. Abel Geddis," to +quote the editor of the Glendale _Daily Courier_, was desperately +involved. For months he had been throwing good money after bad in a +Western gold mine; not only his own money, but the bank's as well. At +the long last the half-dozen sleepy directors, three of them retired +farmers and the other three local merchants, had awakened to the fact +that there was something wrong. They didn't know fully, as yet, just +what they were in for; Geddis's part of the bookkeeping was in a +horrible muddle owing to his efforts to hide the defalcation. But they +knew enough to be certain that somebody had been skating upon thin ice +and had broken through. + +"You can't help seeing just how it is, Herbert," Agatha had pleaded, +with the soulful look in her pretty eyes and the baby lips all in a +tremble. "If the faintest breath of this gets out, VanBruce Wheeland +will have to know, and then everything will come to an end and I shall +want to go and drown myself in the river. You are young and strong and +brave, and you can live down a--an error of judgment"--she kept on +calling it that, as if the words had been put into her mouth; as they +probably had. "Promise me, Herbert, won't you?--for--for the sake of +the old times when you used to carry my books to school, and I--I----" + +What was the use? Every man is privileged to be a fool once in a +while, and a young man sometimes twice in a while. I promised her that +I would shoulder the load, or at least find some way out for her +father; and when she asked me how it could be done, I was besotted +enough to explain how the mining-stock business had really passed +through my hands--as it had in a purely routine way--and telling her in +so many words that everything would be all right for her father when +the investigating committee should come to overhaul the books and the +securities. + +When I got up to go, she went to the front steps with me, and at the +last yearning minute a warm tear had splashed on the back of my hand. +At that I kissed her and told her not to worry another minute. And +this brings me back to that other evening just twenty-four hours later; +I in the bank, with the accusing account books spread out under the +electric light on the high desk, and old John Runnels, looking never a +whit less the good-natured, easy-going town marshal in his +brass-buttoned uniform and gilt-banded cap, stumbling over the +threshold as he let himself in at the side door which had been left on +the latch. + +I had started, half-guiltily, I suppose, when the door opened; and +Runnels, who had known me and my people ever since my father had moved +in from the farm to give us children the advantage of the town school, +shook his grizzled head sorrowfully. + +"I'd ruther take a lickin' than to say it, but I reckon you'll have to +come along with me, Bertie," he began soberly, laying a big-knuckled +hand on my shoulder. "It all came out in the meetin' to-day, and the +d'rectors 're sayin' that you hadn't ort to be allowed to run loose any +longer." + +The high desk stool was where I could grab at it, and it saved me from +tumbling over backward. + +"Go with you?" I gasped. "You mean to--to _jail_?" + +Runnels nodded. "Jest for to-night. I reckon you'll be bailed, come +mornin'--if that blamed security comp'ny that's on your bond don't kick +up too big a fight about it." + +"Hold on--wait a minute," I begged. "There is nothing criminal against +me, Uncle John. Mr. Geddis will tell you that. I----" + +The big hand slipped from my shoulder and became a cautionary signal to +flag me down. + +"You mustn't tell me nothin' about it, Bertie; I don't want to have to +take the stand and testify against your father's boy. Besides, it +ain't no kind o' use. You done it yourself when you was up at Abel +Geddis's house las' night. Two of the d'rectors, Tom Fitch and old man +Withers, was settin' behind the window curtains in the front room +whilst you was talkin' to Miss Agathy on the porch. You know, better'n +I do, what they heard you say." + +For a second the familiar interior of the bank went black for me. I +was young in those days; much too young to know that human nature in +the lump is neither all saint nor all devil; that a man may be a second +father to you for years, and then turn and hold your head under water +until you drown when he is fighting for himself. It had been a trap, +deliberately set and baited with Agatha. I remembered now that she had +not spoken loud enough to be overheard; while I, with my back to the +open window, had talked in ordinary tones. Fitch and Withers had heard +me say that the investigating committee would find nothing against Abel +Geddis, and they had naturally taken it as a confession of my own guilt. + +I remember that I went quite methodically about putting things away +while Runnels waited, though every move was dumbly mechanical. +Something seemed to have died inside of me, and I suppose the +psychologists would say that it was the subconscious Bert Weyburn who +put the books in the vault, locked the iron door, set the high desk in +order, and turned off all the lights save the one we always left turned +on in front of the vault. + +Afterward, when we were in the street together, and Runnels was walking +me around the square to the police station, the dead thing inside of me +came alive. It had gone to sleep a pretty decent young fellow, with a +soft spot in his heart for his fellow men, and a boy's belief in the +ultimate goodness of all women. It awoke a raging devil. It was all I +could do to keep from throttling unsuspecting John Runnels as we +tramped along side by side. I could have done it. I had inherited my +father's well-knit frame and serviceable muscles, and all through my +office experience I had kept myself fit with long walks and a few bits +of home-made gymnastic apparatus in my room at Mrs. Thompson's. And +the new-born devil was ready with the suggestion. + +I have been glad many times since that old John never knew; glad that +the frenzied curses that came boiling up out of that inner hell were +wordless. I contrived to hold in while Runnels was hurrying me through +the station office and past the sleepy sergeant at the desk. But when +the cell door had opened and closed for me, and old John's heavy +footsteps were no longer echoing in the iron-floored corridor, the +newly hatched devil broke loose and I made a pretty bad night of it. + + + + +II + +The Searing Touch + +Out of the first twenty-four hours, when my little raft of +respectability and good report was going to pieces under me, I have +brought one heart-mellowing recollection. In the morning it was old +John Runnels himself who brought me my cell breakfast, and he did it to +spare me the shame of being served by the police-station turnkey. Past +that, he sat on the edge of the iron cot and talked to me while I tried +to eat. + +"They was aimin' to telegraph the sheriff and have you railroaded slap +up to the county seat las' night, but I told 'em nary," he confided. +"I wasn't allowin' to have 'em jerk you out of your home town before +you'd had a chance to pick a lawyer and talk to your friends; no +sir-ee, I wasn't." + +"I guess I haven't any friends any more," I was still bitter enough to +say. And then: "Tell me, if you can, Uncle John, just what the charge +against me is." + +"I reckon you know a heap better'n I do, Bertie," was his sober +rejoinder, "but I can tell you what I heard. They say you've been +takin' the bank's money to put into a gold mine somewheres out yonder +in the Rocky Mountains." + +"Who swore out the warrant for my arrest?" + +"Ab Withers." + +Abner Withers, town miser, note-shaver and skinflint, was the one man +on the board of directors of the bank whom I had always most cordially +detested. Back in my childhood, before my father had got upon his +feet, Withers had planned to foreclose a mortgage on the home farm, +making the hampering of my father so that he could not pay the debt a +part of the plan. More than once I had half suspected that he was in +with Geddis on the mining deal, but I had no proof of this. + +"You say they were getting ready to railroad me out of town last night: +I suppose they will do it to-day, won't they?" + +"Not if I can help it, Bertie. I'm goin' to try to hold you here till +you've had time to kind of straighten yourself around and ketch up with +the procession. I don't know what in Sam Hill you wanted to go and +bu'st yourself up for, this way, but I'm owin' it to Amos Weyburn dead +to help his boy get some sort of a fair show for his white alley. You +ask me anything in reason, and I'll do it." + +I considered the most necessary requirements hastily. My mother and +sister were absent on a visit to a distant relative in the far-away +Saskatchewan wheat country, and I thanked God for that. It was +altogether unlikely that they would see any of the home newspapers, for +some time, at least, and any anxiety on that score might be dismissed, +or at all events postponed. The most pressing need was for a lawyer, +and since lawyers do not serve without fees, I was glad to remember +that my savings, which were still reposing in Abel Geddis's bank vault, +would enable me to pay as I went. + +By this time, in bitter revulsion from gratitude to fierce enmity, I +was determined to defend myself tooth and nail. At one stroke Abel +Geddis had cancelled all my obligations to him. At the very moment +when I was promising his daughter to help cover up his criminality, he +had been deliberately plotting to make me his scapegoat. + +"I need a lawyer, of course," I told Runnels; and then I made the first +and worst of a long series of wretched mistakes. "Send word to Cy +Whitredge and tell him I'd like to see him." + +If anybody had asked me five minutes after Runnels went away why I had +chosen Cyrus Whitredge to be my counsel I doubt if I could have offered +any justifiable reason. Whitredge was known throughout our end of the +State as a criminal lawyer, shrewd, unscrupulous, and with a reputation +built up entirely upon his singular success in defeating the ends of +justice. Before a jury of farmers and small merchants, such as I was +likely to have, I had prejudiced my case at the very outset. + +I was completely and thoroughly convinced of this a little later when +Whitredge came to see me. He was a lean man, leather-faced, and with +an eye like that of a fish. To my consternation and keen +disheartenment he assumed my guilt from the moment the cell door was +locked upon him and he had seated himself upon the iron-framed cot to +nurse a knee in the locked fingers of his bony hands. + +"You've got the wrong idea of things, altogether, Weyburn," he +criticised, after I had tried to tell him that I was being made to hold +the bag for some one else; and his use of the bare surname, when he had +known me from boyhood, cut me like a knife. "You can't expect me to do +anything for you unless you are entirely frank with me. As your +counsel, I've got to know the facts; and you gain absolutely nothing by +insisting to me that you are not guilty." + +There was more of it; a good bit more in which I stubbornly asserted my +innocence while Whitredge used every trick and wile known to his craft +to entrap me into admitting that I was guilty, in the act if not in the +intention. + +"You can't deny--you don't deny--that you knew these mining sharps, +Hempstead and Lesherton, pretty intimately, that you saw them +frequently and talked with them in the way of business, and that you +knew all about the capitalization scheme they were trying to put over," +was Whitredge's summing up of the situation. "You'll have to loosen +up, Weyburn, if you expect to get any help. I'll come around again +this afternoon, and maybe by that time you will have taken a tumble to +yourself." + +He got up, rattled the door for the turnkey, and then wheeled upon me +with a sharp question. + +"I take it you've got a little ready money hid away somewhere, haven't +you?" he demanded. + +I told him I had; but when I added that my savings were all in the bank +he swore impatiently. + +"That will mean an order from the court before you can even pay your +counsel's retainer--always providing your account hasn't already been +attached to apply on the shortage," he snapped; and at that the +corridor officer came to let him out and he went away. + +Having lived in Glendale practically all my life, I had a good right to +expect that at least a few of my friends would rally to my support in +the time of trouble. They came, possibly a half-dozen of them in all, +between Whitredge's visit and old John Runnels's bringing of my dinner +at one o'clock. + +Who they were, and what they said to me, are matters which shall be +burled in the deepest pit of oblivion I can find or dig. For the best +of them, in the turning of a single leaf in the lifebook, I had +apparently become an outcast, a pariah. One and all, they had already +tried and condemned me unheard, and though there were clammy-handed +offers of assistance they were purely perfunctory, as I could see, and +there was never a man of them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, I +don't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these cold +comfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegar +in me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness and +isolation to the very dregs. + +I know now, of course, that I was boyishly hot-hearted and unfair; that +I was too young and inexperienced to make allowances for that deathless +trait in human nature--in all animate nature--which prompts the well to +recoil instinctively from the pest-stricken. Later on--but I needn't +anticipate. + +It was along in the latter part of the afternoon, and before +Whitredge's return, that Agatha came. Her appearance in my cell was a +total surprise. I was standing at the little grated window when I +heard footsteps in the corridor. I thought it was Whitredge coming +back, and was morose enough not to turn or look around until after the +door had opened and clanged shut again. Then I wheeled to find myself +looking straight into the man-melting eyes. + +"Oh, Herbert!" she gasped; and with that she dropped upon the cot and +put her face in her hands. + +If only the women wouldn't weep at us how vastly different this world +would be! All day long I had been praying that I might some time have +the chance to hold a mirror up to Agatha Geddis; a mirror that would +reflect her soul and show her what a mean and shriveled thing it was. +But what I did was to sit beside her and put my arm around her and try +to comfort her as I might have comforted my sister. + +When her sobbing fit had subsided and she began to talk I found out +what she had come for--or I thought I did. It was all a miserable +mistake--so she protested--and Abner Withers was the responsible one. +It was he who had insisted that I should be arrested and prosecuted; +and, thus far, her father had not been able to make him listen to +reason. But it would come out all right in the end, if I would only be +patient and wait. Mr. Whitredge had been up to the house to see her +father, and they had had a long talk. Among other things, she had +heard her father say that he would bear all the expenses, meaning--I +supposed--that he would see to it that Whitredge did not lose his fee. + +I have more than once had professional mesmerists try to hypnotize me, +without success. But there is little doubt that Agatha Geddis turned +the trick for me that afternoon in the steel cell of the Glendale +police station. As she talked, my heart grew putty-soft again. As +before, she dwelt upon the terrible consequences, the awful disgrace, +the wreck of her happiness, and all that; and once more I promised her +that I would stand by her. Even after she had gone I told myself that +since the worst had already happened, it would be cowardly and unmanly +to turn back. + +Later, when the reaction came, it is more than likely that I swung back +to the other extreme, writing Agatha Geddis down in the book of bitter +remembrances as a cold-blooded, plotting fiend in woman's form. She +was not that. It may be said that, at this earlier period, she was +merely a loosely bound fagot of evil potentialities. Doubtless the +threatened cataclysm appeared sufficiently terrifying to her, and she +was willing to use any means that might offer to avert it. But it may +be conceded, in bare justice, that in this stage of her development she +was nothing worse than a self-centered young egoist, immature, and +struggling, quite without malice, to make things come her way. + +It was quite late in the afternoon when Whitredge made his second visit +to my cell, and this time his attitude was entirely different. Also, +he dropped the curt use of my surname. + +"We're going to ignore the question of your culpability for the +present, Bert, and wrestle with the plain facts of the case," was the +way he began on me. "From what you said this morning, I was led to +infer that you had some notion of trying to shift the responsibility to +Mr. Geddis. I won't say that something couldn't be done along that +line; not to do you any good, you understand, but to do other folks a +lot of harm. You could probably roil the water and stir up the mud +pretty badly for all concerned. But in the outcome, and before a jury, +you'd be likely to get the hot end of it. I'll be frank with you. If +I were in your shoes, I'd rather have Geddis for me than against me. +He has money and influence, and you are a young man without either." + +"You are trying to advise me to plead guilty?" I asked. + +"Oh, of course, the formal plea in court would be 'Not guilty.' I'm +merely advising you not to make the fight vindictive. If you don't, +I'm inclined to believe that Geddis will stand by you and you'll get +off easy." + +It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I would fight to the last +gasp before I would suffer myself to be tried and condemned for a crime +of which I was innocent. Then the distorted sense of honor got in its +work again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make me +believe that I owed her something. + +"You'll have to get me out of it in some way," I returned. "I can't +afford to be convicted." + +"Abel Geddis has been a pretty good friend of yours in the past, Bert," +the lawyer suggested. "You don't want to forget that." + +"I'm not forgetting it, and I'm giving him all the credit that is due +him. But you can't blame me for thinking a little of my mother and +sister, and myself. You know what a prison sentence means to a man, +better than I do. I couldn't stand for that." + +Whitredge stroked his long chin and looked past me out of the little +grated window. + +"We'd hope for the best, of course," he returned. "If we can make it +appear as an error in judgment"--there was that cursed phrase +again--"without any real criminal intention, and if we can prove that +you didn't reap any monetary benefit from the transfer of the mining +stock, there is good reason to hope that the court may be lenient. Do +I understand that you are giving me a free hand in the case, Bert?" + +"I don't see that there is anything else for me to do," I said, +half-doubtfully; and as he was going I asked him about the question of +bail. + +"I have waived the preliminary examination for you--merely to save you +the humiliation of appearing in a justice's court in Glendale," was the +evasive reply. + +"But without the examination I shan't have a chance to offer bail, +shall I?" + +Whitredge shook his head. "The guaranty company that is on your bond +beat us to it, I'm sorry to say. They sent their attorney over from +Cincinnati last night, and he is here now, prepared to refuse the +company's consent in the matter of ball. That is another reason why, +acting for you, I have waived the preliminary. Without the guaranty +company's assent to the arrangement it would be useless for us to offer +sureties, though Geddis and two or three others have expressed their +willingness to sign for you." + +"Then what am I to expect?" + +"Nothing worse than a little delay. Court is in session, and you will +be taken to Jefferson. If the grand jury finds a true bill against +you, the cause will probably be tried at the present term of court. +There need be nothing humiliating or embarrassing for you here in +Glendale. Sam Jorkins will take you over to Jefferson on the midnight +train, and you needn't see any of the home-town folks unless you want +to." + +Remembering the clammy handshakings of the forenoon, I thought I should +never again want to see anybody that I knew. And thus I made the +second of the miserable blunders which led to all that followed. + +"Let it be that way," I said. "If Jorkins will go with me up to Mrs. +Thompson's so that I can get a few things and pack a grip----" + +"Oh, of course," said Whitredge, readily enough. "I'll have a carriage +to take you to the train, and it can drive around by your +boarding-house. But you mustn't try to run away. I suppose you +wouldn't do anything like that, would you?--even if you had a good +chance?" + +I turned upon him as quick as a flash. + +"Do you mean that you're trying to give me a hint that I'd better run +away?" I demanded. + +He took a step toward the cell door and I had a fleeting impression +that he was listening to determine whether or not there was any one in +the corridor. When he faced me again he was frowning reprovingly. + +"I am a member of the bar in good standing," he reminded me stiffly. +"If you knew the first letter of the legal alphabet you'd know that I +couldn't advise a client to run away." + +"Damn the legal alphabet!" I broke out hotly. "You're a man, Cy +Whitredge; and I'm another man and in trouble. Can't you drop the +professional cant for half a minute and talk straight?" + +At this he shook his head again. + +"It would prejudice your case mighty badly--that is, if you should try +it and not succeed. On the other hand--but no; I won't say another +word. Your best friend wouldn't advise you to make such a break. +Besides, you have no money, and you couldn't get very far without it. +I shouldn't even think of it, if I were you. Dwelling on a thing like +that sometimes gives it a chance to get hold of you. But this is all +foolishness, of course. You are going to Jefferson, and you'll take +your medicine like a man if you have to. That's all, I believe, for +the present. Keep a stiff upper lip, and if anybody comes to see you, +don't talk too much. I'll be over at the county seat in a day or two, +and we'll thresh it out some more." + +After Runnels had brought me my supper, and I had nothing to do but to +wait for the constable and train-time, I did the very thing that +Whitredge had advised me not to do; I couldn't get it out of my mind +that freedom at any price was now the most desirable thing on earth--in +the universe, for that matter. It was facilely easy to picture a +future in some far distant corner of the country where I might begin +all over again and make good. Other men had done it. Every once in a +while I had read in the newspapers the story of some fellow who had +eluded his fate, deserved or otherwise, years before and had lived and +builded anew and in a fashion to win the applause of all men. + +Because I had lived in a small town the better part of my life, I had +the mistaken notion that the world is very wide and that there must be +no end of safe hiding-places for the man who needs to seek one. From +that to imagining the possible details was only a series of steps, each +one carrying me a little nearer to the brink of decision. As I have +said, I had money of my own in the bank vault; much more than enough to +bribe easy-going Sam Jorkins, the constable who, as Whitredge had said, +was to take me to Jefferson. I weighed and measured all the chances +and hazards, and there were only two for which I could not provide in +advance. There was a possibility that Geddis might be staying late in +the bank; and if he were not, there was the other possibility that he +might have changed the combination on the vault lock since my arrest. + +The more I thought about it, the more fiercely the escape notion +gripped me. Whitredge's talk had made it perfectly plain that the best +I could hope for in a court trial would be a light sentence. As +train-time drew near, the obsession pushed reason and all the scruples +aside. If I could only persuade Jorkins to let me go to the bank on +the drive to the station---- + +The town clock in the tower of the new city hall was striking eleven +when good old John Runnels and the constable came for me. At the final +moment I was telling myself feverishly that it would be of no use for +me to try to bribe honest Sam Jorkins; that this was the fatal weakness +in my plan of escape. Hence, I could have shouted for joy when Runnels +unlocked the cell door and turned me over, not to Jorkins, but to a +stranger; a hard-faced man roughly dressed, and with the scar of a +knife slash across his right cheek. + +"This is Bill Simmons, a deputy from Jefferson, Bertie; come to take +you over to the county ja--to the sheriff's office," said Runnels. +"I've told him he ain't goin' to have no use for them handcuffs he's +brought along." + +"That may be," growled the sheriff's messenger. "All the same, I ain't +takin' no chances--not me!" and with that he whipped the manacles from +his pocket. But Runnels intervened quickly. + +"Nary!--not here in my shop, you don't, Simmons," he said. "For two +cents I'd go along with Bertie, myself, if only to see to it that he +gets a fair show. You treat him right and white, or I'll fire you out, +warrant or no warrant!" + +When we reached the street I said I wanted to go around by way of my +boarding-house for a change of clothing. + +"That's all been 'tended to," said the surly deputy, with a jerk of his +thumb toward a suitcase in the seat beside the driver of the hack +carriage. "You get in and keep quiet; that's all you've got to do." + +After this he said nothing and made no further move until we were +jouncing along on our way to the railroad station. Then, without +warning, he turned upon me suddenly and tried to snap the hand-cuffs on +my wrists. + +It was all I was waiting for; something to pull the trigger. In a +flash the savage, which, in the best of us, lies but skin-deep under +the veneer of habit and the civilized conventions, leaped alive. There +was a fierce grapple in the interior of the darkened carriage--fierce +but silent--and the blood sang in my veins when I found that I was more +than a match for the scar-faced deputy. With fingers to throat I +choked him into submission, and when I had taken his pistol and +hand-cuffed him with his own manacles, the step that made me a criminal +in fact had been overpassed. + +"One yip out of you, and you get a bullet out of your own gun!" I +warned him; and then I got speech with the driver, a squat, thickset +Irishman, whose face and brogue were both strange to me. + +"Drive to the Farmers' Bank--side door--and be quick about it!" I +called to him over the lowered window-sash. + +"I'm hired to go to the train. Who's payin' me for the side-trip?" he +queried impatiently. + +"I am," I snapped; adding: "There's money in it for you if you put the +whip on." + +He obeyed the order with what might have seemed suspicious readiness, +if I had been cool enough to consider it, and a minute or two later the +hack ground its wheels against the curb at the side door of the bank +building. With the pistol at his ribs I pushed the deputy out ahead of +me. My keys were still in my pocket--Runnels hadn't searched me for +anything--and I opened the door and entered, driving Simmons a step in +advance. + +The bank was untenanted, as I knew it would be if Geddis should not be +there, since we had never employed a night watchman. At that time of +night there was nothing stirring in the town, and in the midnight +silence the ticking of the clock on the wall over Abel Geddis's desk +crashed into the stillness like the blows of a hammer. I made the +deputy sit down under the vault light while I worked the combination. +The lock had not been changed, and the door opened at the first trial. + +Again pushing Simmons ahead of me, I entered the vault. It was a +fairly modern structure; Geddis had had it rebuilt within the year; and +it was electric-lighted and large enough to serve the double purpose of +a bank strong-room and a safety deposit. Shoving the deputy into a +corner I opened the cash-box and took out the exact amount of my +savings, neither more nor less. Simmons stretched his neck and leered +at me with an evil grin. + +"You're the fine little crook, all right enough," he remarked. "They +was sayin' over at Jefferson that you was a Sunday-school +sup'rintendent, or somethin' o' that sort. Them kind is always the +flyest." + +It struck me suddenly that he was taking his defeat pretty easily, but +there was no time for a nice weighing of other men's motives. + +"I'm fly enough to give you what's coming to you," I said; and with +that I snapped off the electric light, darted out, slammed the vault +door and shot the bolts. For a few hours at least, during the latter +part of which he might have to breathe rather bad air, the deputy was +an obstruction removed. + +My hurriedly formed plan of escape would probably have made a +professional criminal weep; but it was the only one I could think of on +the spur of the moment. In the next county, at a distance of +thirty-odd miles, there was another railroad. If I could succeed in +bribing the Irish hack-driver, I might be far on my way before the bank +vault would be opened and the alarm given. + +The Irishman took my money readily enough and offered no objections +when I told him what I wished to do. Also, he claimed to be familiar +with the cross-country road to Vilasville, saying that he could set me +down in the village before daylight. Oddly enough, he made no comment +on the absence of the deputy, and seemed quite as willing to haul one +passenger as two. With my liberal bribe for a stimulant he whipped up +his horses, and in a few minutes we were out of town and rolling +smoothly along the intercounty pike. + +For a time the sudden break with all the well-behaved traditions kept +me awake and in a fever heat of excitement. But along in the small +hours the monotonous _clack-clack_ of the horses' hoofs on the +limestone pike and the steady rumbling of the wheels quieted me. +Reflecting that I had had little sleep the night before, and that the +way ahead would be perilous enough to ask for sharpened faculties and a +well-rested body, I braced myself in a corner of the carriage and +closed my eyes. + +When I awakened, after what seemed like only the shortest hand-space of +dreamless oblivion, a misty dawn was breaking and the carriage was +stopped in a town street and in front of a brick building with barred +windows. While I was blinking and rubbing my eyes in astoundment, a +big, bearded man whose face was strangely familiar opened the door and +whipped the captured pistol from the seat. + +"This was one time when the longest way 'round was the shortest way +home," chuckled the big pistol-snatcher quizzically. And then: "Old Ab +Withers seems to know you better than most of us do, Bert. He told me +I'd better not risk you on the train with just one Glendale constable; +that I'd better send a rig and two deputies after you, if I wanted to +make sure o' seein' you. What have you done with Simmons?" + +I told him briefly. + +"All right," he said. "Climb down out o' that and come on in. The +jig's up." + +It was not until I was standing on the sidewalk beside the gigantic +sheriff, with the Irishman grinning at me from his seat in the hack, +that I realized fully what had happened. Instead of taking me to +Vilasville, the driver, who was Simmons's partner and fellow deputy, +had changed his route while I was asleep and brought me to the county +seat. + + + + +III + +In the Name of the Law + +Of course, I didn't have to wait until Whitredge came over to the +county seat to learn that I had hopelessly cooked my goose by the +clumsy attempt at an escape. What I did not suspect then, nor, indeed, +for a long time afterward, was the possibility that Withers or Geddis, +or both of them, had forestalled me in the matter of bribing the two +deputies; that my foolish attempt had been anticipated, and that +Whitredge, himself, was not wholly above suspicion as an accessory +before the fact. For it was his thinly veiled suggestion that put the +thing into my head. + +However, that is neither here nor there. With the charge before it, +the grand jury quickly brought in a true bill against me; and on the +plea of the county prosecuting attorney my case was advanced on the +docket and set for trial within the week, the argument for haste being +the critical state of affairs in the business of the Farmers' Bank of +Glendale; a state of affairs which demanded that the responsibility for +certain shortages in the bank's assets be fixed immediately as between +the accused bookkeeper and cashier and his superiors. Whitredge +brought me word of this hurry-up proposal, and either was, or pretended +to be, properly indignant over the unseemly haste. + +"You just say the word, Bert, and I'll have the case postponed until +the next term of court, or else I'll know the reason why!" he blustered +stoutly. + +"Why should I wish to have it postponed, when the delay would merely +mean six months more of jail for me?" I objected. + +"It might give us some chance to frame up some sort of a defense; and, +besides, it would give public opinion a little time to die down," he +suggested. "I say it isn't fair to try you while everybody's hot and +excited and wrathy about the money loss. Still, if you think you're +all ready, and want to take the chance----" + +He knew I did, and was only egging me on. What he and all the rest of +them were working for was to get me out of the way as swiftly as +possible. I knew this afterward, after I had time to think it out and +piece it together; and God knows, they gave me all the time I needed to +do the thinking. + +So, with the prisoner's counsel making no motion to the contrary, the +trial date stood, and shortly I found myself in the dock, with good old +Judge Haskins peering down at me over the top of his spectacles. Like +many of the older people in the county, the judge had known my father +well, and I am willing to believe that it was not easy for him to sit +in judgment upon that father's son. + +The trial was fair enough, as such things go. In the selection of the +jury, Whitredge made free use of his challenging privilege; but it +seemed to me that he always objected to the intelligent man and chose +the other kind. When our Anglo-Saxon ancestors fought for the right of +trial by jury, and got it, they passed down to us a sword with two +edges. Their idea, which was embodied in the common law, was that a +man should be tried by a jury of his peers. But the way things have +worked out, the man of average intelligence is apt to have to face a +dozen jurors who are chosen partly for their lack of intelligence, and +partly because their earning ability is so low that they are willing to +serve for the paltry wage of a juror, whatever it may be. + +So far as the presentation of the case went, the county attorney had it +all his own way. Certain of the bank's moneys were missing, and they +had been replaced by worthless mining stock. Specifically, the charge +was that I had been borrowing the bank's money and investing it in the +mining stock--all without authority from anybody higher up--and that at +the last I had grown panic-stricken, or something, and had turned the +stock in as part of the bank's assets. + +Chandler, the prosecuting attorney, called only two witnesses, Withers +and Fitch. They both testified that they had heard me admit that I was +guilty. There were no details given which could involve Agatha Geddis. +It was merely stated that my admission of guilt was made at Abel +Geddis's house, and both witnesses asserted that Geddis himself was not +present. + +Whitredge leaned over and whispered to me while this evidence was being +taken. + +"Chandler knows, and we all know, that this acknowledgment of yours was +made in a talk with Miss Geddis. We are all willing to spare her the +humiliation of being brought into court. But it is your perfect right +to have her called if you wish it." + +Knowing well enough by this time what I was in for, I was still foolish +enough, or besotted enough, to shake my head. "I don't wish it," I +said; and since this was practically telling Whitredge not to do so, he +did not cross-examine the two witnesses. + +When the prosecution rested, Whitredge took up his line of defense. He +tried to show, rather lamely, I thought, that I had always lived within +my means, hadn't been dissipated, and had never been known to bet, +either on horse races or on the stock market; that whatever I had done +had been done without criminal intent. In this part of the trial I had +a heart-warming surprise. The afternoon train from Glendale brought a +big bunch of young people, and a good sprinkling of older ones, all +eager to testify to my former good character. I saw then how unfair I +had been in the bitterness of that first day. The shock of my arrest +had simply dammed up the sympathy stream like a sudden frost; but now +the reaction had come and I was not without friends. That little +demonstration went with me though many a long and weary day afterward. + +Naturally, the greater part of this "character evidence" was thrown out +as irrelevant. The trial wasn't held for the purpose of ascertaining +what sort of a young man I had been in the past. It was supposed to be +an attempt to get at the facts in a particular case; and according to +the testimony of two uncontradicted witnesses, I had admitted these +facts. + +Chandler said nothing about my attempt to escape until he came to +address the jury. But then he drove the nail in good and hard. The +deputy sheriff, Simmons, bruised and beaten, was shown to the jurors, +and the prosecuting attorney made much of the fact that I had not +stopped at a possible murder in shutting Simmons up in the bank vault. +There was nothing said about the bribe to the other deputy who had +figured as the hack driver; from which I inferred that the Irishman had +pocketed my money and held his peace. + +Whitredge's summing-up was as lame in effect as it was rantingly +emotional. He liked to hear himself talk, and his stock in trade as a +criminal lawyer consisted mainly of perfervid appeals to the sympathies +of his juries. Here, he pleaded, with the tremolo stop pulled all the +way out, was a young man whose entire future would be blasted--and all +that sort of thing. It hadn't the slightest effect upon the group of +stolid hill farmers and laborers in the box who sat and yawned through +it, and I fancy it wasn't intended to have any. + +Good old Judge Haskins's charge to the jury was all that a fair and +upright judge could make it. He was no party to the agreement between +the attorneys to keep Agatha Geddis out of it, or even to any knowledge +of it, as he proved by pointing out to the jury the lack of detail in +Fitch's and Withers's testimony. Also, he cautioned the twelve not to +make too much of the attempted escape. He said--what most judges +wouldn't have said--that the attempt was entirely extraneous to the +charge upon which I had been arraigned; that it was not to be taken as +a presumption of guilt; that it proved nothing either way. He added +that an innocent man badly involved might be as easily terrified into +taking flight as a guilty one. If the jury, upon due deliberation, +should be convinced that I had misappropriated the bank's funds, the +verdict should be "Guilty"; but not otherwise. + +It was merely in conformity with time-honored custom that the jurymen +rose and left the box and filed out of the court-room, I am sure, for +they were back again in almost no time. Though I had every reason to +expect it, the low-voiced verdict of "Guilty as charged" struck me like +the blow of a fist. + +"Brace up and be a man!" Whitredge leaned over to whisper in my ear; +and then the good old judge, with his voice shaking a little, +pronounced my sentence. Five years was the minimum for the offense +with which I stood charged. But a law recently passed gave the judges +a new power. Within the nominal period of five years my sentence was +made indeterminate. The law was vindicated and I became a convict. + + + + +IV + +Scars + +I was twenty-five years old, almost to a day, when Judge Haskins +pronounced the words which were to make me for the next five years or +less--the period to be determined upon my good behavior--an inmate of the +State penitentiary. Lacking the needful good behavior, five long years +would be taken out of the best part of life for me, and what was worse (I +realized this even in the tumultuous storm of first-moment impressions +and emotions), my entire point of view was certain to be hopelessly +twisted and distorted for all the years that I might live beyond my +release. + +Surely little blame can attach to the confession that out of the tumult +came a hot-hearted and vindictive determination to live for a single +purpose; to work and strive and endure so that I might be the sooner free +to square my account with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. I need make no +secret now of the depth of this hatred. At times, when the obsession was +strongest upon me, the fear that one or both of them might die before my +chance should come was almost maddening. They were both old men, and in +the nature of things there was always a possibility that death might +forestall me. + +So it was this motive at first that made me jealous of my good-conduct +marks; made me study the prison regulations and live up to them with a +rigidity that knew no lapses. I am not defending the motive; I +cheerfully admit that it was unworthy. None the less, I owe it +something: it sustained me and kept me sane and cool-headed at a time +when, without some such stimulus, I might have lost my reason. + +Of the three succeeding years and what they brought or failed to bring +the least said will be, perhaps, the soonest mended. I am glad to be +able to write it down that my native State had, and still has, a fairly +enlightened prison system; or at least it is less brutalizing than many +others. During my period of incarceration the warden-in-office was an +upright and impartial man, just to his charges and even kindly and +fatherly when the circumstances would warrant. After my steady +determination to earn an early release became apparent, I was made a +"trusty," and for two of the three years I was the prison bookkeeper. + +Study as I might, I could never determine how the prison life affected my +associates; but for me it held few real hardships beyond the confinement, +the disgrace, and the fear that before I could outlive it I should become +a criminal in fact. Fight the idea as we may, environment, association, +and suggestion have a great deal to say to the human atom. I was treated +as a criminal, was believed to be a criminal, and mingled daily with +criminals. Put yourself in my place and try to imagine what it would +make of you in three changes of the calendar. + +During the three years I received but one letter from home, and wrote but +one. Almost as soon as my sentence period began I had a heart-broken +letter from my sister. She and my mother had returned from Canada, only +to find me dead and buried to the world. I answered the letter, begging +her not to write again, or to expect me to write. It seemed a refinement +of humiliation to have the home letters come addressed to me in a prison; +and besides, I was like the sick man who turns his face to the wall, +wishing neither to see nor to hear until the paroxysm has passed. I may +say here that both of these good women respected my wishes and my foolish +scruples. They wrote no more; and, what was still harder for my mother, +I think, they made no journeys half across the State on the prison +visiting days. + +It will be seen that I have cut the time down from the five-year limit +imposed by my sentence; and so it was cut down in reality. After I had +been promoted to the work in the prison offices my life settled into a +monotonous routine, with nothing eventful or disturbing to mark the +passing weeks and months; and by living strictly within the prison +requirements, working faithfully, and never once earning even a reprimand +from the kindly warden or his deputy, I was given the full benefit of my +"good time," and at the end of the third year, with a prison-provided +suit on my back and five dollars of the State's money in my pocket, I was +paroled. + +Though I have been its beneficiary and victim, and have been made to +suffer cruelly under its restrictions, I make here no arraignment of the +law which provides in some States--my own among the number--for the +indeterminate prison sentence. The reform was doubtless conceived in +mercy and a true spirit of sociological lenity toward the offender. But +in practice it may be so surrounded with safeguards and limitations, so +wrapped up in provisos and conditions, as to completely defeat its own +end and reverse its intent. + +Under the law as it stood--and still stands, I believe--in my own +commonwealth, I was required to remain in the State; to report, at least +once a month, by letter to the prison authorities, and in person to the +chief of police in any city in which I might be living; to retain my own +name; and to bind myself to tell a straightforward story of my conviction +and imprisonment at any time and to any one who should require it. The +omission to comply with any of these restrictions and requirements would +automatically cancel my parole and subject me to arrest and +re-imprisonment for the unexpired period of the original sentence. + +Again I ask you to put yourself in the place of a man paroled under such +conditions. With such handicaps, what possible chance can a released man +have to secure honest employment? Fortunately for me, I was still only +twenty-eight--young and hopeful; and I started out to do my best, saying +only that nothing should tempt me to go back to Glendale where, I was +told, my mother and sister were still living in retirement and under the +shadow of the family disgrace. + +Knowing that the released convict usually heads for the largest city he +can reach, thus obeying the common-sense instinct which prompts him to +lose himself quickly in a crowd, I planned to do the opposite thing. I +told myself that I was not a criminal, and therefore would not follow the +criminal's example. I would board an interurban trolley and expend a +portion of my five dollars in reaching some obscure town in a distant +part of the State, where I would begin the new life honestly and openly +in any employment that might offer. + +There was nobody to meet me as I forthfared from the prison gates, but I +was not expecting any one and so was not disappointed. None the less, on +my way to the central trolley station I had a half-confirmed conviction +that I was followed; that the follower had been behind me all the way +from the prison street. + +After making several fruitless attempts I finally succeeded in fixing +upon the particular person in the scattering sidewalk procession who made +all the turns that I made, keeping always a few paces in the rear. He +was a man of about my own age, round-faced and rather fleshy. In my +Glendale days I should have set him down at once as a traveling salesman. +He looked the part and dressed it. + +Farther along, upon reaching the interurban station, I was able to +breathe freer and to smile at the qualms of my new-liberty nervousness. +Just as I was parting with two of my five dollars for a ticket to the +chosen destination my man came up to the ticket window, followed by a +hotel porter carrying a grip and a sample case. I saw then how facilely +easy it was going to be to take fright at shadows. Evidently the young +man was a salesman, and his apparent pursuit of me had been merely a +coincidence in corner turnings. And in the recoil from the apprehensive +extreme I refused to attach any significance to the fact that he was +purchasing a ticket to the same distant town to which I had but now paid +my own passage. + +During the leisurely five-hour run across the State the object of my +suspicions--my foolish suspicions, I was now calling them--paid no +attention to me, so far as I could determine. Save for the few minutes +at noon when the interurban car stopped to permit its passengers to +snatch a hasty luncheon at a farm-town restaurant, he did not once leave +his place, which was two seats behind mine and on the opposite side of +the car. On the contrary, like a seasoned traveler, he made himself +comfortable behind the barricade of hand-baggage and wore out the entire +time with sundry newspapers and magazines. Moreover, at our common +destination he did not follow me to the one old-fashioned hotel; instead, +he led the way to it, and was buying a cigar at the little counter +show-case when I came up to bargain, with another of my precious dollars, +for the supper, lodging and breakfast which were to launch me upon the +new career. + +After this, I saw the fat-faced traveling man but twice, and both times +casually. At supper he had a small table to himself in one corner of the +room; and the following morning, when I went out to lay siege to my new +world, he was smoking in the hotel office and again buried in a +newspaper. Two hours later I had found employment driving a grocer's +delivery wagon, and in the triumph of having so soon found even this +humblest of footholds in a workaday world, I had completely forgotten him. + +Having thus made my cast for fortune and secured the foothold, it took me +less than a week to learn that I had made a capital mistake in choosing a +small town. Under that condition of my parole which required me to +report in my true character to the town marshal I assured myself that I +might as well have published my story in the county newspaper. Before +the end of the week half of my customers on the delivery route were +beginning to look askance at me, and when the Saturday night came I was +discharged. I knew perfectly well what was coming when the boss, a +big-bodied, good-natured man who had made his money as a farmer and was +now losing it as the town grocer, called me into his little box of an +office at the back of the shop. + +"Say, Weyburn; when I asked you where you had been working before you +came here, you didn't tell me the truth," was the way he began on me. + +"I told you I had worked in a bank in Glendale," I protested; "which was +and is the truth." + +"I know; but you didn't tell me that you'd put in the last three years in +the pen, and were out on parole." + +"No, I didn't tell you that. But I would have told you if you had asked +me." + +"I can't stand for it," he grumbled, chewing at the unlighted cigar which +was his Saturday night indulgence. "And if I could, the customers +wouldn't. I suppose as many as a dozen women have been to me in the last +few days. They say they can't afford to be watchin' the back door every +time you come 'round with the groceries. You see how it is." + +I saw; but I was still foolish enough to try to stem the pitiless tide. + +"Would it make any difference if I were to say that I was as innocent of +the crime for which I was convicted as any of these frightened women?" I +suggested. + +"They all say that," was the colorless retort. "The point is, Weyburn, +that you was convicted. There ain't no gettin' 'round that. You've worn +the stripes, and you'll just have to make up your mind to live it down +before you can expect people to forget it." + +If I hadn't been the wretched victim of this paradox it might have +provoked a smile. + +"How am I ever going to live it down, Mr. Bucks, if nobody will give me a +chance?" I asked. + +"I know," he agreed readily enough. "But I'm losin' money here, every +day, as it is, and I can't afford to make experiments. I'm sorry for +you, honestly, Weyburn; but you see how it is." + +"Yes, I see," I returned. "You think I ought to be given a chance, but +you prefer to have somebody else give it to me. I don't blame you. +Perhaps under similar conditions I'd do the same thing myself. Pay me +and I'll disappear." + +He did pay me, and tried to give me two dollars more than the agreed +weekly wage, generously putting it upon the ground of the lack of notice. +I shall always be glad that I still had pride enough left to refuse the +charity. Even at this early twisting of the thumb-screws I was beginning +to realize that self-respect would be the first thing to go by the board, +and the fight to save it was almost instinctive. + +Before leaving Bucks I tried to find out how he had learned my story; +this though I was definitely charging the exposure to the town marshal as +being the only person who could have spread it abroad. To my surprise, +the grocer defended the marshal promptly and warmly. + +"That shows how little you know Cal Giddings," he retorted. "He's the +last man on top of earth to go 'round givin' you a black eye of that +sort." + +"May I ask what reason you have for thinking so?" I inquired. + +"Sure you may. I've known Cal ever since we was little kids together. +I've seen him every day this week, and he knew you was workin' for me. +If he'd 'a' told anybody, it would 'a' been me; you can bet your hat on +that." + +"Then where did you hear the story?" I persisted. + +"Why, I dunno just where I did hear it first. Everybody in town seems to +know it," he asserted; and with this unsatisfying answer I was obliged to +be contented. + +The next attempt was made in a small industrial city on the opposite side +of the State. This time I went to the chief of police as soon as I +arrived, and after making the required report, I had it out with him in +plain speech. + +"I am going to try to get work here in your city," I said, "and I'd like +to know beforehand how much leeway you are going to give me." + +The portly thief-taker leaned back in his chair and regarded me with a +coldly appraisive eye. He was a coarse-featured man with a face that +would have fitted admirably in any rogues' gallery in the land. + +"You're in bad, young fellow," he growled. "We've got plenty and more +than enough of your kind in this town, without takin' on any more." + +"But I am keeping my parole," I pleaded. "I have come to you like a man +the first thing, and have made my report according to the conditions. +Somebody has got to give me a chance." + +"You'll earn it, damn' good and plenty, if you stay here to get it," was +the gruff response. "What kind of a job are you lookin' for?" + +It was hard to confide in such a man, even casually, but I had no choice. + +"I am willing to take anything I can get, but my experience has been +mostly in office work," I told him; adding: "I suppose I might call +myself a fairly expert bookkeeper." + +"Umph!" he grunted, shifting his cigar from one corner of the hard-bitted +mouth to the other. "That means that you want to try for a job where you +can work the till-tapping game again." + +Not having as yet learned my lesson line by line, I was incautious enough +to say: "I have yet to work it the first time." + +"Like hell you have! See here, young fellow--you needn't spring that +kind of talk on me. I know you and your kind up one side and down the +other. You say you've put three years in 'stir' and that settles it." +At this point he broke off short, righted his chair with a snap and +reached for a bill-spindle on his desk. After a glance at one of the +impaled memoranda he sat back again, chewing his cigar and staring into +vacancy. A full minute elapsed before he deigned to become once more +aware of my presence. Then he whirled upon me to rap out an explosive +question. + +"What did you say your name was?" and when I told him: "Aw right; you +come back here this afternoon and we'll see whether you stay or move on. +That's all. Now get out. I'm busy." + +I went away and killed time as I could until the middle of the afternoon. +Upon returning to police headquarters I found the hard-faced chief tilted +in his chair with his feet on his desk, looking as if he hadn't moved +since my visit of the forenoon. When he saw who it was cutting off the +afternoon sunlight he straightened up with a growl, rummaged in a file of +papers and jerked out a typewritten sheet which he glanced over as one +who reads only the headings. + +"James Bertrand Weyburn, eh?" he rasped. "I know all about you now, and +you may as well can all that didn't-do-it stuff. Forget it and come down +to business. You say you want to hit the straight-and-narrow: how would +a job in a coal yard fit you?--keepin' books and weighin'-in the coal +cars?" + +I told him, humbly enough, that I was too nearly a beggar to be a +chooser; that I'd be only too glad to get a chance at anything at which I +might earn a living. + +"Aw right," was the curt rejoinder. "You hike over to the Consolidated +Coal Company's yard on the West Side, and tell Mullins, the head +book-keeper, that I sent you, see? Tell him to call me on the 'phone if +he wants to know anything more about you. That's all. Pull your freight +out of here and get busy--if you don't want to get the 'move on' out of +this burg." + +Notwithstanding this crabbed speech, matching all the other things this +man had said to me, I left police headquarters with a warm spot in my +heart, thinking that I had lighted upon a diamond in the rough and hadn't +had discernment enough to recognize it. + +Yet there was a small mystery thrusting itself into this second interview +with the chief. What was the content of the typewritten sheet he had +consulted, and who had written it? If it had been a telegram I might +have concluded that he had wired the warden of the penitentiary for a +corroboration of my story. But it was not a telegram. + +I was still puzzling over the mystery half an hour later when I found the +coal yard and the bookkeeper, Mullins, a red-faced Irishman who winked +solemnly when I told him that Chief Callahan had sent me. + +"Know anything at all about the railroad end of the coal business?" was +the first inquiry shot at me; but it was not made until after the +book-keeper had shut himself into the telephone booth, presumably for a +wire talk with Callahan. + +I shook my head. "None of the details. But I can learn." + +"Maybe you can, and maybe you can't. We'll try you out on the railroad +desk, and Peters 'll show you what you don't know. Peel your coat and +jump in. Hours eight to six; pay, sixty dollars a month: more bimeby if +you're worth it." + +Robert Louis Stevenson's cheerful little opening verse: + + "Light foot and tight foot, + And green grass spread; + Early in the morning, + And hope is on ahead," + +was ringing in my ears when I squared myself at the railroad desk and +attacked the first big bunch of "flimsies," as the tissue copies of the +waybills are called. It was almost unbelievable that my luck had turned +so soon, and yet the fact seemed undeniable. I had a job to which I had +been recommended by the one man in the city who knew my record. No +questions had been asked, and the inference seemed to be that none were +going to be asked. + +I was all of a busy week getting a firm working hold upon the routine of +my desk, and during that time I didn't exchange a dozen words with +Mullins, who appeared to be the head and front of Consolidated Coal, +locally, at least, and whose word, in the office and about the yards, was +law. None the less, the little mystery connected with this easy finding +of a job in a strange city persisted, and it kept me from dwelling too +pointedly upon the object for which I meant to live and work; namely, the +squaring of accounts with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. + +Singularly enough, it took me, trained accountant as I was, a full month +to find out what I had been let in for, and why the job I was holding +down had been given to an ex-convict. It was my duty to check the +railroad waybills on consignments of coal, to correct the weights, and to +make claims for overcharges and shortages. I made these claims as I had +been told to make them, taking the figures of the weights from Peters, +who, in turn, took them from the scale men in the yard. It was Peters +who gave the snap away one night when we two were working overtime in the +otherwise deserted offices. + +"Say, Weyburn; you've got about the coldest nerve of any fellow I've ever +run up against," he said, looking up from his place across the +flat-topped desk. + +"What makes you say that, Tommy?" I asked. + +"Because it's so. I've been watching you. You've been sitting on the +lid for an even month, now, and never batting an eye when these railroad +fellows come at you and make their little roar about the overcharges. +Believe me, it takes nerve to do that--and carry it off as if you were +reading 'em a verse out o' the Bible. Blaisdell, the lad who was here +before you, went batty and talked in his sleep. Told me once he couldn't +see anything but stripes, any way he looked." + +"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, with a sudden sinking +of the heart. "Why should it take nerve to tell a railroad agent he's +been overcharging us?" + +Peters's laugh was a cackle. "You're the traffic man of this outfit: do +you know the rates on coal from the mines to Western Central common +points?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Got 'em all down in the printed tariff, so you can't help knowing 'em, +eh? Consolidated Coal pays these rates, doesn't it?--all according to +Hoyle and the Interstate Commerce laws?" + +"I suppose we pay them. I check the bills as they are presented." + +"Exactly. But every little so-while you have to make a whaling big claim +on the railroad company for overcharges, and maybe you've noticed that +these claims are always paid--or maybe you haven't?" + +I was beginning to see the hole in the millstone. + +"I make the claims on the weights as you give them to me, Peters. Do you +mean to tell me that you've been giving me false figures?" + +The yard clerk stuck his tongue in his cheek. "I'm not telling you +anything. You know as well as I do that it's against the law to give or +receive rebates. But if you're not a heap greener than you look, you +know that we're getting our cut rates, just the same. All we need is a +man right here at your desk who has the nerve to make out the claims, and +is fly enough to do a little bluffing and ask no questions. You're all +right, Bertie." + +"But the figures of the weights," I insisted. "You are the man who gives +them to me, and you are responsible if they are wrong." + +"Not in a thousand years!" was the prompt retort. "I never put anything +on paper--you're the man that does that--and if the Interstate Commerce +people should break in, I'd have the best little forgettery of any +clock-watcher in the works. Nix for me, Weyburn; you are the chap with +the figures, and the only man in the shop who has them down in black on +white. When the roar comes, it'll be up to you, and Mullins will throw +up his hands and accuse you of having a private graft of some sort with +the railroad clerks in the claim office. That's about what he'll do." + +My overtime companion had finished his job and was putting on his coat. +I let him go without further talk, but after he had gone, I stayed long +enough to check over the files of the yard-master's blotter. When the +checking was completed I knew perfectly well why I had been hired so +promptly, and why Mullins had been willing to take on an ex-convict. My +basing figures, which Peters had been giving me verbally, were all wrong. +The majority of the claims I had been making from day to day were +fraudulent, and in paying them the railroad company was merely rebating +the coal rates for Consolidated Coal. + +It was easy to see where I stood. A scapegoat was necessary, and with a +prison record behind me I had about as much show as a rat in a trap. If +there should be an investigation, Mullins would swear that I had entire +charge of the claim department. And having no written data to fall back +upon, I should be helpless. + +The date of this disheartening discovery chanced to be the 25th of the +month--our regular pay-day, and I had my month's salary in my pocket when +I left the office about eleven o'clock to go to my boarding-house. At +the nearest street corner I met the patrolman on the beat. + +"Hello, cully!" he growled as I was passing him; and then with a hand on +my arm he stopped me. "You're forgettin' somethin', ain't you?" + +"I guess not," I answered. + +"I guess yes," he retorted. "It's pay-day at the works, and you gotta +come across." + +Here was the remainder of the conspiracy made plain as day. The crooked +chief of police had turned me over to the crooked coal company to do +crooked work, and I was to be held up for a graft on my salary. With a +swift return of the blood-boiling which had once helped me to manhandle +the deputy, Simmons, I faced the patrolman. + +"And if I don't come across--what then?" + +The policeman grinned good-naturedly. "You're goin' to 'produce' all +right. You're a paroled man, and you can't afford to have the chief get +it in for you." + +It was just here that the three nerve-breaking years got in their work. +I couldn't face the grafter down, and--I confess it with shame--I was +horribly afraid. + +"How much?" I asked, and my tongue was dry in my mouth. + +"This is the first mont', and we'll let you down easy. You fork over a +ten-spot for the campaign fund and we'll call it square. Next mont' +it'll be more." + +I paid the blackmail with trembling hands, and when the patrolman was out +of sight around the corner I ran to reach my boarding place, intent only +upon flight, instant and secret, from this moral cesspool of a city. I +remembered that there was a westbound train passing through at midnight, +and by hurrying I hoped to be able to catch it. + + + + +V + +The Downward Path + +I had left the board money and a note for my landlady on the mantel in +the darkened dining-room, had reached the railroad station, and was +about to buy a ticket to the farthest corner of the State, when I +suddenly remembered that I was running away with an additional handicap +to be added to all the others. Leaving the coal company and the city +without notice or explanation, I was making it impossible to keep my +record clear in the monthly report to the prison authorities. + +With a sinking heart I realized that I must wait and fight it out with +Mullins to some sort of a conclusion which would give me a clean slate. +There must be nothing that I could not explain clearly to any one who +might ask. I had a job, and I must be able to give my reason for +quitting it. With this new entanglement to put leaden shoes on my +feet, I retraced my steps through the eight weary blocks to the +boarding-house, dodging through back streets and walking because I +hadn't the nerve to face the cheerful throng of theater-goers at that +hour crowding the street-cars. + +I think Mullins knew or suspected what was coming when I went to him +the next morning and told him I wished to have a talk with him. +Without a word he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the little +private office which was used at odd times by the district manager. + +"I'm quitting this morning, Mr. Mullins," I began, when the door was +shut. "If my work has been satisfactory, I should like to have a +letter of recommendation." + +The bookkeeper smoked a corn-cob pipe, and he stopped to refill and +light it before he opened on me. + +"What's wrong?" he demanded. For an Irishman he was always exceedingly +sparing of his words. + +"Suppose we say that the climate doesn't agree with me here." + +"You're no sick man!" he shot back; and then: "Want more pay?" + +"No; I want a letter of recommendation." + +"We never give 'em." + +"So I have heard. But this time, Mr. Mullins, you are going to make an +exception and break your rule." + +"Not for you, we won't." + +"Why not for me?" + +"Because we're knowing your record. You're fixing to go back to the +pen, where you came from." + +"You knew my record when you hired me. Chief Callahan gave it to you, +and I knew that he did. But that is neither here nor there; I want my +letter, and I want you to say in it that I am leaving to look for a +more favorable climate." + +"And if I don't give it to you?--if I tell you to go straight plumb to +hell?" + +"In that case I shall take all the chances--_all_ of them, mind +you---and write a letter to the Interstate Commerce Commission." + +If the man had had a gun in his hands I believe he would have killed +me. There was manslaughter in his little gray, pig-like eyes. But he +recovered himself quickly. + +"If you're that kind of a gink, I'm damned glad to get rid of you at +any price," he rasped; and then went to the district manager's desk and +wrote me the letter, "To Whom it may Concern," practically as I +dictated it. + +That ended it, and when the letter was signed and flung across the desk +at me I lost no time in getting out of the noxious atmosphere of the +place. But before I was well out of the yard it occurred to me that I +had still left a loaded weapon in Mullins's hands. Though the threat +of exposure might tie him and his grafting coal company up, he could +still appeal to Callahan, who would doubtless find an excuse for +arresting me before I could leave town. And once in the hands of the +chief crook I should be lost. + +Under the spur of this new menace I returned quickly to the coal +office, with some inchoate idea of trying to bully the scoundrelly +chief of police through the hold I had acquired upon the coal company. +The office was empty when I reached it, and at first I thought Mullins +had gone out. But at a second glance I saw that he was in the +telephone closet, the door of which he had left ajar. Overhearing my +own name barked into the transmitter, I listened without scruple. + +"----Yes, Weyburn; that's what I'm telling you. He's flew the +coop. . . . Yes, he knows something--too damned much. . . . No, I +wouldn't snag him here; he might talk too loud and get somebody to +believe him--some fool in a Federal grand jury, for instance. Let him +go--with a plain-clothes man to find out where he heads for--and then +wire that outfit that piped him off when he came here. That'll settle +him." + +There may have been more of it, but I did not wait to hear. Speed was +my best chance now, and I slipped out noiselessly and ran for the +railroad station. If I should be lucky enough to find a train ready to +leave, I might yet hope to escape whatever trap it might be that the +bookkeeper and his official accomplice were going to set for me. + +Reaching the station I found that the first train through would be a +westbound, and that it was not due for half an hour. The wait was +painfully trying. I did not dare to buy a ticket for fear Callahan +might have telephoned the ticket office. As the passengers for the +expected train straggled in I sought vainly to identify the spy who was +undoubtedly among them; and when the train thundered up to the platform +I made haste to board it and to lose myself quickly in the crowded +smoking-car. Later, when the conductor made his round, I paid a cash +fare to the end of the division, forbearing to draw a full breath of +relief until the cesspool city had faded to a smoky blur on the horizon. + +With time to think, I began to puzzle anxiously over the new +development of mystery opened up by the overheard telephone talk. Who +or what was the "outfit" that had been meddling in my sorry +affair?--that was to be wired when my new destination should be +ascertained? One by one the suspicious circumstances remarshaled +themselves; the feeling that I had been spied upon, the speedy +publicity which my story had attained in the town where I had made my +earliest attempt at wage-earning, the memorandum which Chief Callahan +had consulted before sending me to the crooked coal company. It seemed +singular to me afterward that the one answer to all of these small +mysteries should not have suggested itself at once. But it did not. + +The end of the conductor's run--the point which I had paid fare--came +at midday at the capital of the State, where there was a stop long +enough to enable the train's people--or those who chose to evade the +dining-car--to seek a lunch counter. I went with the others and had a +frugal sandwich and a cup of coffee, hastening afterward to the station +ticket office to buy a ticket to a town well over toward the western +boundary of my prison State, and chosen haphazard from its location on +the wall-map beside the ticket window. A little later, upon resuming +my seat in the train, I had a small shock. Sitting just across the +aisle, and once more barricaded behind his hand-baggage and buried in a +newspaper, was the round-faced salesman who had been my traveling +companion on the day of my release from prison. + +Naturally, all the suspicions I had been harboring for the past few +hours leaped alive again at the sight of this man. But at the second +train stop in the westward flight they were promptly disconnected from +my _vis-à-vis_ across the aisle when the salesman gathered his +belongings and disappeared; left the train--as I made sure by looking +out of the window and seeing him cross the station platform. In the +short run from the capital he had not so much as looked in my +direction, emerging from his newspaper only once for a word with the +conductor at the moment of ticket-collecting. + +After he was gone I was able to smile grimly and call it a coincidence, +wondering meanwhile, if one of the consequences of my hideously +disarranged life was to be a lapse into chittering cowardice; an +endless starting aside at shadows. + +The new field of endeavor, chosen blindly at the ticket window in the +capital, proved to be a small manufacturing city. Here the chief of +police, to whom I reported on the evening of my arrival, was of a type +exactly opposite to the grafting brute from whose jurisdiction I had +fled; a promoted town-marshal, like John Runnels of Glendale; a +shrewd-eyed, kindly old man who heard my story patiently and gave me a +word of encouragement that was like a draft of cold water in the desert. + +"You're goin' to get a square deal in this town, my boy," he said, +after I had enlarged upon my story sufficiently to make it include my +late experience with Callahan and Mullins. "It ain't any part of my +job to bruise the broken reed n'r quench the smokin' flax. You don't +look like a thief, and, anyways, if you're tryin' to make an honest +livin', that settles all the old scores--or it ort to. Go find you a +job, if you can. What you've told me stays right in here"--tapping his +broad chest--"leastwise, it won't be used against you as long as you +walk straight." + +Under such kindly auspices it did seem as if I ought to be able to dig +a quiet little rifle-pit in the field of respectability and good repute +and to hold it against all comers. But, oddly enough, I couldn't do +it--not to save my life. My experience had all been in office work, +and since business was good in the small city, I had little difficulty +in finding employment. Yet in each case--and there were five of them, +one after another--I secured work only to lose it almost immediately. +By some means my story had got out, and it spread through the town like +an epidemic. After the fifth failure I went back to the fatherly old +chief of police to confess defeat and to notify him that I was leaving +town. + +In this interview he made me tell him more about my trial and +conviction, and when I finished he was shaking his head. "There's +something sort o' queer about this pull-down of yours, Weyburn," he +commented. "I gave you my word not to talk unless you went back on me, +and I've kept it. You hain't told anybody else?" + +"Not a soul." + +"Still, it's been told--not once, but a heap o' times. Have you tried +chasin' it back to its startin' point?" + +"Yes; but it is no good. It seems to be in the air." + +"Well, it's a dum shame. It looks as if you had somebody houndin' you +out o' sheer spite. Is there anybody back behind that would do that?" + +I suppose I was bat-blind; but the suggestion, even when it was added +to the mysterious entanglements that were tripping me at every step, +failed to open my eyes. Truly, Abel Geddis and Abner Withers had used +me ruthlessly as their criminal stop-gap, but since I had paid the +penalty and still bore the criminal odium, I could postulate no +possible reason why they should reach out across the three-year +interval to add cruel persecution to injury. + +"No," I said, after a reflective pause. "There are only the two old +men I have named. And now that it is all over, I can see that they +were only shoving me into the breach to save themselves." + +He nodded, half-doubtfully, I thought; and then: "You're goin' to try +again somewheres else?" + +I replied that there was nothing else to do; whereupon this +white-haired old angel, who seemed so vastly out of place as the head +of even a small city's police department, made an astounding proposal. + +"Get your bit of dunnage--I s'pose you hain't got very much, have +you?--and come around here about dark this evenin'. I'll have my buggy +ready and we'll drive over to Altamont, so you can take the train there +instead of here. If there's anybody follerin' you up and blacklistin' +you, maybe that'll throw 'em off the track." + +It was a splendid bit of kindness; and when I could swallow the lump it +brought into my throat I accepted joyfully. And as the disappearance +was planned, so it was carried out. In the dusk of the evening the +good old man drove me the ten miles across to the neighboring village, +and after thanking him out of a full heart I boarded a train and began +my wanderings afresh. + + + + +VI + +A Good Samaritan + +After such a disheartening experience in a community where I had had +the help and countenance of a just and charitable head of the police +department, I went back to the smaller places. Merely because it +seemed foolish to take the time to learn a new trade when I already had +one, I still sought office work. There was little difficulty in +finding such employment--at humble wages; the unattainable thing was +the keeping of it. Though I could never succeed in running it down and +bringing it to bay, a pitiless Nemesis seemed to dog me from town to +town. Gossiping marshals there may have been, now and then, to spread +my story; but I had twice been given proof that another agency must be +at work--a mysterious persecution that I could neither fight nor +outwit, nor account for upon any reasonable hypothesis. + +So the hopeless and one-sided battle went on as I fled from post to +pillar up and down and back and forth in the "permitted" area, doing a +bit of extra bookkeeping here and another there. The result was always +the same. Work of that kind necessarily carried more or less +responsibility, and in consequence I was never retained more than a few +days at a time. + +It was borne in upon me more and more that I must sink lower, into some +walk in life in which no questions were asked. This conviction +impressed itself upon me with greater emphasis at each succeeding +failure, and the decision to drop into the ranks of the unidentified +was finally reached in a small city in the agricultural section of the +State where I had been employed for a few days in a hardware and +implement store as shipping clerk. Once more I was discharged, +peremptorily, and with a reproachful reprimand for having thrust +myself, unplacarded, upon well-behaved people. + +"I don't admit your right to say such things to me, Mr. Haddon," I +protested, after the reproach had been well rubbed in. "I have given +you good service for small pay, and there was no reason why I should +have furnished you with an autobiography when you didn't ask it. In +the circumstances it seems that I am the one to be aggrieved, but I'll +waive the right to defend myself if you'll tell me where you got your +information." + +The implement dealer was a thin, ascetic person, with cold gray eyes +and two distinct sets of manners; one for his customers and another for +his employees; and the look he gave me was meant to be withering. + +"I don't recognize your right to question me, at all," he objected, +with the air of one who brushes an annoying insect from his +coat-sleeve. "It is enough to say that my source of information is +entirely reliable. By your own act you have placed yourself outside of +the pale. If you break a natural law, Nature exacts the just penalty. +It is the same in the moral field." + +"But if any penalty were due from me I have paid it," I retorted. + +"No; you have paid only a part of it--the law's part. Society still +has its claims and they must be met; recognized and satisfied to the +final jot and tittle." + +Though this man was a church member, and a rather prominent one in +Springville--we may call the small city Springville because that isn't +its real name--I did not accuse him, even mentally, of conscious +hypocrisy. What I said, upon leaving him, was that I hoped he'd never +have to pay any of the penalties himself. I did not know then--what I +learned later--that he was a very whited sepulchre; a man who was +growing rich by a systematic process of robbing his farmer customers on +time sales. + +Turned out once again upon an unsympathetic world, I was minded to do +what I had done so many times before--take the first train and vanish. +But a small incident delayed the vanishing--for the moment, at least. +On the way to the railroad station I saw a sight, commoner at that time +in my native State than it is now, I am glad to be able to say; a +young, farmer-looking fellow overcome by liquor, reeling and stumbling +and finding the sidewalk far too narrow. He was coming toward me, and +I yielded to the impulse which prompts most of us at such times; the +disposition to give the inebriate all the room he wants--to pass by, +like the priest and the Levite, on the other side. + +Just as I was stepping into the roadway, the drunken man collided +heavily with a telephone pole, caught clumsily at it to save himself, +and fell, striking his head on the curbstone and rolling into the +gutter. It was a case for the Good Samaritan, and, as it happened, +that time-honored personage was at hand. Before I could edge away, as +I confess I was trying to do, a clean-cut young man in the fatigue +uniform of the Church militant came striding across the street. + +"Here, you!" he snapped briskly to me. "Don't turn your back that way +on a man needing help! That fellow's hurt!" + +We got the pole-bombarder up, between us, and truly he was hurt. There +was a cut over one eye where he had butted into one of the +climbing-steps on the pole, and either that, or the knock on the +curbstone, had made him take the count. Since Springville wasn't +citified enough to have a hospital or an ambulance, I supposed we would +carry the wounded man to the nearest drug store. But my Good Samaritan +wasn't built that way. Hastily commandeering a passing dray, he made +me help him load the unconscious man into it, and the three of us were +trundled swiftly through a couple of cross streets to a--to a church, I +was going to say, but it was to a small house beside the church. + +Here, with the help of the driver, we got the John Barleycorn victim +into the house and spread him out on a clean white bed, muddy boots, +sodden clothes, bloody head and all. I asked if I should go for a +doctor, but the Samaritan shook his head. "No," he said; "you and I +can do all that is necessary." Then he paid the dray driver and we +fell to work. + +It was worth something to see that handsome, well-built young +theologue--it didn't seem as if he could have been more than a boy +freshly out of the seminary--strip off his coat and roll up his sleeves +and go to it like a veteran surgeon. In a few minutes, with such help +as I could render, he had the cut cleaned and bandaged, the red face +sponged off, and the worst of the street dirt brushed from the man's +clothing. + +"That is about all we can do--until he gets over the double effects of +the hurt and the whiskey," he said, when the job was finished; and +then, with a sort of search-warrant look at me: "Are you very busy?" + +I told him I was not. + +"All right; you stay here with him and keep an eye on him while I go +and find out who he is and where he belongs." And with that he put on +his coat and left the house. + +He was gone for over an hour, and during that time I sat by the bed, +keeping watch over the patient and letting my thoughts wander as they +would. Here was a little exhibition of a spirit which had been +conspicuously absent in my later experiences of the world and its +peopling. Apparently the milk of human kindness had not become +entirely a figure of speech. One man, at least, was trying to live up +to the requirements of a nominally Christian civilization, and if this +bit of rescue work were a fair sample, he was making a success of it. + +I took it for granted that he was the minister of the next-door church, +and that the house was its parsonage or rectory. It was a simple +story-and-a-half cottage, plainly furnished but exquisitely neat and +home-like. There were books everywhere, and an atmosphere about as +much of the place as I could see to make me decide that it was a man's +house--I mean that the young minister wasn't as yet sharing it with a +woman. You can tell pretty well. A woman's touch about a house +interior is as easily distinguishable as the stars on a clear night. + +From my place at the bedside I could look through an open door into the +sitting-room. There were easy-chairs and a writing-table and a general +air of man-comfort. Among the pictures on the walls was one of a +stately group of college buildings; another was a class picture taken +with a church, or perhaps it was the college chapel, for a background. + +When the hour was about up, the man on the bed began to stir and show +signs that he was coming out of the unconscious fit. Pretty soon he +opened his eyes and asked, in a liquor-thickened voice, where he was. +I told him he had had an accident and was in the hands of his friends; +and at that he dropped off to sleep, and was still sleeping when a farm +wagon stopped at the cottage gate and the Good Samaritan came in. His +search had been successful. Our broken-winged bird was a young farmer +living a few miles out of town. The young minister had found his team, +and a friend to drive it, and both friend and team were at the gate +ready to take the battered one home. + +With the help of the volunteer driver we got the young farmer up and +out and into the wagon; and there the Samaritan outreaching ended--or I +supposed it was ended. But as a matter of fact, it was merely +transferring itself to me. As I was moving off to resume my +interrupted dash for the railroad station, Whitley--I read his name on +the notice board of the near-by church--stopped me. + +"What's your hurry?" he asked; adding: "I haven't had time to get +acquainted with you yet." + +I answered briefly that I was leaving town, and this brought the +questioner's watch out of his pocket. + +"There is no train in either direction before nine o'clock this +evening," he demurred. And then: "It is nearly six now: if you haven't +anything better to do, why not stay and take dinner with me? I'm a +lone bachelor-man, and I'd be mighty glad of your company." + +The wagon had driven off and the street was empty. I looked my +potential host squarely in the eyes and said the first thing that came +uppermost. + +"I have just been discharged from Mr. Haddon's store--for what Mr. +Haddon considers to be good and sufficient cause. I don't believe you +want me at your dinner-table." + +His smile was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot summer day. + +"I don't care what Mr. Haddon has said or done to you. If you can't +give any better reason than that----" + +"But I can," I interposed. "I am a paroled convict." + +Without another word he opened the gate and drew me inside with an arm +linked in mine. And he didn't speak again until he had planted me in +the easiest of the big chairs before the grate fire in the cozy +sitting-room, and had found a couple of pipes, filling one for me and +the other for himself. + +"Now, then, tell me all about it," he commanded, "You are having plenty +of trouble; your face says that much. Begin back a bit and let it lead +up to Mr. Zadoc Haddon as a climax, if you wish." + +It had been so long since I had had a chance really to confide in +anybody that I unloaded it all; the whole bitter burden of it. Whitley +heard me through patiently, and when I was done, put his finger on the +single omission in the story. + +"You haven't told me whether you did or did not use the bank's money +for your own account in the mining speculation," he said. + +I shook my head. "I have learned by hard experience not to say much +about that part of it." + +"Why?" he asked. + +"If you knew convicts you wouldn't ask. They will all tell you that +they were innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced." + +He smoked in silence for a minute or two and then said: "You are not a +criminal, Weyburn." + +"I am not far from it at the present time--whatever I was in the +beginning." + +Another silence, and then: "It seems incredible to me that you, or any +man in your situation, should find the world so hard-hearted. It isn't +hard-hearted as a whole, you know; on the contrary, it is kind and +helpful and charitable to a degree that you'd never suspect until you +appeal to it. I know, because I am appealing to it every day." + +Again I shook my head. + +"It draws a line in its charity; and the ex-convict is on the wrong +side of that line." I was going on to say more, but at that moment a +white-haired old negro in a spotless serving jacket came to the door to +say that dinner was ready, and we went together to the tiny dining-room +in the rear. + +At dinner, which was the most appetizing meal I had sat down to in many +a long day, Whitley told me more about himself, sparing me, as I made +sure, the necessity of further talk about my own wretched experiences. +He was Southern born and bred--which accounted for the old negro +serving man--and Springville was his first parish north of the Ohio +River. He was enthusiastic over his work, and he seemed to forget +completely who and what I was as he talked of it. + +Later, when we had come again to the sitting-room with its cheerful +fire, we talked of books, finding common ground in the field of +autobiography and travel. Whitley's reading in this field had been +much wider than mine, and his knowledge of far countries and the men +who wrote about them was a revelation to such a dabbler as I had been. +Book after book was taken from the shelves and dipped into, and before +I realized it the evening--so different from any I had enjoyed for +months and years--had slipped away and the little clock on the mantel +was chiming the half-hour after eight. It was time for me to efface +myself, and I said so--a bit unsteadily, perhaps, for the pleasant +evening had been as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. + +"No," said Whitley, quite definitely. "You are not going to-night. I +have a spare bed upstairs and I want you to stay--as my guest. Beyond +that, you are not going to leave Springville merely because Mr. Haddon +has seen fit to deny you your little meed of justice and a fair show." + +"It's no use," I said. "The story is out, and it will follow me +wherever I go--doubtless with Mr. Haddon's help. You'd best let me go +while the going is easy." + +"No," he Insisted. "You are a part of my work--one of my reasons for +existence. Christianity means something, Weyburn, and I am here to +define its meaning in specific cases. There is a little legacy of +common justice due you, and I shall take it upon myself to see that you +get it. As for Zadoc Haddon, you needn't worry about him. I am +ashamed to say that he is a member of my own church, but that doesn't +prevent him from being a wolf in sheep's clothing. I have told him so +to his face, and he has tried to get me ousted--without success, so +far." + +I saw difficulties and more difficulties for this generous young fellow +who was so ready to champion my cause, and it seemed only decent to +spare him if I could. But at the end of my protest he summed the +situation up in a single sentence: + +"What you say about me is all beside the mark; somebody has got to give +you the chance you are needing, and the fight may just as well be made +here in Springville as anywhere. Sit down again and let's dig a little +deeper into that Mexican book of Enock's. I do like his blunt English +way of describing things; don't you?" + +Though the next three days were full of hopes and despairings for me I +shall pass over them lightly. Each day, though he did not tell me in +detail what he was doing, I knew that Whitley was trying his best to +find a place for me; and I knew, too, that he was meeting with no +success. He was such a fine, upstanding fellow, and so full of holy +zeal and enthusiasm, that it was hard for him to acknowledge defeat. +But on the third evening, after a dinner at which he had tried vainly +to bridge the gaps that were continually opening out in the talk, he +threw up his hands. + +"Weyburn," he began, when the pipes were lighted and he had poked the +grate fire into a roaring blaze, "don't you know, these last three days +have come mighty near to making me lose faith in my kind. It's simply +wretched--miserable!" + +"I would have saved you if you had been willing to let me," I reminded +him. + +"The question is much bigger than Bert Weyburn or John Whitley, or both +of them put together," he asserted soberly. "It involves the entire +fabric of Christianity, and our so-called Christian civilization. The +Church is here to shadow forth the spirit and teachings of Christ, or +it isn't--one of the two. If it falls in its mission it is a hollow +mockery; a thing beneath contempt. I go to my fellow Christians with a +simple plea for justice for a man who needs it, and what do I get? I +am told, with all the sickening variations, that it won't do; that the +thing I am proposing is one of the things that 'isn't done'; that +society must be protected, and all that!" + +"The mills of the gods," I suggested. + +"Nothing of the sort! It's a radical defect in the existing scheme of +things. Heavens and earth, Weyburn, you are not a pariah! Assuming +that you really did the thing for which you were punished--and I don't +believe you did--is that any reason why we should stultify ourselves +absolutely and deny the very first principles of the religion we +profess? But I mustn't be unfair. Perhaps the fault is partly mine, +after all. Perhaps I haven't done my duty by these people." + +"No; the fault is not yours," I hastened to say. + +"I'm hoping it is; some of it, at least. Just the same, the wretched +fact remains. You might be the biggest villain unhung--if only you +hadn't passed through the courts and the penitentiary. As you thought +probably was the case, your story is known all over town; though how it +has got such a wide publication in so short a time is more than I can +fathom. Men whom I would bank on; men to whom I have felt that I could +go in any conceivable extremity, have turned me down as soon as I +mentioned your name. The prison story is like a big, brutal, inanimate +mountain standing squarely in the way; and I--I haven't the faith +needful for its removal!" + +Being under the deepest obligation to this dear young fellow who was +bruising himself for me, I said what I could to lighten his burden. +But in the midst of it he got up and reached for his hat and overcoat. + +"I have just thought of something," he explained hastily; "something +that may throw a good bit of light on this thing. You sit right here +and toast your shins. I'm going out for a little while." + +He was gone for the better part of an hour, during which interval I +obeyed his injunction literally, sitting before the fire and basking in +its home-like warmth; making the most of the comfort of it all before I +should again go forth to face an inclement world. When Whitley came in +and flung himself into a chair on the opposite side of the hearth his +dark eyes were blazing. + +"Weyburn," he began abruptly, "what I have to tell you will stir every +evil passion you've ever harbored; and yet, in decent justice to you, +it must be told. Have you ever suspected that your fight for +reinstatement has been deliberately handicapped, right from the +beginning?" + +"I have suspected it at times; yes," I returned. "But there is no +proof." + +"There _is_ proof," he shot back. "By the merest chance I stumbled +upon it a few minutes ago. I went out with the intention of going to +Zadoc Haddon and making him tell me where he got the information that +you are the desperate criminal he professes to believe you to be. +While we were sitting here it struck me all at once that this thing was +being helped along by some one who had an object in view. At Haddon's +house the doorman told me that Haddon had an appointment with an +out-of-town customer and had gone to the hotel to keep it; and rather +than wait, I went over to the Hamilton House to try to find my man. I +didn't find him; but in the lobby of the hotel somebody found me. As I +was turning away from the desk after asking for Haddon, a heavy-set +young man, neatly dressed, stepped up and asked if my name was Whitley. +I admitted it. Then he asked if I would give him a few minutes, and we +went aside to sit facing each other in a couple of the lobby chairs. +Weyburn, that young man is in the employ of a private detective agency, +and what he wished to do, and did do, was to warn me that I was +sheltering a dangerous criminal in my house!" + +In a flash all the small mysteries that had been befogging me for +months made themselves transparently clear: the man I had called a +traveling salesman who had followed me from the prison gates to the +scene of my first humble effort; the memorandum Chief Callahan had +consulted; the "outfit" that was to be notified when my next +destination was known; the second appearance of the "salesman" on the +train at the capital, and his disappearance when he had learned from +the conductor the name of my next stopping-place; and after this the +long series of hitherto unaccountable blacklistings. My mouth was dry, +but I contrived to tell Whitley to go on. + +"I will," he conceded; "but you must promise me to control yourself. +Naturally, my first impulse, when this scamp began on me, was to cut +him off short and tell him what I thought of the despicable business to +which he was lending himself. But the second thought was craftier, and +I hope I may be forgiven for yielding to it. By leading him on I got +the entire brutal story. It seems that the two old men upon whose +complaint you were indicted knew when you were to be paroled. They +profess to believe that you are a menace to society; that the prison +authorities were at fault in releasing you short of the limit of your +sentence. Hence, through his employers, they have set this man upon +your track to see to it--I use his own words--that you do not have an +opportunity to rob some one else." + +I suppose I should have been driven mad with vindictive fury at this +plain revelation of the true cause of most of my misfortunes, but there +is a point beyond which the beaten man cannot rise to renew the fight, +and I had reached and passed it. Wherefore I found myself saying, +quite calmly: + +"Neither Abel Geddis nor Abner Withers would spend one copper penny for +any such altruistic reason as this man has given you, Whitley. Their +motive is strictly selfish and personal. They are either afraid that I +may go back to Glendale and try to expose them; or that I may take the +shorter and surer way of balancing the account by killing them--as, at +one time, I meant to." + +"Oh, but my dear fellow!" Whitley protested. "In that case they would +hardly take a course which was calculated to drive you to desperation!" + +"You don't understand it all," I rejoined. "Everything has been done +secretly, and it is only by the merest chance that I have now learned +the truth. This man you have been talking to has been following me, or +keeping track of me, ever since I left the penitentiary. I have seen +him twice, and I took him to be a traveling salesman--as he doubtless +intended I should. You can see how it was designed to work out. With +a sufficient amount of discouragement it was reasonable to assume that +the prison bird would finally yield to the inevitable; become a +criminal in fact and get himself locked up again out of harm's way." + +"You think that was the motive?" + +"I am as certain of it as I should be if I could read the minds of +those two old plotters in my home town. You see, I've summered and +wintered them. The only thing I can't understand is why I have been so +blind; why I didn't assume all this long ago and act accordingly." + +"But why, _why_ should they be so utterly lost to every sense of right +and justice; to all the promptings of common humanity? It's hideously +incredible!" + +"I have given you two reasons, and you may take your choice. It is +either the fear of death--the fear of the vengeance of a man whose life +they have ruined, or else the transaction in which they involved me, +and in which they made me their scapegoat, was more far-reaching than +I, or anybody in Glendale, supposed it was." + +Whitley sat for a full minute staring absently into the fire. Then he +said, very gently: "Now that you know the truth, what will you do?" + +"I know well enough what I ought to do. We may pass over the fellow at +the Hamilton House; he is only a poor tool in the hands of the master +workmen. I bear him no malice of the blood-letting sort. But really, +Whitley, I ought to go back to Glendale and rid the earth of those two +old villains who have earned their blotting-out." + +Again there was a pause, and then: "Well, why don't you do it?" + +I laughed rather bitterly. + +"Because all the fight has been taken out of me, Whitley. That is the +reason and the only reason." + +His smile was beatific. "No, it isn't," he denied. "You know you +couldn't do it; you couldn't bring yourself to do it. Maybe, in the +heat of passion . . . but to go deliberately: no, Weyburn; if you think +you could do such a thing as that, I can tell you that I know you +better than you know yourself." + +"I merely said that that was what I ought to do. I know well enough +that I shan't do it, but the reason is far beneath that which you are +good enough to hint at. I'm a broken man, Whitley; what I have gone +through in the past few months has smashed my nerve. You can't +understand that--I don't expect you to. But if I should meet those two +old men when I leave this house, I should probably run away from them +and try to hide." + +"But what _will_ you do?" he queried. + +"What can I do, more than I've been doing?" + +Again a silence intervened. + +"I wish I knew how to advise you," Whitley said at length. "If there +were only some way in which you might shake off this wretched hired +spy!" + +"I can't. If I dodge him, he has only to wait until I report myself +again to the prison authorities. The one thing I can do is to relieve +you of my threatening presence, and I'll do that now--to-night, while +the going is good." + +He was at the end of his resources, as I knew he must be, and he made +no objections. But at train-time he got up and put on his overcoat to +accompany me as far as the station. It was a rough night outside, and +I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn't have it that way. "No," he +said; "it's my privilege to speed the parting guest, if I can do no +more than that," and so we breasted the spitting snow-storm which was +sweeping the empty streets, tramping in silence until we reached the +shelter of the train-shed. + +It was after the train had whistled for the crossing below the town +that Whitley asked me again what I intended doing. I answered him +frankly because it was his due. + +"It has come down to one of two things: day-labor, in a field where a +man is merely a number on the pay-roll--or that other road which is +always open to the prison-bird." + +He put his hand on my shoulder. "You are not going to take the other +road, Weyburn," he said gravely. + +"I hope not--I hope I shan't be driven to." + +"You mustn't make it conditional. I know you are not a criminal; you +were not a criminal when you were convicted. You can't afford to begin +to be one now." + +"Neither can I afford to starve," I interposed. "Other men live by +their wits, and so can I, if I'm driven to it. But I'll play fair with +you, Whitley. So long as I can keep body and soul together, with a +pick and shovel, or any other implement that comes to hand, I'll stick. +I owe you that much, if only for the reason that you are--with the +single exception of an old police chief who lives at the other edge of +the State--the one really human being I've met since I shook hands with +the warden." + +The train was in and the conductor was waving his lantern. Whitley +grasped my hand and wrung it. "Be a man, and God bless you!" he said +in low tones. "And when the pinch comes again and you are tempted to +the limit, just remember that there is a fellow back here in +Springville who believes in you, and who will limp a little all the +rest of his days if you stumble and fall and refuse to get up. +Good-night and good-by!" + + + + +VII + +The Plunge + +By the train which bore me away from Springville I went only far enough +to put me safely beyond the possibility of stumbling upon any of the +places where I had hitherto sought work; though as to that, I had +little hope of escaping the relentless blacklister who had been set +upon me. + +About midnight I had a talk with the flagman in the smoking-car, +calling myself a laborer looking for a job and asking about the +prospects in the region through which we were passing. I was told that +there were swamp lands in the next county, and that the contractors who +were installing systems of under-draining had been advertising for men. + +Accordingly, the next morning found me in the new field, with one set +of difficulties outpaced for the moment only to make room for another. +The first man I tackled was the foreman of a ditching crew, and he +looked me over with a cold and contemptuous eye. + +"Show yer hands!" he rasped, and when I held them out, palms upward: +"On yer way, Misther Counter-hopper; 'tis wor-rkin'min we're hirin' +here this day--not anny lily-fingered dudes!" + +So it was, in a disheartening number of instances; on a railroad +grading force in an adjoining county, on city buildings where I asked +to be taken as an unskilled helper, with a sewer contractor in another +city, as a shoveler in a village brick-yard. Finally I landed a job as +a stacker in a lumberyard; and now I found another of the day-laborer +difficulties lying in wait for me. At the time of my commitment for +trial I was in good physical condition. But the three years in prison +had made me soft and flabby, a handicap which liberty--with a string +tied to it--had done little to remove; and four hard days of the +stacking, in which two of us were handling two-by-ten eighteen-foot +joists to the top of a pile twelve feet high, finished me. + +The boss grinned understandingly when he gave me my time-check for the +four days. + +"I thought you wouldn't last very long at the stacking," he commented; +"that's a man's job." Then: "Got any head for figures?" + +I faced him fairly. "I can't take a job of that kind." + +"Why can't you?" + +He got the reason in a single sentence. + +"Paroled man, hey? What was you in for?" + +I named the charge, and did not add that it was an unjust one. I had +pleaded the miscarriage of justice so many times, only to be called a +liar, that it seemed useless to try to explain. + +"Robbed a bank, did you? Well, I don't know as I think any worse of +you for spittin' it right out. Tryin' to brace up?" + +"I'm trying to earn an honest living." + +"And havin' a mighty hard time of it, I reckon--'r you wouldn't be +makin' a push at stackin' lumber with them blistered hands. Say, boy; +I sort o' like your looks, and I'm goin' to give you a boost. They're +needin' a log-scaler in the sawmill. If you know figures, you can +catch on in half a day. Chase your feet down to the mill foreman and +tell him I sent you." + +I went gladly enough, secured the new job, learned how to do it +acceptably, and was temerariously happy and light-hearted for two whole +weeks. Then my Nemesis found me again. In the third week I chanced to +get a glimpse of a short, heavy-set man talking to a bunch of my fellow +laborers. Before I could cross the mill yard to identify the stranger +he turned and walked quickly away; but the sixth sense of apprehension +which develops so surely and quickly in the ex-convict told me that the +heavy-set man was Abel Geddis's hired blacklister, and that I was once +more on the toboggan slide. + +Pay-day came at the end of the week, and when the envelopes had been +given out the mill foreman took me aside. + +"I'm sorry, Weyburn," he began curtly, "but I'm afraid you'll have to +be moving on. Personally, I don't care, one way or the other, what +you've been or where you hall from. You do your work well, and that's +all I ask of any man. But your story has got out among the hands, and +that settles it. They won't work with a convict." + +When I took the long road again after this latest rebuff I knew that +the fine resolution with which I had left the prison five months +earlier was breaking down. The relentless pressure was doing its work, +and I began to ask myself how long I could hold out as a law-abiding +citizen and a victim of injustice against the belief of the world that +I was neither. + +The five months' wanderings had carried me the length and breadth of +the State, and I had avoided only the large cities and my home +neighborhood. But with the lumber company's money in my pocket I +boarded a train for the State metropolis. At the end of the experiment +I was doing what the released criminal usually does at the +outset--seeking an opportunity to lose myself in the crowd. + +Jobs were notably harder to find in the great city, though police +headquarters, where I reported myself, placed no obstacles in my way so +far as I know; took no note of me in any fashion, as I was afterward +led to believe. That the hired traducer would follow and find me I +made no doubt; but by this time I was becoming so inured to this +peculiar hardship that I refused to cross bridges until I came to them, +and was at times even able to forget, in the discouragements of other +hardships, that I was a marked man. + +In the search for means to keep body and soul together it was easy to +forget. Day labor offered only now and then, and in my increasing +physical unfitness I could not hold my own against the trained muscles +of seasoned roustabouts, porters and freight-handlers. Worse still, +the physical deterrent grew by what it fed upon--or by the lack of +feeding. Part of the time I couldn't get enough to eat; and there were +cold and blustering nights when I had not the few cents which would +have given me a bed in a cheap lodging-house. + +It was in this deepest abyss in the valley of disheartenment that I met +a former prison-mate named Kellow; a forger whose time of release from +the penitentiary coincided nearly with my own. The meeting was wholly +by chance. I was crossing one of the city bridges at night, pointing +for one of the river warehouses where I hoped to find a tramp's lodging +and shelter from the bitter wind, when I walked blindly into a man +coming in the opposite direction. The recognition was instant and +mutual. + +Like myself, Kellow had been a "trusty," and under certain relaxations +of the rule of silence in the prison we had talked and an acquaintance +of a sort had slowly grown and ripened. In this intimacy, which I had +striven to hold at arm's length, I had come to know the forger as a +criminal of the most dangerous breed; a man of parts and of some +education, but wholly lacking in the moral sense; a rule-keeper in +prison only because he was shrewd enough to appreciate the fact that he +was bringing the day of release nearer by piling up "good-conduct" time. + +"Well, pinch me! Look who's here!" was his greeting when we met on the +bridge. + +For a silent moment it was I who did the looking. Kellow had grown a +pair of curling black mustaches since his release; he was well-dressed, +erect and alert, and was smoking a cigar the fragrance of which made me +sick and faint with an attack of the long-denied tobacco hunger. + +"You're out, too, are you?" I managed to say at last, shivering in the +cold blast which came sweeping up the river. + +"Three months, and then some," he returned jauntily. "I'm collecting a +little on the old debt now, and doing fairly well at it, thank you." + +"The old debt?" I queried. + +"Yep; the one that the little old round world owes every man: three +squares, a tailor, a bed and a pocket-roll." + +"You look as if you had acquired all four," I agreed, setting my jaw to +keep my teeth from chattering. + +"Sure I have; and you look as if you hadn't," he countered. And then: +"What's the matter? Just plain hard luck? Or is it the parole scare?" + +"Both," I admitted. + +He shot me a quick look. + +"I can put you onto a dead sure thing, if you're game for it. Let's +hunt us a warm place and chew it over." + +The place was the back room of an all-night saloon in the slum quarter +beyond the bridge. It was warm, stiflingly warm and close, after the +outdoor blast and chill, and it reeked like a sty. Kellow kicked out a +chair for me and drew up one for himself on the opposite side of the +small round card-table over which a single gas-jet hissed and sizzled, +lighting the tiny box of a place with a sickly yellow glare. + +"What'll it be?" he asked, when the waiter came in. + +"A piece of bread and meat from the lunch counter, if you don't mind," +I said; and then, in an apology for which I instantly despised myself: +"Liquor doesn't agree with me lately; it--it would gag me." + +Kellow ordered whiskey for himself, and after the waiter was gone he +stared at me contemptuously. + +"So it's come to that, has it?" he derided. "You're so damned hungry +you're afraid to put a drop of bug-juice under your belt. You're a +fool, Weyburn. I know what you've been doing, just as well as if you'd +told me the whole story. Also, I'll believe now what I didn't believe +while we were in 'stir'; you were pinched for something you didn't do." + +"Well?" I said, neither affirming nor denying. The free lunch had come +and I was falling upon it like a famished wolf. I hadn't a penny in my +pockets, and the bread and meat stood for breakfast, dinner and supper +combined. + +Kellow swallowed his whiskey at a gulp and stood the empty glass bottom +upward on the table. + +"Been trying the honest lay, I suppose--handing in your name and number +wherever you went?" he suggested. + +I nodded, adding that there was nothing else to be done, as I saw it. + +He laughed scornfully. "A minute ago I said you were a fool, but +you're worse than that--you're an infant! Why, good hell, Weyburn, +there are a dozen ways to beat the parole game! Look at me: I'm here, +ain't I? And the warden knows all about it, does he? Not on your +life! Every four weeks he gets a letter from me telling him what a +fine time I'm having on Dad's farm down in Wayne, and how I'm all to +the good and thanking him every day for all he did for me. What?" + +"Somebody mails those letters for you in Wayne?" I asked. + +"Sure! And a little split for the marshal in the nearest town does the +rest. Bimeby, when I've collected enough of the debt I spoke of, I'll +shake the dust and disappear." + +"They'll find you and bring you back." + +"Not without a fine-tooth comb, they won't. This old world is plenty +good and wide when you learn how to use it." + +"I suppose I haven't learned yet; and I don't want to learn--in your +way, Kellow." + +Again he gave me the sneering laugh. + +"You may as well begin, and have it over with. It's all the same to +you, now, whether you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you +can live square and live the prison-smell down, but you can't. It'll +stick to you like your skin. Wherever you go, you'll be a marked man." + +Though I had devoured the bar hand-out to the final crumb, I was still +half-famished; and hunger is but a poor ally in any battle. What he +was saying was truth of the truth, so far as the blunt facts were +concerned. Every failure I had made in the six weary months confirmed +it. There was little room in the world of the well-behaved for the man +who was honest enough--or foolish enough--to confess himself an +ex-convict; less still for a man who had been made the object of a +persecuting conspiracy. None the less, I had resolution, or obstinacy, +enough to say: + +"I don't believe it." + +"That's what makes me say you're a fool!" he snapped back. "You've got +the name, and you may as well have the game. The world is dead easy, +if you take it on its blind side; easy living, easy money. Listen, +Weyburn, and I'll show you how you can climb into the bandwagon." + +I listened because I could not well help it, being the man's wretched +beneficiary, in a sense. As he talked I felt the ground of good +resolutions slipping from beneath my feet. He was staging the old and +time-honored swindle--the gold-brick game--and he needed a confederate. +The fish was almost as good as landed, and with a little coaching I +could step in and clinch the robbery. Kellow proposed to stake me for +the clothes and the needful stage properties; and my knowledge of +banking and finance, limited as it was, would do the rest. It was a +cinch, he averred, and when it was pulled off we could divide the +spoils and vanish. + +It was hardly a temptation. That word calls up a mental picture of +stern virtues assailed on every side and standing like a rock in a +storm. But, stripped of their poetic glamor, the virtues--and the +vices, for that matter,--are purely human; they can rise no higher or +sink no lower than the flesh-and-blood medium through which they find +their expression. The six months of hardship and humiliation which had +brought me to a pass at which I could eat a saloon luncheon at the +expense of a thief were pushing me over the brink. Kellow sat back in +his chair, smoking quietly, but I could feel his black eyes boring into +my brain. When he judged that the time was fully ripe, he drew a fat +roll of bank-notes from his pocket, stripped ten ten-dollar bills from +it and tossed them across the table to me. + +"There's the stake, and here's the lay," said he, tersely. "Your +name's Smollett; you've struck it rich, and you're on your way home to +New York, we'll say, from your mine in Colorado. You're stopping at +the Marlborough, and we'll run across you accidentally--I and the +come-on--to-morrow forenoon in the hotel lobby. Get that?" + +"I hear what you are saying." + +"All right. Now for the preliminaries. Any all-night pawnbroker can +fit you out with a couple of grips and some clothes that will let you +dress the part--or at least let you into the hotel. Then, to-morrow +morning bright and early you can hit the ready-made tailors and blossom +out right as the honest miner spending some of his money for the glad +rags. I'm at the Marlborough myself--J. T. Jewett, Room 706--but, of +course, I won't know you; you'll just butt in as a stranger to both of +us. When we get together I'll give you the cues as we go along." + +During all this talk the hundred dollars had lain on the table between +us. It didn't look like money to me; it stood for food and decent +clothing and a bath--but chiefly for food. Slowly I took it up and +fingered it, almost reverently, straightening out the crumpled corners +of the bills and smoothing them down. . . . + +I scarcely know how I got away from Kellow, nor do I know why he chose +to stay on there in the back room of that miserable doggery, drinking +whiskey sours alone and smoking his high-priced cigars. But I do know +that I was up against the fight of my life when I went out to face the +bitter night wind in the streets. + +It was a singular thing that helped me to win the fight, temporarily, +at least. By all accounts it ought to have been those three +heart-warming days spent with Whitley a month earlier, and his farewell +words of helpfulness and cheer spoken as I was boarding the outgoing +train at the Springville station. But though Whitley's sturdy faith in +me came to do its part, it was another and much longer leap of memory +that made me hesitate and draw back; a flash carrying me back to my +school-days in Glendale . . . to a certain afternoon when a plain-faced +little girl, the daughter of our physics and chemistry teacher, had +told me, with her brown eyes ablaze, what she thought of dishonesty in +general, and in particular of the dishonesty of a boy in her class who +was lying and stealing his way past his examinations. + +I don't know to this day why I should have recalled Polly Everton and +her flaming little diatribe against thievery and hypocrisy at that +desperate moment. She, and her quiet college-professor father who had +seemed so out of place teaching in a Glendale school, had dropped out +of my life years before. But the fact remained, and at the memory, +Kellow's bribe, gripped pocket-deep in my hand, burnt me like a coal of +fire. With a gasp I realized that I was over the brink at last, +stumbling and falling into the pit which has no bottom. With a single +dollar of the thief's money spent and gone beyond recall, I should be +lost. + +With that memory of little Polly Everton to drive me, I went doggedly +back to the riverside slum and sought for Kellow where I had left him. +He was gone, but the newly aroused resolution, the outworn swimmer's +stubborn steeling of the nerves and muscles to make one more stroke +before he drowns, persisted. Footsore and half-frozen, I tramped the +dozen squares to the great hotel in the business district. The night +clerk sized me up for precisely what I was, listening with only half an +ear to my stammering question. But he deigned to answer it, +nevertheless. Yes; Mr. Jewett was the gentleman who had Number 706, +but he was not in. His key was still in the box. + +There were writing-desks in the lobby, a number of them, and I went to +the first that offered. Some guest had left a few sheets of the hotel +paper and an envelope. Without a written word to go with it, I slipped +the unbroken bribe into the envelope, sealed the flap hurriedly and +went back to the clerk. + +"Put this in Mr. Jewett's key-box, if you please," I requested; and +when I had seen the thing done, and had verified the number of the box +with my own eyes, I headed once more for the inhospitable streets. + +It was on the icy sidewalk, directly in front of the revolving doors of +the big hotel, that my miracle was wrought. While I hesitated, not +knowing which way to turn for shelter for the remainder of the night, a +cab drove up and a man, muffled to the ears in a fur-lined overcoat, +got out. He was apparently an arrival from one of the night trains; +while he was slamming the cab door a bell-hop from the Marlborough +skated across the sidewalk, snatched a couple of grips from the front +seat of the cab and disappeared with them. + +Humped and shivering, I was almost at the traveler's elbow when he +turned and felt in his pockets for the money to pay the cab driver. I +was so busy envying him the possession of that warm, fur-lined coat +that I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing, but it was +evident that he had forgotten in which pocket he carried his change, +since he was feeling first in one and then in another. + +Suddenly my heart skipped a beat and then fell to hammering a fierce +tattoo as a gust of the highwayman's madness swept over me. The man +had taken out a huge pocket roll of bank-notes and was running the +bills over to see if there were one small enough to serve the +cab-paying purpose. Obviously there was not, and with a grunt of +impatience he searched again, this time unearthing a handful of silver. +Dropping the proper coin into the cabman's outstretched hand, he turned +and disappeared through the revolving doors, and at the same instant +the cabby whipped up his horse and drove away. Then I saw it lying +almost at my feet; a small black pocketbook which the traveler had let +fall in his fumbling search for change. + +Judged by any code of ethics--my own, for that matter--what followed +was entirely indefensible. The grab for the treasure, its swift +hiding, the breathless dash into the shadows of the nearest cross +street; all these named me for what I was at the moment--a +half-starved, half-frozen, despair-hounded thief. When I had made sure +that there was no policeman in sight I examined my prize by the light +of a crossing electric. The black pocketbook contained sixty-three +dollars in bills and a single half-dollar in silver. And a hasty +search revealed nothing by which the loser could be identified; there +were no papers, no cards, nothing but the money. + +Though a desperate disregard for anything like property rights had +prompted the sudden snatch and the thief-like dash for cover, I am glad +to be able to say that common honesty, or some shadowy simulacrum of +it, revived presently and sent me back to the hotel, though not without +terrible foot-draggings, you may be sure. And as I went, many-tongued +temptation clamored riotously for a hearing: the man had so much--he +would never miss this carelessly spilt driblet; I had no means of +identifying him, and with the fur-lined coat removed I should probably +fail to recognize him; if I should try to describe him, the hotel +clerk, he of the detached and superior manner, would doubtless take the +pocketbook in charge and that would be the last I should ever hear of +it. + +Giving these arguments their just weight, I hope I may take some small +credit for the perseverance which finally drove me through the swinging +doors and up to the clerk's counter. For the second time that night I +sought speech with the bediamonded chief lackey, and got it grudgingly. +No; no one had registered within the past few minutes, and no man +answering my exceedingly incomplete description had presented himself +at the counter. Conscious that I must do, there and then, all that +ever could be done, I persisted. + +"The gentleman I speak of came in a cab and he had two hand-bags; they +were brought in by one of the bell-boys," I said, thinking that this +might afford the clue. + +The clerk looked afar over my head. "Some guest who already has his +room and had gone to fetch his grips." Then, with the contemptuous +lip-curl that I had encountered too often not to recognize it at sight: +"Who are you, anyway?--a plain-clothes man looking for crooks? You'll +not find them in the Marlborough. We don't keep that kind of a house." + +I turned away, gripping the precious treasure-trove in my pocket. For +a full half-year I had kept faith with the prison authorities and the +law, living the life of a hunted animal and coming at last to the +choice between starvation and a deliberate plunge into the underworld. +Through it all I had obeyed the requirements of my parole in letter and +in spirit. But now---- + +The black pocketbook was warm in my hand. It was mine, if not by the +finder's right, at least by the right of possession, and it contained +the price of freedom. Before I had reached the corner, of the first +street my determination was taken, and there had been but one instant +of hesitation. This had come in a frenzied burst of red rage when I +remembered that, when all was said, I owed this last downward step, as +well as all that had gone before, to two old men who . . . I stopped +short in my shuffling race to the railroad station. I had money; +enough to take me to Glendale--and far beyond when the deed should be +done. Years before I had sworn to kill them, and since that time they +had doubly earned their blotting-out. + +I don't know to this day whether it was some remaining shreds of the +conventional conscience, or a broken man's inability to screw +retaliatory determination to the murder point, that sent me onward to +the westbound station and framed my reply to the ticket agent's curt +question, "Where to?" when I thrust my money through his wicket. Be +that as it may, a short half-hour later I had boarded a through +westbound train and was crouching in the corner of a seat in the +overheated smoking-car with a ticket to Denver in my pocket. Though I +was not on my way to commit a double murder, I was none the less an +outlaw. I had broken my parole. + + + + +VIII + +Westward + +A sleety rain was retarding the March dawn and obscuring the Middle +Western farmstead landscape when the lights were turned off in the +through-train smoking-car. A glance at the railroad time-table which +had been given me with my ticket proved that the train was well past +the boundaries of my home State, and suddenly the vile atmosphere of +the crowded, night-fouled car seemed shot through with the life-giving +ozone of freedom. + +Before long, however, the reaction set in. True, I was free at last, +but it was the freedom only of the escaped convict--of the fugitive. +To be recaptured now would mean a return to prison and the serving out +of the remainder of the full five-year term, with an added penalty for +the broken parole. I knew well the critical watchfulness with which +the workings of the new law were regarded. The indeterminate sentence +itself was on trial, and the prison authorities and others interested +were resolved that the trial should be fair and impartial. Therefore I +might count confidently upon pursuit. + +At first there seemed little likelihood that my midnight flight could +be traced. In the great city I had left behind I had been only an +uncounted unit in a submerged minority. It was doubtful if any one +besides Kellow and the keeper of the police records would know or +remember my name. There had been many travelers to board the through +train with me, and surely one might consider himself safely lost in +such a throng, if only by reason of the unit inconsequence. + +But now I was to be brought face to face with a peril which constantly +besets the fugitive of any sort in an age of rapid and easy travel. +Under such conditions the smallness of the modern world has passed into +a hackneyed proverb. I had scarcely rubbed the sleep out of my eyes +and straightened up in the car seat which had served for a bed when +some one came down the aisle, a hand was clapped on my shoulder, and a +cheery voice said: + +"Well, I'll be dog-daddled! Bert Weyburn--of all the people in the +world!" + +There was murder in my heart when I looked up and recognized a Glendale +man whom I had known practically all my life; a rattle-brained young +fellow named Barton, who had tried a dozen different occupations after +leaving school, and had, at my last account of him, become a traveling +salesman for our single large factory--a wagon-making company. + +Under the existing conditions Barton was easily the last man on earth +whom I should have chosen out of a worldful of men for a traveling +companion; but before I could do more than nod a surly response to his +greeting he had slipped into the empty half of the seat and was +offering me a cigar. + +At first our talk was awkwardly constrained, as it was bound to be with +one party to it wishing fervently that the other were at the bottom of +the sea. But Horace Barton was much too good-natured, and too +loquacious, to let the constraint remain as a barrier. Working around +by degrees to the _status quo_--my _status quo_--he finally broke the +ice in the pond of the intimate personalities--as I knew he would. + +"I'm mighty glad to see you out, and alive and well, Bert," was the way +in which he brushed aside the awkwardnesses. "You've had pretty tough +lines, I know; but that's no reason why you should be grouchy with me. +I'm not letting it make any difference, am I?" + +"Not here on the train," I conceded, sourly. + +"No; and, by George, I wouldn't let it at home, either! I'll bet +you've got a few friends left in Glendale, right now, and you've had +'em all along. Been back there since you--since--er----" + +I shook my head, and he went on as if he were afraid that a stop might +prove fatal to another start. + +"It sure isn't any of my butt-in, but I don't believe you ought to +dodge the home town, Bert. There are a lot of good people there, and +if I were in your fix, I believe I'd want to go and bully it out right +where it happened. You've bought your little chunk of experience and +paid for it, and now you're a free man just like the rest of us. You +want to buck up, and tell them that don't like it to go straight plumb +to the dickens." + +There was ample reason why he should take this tone with me if he felt +like it. I looked like a derelict and was acting like one. Moreover, +I was tormented to the verge of madness by the fear that the conductor +might come along on a ticket-punching tour, and that by this means +Barton would learn my ultimate destination--which would be equivalent, +I fancied, to publishing it in the Glendale _Daily Courier_. + +"Cut it out!" I said gruffly. "If Glendale were the last place in the +universe, I wouldn't go back there." + +He dropped the argument with perfect good-humor, and even made apology. +"I take it all back; it's none of my business. Of course, you know +best what you want to do. You're a free man, as I say, and can go +where you please." + +His repetition of this "free man" phrase suddenly opened my eyes. He +had forgotten, as doubtless a good many others had, all about the +indeterminate sentence and its terms, if, indeed, he--and the +others--had ever known anything about its conditions. It was not to be +wondered at. Three years and a half will ordinarily blot the best of +us out of remembrance--at least as to details. + +It was at this point that I twisted the talk by thrusting in a question +of my own. + +"No; I haven't been in Glendale right lately--been out on the road for +a couple of weeks," was Barton's answer to the question. "We've +widened the old wagon-shop out some few lines since you knew us, and +I've been making a round of the agencies. I was in the big city last +night and got a wire to go to St. Louis. The wire got balled up +somewhere, and I didn't get it until late at night. Made me hustle, +too. I'd been out of the city for the day and didn't get back to the +Marlborough until nearly midnight." + +This bit of detail made no impression upon me at the moment because I +was too busy with the thoughts suggested by the fact that I might have +Barton with me all day. Returning to Glendale at the end of his round, +he would be sure to talk, and in due time the prison authorities would +learn that I had been last seen in St. Louis. This accidental meeting +with Barton figured as a crude misfortune, but I saw no way to mitigate +it. + +About this time came the first call for breakfast in the dining-car, +and I hoped this would relieve me of Barton's presence, for a while, at +any rate. But I was reckoning altogether without my host. + +"Breakfast, eh?--that fits me all the way down to the ground," was his +welcoming of the waiter's sing-song call. "Come along, old man, and +we'll go eat a few things. This is on me." + +I tried to refuse. Apart from a frantic desire to be quit of him, I +was in no condition to present myself in the dining-car. I showed him +my grimy hands, and at that he made me forgive him in advance for all +the harm he might eventually do me. + +"That's perfectly all right," he laughed. "Fellow can't help getting +that way on the road. My sleeper is the first one back, and the +dining-car's coupled on behind. You come along into the Pullman with +me and wash up. I've got a bunch of clean collars and a shirt, if you +want them; and if the Pullman man makes a roar I'll tell him you're my +long-lost brother and give him the best ten-cent cigar he ever +smoked--I get 'em at a discount from a fellow who makes a little on the +side by selling his samples." And when I still hung back--"Don't be an +ass, Bertie. This old world isn't half as mean as you'd like to think +it is." + +I yielded, weakly, I was going to say; yet perhaps it wasn't altogether +weakness. For the first time since leaving the penitentiary I was +meeting a man from home; a man who knew, and apparently didn't care. I +went to the Pullman with Barton and was lucky enough to meet the +ticket-punching train conductor on the way. Barton was a step or two +ahead of me and he did not see my ticket. In consequence, the Colorado +destination was still my own secret. + +In the Pullman wash-room Barton stood by me like a man, fetching his +own clean linen and tipping the porter to make him turn his back while +I had a wash and a shave and a change. One who has always marched in +the ranks of the well-groomed may never realize the importance of soap +and water in a civilized world. As a moral stimulus, the combination +yields nothing to all the Uplift Foundations the multi-millionaires +have ever laid. When I took my place at the table for two opposite +Barton in the diner, I was able to look the world in the eye, and to +forget, momentarily at least, in the luxury of clean hands and clean +linen, that I was practically an outlaw with a price upon my head. + +Yearning like a shipwrecked mariner for home news, I led Barton on to +talk of Glendale and the various happenings in the little town during +my long absence. Though I had quartered the home State in all +directions for half a year he was, as I have said, the first Glendale +man I had met. + +He told me many things that I was eager to know; how my mother and +sister were living quietly at the town place, which the income from the +farm enabled them to retain. For several years after her majority my +sister, older than I, had taught in the public school; she was now, so +Barton said, conducting a small private school for backward little ones +at home. + +There were other news items, many of them. Old John Runnels was still +chief of police; Tom Fitch, the hardware man, was the new mayor; Buck +Severance, my one-time chum in the High School, was now chief of the +fire department, having won his spurs--or rather, I should say, his red +helmet and silver trumpet--at the fire which had destroyed the +Blickerman Department Store. + +"And the bank?" I asked. + +"Which one? We've got three of them now, if you please, and one's a +National." + +"I meant the Farmers'," I said. + +"Something right funny about that, Bert," Barton commented. "The old +bank is rocking along and doing a little business in farm mortgages and +note-shaving at the old stand, same as usual, but it's got a hoodoo. +The other banks do most of the commercial business--all of it, you +might say; still, they say Geddis and old Abner Withers are getting +richer and richer every day." + +"Agatha is married?" I asked. + +"No; and that's another of the funny things. Her engagement with young +Copper-Money was broken off--nobody knew just how or why--shortly after +your--er--shortly after the trouble at the bank three years and a half +ago. Agatha's out West somewhere now--in a sanitorium, I believe. Her +health has been rather poor for the last year or so." + +This was news indeed. As I had known her as girl and woman, Agatha +Geddis had always been the picture of health. I put up a fervent +little prayer that her particular sanitorium might not prove to be in +the vicinity of Denver. If it should be it meant another move for me. + +"I didn't see the finish of the bank trouble before they buried me, did +I, Barton?" I queried. + +"You bet your life you didn't! There was the dickens to pay all +around. Under the State law, as you probably know, the depositors' +losses had to be made up, to the extent of twice the amount of the +stockholdings, by the stockholders in the bank. When they came to +count noses they found that Geddis and Withers hadn't done a thing but +to quietly unload their bank stock here and there and everywhere, until +they held only enough to give them their votes. There was a yell to +raise the roof, but the stockholders of record had to come across. It +teetotally smashed a round dozen of the best farmers in the county; and +I heard, on the quiet, that it caught a good many outsiders who had +been buying Farmers' stock at a bargain, among them this young Mr. +Copper-Money who was going to marry Agatha--and didn't. Geddis and +Withers played it mighty fine--and mighty low-down." + +All this was a revelation to me. In my time Geddis and Withers +together had held a majority of the stock in the close little +corporation known as the Farmers' Bank. The despicable trick by means +of which Geddis, or both of them, had shifted the defalcation loss to +other shoulders proved two things conclusively: that the scheme had +been well planned for in advance, and that the two old men had worked +in collusion. I remembered my suspicion--the one I couldn't +prove--that Withers had been as deep in the mud as Geddis was in the +mire. + +"What became of the mining stock?" I inquired. + +"Geddis put it into the assets, 'to help out against the loss,' as he +said. Nobody wanted it, of course; and then, to be right large-hearted +and generous, Geddis bought it in, personally--at ten cents on the +dollar." + +"And you say Geddis is still running the bank?" + +"Oh, yes; he and Withers run it and own it. As you'd imagine, Farmers' +Bank stock was mighty nearly a drug in the market, after all the bills +had been paid, and, just to help their neighbors out of a hole, as they +put it, the two old skinflints went around buying it back. I don't +know what they paid; different prices, I suppose. But Hawkins, our +manager, told me that he sold his for twenty-five cents on the dollar, +flat, and was blamed good and glad to get that much out of it." + +It was just here that my breakfast threatened to choke me. If I had +been as guilty as everybody believed I was, I should still have been a +white-robed angel with wings compared with these two old Pharisees who +had deliberately robbed their friends and neighbors, catching them both +coming and going. And yet I was a hunted outlaw, and they were honored +and respected--or at least they were out of jail and able to live and +flourish among their deluded victims. + +The choking was only momentary. Barton was in a reminiscent mood, and +he went rambling on about people in whom I was most deeply interested. +It was like a breath of the good old home air in my nostrils just to +sit and listen to him. + +But it seems as though there has to be a fly in everybody's pot of +sweetened jam. In the midst of things, at a moment when I was +gratefully rejoicing in the ability to push my wretched +life-catastrophe a little way into the background, I had a glimpse of a +new face at the farther end of the dining-car. A large-framed man with +drooping mustaches had just come in from the Pullman, and the +dining-car steward was looking his car over to find a place for the +newcomer at the well-filled tables. + +I did not have to look twice to identify the man with the drooping +mustaches. For three long and weary years I had seen him dally in the +office of the State penitentiary. His name was William Cummings, and +he was the deputy warden. + + + + +IX + +The Cup of Trembling + +Why I should have chosen, haphazard, and solely because it chanced to +be the first that offered, a train which numbered among its passengers +not only a man from my home town of Glendale, but also the deputy +warden of the penitentiary, is one of those mysteries of coincidence +which we discredit impatiently when we run across them in fiction, but +which, nevertheless, are constantly recurring in every-day life. + +For the moment I was desperately panic-stricken. It seemed blankly +impossible that Cummings should not see and recognize me at once. I +could have sworn that he was looking straight at me while the steward +kept him waiting. My terror must have shown itself in my face, since +Barton spoke up quickly. + +"Why, say--what's struck you, Bert?--are you sick?" he demanded; and +then he supplied an answer to his own query: "I ought to be kicked +around the block for loading you up with a big dining-car breakfast +when you had just told me that you were off your feed. Cut it short +and we'll trot up ahead and smoke a cigar. That'll help you get away +with it." + +The steward had found Cummings a seat at the forward end of the car, +and how to pass him without detection was a problem that made me dizzy +with the nausea of fear. Barton, with the lordly manner of the +American salesman away from home, made it possible. Snapping his +fingers for a waiter he paid for the breakfasts before we left our +seats, and then quickly led the way forward. At the pause in the +vestibule, while Barton was answering the steward's query as to how we +had been served, I could have reached out and touched Cummings's +shoulder. But the deputy warden was running an investigative finger +down the menu card and he did not see me. + +It may say itself that I was in no condition to enjoy the +after-breakfast cigar burned in the smoking-room of Barton's Pullman, +where the wagon salesman's tips, or his good-natured insistence, again +made me welcome. Every moment I expected to see the door curtain flung +aside to admit the burly figure of William Cummings. True, there were +a number of Pullmans in the train, and it was possible that I might not +be in the smoking-room of his car. But it was enough, and more than +enough, to know that we were fellow-travelers on the same train. + +There is little use piling on the agony by trying to tell what I +suffered during this forenoon of nerve-racking torture and suspense. +Let it be sufficient to say that the torments ended for me at Decatur, +Illinois, when, at the train stop, I saw Cummings cross the platform to +a street-car followed by a station porter carrying his grip. Barton +marked the change in me at once. + +"By George, Bert, what did you see in that platform jumble to make you +look as if you had suddenly taken on a new lease of life?" he inquired +jestingly. Then he passed the ever-ready cigarcase. "Smoke up, and +after a bit we'll go and try it on the dog--see if a second meal in the +diner will come as near to upsetting you as the first one did. Say, +don't you know, I'm bully glad we met up in the smoker this morning? I +was rawhiding myself to beat the everlasting band at the prospect of +having to make this long, tiresome day jump alone, and it's done me a +heap of good to talk you to frazzles. And that reminds me: you haven't +told me yet where you are heading for." + +I had not; and what was more, I did not mean to. There were distant +relatives on my mother's side of the family living somewhere in central +Missouri, and I spoke of them. + +"Sedalla, you say?" he commented. "Well, if that's the how of it, I +may see you again in a day or so, and here's hoping. I have a horrible +suspicion that our St. Louis general agent wants me to chase out with +him and dig up some of his dead-alive country dealers. We sell a raft +of wagons in Missouri." + +It was just here that it occurred to me that Barton was carrying it off +pretty toppingly for a mere traveling salesman; also that he dressed +better, smoked better cigars, and seemed a good bit freer with his +money than such a job warranted. + +"You were selling Whiteley Wagons by yourself, when I dropped out," I +said. "Have I been doing you an injustice by not allowing for a +promotion in the three years and a half?" + +"You sure have!" he laughed. "In the reorganization a year ago they +made me sales manager. Oh, yes, Bert; I've blossomed out some since +you knew me. I've actually got a little chunk of stock in the concern. +You never would have thought it of old Hod Barton, would you? Look at +this." + +He reached into a pocket and pulled out a money roll, riffling the ends +of the bills between thumb and forefinger to let me see that the +denominations were all comfortably large. There was something +instantly suggestive in the bit of braggadocio; a feeling that I had +seen somebody do that same thing in exactly that same way once before. +But before I could follow up the impression he was making me an offer +which put everything but his free-hearted generosity out of my mind. + +"You haven't said a word, Bert, and if it's none of my business, you +can tell me so--but if a couple of these yellow-backs would come in +handy to you just now, they're yours and you can toss 'em back to me +any old time when you're good and ready." + +I shook my head and thanked him out of a full heart. The purchase of +the Denver ticket hadn't left me much of a balance out of the black +pocketbook's holdings, but I couldn't borrow of Barton; that was out of +the question. + +Shortly after this we had another meal together in the dining-car, and +this time there were no sudden alarms to make me turn sick and panicky. +Afterward, I made another attempt to return to my place in the forward +end of the train, but since Barton would not hear of it, we spent the +remainder of the short afternoon in the Pullman smoker. + +During this interval, Barton did most of the talking, growing +confidential along toward the last and telling me a lot about the girl +he was going to marry--the youngest daughter of good old Judge Haskins, +of Jefferson--the man who had sentenced me. If all the world loves a +lover, certainly no considerable part of it cares to pay strict +attention while he descants at length upon the singular and altogether +transcendent charms of the loved one; and when Barton got fairly +started I had time to consider another matter which was of far greater +importance to me. + +Earlier in the day Barton had assured me that he would not fail to go +and see my mother and sister when he returned to Glendale. I could +scarcely urge him not to do so, though I knew very well that he would +not stop with telling the home-folks; that he would doubtless tell +every Tom, Dick and Harry in town how he had met me, and where. What I +was asking myself as he burbled on about Peggy Haskins was whether I +might dare give him the one cautionary word which would reveal the true +state of affairs. In the end I decided that it would be most +imprudent, not to say disastrous. He would have sympathized with me +instantly and heartily, but the knowledge would have been as fire to +tow when he got back where he could talk. I could foresee just how it +would bubble out of him as he button-holed each fresh listener: "Say! +you must keep it midnight dark, old man, but I met Bert Weyburn on the +train: he's jumped his parole and, skipped--lit out--vanished! Not a +word to any living soul, mind you; this is a dead secret. We mustn't +give him away, you know,"--and a lot more of the same sort. + +The arrival of the through train in the great echoing Terminal at St. +Louis was timed accurately with the coming of a gloomy twilight fitly +climaxing the bleak and stormy day. Having no hand-baggage I was the +first to leave the Pullman, and on the platform I waited for Barton who +had gone back into the body of the car to get his coat and hat and +bags. As he ran down the steps and gave his two suit cases to the +nearest red-cap, the links in a vague chain of recognition snapped +themselves suddenly into a complete whole, and I knew instantly why the +thumbing of the pocket-roll in my friend's generous offer to lend me +money had struck the chord of familiarity. The two hand-bags turned +over to the platform porter were the same two that I had seen snatched +out of a cab in front of the Marlborough entrance while their owner was +digging in his pockets for the cab fare, and the coat and hat Barton +had donned for the debarking were the fur-lined luxury and the soft +felt worn by the man who had dropped the black pocket-book. + +"Well, old boy," he said, gripping my hand in leave-taking, "the best +of friends must part. I suppose you'll wait here to take your Sedalla +train. Maybe we'll get together again in a day or so. If we +shouldn't, here's hoping that the world uses you well from this on--to +sort of make up for what has gone, you know." + +"Wait a minute," I gasped, as he was turning to follow the red-cap. +"You said you were at the Marlborough last night. I was there--on +an--on an errand. Did you come in late?--in a cab?" + +"I did; and I had a funny experience--or have I told you about it?" + +"No, you didn't tell me," I contrived to say. + +"I didn't know but I had; I've talked so much about everything to-day. +It was this way: when I got out of the cab I saw a sort of hobo-ish +looking fellow standing at the curb with his hands in his pockets and +all doubled over as if he were cold. It never occurred to me for a +minute that he was anything but what he looked to be." + +The porter, with Barton's suit-cases, was disappearing in the direction +of the cab stand, and I suggested that we walk along. I had learned +all I needed to know. But Horace Barton never left a story unfinished +if he could help it. + +"Yes, sir; that fellow fooled me good and proper," he went on, as we +hurried to overtake the suit-cases. "He wasn't any hobo at all; he was +a pickpocket, and one of the finest. I was hunting for a half-dollar +to pay the cabby, and I could have sworn that that 'dip' never got +within six feet of me. And yet he 'frisked' me before I could get +across the sidewalk and into the hotel. Luckily, all he got was a +little pocketbook with some sixty or so dollars in it." + +"You reported your loss to the police?" I asked. + +"Not for one little minute!" was the laughing rejoinder. "I didn't +discover the loss until after I got up to my room and found the St. +Louis wire waiting for me; and then there wasn't time. But I shouldn't +have done it anyway. Any fellow fly enough to do me that way when I'm +wide awake and 'at' myself is welcome to all he gets. . . . Well, +here's our jumping-off place, I guess. My man 'll be waiting for me at +the Southern, and I must go. Take care of yourself, and so long!" + +I let him go; saw him climb into a cab and disappear. There was +nothing to be done about the money, of course: I had spent more than +half of it for my Denver ticket. But, since honesty, like all other +human attributes, dies hard in any soil where it has once taken root, I +turned away with a great thankfulness in my heart. The owner of the +black pocketbook was found, and some day he should have his own +again--with interest. + +Nothing of any consequence happened after Barton left me. Finding upon +inquiry that the westbound connecting train would not leave until eight +o'clock, I ventured out in search of a slop-shop where I could purchase +a cheap suit to go with the clean shirt and collar given me by the +free-handed sales manager. The purchase left me with less than ten +dollars in my pocket, but it made a new man of me otherwise. In the +old life at home I had never dreamed that a few rags and wisps of +cloth, properly sewed together, make all the difference in a moralizing +world between the man and the vagrant. + +There was a wreck on the Missouri road some time during the night, and +our train was caught behind it and delayed. For this reason another +rainy afternoon was drawing to its close when I had my first glimpse of +Kansas City, high-perched on its hills from my glimpsing view-point on +the opposite bank of the Missouri River, but low-lying and crowded to +suffocation with railroad yards in that part of it where the train came +to a stand. + +As a matter of course, I had missed my proper Denver connection, owing +to the wreck delay. But, a passenger agent directing me, I found the +evening Union Pacific train waiting at another platform. A short +half-hour later the tangle of railroad yards in the river "bottoms" was +left behind and the overland train was boring westward into a cloudy +night through Kansas. + +With the welcoming West lying fair and free before me, the memory of +the prison years and of the parole purgatory to which they had led was +already beginning to fade into a limbo of things past and irrevocable, +and therefore to be quickly and decently forgotten. There should be a +new life in the new world, and the humiliation and disgrace of the past +should be so deeply burled that it could never be resurrected. I was +still under twenty-nine, it must be remembered, and at that age Hope, +the one human quality which seems to have in it the precious germ of +immortality, will flap its wings over the most wretched ash-heap that +was ever blown together by the bleak winds of misfortune. + + + + +X + +The Plain-Clothes Man + +Upon landing in Denver in the middle of a day that seemed too bright +and exhilaratingly bracing to be true, I had an adventure which, while +it had no immediate bearing upon my escape, is worthy of record because +it led to a second hasty flight, and so became in a manner responsible +for much that happened afterward. + +As I left the train a squarely built man, sharp-eyed under the brim of +his modish soft hat, was standing aside on the track platform and +evidently scrutinizing each of the debarking passengers in turn. Some +acute inner sense instantly warned me, telling me that this silent +watcher was a plain-clothes man from police headquarters; and his first +word when he stepped out to confront and stop me confirmed the +foreboding. + +"You're wanted," he announced curtly, twitching his coat lapel aside to +show his badge. + +This was another of the crises in which I was made to feel the murder +madness leaping alive in blood and brain; but the publicity of the +place and the blank hopelessness of escape in a strange city made any +thought of resistance the sheerest folly. + +"What am I wanted for?" I asked. + +"You'll find that out later. Will you go quietly, or do you want the +nippers?" + +The cooler second thought reassured me. It seemed entirely incredible +that the news of the broken parole had already been put on the wires. +In the natural order of things I should hardly be missed until after my +failure to report to the prison authorities at the month end should +raise the hue and cry. + +"I'll go quietly, of course," I conceded; and then I added the lie of +sham bravado: "I don't know of any reason why I shouldn't. You are the +man who is taking all the chances." + +With no further talk I was marched through the station building, out +the long approach walkway to the foot of Seventeenth Street, and so on +up-town, the plain-clothes man keeping even step with me and indicating +the course at the corner-turnings by a push or a wordless jerk of his +head. + +As we went I was striving anxiously to invent a plausible story to be +told at headquarters. It was an entirely new experience. Hitherto I +had always told the plain truth, as the law required, and now I found +the inventive machinery singularly rusty. But the wheels were made to +turn in some fashion. By the time we were mounting the steps of the +antiquated City Hall at the crossing of Cherry Creek, I knew pretty +well what I was going to say, and how it must be said. + +At first they gave me little chance to say anything. In the +inspector's office my captor and two others got busy over a book of +newspaper clippings, pictures and descriptions of "wanted" criminals. +With wits sharpened now to a razor-edge, I came quickly to the +conclusion that I had been mistaken for some one else. The conclusion +was confirmed when they took an ink-pad impression of the ball of my +right thumb and fell to comparing it with one of the record prints. + +After a time the inspector put me on the rack, beginning by demanding +my name. + +Meaning to lie only when there should be no alternative, I told him a +half-truth. Though every one at home called me "Herbert" and "Bert," +and it was as "James Herbert Weyburn" that I had been arraigned and +convicted, that was not, strictly speaking, my right name. I had been +christened "James Bertrand," after my father. My mother had always +called me "Jimmie," but for others the "Bertrand" was soon shortened +into "Bert" and from that a few home-town formalists had soon evolved +the "Herbert," a change which my own boyish and unreasoning dislike for +"Bertrand" was ready enough to confirm. So, when the inspector asked +me my name I answered promptly, "James Bertrand." + +"Write it," was the curt command, and a pad and a pencil were shoved at +me across the desk. + +Since the name was two-thirds of my own, I was able to write it without +any of the hesitation which might otherwise have betrayed me if I had +chosen a combination that was unfamiliar. + +"Where are you from?" was the next question. + +Here, as I saw it, was one of the holes in which a lie might be +profitably planted--profitably and safely. So I said, glibly enough: +"Cincinnati." + +"Street and number?" + +I had given Cincinnati merely because I chanced to be somewhat familiar +with that city, and now I gave the location of a boarding-house near +the river front where I had once stayed over-night. + +"Where were you born?" + +"In the country, about forty miles from Cincinnati." + +"Traveling for your health, I suppose? Where's your baggage?" + +I saw that I should have to call a halt somewhere, and this seemed as +good a point as any. + +"See here," I broke out; "you've got the wrong man, and you know it, +and I know it! You have no shadow of right to arrest me without a +warrant. Neither have you any right to try to tangle me in my +statements so that I shall fall down and give you an excuse for locking +me up!" + +"Say, young fellow--you cut all that out and quiet down!" advised the +plain-clothes man who had nipped me at the railroad terminal. + +"That's the one thing I shan't do!" I retorted boldly. "You have +arrested me without authority, and now you are trying to give me the +third degree. You've got me here, and you may make the most of +it--until I can find a lawyer. Lock me up if you feel like it; and are +willing to stand for the consequences." + +At this the three of them put their heads together and once more +compared the thumb-prints. Suddenly the inspector whirled upon me with +his lips drawn back and his hand balled into a fist as if he were going +to strike me. + +"How about that little job you pulled off with a forged check in +Chicago last week?" he rapped out. + +He was evidently counting upon the effect of a shock and a surprise, +but, naturally, the ruse fell flat. + +"I don't know anything about a forged check; and I was never in Chicago +in my life," I replied; and since both statements were strictly true I +could make them calmly and without hesitation. + +For the third time they put their heads together. I think the +inspector was for letting me go without further ado. But the man who +had arrested me was apparently still suspicious and unsatisfied. As a +compromise they did the thing which determined my second flight. They +took me into a room at the rear of the building; a barn-like place bare +of everything save a screen and a tripoded photographer's camera; and +within the next five minutes I had been posed and "mugged." + +"Now you may go," said the harsh-voiced inspector; and I left the +building knowing that the Colorado capital had been effectually crossed +off in the list of possible refuges for me. With my photograph in the +police blotter, discovery and recapture would be only a question of +time, if I should stay where I could be identified by the local +authorities. Once during my prison term I had seen an escaped man +brought back from far-away Alaska. + +Since there was no immediate danger, however, there was time to plan +thoughtfully and prudently for a second disappearance. After a +lunch-counter meal, eaten in a cheap restaurant within a block or so of +the City Hall, I made a round of the employment offices. In front of +one of them there was a bulletin-board demand for railroad grade +laborers on the Cripple Creek branch of the Colorado Midland. + +At that time I knew next to nothing about the geography of the Rocky +Mountain States, and the great mining-camp at the back of Pike's Peak +was merely a name to me; though the name was familiar, in a way, +because the mine in which Abel Geddis had sunk his depositors' money +was said to be in the Cripple Creek district. What chiefly attracted +me in the bulletin-board notice was the announcement that free +transportation would be given to the work. With only a few dollars in +my pocket, the free ride became an object, and I entered the office. + +The arrangement was easily made. I gave the agent his fee of two +dollars, and let him put a name--not my own or any part of my own, you +may be sure--on his list for the evening shipment. It appeared to cut +no figure with this employment shark that I bore none of the marks of a +successful pick-and-shovel man. All he wanted or cared for was his two +dollars and something on two legs and in the shape of a man to put into +his gang against the collected fee. I was told to show up at the Union +Station at six o'clock, sharp; and after spending the remainder of the +afternoon wandering about the city, I reported as instructed, was +passed through the gates with some twenty-five or thirty other +"pick-ups," and so turned my back upon the Queen City of the +Plains--for a time. + + + + +XI + +Number 3126 + +In due deference to the "mugging" at police headquarters, I had +registered in the Denver employment office as "William Smith." But on +the work, which proved to be the construction of a branch feeder for +the Midland in the heart of the gold district, I took my own name--or +rather that part of it which had been given to the Denver police +inspector--arguing that the only way in which I could be traced would +be by means of the photograph. Against the photographic possibility, +my beard, which had been scraped off by the station barber during the +waiting interval between trains in St. Louis, was suffered to grow +again. + +The railroad labor was strenuous, as it was bound to be; and for the +first few days the thin, crisp air of the altitudes cut my already +indifferent physical efficiency almost to the vanishing point. +Nevertheless, there were two pieces of good fortune. My +fellow-laborers in the grading gang were principally Italians from the +southern provinces and their efficiency was also low. This helped, but +a better bit of luck lay in the fact that the contractors on the job +were humane and liberal employers; both of them with a shrewd and +watchful eye for latent capabilities in the rank and file. Within a +week I was made a gang time-keeper, and a fortnight later I became +commissary clerk. + +Before I forget it, let me say that my first month's pay, or the +greater part of it, went to replace the sixty-three dollars and a half +in the little black pocketbook which I had stolen--I guess that is the +honest word---from Horace Barton. I debated for some time over the +safest method of returning the pocketbook and its restored contents to +the wagon salesman. I realized that it wouldn't do to let him know +where I was; and it seemed a needless humiliation to confess to him +that I was the "hobo" who had posed, in his imagination, as the skilful +sidewalk pickpocket. + +In casting about for a means of communication I thought of Whitley, the +Springville minister. So I wrote him a letter, enclosing the +pocketbook, with a truthful explanation of the circumstances in which +it had come into my possession, and telling him what to do with it. I +laid no commands upon his conscience, but begged him, if he could +consistently do so, to suppress my name and whereabouts. And since I +could not be quite sure as to what the ministerial conscience might +demand, I added, rather disingenuously, I fear, that he needn't reply +to my letter, as I had no permanent address. + +It was some little time after my promotion to the commissary that +Dorgan came on the job as a track-laying foreman. He was a heavy-set, +black-browed fellow with a sinister face and deeply caverned, brooding +eyes looking out furtively under their bushy coverts, and his chief +characteristic was a crabbed reticence which not even the exigencies of +handling a crew of steel-layers seemed able to break. His face was one +not to be easily forgotten; from the first sight I had of it, it was +vaguely familiar, and a thoughtful ransacking of the cubby-holes of +memory very shortly recalled it for me. Dorgan was an escaped convict. + +His jail-break dated back to my second year in the penitentiary, to a +period just after I had been slated for the prison office work. +Dorgan--his name on the prison books was Michael Murphey, but we knew +him only as "Number 3126"--had "brought" ten years for safe-blowing, +and he was known in the prison yard and shops as a dangerous man. +Twice within my recollection of him he had been put in solitary +confinement for fighting; and he was one of the few to whom the warden +denied the small privileges accorded the "good conducts." + +One day a hue and cry was raised and word was quickly passed that +Number 3126 was missing. He had planned his escape craftily. A new +shop building was at that time in process of erection, and each day a +gang of "trusties" went outside to haul stone. Of course, the +safe-blower was not included in this outside gang, but one dark and +rainy morning he included himself by the simple process of hog-tying +and gagging one of the trusties detailed for the job, exchanging +numbered jackets with him, and taking the man's place in the ranks of +the stone-loaders, where he contrived to pass unnoticed by the guards. + +The escape was entirely successful. At the critical moment Dorgan had +overpowered the single wagon guard, leaving the man a candidate for +admission to the hospital, and had made his break for liberty. We, of +the inside, never knew, of course, the various steps taken in the +attempt to recapture him. But they all appeared to be fruitless since +Number 3126 was never brought back. + +I failed utterly in an endeavor to analyze my own feelings when I +recognized Dorgan and realized that an escaped man from my own prison +was at work for my employers; an escaped criminal and a desperate one, +at that. What was my duty in the premises? Should I bind myself, once +for all, to the brotherhood of law-breakers--the submerged minority--by +shielding this man and conniving at his escape? Or should I turn +informer, telling the contractor-partners of the risk they ran by +keeping Dorgan in the force--the risk that some night, after the money +for the monthly pay-roll had been brought out from town, they would +find the camp safe smashed and its contents gone? + +While I was debating this question, inclined first in one direction by +some new generosity on the part of one or the other of my employers, +and again leaning the other way when I remembered that, in the eye of +the law, I, myself, was in precisely the same category with Number +3126, I had another promotion. One evening, just after I had closed +the commissary, one of the water-boys came to tell me that I was wanted +in the contractors' office, a little shack at the far side of the +end-of-track cantonments. Hadley, the senior member of the firm, was +alone when I showed myself at the door. + +"Come in, Bertrand," he invited, gruffly genial; "come in and wait a +minute until I go over this estimate again. You'll find cigars in that +box on the bunk." + +Having nothing to do while I waited, I sat on a stool in a corner of +the shack, smoking the gift cigar and silently regarding the man who +had sent for me. He was a good example of the better type of Western +contractor and out-door man; big-bodied, burly, whiskered like a miner, +a keen driver on the work, but withal as kindly as a father when +kindness was called for. + +In due time he pushed the figuring pad aside and turned to me. "Drag +up your stool, Jim; I want to talk to you," he began. And then: "How +much experience have you had in keeping accounts?" + +I told him briefly. + +"In a bank, eh?" he queried, and I knew precisely what he was thinking. +He was wondering what I had done to break myself. In spite of all that +had happened or might happen, I believe I was ready to tell him; but to +my astonishment the curt questioning which all my previous experience +had taught me to expect at this stage of the game did not come. + +"This is a free country, Bertrand," he said, looking me squarely in the +eye. "I'm not going to ask you why you quit bank bookkeeping to come +out here and swing a pick in a construction camp. Here in the tall +hills we don't think much of digging up graves--the graves of any man's +past. You've done well in every job we've tried you at, and that's all +to the good for you." + +I said I had tried to fill the bill as well as I knew how, and he took +me up promptly. + +"We know you have; and that brings on more talk. Kenniston is leaving +us to go prospecting. We've talked it over--Shelton and I--and you're +to have the paymaster's job. Think you can hold it down?" + +"I am sure I can--so far as the routine duties are concerned. But----" + +Never, in all the soul-killing experiences of the parole period, had I +been confronted with a test so gripping. Would this large-hearted man +turn the keys of his money chest over to me if he knew I were an +ex-convict, liable at any moment to be re-arrested for having broken my +parole? I was silent so long that he began again. + +"Looking around for a spade to begin the grave-digging?" he asked, with +a sober smile. Then, with a note of unwonted gentleness in his voice: +"I shouldn't do that if I were you, Jimmie. The man doesn't live who +hasn't, at one time or another, had to dig a hole and bury something +decently out of sight. Whatever you may have done in the past, you're +not going to play marbles with the Hadley-and-Shelton pay-money. +That's about all there is to it. You may take hold to-morrow morning. +Kenniston will stay long enough to show you the ropes." + +It was not until after I had left the office shack and was crossing to +the bunk house set apart for the office squad that I remembered Dorgan. +Now, if never before, my duty in his case was plain. It was tempting +Providence to allow the presence in camp of a burglar who was probably +only waiting for his chance to "clean up"; doubly perilous now, indeed, +since in any case of loss my record would be shown up, and Dorgan, if +he had already recognized me as I had him, would not be slow to take +advantage of my vulnerability. + +My first impulse was to go straight back to Hadley and tell him, +without the loss of another moment. But there were difficulties in the +way; obstacles which I had not before stopped to consider. If I should +accuse Dorgan, he might retaliate by telling what he knew of me. This +difficulty was brushed aside at once: I judged there was little to fear +from this, in view of what Hadley had just said to me. But there was +another obstacle; the one which had kept me silent from the day I had +first seen Dorgan driving his track-layers. With a crushing sense of +degradation I realized the full force of the motive for silence, as I +had not up to this time. With every fiber of me protesting that I must +be loyal to my employers at any and all costs, that other loyalty, the +tie that binds the branded, proved the stronger. I could not bring +myself to the point of sending Dorgan, guilty as he doubtless was, back +to the living death of the "long-termer." I make no excuses. One +cannot touch pitch and escape defilement in some sort. For three years +I had lived among criminals; and the bond . . . but I have said all +this before. + +It may be imagined with what inward tremblings I took on the duties of +the new job the next day. Kenniston, eager to be gone on his +prospecting tour, gave me only a short forenoon over the pay-rolls; but +as to this, the routine was simple enough. It was what he said at +parting that gave me the greatest concern. + +"You have to go to the bank at the Creek and get the money, you know," +he said. "I usually go on the afternoon train. That will make you +late for banking hours, but if you wire ahead they'll have the money +counted out and ready for you. Then you can catch the evening train to +the junction and come up on one of the construction engines. Better +take one of the commissary .45's along, just for safety's sake--though +in all the trips I've made I've never needed a gun." + +The week following Kenniston's drop-out was a busy one, with time-books +to check and enter, commissary deductions to be made, and the payrolls +to be gotten out. My office was a small room or space partitioned off +from the commissary, the partition being of matched boards, +breast-high, and above that a rough slat grille like those in country +railroad stations. As I worked at the bracketed shelf which served as +a high desk, I could see the interior of the commissary, and those who +came and went. It may have been only a fancy, but it seemed to me that +Dorgan came in oftener than usual; and more than once I caught him +peering at me through the slatted grille, with the convict's trick of +looking aside without turning his head. It was for this reason, more +than for any other, that I recalled Kenniston's advice and armed myself +when I went to Cripple Creek on the day before pay-day to get the money +from the bank. + +The short journey to town was uneventful. A construction locomotive +took me down to the main line junction, where I caught the regular +train from Denver. But on the way from the railroad station to the +bank in Cripple Creek I had a shock, followed instantly by the +conviction that I was in for trouble. On the opposite side of the +street, and keeping even pace with me, I saw Dorgan. + +Barrett (for obvious reasons I cannot use real names) was the man I had +been told to ask for at the bank, and it was he who admitted me at the +side door, the hour being well past the close of business. He was a +clean-cut, alert young fellow; a Westerner, I judged, only by recent +adoption. + +"You are Bertrand, from the Hadley and Shelton camps?" he asked; and +then, as I produced my check and letter of authority; "You don't need +the letter. Kenniston told me what you'd look like. Your money is +ready." + +In one of the private rooms of the bank the currency was counted out, +the count verified, the money receipted for, and I was ready to start +back. Barrett walked to the railroad station with me, helping with the +valise money bag, which was heavy with a good bit of coin for making +change. We got better acquainted on the walk, and I warmed immediately +to the frank, open-mannered young bank teller, little dreaming what +this acquaintance, begun in pure business routine, was destined to lead +to in the near future. + +Barrett saw me safely aboard of my return train, and stood on the +platform at the open window of the car talking to me until the train +started. On my part this leave-taking talk was more or less +perfunctory; I was scanning the platform throng anxiously in search of +a certain heavy-shouldered man with a sinister face; and when, just as +the train began to move, I saw Dorgan swing himself up to the step of +the car ahead, I knew what was before me--or thought I did--and +surreptitiously drew the .45 from the inside coat-pocket where I had +carried it, twirling the cylinder to make sure that it was loaded and +in serviceable condition. + +There was an excellent chance for a hold-up at the junction. It was +coming on to dusk as the through train made the stop, and there was no +town, not even a station; nothing but a water tank and the littered +jumble of a construction yard. My engine was making up a train of +material cars to be taken to our end-of-track camp, and I had to wait +for it to come within hailing distance. + +Dorgan got off the through train at the same time that I did. I stood +with the money valise between my feet and folded my arms with a hand +inside of my coat and grasping the butt of the big revolver, shaking a +bit because all this was so foreign to anything I had ever experienced, +but determined to do what seemed needful at the pinch. Oddly enough, +as I thought, the track foreman made no move to approach me. Instead, +he kept his distance, busying himself with the filling and lighting of +a stubby black pipe. After a little time, and before it was quite +dark, my engine backed down to where I was standing and I climbed +aboard with my money bag, still with an eye on Dorgan. The last I saw +of him he was sitting on the end of a cross-tie, pulling away at his +pipe and apparently oblivious to me and to everything else. But I made +sure that when the material train should pull out he would be aboard of +it; and the event proved that he was. + +Obsessed with the idea that Dorgan had chosen the time to make his +"clean-up," I took no chances after the end-of-track camp was reached. +The money valise went with me to the mess tent, and I ate supper with +my feet on it, and with the big revolver lying across my knees. After +supper I lugged my responsibility over to the commissary pay-office, +and by the flickering light of a miner's candle stowed the money in the +ramshackle old safe which was the only security the camp afforded. + +Past this I lighted the lamps and busied myself with the account books. +There was little doing in the commissary--it was too near pay-day for +the men to be buying much--and the clerk who had taken over my former +job shut up shop quite early. At nine o'clock I was alone in the +store-room building; and at a little before ten I put out the lights +and lay down on the office cot with a sawed-off Winchester--a part of +the pay-office armament--lying on the mattress beside me. + +A foolish thing to do, you say?--when at a word I might have had all +the help I needed in guarding the pay-money? No; it wasn't altogether +foolhardiness; it was partly weakness. For, twist and turn it as I +might, there was always the unforgivable thing at the end: the fact +that by calling in help and betraying Dorgan to others, I, once his +prison-mate, and even now, like him--though in a lesser degree--a +law-breaker, would become a "snitch," an informer, a traitor to my +kind. A wretchedly distorted point of view? Doubtless it was. But +the three years of unmerited punishment and criminal associations must +account for it as they may. + +I don't know how long the silent watch was maintained. One by one the +night noises of the camp died down and the stillness of the solitudes +enveloped the commissary. The responsibility I was carrying should +have kept me awake, but it didn't. If the coming of sleep had been +gradual I might have fought it off, but the healthy life of the camp +had given me leave to eat like a workingman and to fall asleep like one +when the day was ended. So after the stillness had fairly laid hold of +me I was gone before I knew it. + +When I opened my eyes it was with a startled conviction that I was no +longer alone in the little boxed-in office. In the murky indoor +darkness of a moonless night I could barely distinguish the +surroundings, the shelf-desk, the black bulk of the old safe, the +three-legged stool, and at the end of the room the gray patch which +placed the single window. Then, with a cold sweat starting from every +pore, I saw the humped figure of a man beside the safe. As nearly as I +could make out, he was sitting with his back to the wall and his knees +drawn up, and by listening intently I could hear his measured breathing. + +It required a greater amount of brute courage than I had thought it +would to spring to a sitting posture on the cot and cover the squatting +figure with the rifle slewed into position across my knees. The man +made no move to obey when I ordered him to hold up his hands. Then I +spoke again. + +"I've got the drop on you, Dorgan--or Murphey; whichever your name is," +I said. "If you move I shall kill you. You see, I know who you are +and what you are here for." + +A voice, harsh but neither threatening nor pleading, came out of the +shadows beside the safe. + +"You ain't tellin' me nothin' new, pally. I spotted you a good while +back, and I knowed you'd lamped me. You was lookin' f'r me to bust in +here to-night?" + +"I was. After you followed me to Cripple Creek and back I knew about +what to expect." + +"And you was layin' f'r me alone?--when you could 'a' had Collins and +Nixon and half a dozen more if yous 'd squealed f'r 'em?" + +"I didn't need any better help than this," I answered, patting the +stock of the Winchester. "The jig's up, Dorgan. You can't crack this +safe while I'm here and alive. I suppose you got in by the window: you +can go out the same way." + +"You're aimin' to turn me loose?" said the voice, and now I fancied +there was a curious trembly hoarseness in it. + +"You heard what I said." + +"Listen a minute, pally: if you'll hold that gun right stiddy where it +is and let out a yell 'r two, you can earn five hundred doughboys. Ye +didn't know that, did you?" + +"I know you broke jail and skipped for it, but I didn't know how much +the warden was willing to pay to get you back." + +"It's five hundred bones, all right. Study a minute: don't you want +the five hundred?" + +"No; not bad enough to send you back to 'stir' for it." + +There was a dead silence for the space of a long minute, and while it +endured the man sat motionless, with his back against the wall and his +hands locked over his knees. Then: "They'd all pat you on the back if +yous was to let out that yell. I brought ten years with me when the +warden give me my number, and I'm thinkin' they was comin' to me--all +o' them." + +"But you don't want to go back?" + +"Not me; if it was to come to that, I'd a damned sight rather you'd +squeeze a little harder on that trigger you've got under your finger; +see?" + +"Then why did you take this long chance?" I demanded. "You say you +knew I had spotted you; you might have known that I'd be ready for you." + +"I kind o' hoped you would," he said, drawling the words. "Yes; I sure +did hope ye would--not but what I'm thinkin' I could 'a' done it alone." + +"Done what alone? What are you driv----" + +The interruption was imperative; a fierce "Hist!" from the corner +beside the safe, and at the same instant a blurring of the gray patch +of the window, a sash rising almost noiselessly, and two men, following +each other like substance and shadow, legging themselves into the +office over the window-sill. At first I thought Dorgan had set a trap +for me; but before that unworthy suspicion could draw its second +breath, the track foreman had hurled himself upon the two intruders, +calling to me to come on and help him. + +The battle, such as it was, was short, sharp and decisive, as the +darkness and the contracted fighting space constrained it to be. +Though I dared not shoot, I contrived to use the rifle as a club on the +man who was trying to choke Dorgan from behind, and after a +hard-breathing minute or two we had them both down, one of them half +stunned by the blow on his head from the gun-barrel, and the other with +an arm twisted and temporarily useless. Under Dorgan's directions I +cut a couple of lengths from a rope coil in the commissary with which +we tied the pair hand and foot, dragging them afterward to the freer +floor space beyond the pay-office partition. + +"They'll be stayin' put till mornin', I'm thinkin'," was Dorgan's +comment as we retreated to the scene of the battle. Then, as he edged +toward the open window: "Ye won't be needin' me any more to-night . . . +I'll duck whilst the duckin's good." + +"Not just yet," I interposed, and pulled him to a seat on the cot +beside me. "I want to know a few things first. You knew about the +raid these fellows were planning?" + +"Sure, I did." + +"Tell me about it." + +"I piped 'em off about a week ago--when Kenniston 'd gone. They talked +too much, and too loud, d'ye see? The lay was f'r to chase in to the +Creek wit' you--an' they did--an' get you on the road, if they could; +if that didn't work, they was to crack the safe"--this with the +contempt of the real craftsman for a pair of amateurs. "D'ye see, the +boss 'd been dippy enough to write the combination on a piece o' paper +when Kenniston ducked out--f'r fear he'd be forgettin' it, maybe, and +these dubs o' the world nipped the paper." + +"See here, Dorgan; was that why you followed me to town this +afternoon?" I shot at him. + +"Ye've guessed it." + +"And it was for the same reason that you sneaked in here while I was +asleep?" + +"Ye've guessed it ag'in." + +"You didn't want the bosses to be robbed?" + +The escaped convict had his face propped between his hands with his +elbows resting on his knees. + +"I'm thinkin' maybe it's six o' one and a half-dozen o' tother," he +said soberly. "I wasn't carin' so damned much about the bosses, square +as they've been to me. But I puts it up like this: here's you, and +you'd spotted me, and you hadn't snitched; you'd been in 'stir' +yourself, and knowed what it was: d'ye see?" + +I smiled in the darkness. It was the brotherhood of the underworld. + +"And you lined up square at the finish, too, as I knowed yous would," +he went on. "You sees me pipin' yous off in town, and you was thinkin' +maybe I'd drop in here to-night and crack this old box f'r the swag +there'd be in it. You laid f'r me alone, because yit you wouldn't be +willin' to give me up. Ain't that the size of it, pally?" + +"You've guessed it," I said, handing his own words back to him. "And +now one more question, Dorgan: have you quit the crooked business for +keeps?" + +He was up and moving toward the open window when he replied. + +"Who the hell would know that? I was a railroad man, pally, before I +took to the road. These days I'm eatin' my t'ree squares and sleepin' +good. But some fine mornin' a little man that I could break in halves +wit' my two hands 'll come dancin' along wit' a paper in his pocket and +a gun in his fist; and then it'll be all over but the shoutin'--or the +fun'ral. There's on'y the one sure thing about it, pally: I'll not be +goin' back to 'stir'--not alive; d'ye see? So long . . . don't let +them ducks get loose on yous and come at yous fr'm behind, whilst maybe +you'd be dozin' off." + +And with this parting injunction he was gone. + + + + +XII + +A Cast for Fortune + +The incident of the frustrated safe robbery was an incident closed, so +far as any difference in Dorgan's attitude toward me was concerned, at +the moment when he disappeared through the open window of the +pay-office. For the next two or three weeks I saw him only as he +chanced to drop into the commissary of an evening; and upon such +occasions he ignored me absolutely. + +Only once more while the work of branch-line building continued did we +have speech together. It was in the evening of a day when the new +line, then nearly completed, had been honored with visitors; a car-load +of them up from Denver in some railway official's private +hotel-on-wheels. It so happened that my duties had taken me up to the +actual end-of-track--by this time some miles beyond our headquarters +camp at Flume Gulch--and I was there when the special, with its +observation platform crowded with sightseers, came surging and +staggering up over the uneven track of the new line. + +I paid little attention to the one-car train as it passed me, save to +note that there were women among the railroad official's guests. The +sightseers were quite outside of my purview--or within it only as +temporary hindrances to a job we were all pushing at top speed. A +short distance beyond me the train came to a stand in the midst of +Dorgan's crew and I saw some of the people getting off the car. Just +then a construction engine came along on the siding, and, my errand to +the front being accomplished, I flagged it and went back to +headquarters. + +As I have said, Dorgan dropped into the commissary that evening. His +ostensible errand was to buy some tobacco, but after he had filled his +pipe he lingered until the sleepy commissary clerk began to turn the +loiterers out preparatory to closing the place for the night. It was +then that Dorgan gave me a sign which I rightly interpreted; when I +released the catch of the pay-office door he slipped in and sat down on +the cot where he would be out of sight of those in front. Here he +smoked in sober silence until Crawford, the commissary man, had gone +out and locked the door on the empty storeroom. + +"I was wantin' to tip yez off," was the way he began, after we had the +needful privacy. "You'd be after seein' that kid-glove gang up at the +front this mornin'?" + +I nodded. + +"Know anybody in that bunch?" + +"I didn't notice them particularly," I replied. "I understood they +were Denver people--friends of somebody in the railroad management." + +"There was women," he said significantly. + +"I know; I saw some of them." + +"Yes; and be the same token, there was one of them lamped yous off. I +listened at her askin' one o' the men who you was; d'ye see?" + +Instantly I began to ransack my brain for the possibilities, and almost +at once the talk on the train with Horace Barton, the wagon sales +manager, flashed into the field of recollection. + +"Could you describe the woman for me?" I asked. + +Dorgan made hard work of this, though it was evident that he was trying +his best. His description would have fitted any one of a round million +of American women, I suppose; yet out of it I thought I could draw some +faint touches of familiarity. The stumbling description, coupled with +Barton's assertion that Agatha Geddis was living in Colorado, fitted +together only too well. + +"Did you hear what she said to the man?" I inquired, and my mouth was +dry. + +"On'y a bit of it. She says, says she: 'Who is that man wit' a French +beard--the young man in his shirt-sleeves?' The felly she t'rowed this +into was one o' the kid-gloves, and he didn't know. So he went to +Shelton, who was showin' the crowd around on the job. When he comes +back, he tells her your name is Jim Bertrand, and that you makes a +noise like the camp paymaster." + +"Well?" I prompted. "Go on." + +"She laughs when he says that. 'Jim Bertrand, is it?' says she. 'Will +you do me a favor, Mister Jullybird'--'r some such name. 'Go and ask +that young man how did he leave all the folks in Glendale. I want to +see him jump,' says she. He didn't do it because at that same minute +yous was walkin' down the track to flag Benson's ingine." + +The bolt had fallen. The woman could have been no other than Agatha +Geddis. Once more I stood in critical danger of losing all that I had +gained. There was only one faint hope, and that was that she had not +heard of the broken parole. I had to go to the water jug in the +Commissary and get a drink before I could thank Dorgan for telling me. + +"'Tis nothin'," he said shortly. Then, after a protracted pause: "What +can she do to yous, pally?" + +"She can send me up for two years; and then some--for the penalties." + +Again a silence intervened. + +"'Twas in the back part o' my head to take a chance and ditch that +damn' special when she was comin' back down the gulch," said Dorgan, at +length, as coolly as if he were merely telling me that his pipe had +gone out. "But if I'd done it, it would have been just my crooked luck +to 'a' killed everybody on it but that woman. What'll ye be doin'?" + +"Nothing at present. We shall finish here in a week or so more, and +then I'll see." + +That ended it. After Dorgan had got another match for his pipe, I let +him out at the side door of the commissary, and he went his way across +to the sleeping shacks on the other side of the tracks. + +Two weeks later it was this story of the inquisitive young woman, +weighing in the balance with some other things, that determined my +immediate future course. The work on the branch line was completed, +and my employers had taken a dam-building contract in Idaho. I was +offered the job of bookkeeper and paymaster, combined, on the new work, +with a substantial raise in salary, and the temptation to accept was +very strong. But I argued, foolishly, perhaps, that so long as I +remained in the same service as that in which she had discovered me, +Agatha Geddis would always be able to trace me; that my best chance was +to lose myself again as speedily as possible. + +The "losing" opportunity had already offered itself. By this time I +had made a few acquaintances in town and was beginning to be bitten by +the mining bug. Though I was a late comer in the district, and Cripple +Creek had fully caught its stride as one of the greatest gold-producing +camps in the world some time before my advent, "strikes" were still +occurring frequently enough to keep the gold seekers' excitement from +dying out. With the greater part of my Hadley-and-Shelton earnings in +my pocket, and with muscles camp-hardened sufficiently to enable me to +hold my own as a workingman, I decided to take a chance and become a +prospector. + +We went at it judiciously and with well-considered plans, three of us: +the bank teller, Barrett, a young carpenter named Gifford, and myself. +Altogether we could pool less than a thousand dollars of capital, but +we determined to make the modest stake suffice. By this time the +entire district had been plotted and replotted into mining claims; +hence we did our preliminary prospecting in the records of the land +office. A careful search revealed a number of infinitesimally small +areas as yet uncovered by the many criss-crossing claims; and among +these we chose a triangular-shaped bit of mountain side on the farther +slope of Bull Mountain, with a mine called the "Lawrenceburg," a fairly +large producer, for our nearest neighbor. + +There was a good bit of discussion precedent to the making of this +decision. Barrett thought that we stood but a slight chance of finding +mineral in the over-prospected area. The Lawrenceburg was a full +quarter of a mile distant from our triangle, and its "pay-streak" was +said to dip southward, while our gulch slope lay on the other side of a +spur and due northeast. It was a further examination of the +land-office records that turned the scale. Among the numerous unworked +claims lying higher up the gulch, beyond and adjoining our proposed +location, we found three whose ownership we traced, through a number of +transfers apparently designed to hide something, to the Lawrenceburg. + +Barrett, a fine, keen-witted young fellow whose real name, if I might +give it, would be familiar to everybody in the West, was the first to +draw the probable inference. + +"Jimmie, you've got the longest head in the bunch," was his comment; +this because I had chanced to be the one to make the discovery of the +well-concealed ownership. "At some period in the history of the +Lawrenceburg, which is one of the oldest mines on Bull Mountain, its +owners have had reason to believe that their pay streak was going to +run the other way--to the northeast. They undertook to cover the +chance by making these locations quietly, and through 'dummy' locators, +on the other side of the spur." + +"But how did they come to overlook this patch we're figuring on?" asked +Gifford, the carpenter. + +"That was somebody's blunder," Barrett offered. "These section plats +we have been studying may have been made after the locations were +staked out; in all probability that was the case. That sort of thing +happens easily in a new country like this. It was an oversight; you +can bet to win on that. If those Lawrenceburg people had any good +business reason for locating these claims beyond us, they had precisely +the same reason for covering this intervening bit of ground that we are +going to grab." + +Gifford took fire at once; and if I didn't it was only because we were +not yet in possession, and I thought there might be many chances for a +slip between the cup and the lip. This talk took place at night in +Barrett's room in town, and before we separated our plans were fully +made. Gifford and I were to start at once--that night, mind you--for +Bull Mountain to locate a claim which should cover as completely as +possible the entire area of the irregular triangle. The location made, +the carpenter and I were to work the claim as a two-man proposition. +Barrett was to retain his place in the bank, so that the savings from +his salary might add more capital. We even went so far as to christen +our as yet unborn mine. Since we were picking up--or were going to +pick up--one of the unconsidered fragments after the big fellows had +taken their fill of the loaves and fishes, we proposed to call our +venture "The Little Clean-Up." + +I shall always remember Barrett's good-natured grin when the meeting +was adjourned. + +"You two will have the hot end of it," he remarked. "You're going to +do the hard work, and all you've left me is a chance to do the starving +act. Right here is where I see myself giving up this palatial +apartment and going into a boarding-house. For heaven's sake, eat +light, you two. We may have to sink a hundred feet in solid rock +before we find anything." + +We went in light marching order, Gifford and I; and the early dawn of +the following morning found us driving our location stakes and pacing +off the boundaries of the new claim. I like to remember that we were +neither too new to the business, nor too much excited, to be careful +and methodical. The triangular patch of unclaimed ground lay along the +slope, with the apex of the triangle pointing toward the hill-hidden +Lawrenceburg. Ignoring any vein directions which might develop later +on, we laid off our location to fit the ground, taking in all the space +we could legally hold; which would be, of course, only the triangle, +though our staking necessarily overlapped this area on all sides. If +we should be lucky enough to make a strike, ground space for our +operations was going to be at a premium, and at the very best there +wasn't an inch of room to spare. + +I don't know just why we should have been afraid that anybody would +have been foolish enough to try to "jump" an unworked claim; but we +were, and we decided at once that we would not leave the ground +unwatched now that our stakes were driven and our notice duly posted. +Accordingly, Gifford went back to town to make the needful land-office +entry and to bring out the supplies, tools, and a wagon-load of lumber +for a shack, leaving me to stand guard with an old horse-pistol of +Gifford's for a weapon. It was after dark when I heard the wagon +trailing up the gulch, and I had had nothing to eat since morning. But +I was free and hopeful--and happy; with the nightmare past becoming +more and more a thing to be pushed aside and comfortably ignored. + +Looking back at it now, I can see that our venture was haphazard to the +tenderfoot degree. Having built a sleeping shack out of the lumber, we +picked a place for the prospect shaft solely with reference to its +convenience on the hillside. But for this we had plenty of precedents. +What the miners of any other district would have called sheer miracles +of luck were the usual thing in the Cripple Creek region. From the +earliest of the discoveries the region had been upsetting all the +well-established mining traditions, and the tenderfoot was quite as +likely to find mineral as was the most experienced prospector; more +likely, in fact, since the man with everything to learn would not be +hampered by the traditions. + +The top layer of fine gravel which answers for soil in the district +carries gold "float"--"color," a Californian would say,--in numberless +localities over an area of many square miles; a fact which was well +known long before any one knew of the underlying treasures which have +since been taken out of the deep workings. But there are no vein +outcroppings on the surface, and the prospector's first task is to +uncover the bed-rock by sinking one or more test pits through the +gravel. In some one of these shallow shafts he may--or may not--make +his discovery. If successful, he will find, on some well-cleaned +surface of the bed-rock, a fine broken line; a minute vein in many +instances so narrow as to be discoverable only by the use of a +magnifying-glass; and that discolored line will be his invitation to +dig deeper. + +By the morning of the second day Gifford had built our rude windlass, +and the work of shaft sinking was begun. The gravel layer varies in +thickness in different parts of the district, ranging from a few inches +in some places to many feet in others. In our case we were less than +waist-deep in the hole, and had not yet set up the windlass, when we +reached the upper surface of the bed-rock. + +Generally speaking, the Cripple Creek district is a dry region as to +its surface, but we were lucky enough to have a trickling rivulet in +our gulch. It was dark before we had carried water in sufficient +quantity to wash off the uncovered bed-rock bottom in our hole, so we +turned in without knowing what we had found, or whether or not we had +found anything. + +I was cooking the bacon and pan-bread the next morning when Gifford, +who had gone early into the hole with a bucket of water and a +scrubbing-brush, came running up to the shack with his eyes bulging. + +"We--we've got it!" he gasped. "Where's that magnifying-glass?" + +I left the bacon to burn if it wanted to and ran with him to the +shallow shaft. He had scrubbed the solid rock of the pit bottom until +it was as bare as the back of a hand, and across the cleaned stone, +running from southwest to northeast, there was a thin line of +discoloration showing plainly enough as a fissure vein. Gifford dug a +little of the crack-filling out with the blade of his pocket-knife and +we examined it under the magnifier. We were both ready to swear that +we could see flecks and dust grains of free gold in the bluish-brown +gangue-matter; but that was purely imagination. + +I think neither of us knew or cared that the bacon was burned to a +blackened crisp when we got back to it. The breakfast was bolted like +a tramp's hand-out, and before the sun was fairly over the shoulder of +the eastern mountain we were back in the hole with hammer and drills. +The frantic haste was entirely excusable. While it was true that a +greater number of the Cripple Creek discoveries had widened +satisfactorily from the surface down, becoming more and more profitable +at increasing depths, it was also true that some of them had begun as +"knife-blades" and had so continued. What Gifford and I did not know +about drilling and shooting rock would have filled a library of +volumes; none the less, by noon we had succeeded in worrying a couple +of holes in the solid shaft bottom, had loaded them, and were ready for +the blast. + +If any real miner should chance to read this true and unvarnished tale +of our beginnings he will smile when I confess that we cut the fuses +four feet long and retreated a good quarter of a mile up the gulch +after they were lighted. In our breathless eagerness it seemed as if +we waited a full half-hour before the shallow hole vomited a mouthful +of broken rock and dust, and a dull double rumble told us that both +shots had gone off. Gifford was a fairly good sprinter, but I beat him +on the home run. The hole was half full of shattered rock and loosened +gravel and we went at it with our bare hands. After a few minutes of +this senseless dog-scratching, Gifford sat down on the edge of the pit +and burst out laughing. + +"I guess there ain't any manner o' need for us to go plumb locoed," he +said. "We've got all the time there is, and a shovel will last a heap +longer than our fingers." + +I may say, in passing, that this attitude was characteristic of our +carpenter partner. He was a country boy from Southern Indiana; a +natural-born mechanic, with only a common school education. But he had +initiative and a good gift of horse sense and balance, and in the +troublous times that followed he was always our level-headed stand-by. + +Acting upon his most sensible suggestion, we took our time, spelling +each other in shoveling out the debris. The two shots driven in +opposite corners had deepened the shaft over two feet. When the new +bottom of the hole was uncovered we nearly had a return of the +frenzies. The discolored line of the vein had widened to four inches +or more, and the last of the broken rock shoveled out was freely mixed +with fragments of the bluish-brown gangue-matter. + +A hasty estimate assured us that we had a sufficient quantity of the +lode matter for a trial assay, and we spent the better part of the +afternoon picking out pieces of the ore on the small dump and in +chipping more of them from the exposed face of the seam. It was +arranged that one of us should take the samples to town after dark, for +the sake of secrecy, and we put in what daylight there was left after +our sample was prepared drilling another set of holes--though we did +not fire them. + +Leaving Gifford to stand guard over what now might be something well +worth guarding, I made my way down the mountain after supper with the +two small sacks of selected samples. True to his promise, I found +Barrett already established in a rather cheap boarding-house. He was +surprised to see me so soon, and more than surprised when I showed him +the specimens of bluish rock. + +"Say--by George!" he exclaimed; "that sure does look like the real +stuff, Jimmie; though of course you can't tell. Have you roasted any +of it?" + +I was so green a miner at that time that I did not know what "roasting" +meant. Barrett had a tiny coal-stove in his room with a bit of fire in +it. Even the June nights are sometimes chilly at the Cripple Creek +altitude. Selecting a bit of the stone he put it upon the fire-shovel +among the coals and while it was heating listened to my recounting of +the short and exciting story of the "find." + +When the piece of bluish stone had been roasted and cooled we did not +need the magnifying-glass. It was covered with a dew of fine pin-point +yellow globules. Barrett went up in the air as if his chair had +exploded under him. "My God, Jimmie!" he choked, "it's--it's a +_bonanza_!" + +The next step was to have authoritative assays made, and together we +took the two small sacks of ore to the sampling works, which, at that +time, were running day and night. We waited in the office while the +tests were being made. The result, which came to us well past +midnight, was enough to upset the equanimity of a wooden Indian. Some +of the selected samples carried values as high as twenty-five dollars +in gold--not to the ton; oh, no; nothing like that: _to the pound_! + +Barrett had the situation firmly by the neck when we left the sampling +works. + +"I have a sort of provisional arrangement with Mr. Conaughy, our +president, and I can quit the bank without notice and explain +afterward," he said. "I'm going right back with you to-night. Three +of us will be none too many to handle this thing when the news gets +out." + +We went to his room first and loaded up with blankets, working clothes, +a shot-gun and a generous supply of fixed ammunition. On the long +tramp up the mountain, Barrett, who was older in the district than +either Gifford or myself, told me what we might expect. + +"You needn't think we are going to be allowed to dig that hole without +the toughest kind of a fight, Jimmie," he predicted. "The minute the +news gets loose, we shall be swamped with 'interferences,' relocations, +law-suits, process servers and constables, to say nothing of the +strong-hands and claim-jumpers. The Lawrenceburg people will doubtless +claim that mistakes were made in their surveys, as perhaps there were. +They've got a first-class fighting man for a superintendent; as I +happen to know: a man who won't stick at anything to carry his end." + +"But it's our strike," I urged. + +"It's ours if we can hold it," was the sober reply. "Our best play is +to keep the thing absolutely dark until we can dig out enough money to +give us a fighting fund. That's where we're lame. Our bit of capital +won't go anywhere when they drag us into the courts." + +Our shortest way to the new claim led us in sight of the Lawrenceburg +workings. They were running night shifts, and though it was now well +along in the small hours, the plant was in full swing. Like most of +the mines within trolley distance of the towns, it had no miners' +village, the men going back and forth at the shift-changing hours. But +the superintendent lived at the plant, and there were a few bunk houses +and one other detached cottage. + +There was a light in one room of this cottage as we passed, and Barrett +called my attention to it. + +"There's a man in that shack that I hope we may be able to get, if we +ever grow big enough to hire him," he said. Then he added, quite +irrelevantly: "He has a daughter, and I'm telling you right now, +Jimmie, she's a peach." + +I let the reference to the daughter go by default. + +"Who is this gentleman that we ought to be able to hire?" I asked. + +"He is the best, or at least one of the best, metallurgical chemists in +the district, and it goes without saying that an honest assayer counts +for everything in this mining game. Without one, the smelters will +skin you alive." + +I laughed. "I didn't ask what he was; I asked who he was--or is." + +"He is a school-teacher, or college professor, and I'm told he has +taught in High Schools and freshwater colleges all over the Middle +West," said Barrett, as we topped the hill to our side of the mountain +shoulder. And then I got my bucketing of cold water. "His name is +Phineas Everton, and his daughter's name is Mary--though everybody +calls her Polly." + + + + +XIII + +For the Sinews of War + +Gifford, sitting in the darkness with his back to the windlass and the +big old-fashioned holster revolver across his knees, held us up promptly +and peremptorily when we came over the spur. Seeing Barrett with me, he +knew pretty well what the results of the assay were before we told him. +At the edge of the shallow pit we held a council of war--the first of +many. Gifford fully agreed with Barrett that the most profound secrecy +was the first requisite. Though he was new to the business of +gold-mining--as new as either the bank teller or myself--he could +prefigure pretty accurately what was before us. + +"Here's where we'll have to ride and tie on the snoozing act," was his +drawling comment. "We mustn't leave her alone for a single minute, after +this; and it's got to be one of us, at that. We couldn't afford to hire +a watchman if we had a million dollars." + +Under the ride-and-tie proposal I volunteered to stand watch for the +remainder of the night; and after the other two had turned in I took +Gifford's place, with the windlass for a back rest and Barrett's shot-gun +for a weapon. + +I was not sorry to have a little time to think; to try in some fashion to +readjust the point of view so suddenly snatched from its anchorings in +the commonplace and shot high into the empyrean. It was the night of the +ninth of June. Three months earlier, to a day, I had been an outcast; a +miserable tramp roaming the streets of a great city; broken in mind, body +and heart; bitter, discouraged, and so nearly ready to fall in with +Kellow's criminal suggestion as actually to let him give me the money +which, if I had kept it or spent it as he directed, would have committed +me irretrievably to a life of crime. + +Looking back upon it from the vantage point gained by a few hours' toil +on a bare Colorado mountain-side, that ninth of March seemed to have +withdrawn into a fathomless past. I was no longer a hunted vagabond; I +was breathing the free clean air of a new environment, and in the narrow +pit beside me a fortune was waiting to be dug out; a fortune for the +ex-convict no less than for the two who had never by hint or innuendo +sought to inquire into their partner's past. It was too good to be true; +and yet it was true, contingent, as I saw it, only upon our fortitude, +discretion and manful courage. + +Nevertheless, there was still one small disturbing note in the music of +the spheres. Barrett's mention of Phineas Everton as one of our nearest +neighbors disquieted me vaguely. It was quite in vain that I reasoned +that in all human probability Everton would fail to identify the bearded +man of twenty-eight with the schoolboy he had known ten or twelve years +earlier. He had taught only one year in the Glendale High School, and I +was not in any of his classes. Polly had known me much better. She had +been in one of the grammar grades, and was just at an age to make a +big-brother confidant of her teacher's brother--my sister being at that +time a teacher in the grammar school. + +Upon this I fell to wondering curiously how Polly, a plain-faced, +eager-eyed little girl in short dresses, could have grown into anything +meriting Barrett's enthusiastic description of her as a "peach." Also, I +wondered how her bookish, studious father had ever contrived to break +with the scholastic traditions sufficiently to become an assayer for a +Western mine. But I might have saved myself this latter speculation. +Cripple Creek, like other great mining-camps, served as a melting-pot for +many strange and diverse elements. + +At the earliest graying of dawn I roused my partners and took my turn +with the blankets, too tired and drowsy to stay awake while Gifford +cooked breakfast. I was sound asleep long before they fired the two +holes Gifford and I had drilled the previous afternoon, and they let me +alone until the noonday meal was ready on the rough plank table. Over +the coffee and canned things Barrett brought our bonanza story up to date. + +"It's no joke, Jimmie," he said soberly. "We've got the world by the +ears, if we can only manage to hold on and go on digging. The lead has +widened to over six inches, and we have two more sacks of the stuff +picked out and ready to take to town." + +"Any visitors?" I asked. + +"Not a soul, as yet. But we'll have them soon enough; there's no doubt +about that. If our guess is right--that the Lawrenceburg people meant to +cover this hillside in their later locations--we'll hear from Bart +Blackwell before we are many hours older." + +"Blackwell is the superintendent you spoke of when we were coming up last +night?" + +"The same. I don't know why he hasn't been here before this time. They +must surely hear the blasting." + +We had our visitor that afternoon, while Barrett and I were working in +the hole and Gifford was sleeping. Luckily for us, Barrett never for a +single moment lost sight of the need for secrecy. We were drilling when +Blackwell's shadow fell across the mouth of the pit, but we had taken the +precaution to cover the gold-bearing vein with spalls and chippings of +the porphyry, and to see to it that none of the gold-bearing material +showed in the small dump at the pit mouth. + +Blackwell was a short man but heavy-set, with a curly black beard and +eyes that were curiously heavy-lidded. As he leaned over the windlass +and looked down upon us he reminded me of one of the fairy-tale ogres. + +"Hello, Bob," he said, speaking to Barrett, whom he knew. "Quit the +banking business, have you?" + +"Taking a bit of a lay-off," Barrett returned easily. "We all have to +get out and dig in the ground, sooner or later." + +Blackwell laughed good-naturedly. + +"You'll get enough of it up here before you've gone very far," he +predicted. "Just the same, you might have come by the office and asked +permission before you began to work off your digging fit on Lawrenceburg +property." + +"We're not on Lawrenceburg," said Barrett cheerfully. + +"Oh, yes, you are," was the equally cheerful rejoinder. "Our ground runs +pretty well up to the head of the gulch. I'm not trying to run you off, +you know. If you feel like digging a well, it's all right: it amuses +you, and it doesn't hurt us any." + +Barrett pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the hole. + +"Let's get this thing straight, Blackwell," he argued. "You've got three +claims in this gulch, but we are not on any one of them. Look at your +maps when you go back to the office." + +"I know the maps well enough. We cover everything up to the head of the +gulch, just as I say, joining with the original Lawrenceburg locations on +the other side of the spur." Then, suddenly: "Who's your friend?" + +Barrett introduced me briefly as Jim Bertrand, late of the Colorado +Midland construction force. Blackwell nodded and looked toward the shack. + +"Any more of you?" he asked. + +"One more; a fellow named Gifford. He's asleep just now." + +Blackwell straightened up. + +"It's all right, as I say, Bob. If you three tenderfoots want to come up +here and play at digging a hole, it's no skin off of us. When you get +tired we'll buy the lumber in your shack and what dynamite you happen to +have left, just to save your hauling it away." + +"Thanks," said Barrett; "we'll remember that. We haven't much money now, +but we'll probably have more--or less--when we quit." + +"Less it is," chuckled the square-shouldered boss of the Lawrenceburg. +"Go to it and work off your little mining fever. But if you should +happen to find anything--which you won't, up here--just remember that +I've given you legal notice, with your partner here as a witness, that +you're on Lawrenceburg ground." + +Barrett's grin was a good match for Blackwell's chuckle. + +"We're going to sink fifty feet; that's about as far as our present +capital will carry us. As to the ownership of the ground, we needn't +quarrel about that at this stage of the game. You've given us notice; +and you've also given us permission to amuse ourselves if we want to. +We'll call it a stand-off." + +After the superintendent had gone I ventured to point out to my +drill-mate that the matter of ownership had been left rather indefinite, +after all. + +"Diplomacy, Jimmie," was the quick reply. "The one thing we can't stand +for is to be tied up in litigation before we have contrived to dig a few +of the sinews of war out of this hole. Blackwell's little pop-call warns +us to use about a thousand times as much care and caution as we have been +using. I saw him scraping the dump around with his foot as he talked. +He is one of the shrewdest miners in Colorado, and if he had got his +sleepy eye on a piece of the vein matter as big as a marble, it would +have been all over but the shouting. You can see where all this is +pointing?" + +"It means that we've got to make this hole look like a barren hole, and +keep it looking that way--if we have to handle every piece of rock that +comes out of it in our fingers," I said. + +"Just that," Barrett asserted, and then we went on with the drilling. + +We arranged our routine that evening over a supper of Gifford's +preparing. We planned to take out each day as much ore as the watch on +duty could dig, to sort it carefully, sacking the best of it and hiding +the remainder under the shack. Then, during the night, one of us would +carry what he could of the sacked ore down the mountain to the sampling +works to be assayed and sold on the spot. + +The sheer labor involved in this method of procedure was something +appalling, but we could devise no alternative. To have a wagon haul the +ore to town would, we were all agreed, be instantly fatal to secrecy; and +at whatever cost we must have more money before we could dare face a +legal fight with the Lawrenceburg people. Looking back upon it now, our +plan seems almost childish; but the enthusiasm born of the miraculous +discovery was accountable for the cheerful readiness with which we +adopted it. + +Gifford took the first turn at the ore-carrying while Barrett and I +shared the night watch, two hours at a time for each of us. The +carpenter came back just before daybreak, haggard and hollow-eyed, but +profanely triumphant. There had been no questions asked at the sampling +works, and his back-load of ore had been purchased on the strength of the +assay--doubtless with a good, round profit to the buyers. He had limited +his carry to seventy-five pounds, and he brought back the sampling +company's check for $1355 as the result of the day's work! + +Speaking for myself, I can say truly that I lived in the heart of a dream +for the next few days--the dream of a galley-slave. We worked like dogs. +Added to the drilling and shooting and digging, there was the all-night +job of ore-carrying--at which we took turn and turn about--for one of us. +Though I am not, and never have been, save in the parole starvation time, +what one would call a weakling, my first trip to town with eighty-five +pounds of ore on my back nearly killed me. A thousand times, it seemed +to me, I had to stop and rest; and when I got down it was always an open +question whether or not I could ever get up again with the back load in +position. + +As it came about, in the regular routine, mine was the third turn at the +carrying, and by this time the superintendent of the sampling works was +beginning to have his curiosity aroused. + +"So there are three of you, are there?" he commented, when he had +examined and recognized the sacked samples. "Any more?" + +I shook my head. I was too nearly exhausted to talk. + +"At first I thought you fellows were raiding somebody," he went on. +"There is a mine not a thousand miles from where you're sitting that puts +out exactly this same kind of ore, only it's not anywhere near as rich as +these picked samples of yours." + +"What made you change your mind?" I queried, willing to see how far he +would go. "How do you know we are not raiding somebody's ore shed?" + +"Because I know Bob Barrett," was the crisp reply. Then: "Why are you +boys making this night play? Why don't you come out in the open like +other folks--honest folks, I mean?" + +"There are reasons," I asserted. + +"Afraid somebody will catch on and swamp you with a rush of claim +stakers?" + +"Call it that, if you like." + +"You're plumb foolish, and I told Bob Barrett so last night. You're +carrying this stuff miles; I know by the way you come in here with your +tongues hanging out. It's like trying to dip the ocean dry with a pint +cup. One good wagon-load of your ore--if you've got that much--would +count for more than you three could lug in a month of Sundays." + +I knew this as well as he did, but I was not there to argue. + +"I guess we'll have to handle it our own way," I answered evasively; and +while he was sending my sack out to the testing room I fell sound asleep. + +At the end of a week, after we had made two trips apiece, we had nearly +$7,000 in bank. Figured as a return for our labor, killing as that was, +it was magnificent. But as a war chest it was merely a drop in the +bucket. Given plenty of time, we might have won out eventually by the +sacked-sample route; but we knew we were not going to be given time. +Blackwell had been up twice; and the second time, Gifford, who was acting +as hammerman, had to sit in the bottom of the shaft, pretending to load +the half-drilled hole. Otherwise, the heavy-lidded eyes, peering down +over the barrel of the windlass would assuredly have seen the steadily +widening ore body. + +On the sixth day Everton came across the spur. I think I should have +known him anywhere, but he did not recognize me, though I stood and +talked with him at the shaft mouth. His visit, as I took it, was not a +spying one. On the contrary it appeared to be merely neighborly. After +beating about the bush for a little time, he came down to particulars. +We must surely know, he said, that we were on Lawrenceburg ground, and it +was too bad we were throwing away our hard work. To this he added a +vague warning. Blackwell had been taking our amateur effort as a good +joke on Barrett, whom he had known only as a bank clerk. But the edge of +the joke was wearing off, and the superintendent, who, as it seemed, had +been watching us more closely than we had supposed, was beginning to +wonder why we kept at it so faithfully; and why our camp was always +guarded at night. + +The following day was Sunday, and Everton came again, this time +accompanied by his daughter. Gifford was windlass winder at the moment, +and he let himself down into the shaft, swearing, when he saw them coming +over the shoulder of the spur. + +I left our carpenter-man busily covering up the lode while I scrambled +out to meet and divert the visitors. My first sight of Mary Everton, +grown, made me gasp. There had been no promise of her womanly +winsomeness and pulse-quickening beauty in the plain-faced little girl +with large brown eyes--the little girl who used to thrust her hand into +mine on the way home from school and tell me about the unforgivable +meanness of the boy who "cribbed" for his examinations. + +Everton introduced me as "Mr. Bertrand," and for a flitting instant I saw +something at the back of the brown eyes that made cold chills run up and +down my spine. And her first words increased rather than diminished the +burden of sudden misgiving. + +"I knew a Bertrand once," she said, shaking hands frankly after the +manner of the West. "It was when I was a little girl in school. Only +Bertrand was his Christian name." + +Without knowing that he was doing it, her father came to my rescue. "We +haven't any near neighbors, Mr. Bertrand, and Polly wanted to see your +mine," he said. And then: "Do you realize that it is Sunday?" + +I led the glorified Polly Everton of my school days to the mouth of the +shallow shaft. "Our 'mine,' as your father is polite enough to call it, +isn't very extensive, as yet," I pointed out. "You can see it at a +glance." + +She took my word for it and gave the windlass-straddled pit only a +glance. Barrett had had his nap out and was showing himself at the door +of the shack. My companion nodded brightly at him and he joined us at +once. "We are quite old friends, Mr. Barrett and I," she hastened to +say, when I would have introduced him; and this left me free to attach +myself to her father. + +Phineas Everton had changed very little with the passing years. I +remembered him as a sort of cut-and-dried school-man, bookworm and +scientist, and, as I afterward learned, he was still all three of these. +Partly because I was telling myself that it was safer for me to keep my +distance from the girl who remembered the boy Bertrand, and partly +because I wished to draw the assayer away from our dump, I took Everton +over to the shack and we sat together on the door-step. For some little +time I couldn't make out what he was driving at in his talk, but finally +it came out, by inference, at least. Somebody--Blackwell, perhaps--had +started the story that we were planning a raid on the Lawrenceburg. + +"How could that be?" I asked, remembering that, only the day before, +Everton had asserted that we were already trespassers on Lawrenceburg +property. + +"It is an old trick," he commented, rather sorrowfully, I fancied. "In +all the older locations there have been bits of ground missed in the +criss-crossing of the claims. Some one of you three has been sharp +enough to find one of those bits just here." + +"Well; supposing we have--what then?" I asked. + +He was silent for a half-minute or so. Barrett had led Mary Everton to +the shoulder of the spur where the view of the distant town was +unobstructed, and Gifford was still in the shaft. + +"I don't know you, Mr. Bertrand," my seatmate began slowly, "and I +shouldn't venture to set up any standard of right and wrong in your +behalf. But that young man out yonder with my daughter: I've known him a +long time, and I knew his people. It is a thousand pities to drag him +into your undertaking." + +"There has been no especial 'dragging' that I am aware of; and I don't +know why you should be sorry for Barrett," I returned rather tartly. + +"I am sorry because Robert Barrett has hitherto lived an upright and +honest life. He had excellent prospects in the bank, and it seems a +great pity that he has seen fit to throw them away." + +By this time I was entirely at sea. "You will have to make it +plainer--much plainer," I told him. + +"I have been hoping you wouldn't force me to call it by its ugly name," +was the sober rejoinder. "It is blackmail, Mr. Bertrand; criminal +blackmail, as I think you must know." + +"That is a pretty serious charge for you to make, isn't it?" + +"Not more serious than the occasion warrants. You three have discovered +this little scrap of unclaimed ground in the middle of the Lawrenceburg +property. You are digging; and presently, when you are down far enough +so that your operations cannot be observed from the shaft mouth, you will +announce that you have struck the Lawrenceburg ore body. In that event, +as you have doubtless foreseen, our company will have no recourse but to +buy you off at your own figure." + +"Well?" I challenged. + +"Your announcement, when you make it, will be a lie," was the cold-voiced +reply. "You are 'salting' the crevices as you go down--and with +Lawrenceburg ore." + +I sighed my relief. His guess was so far from the truth that I was more +than willing to help it along. If the Lawrenceburg people could only be +persuaded that our imaginary coup was to be postponed until the bottom of +our shaft should be out of sight from the surface, we were measurably +safe. + +"We may ask you to prove your charge when the proper time comes, Mr. +Everton," I suggested. + +He took a small fragment of bluish-gray ore from his pocket and showed it +to me, saying, quietly, "I can prove it now; this is Lawrenceburg ore: I +handle and test it every day, and I am perfectly familiar with it. I +picked this piece up a few minutes ago on your dump." + +It is always the impact of the unexpected that sends a man scurrying into +the armory of his past in search of the readiest weapon for the +emergency. Recall, once again, if you will, the three years of +association with criminals, and the fact that I was at that moment under +the ban of the law as an escaped convict. I could think of nothing save +the gaining of time, precious time, at whatever cost. + +I shall always be thankful that the temptation did not reach the length +of making me offer to buy Everton's silence. That, indeed, would have +been suicidal. Yet the prompting suggestion came to me, in company with +others still more ruthless. I was telling myself that the situation was +sufficiently alarming to warrant almost any expedient. Though he was not +yet aware of it, Everton had discovered our real secret; he knew we had +ore, which--as yet--he thought we were stealing from the Lawrenceburg +bins. If he should take one additional step. . . . + +The thought-loom shuttled pretty rapidly for a few short-lived seconds. +If Everton should show the bit of ore to Blackwell the superintendent +might believe the charge that we were stealing the Lawrenceburg values +for the "salting" purpose; in which case he would doubtless swear out +warrants for us. Or he might see farther than Everton had seen and jump +to the conclusion that we had actually made a strike of our own in the +shallow pit. Either way there was sharp trouble ahead. + +"You have us down pretty fine, haven't you?" I said, at the end of the +reflective pause. "May I ask what use you are going to make of your +discovery?" + +"I purpose giving you three young men a chance to talk it over seriously +among yourselves before I take any further steps. I suppose I should +have gone direct to Barrett. I know him, and I know there is plenty of +good in him to appeal to. But candidly, Mr. Bertrand, I didn't have the +heart to--well, to let him know that I knew." + +A bitter thought swept across me like a hot wind from the desert. Was +there never to be any let-up? Were people always going to take it for +granted that _I_ was the criminal? I have known physical hunger and +hunger intellectual, but they were as nothing compared with the moral +famine that gripped me just then. I would have pawned my soul for a bare +modicum of the commonplace, every-day respectability which is able to +look the world squarely in the face without fear or favor--without asking +any odds of it. + +Everton was evidently waiting for his reply, and I gave it to him. + +"Criminality is largely relative--like everything else in the world, +don't you think?" I said, letting him feel the raw edge of the bitterness +that was rasping at me. "In coming to me, as you have, you, yourself, +are compounding a felony." + +He shrugged his thin shoulders and looked away at the two on the bluff's +edge. + +"Properly speaking, Mr. Bertrand, I am only an interested onlooker; and I +am interested chiefly on Barrett's account. What I may feel it my duty +to do if you three remain obdurate will be purely without reference to +your rather sophistical definition of criminality. In any event, +Blackwell is the man you will have to reckon with. As I say, I am +concerned only so far as the outcome may involve Robert Barrett." + +"I'll tell the others what you have said," I agreed; and with this the +matter rested. + + + + +XIV + +Paper Walls + +We held our second war council shortly after Phineas Everton and his +daughter had disappeared over the shoulder of the spur on their way +back to the Lawrenceburg. I gave my two partners the gist of the +conversation with the assayer, briefly and without comment. Gifford +oozed profanity; but Barrett laughed and said: + +"Every little new thing we run up against merely urges us to let out +one more notch in the speed of the hurry hoist. Everton's suspicion is +an entirely natural one, and for my part, I only hope he and Blackwell +will hang on to it. If they should, there is an even chance that they +will watch their ore sheds a little closer and leave it to us to make +the first move in the imagined blackmailing scheme--all of which will +give us more time." + +"That's all right; but we can't bet on the 'hang on,'" was Gifford's +demurrer. "They may think they've got the straight of it now, but +there's no law against their changing their minds mighty suddenly. +Suppose Everton shows up his bit of a sample, and they both take a +second whirl at the thing and pull down a guess that it isn't stolen +Lawrenceburg ore, after all? We've got to improve upon this +pick-a-back ore shipment of ours, some way, and do it mighty quick." + +This was the biting fact; we all accepted it as our most pressing need +and fell to discussing ways and means. There was already a full +wagon-load of the sacked ore hidden under the sleeping-shack, and at +the rate the lode was widening we could confidently figure on getting +out as much more every second day, or oftener. There was a good wagon +road to town from the Lawrenceburg plant, but of course we dared not +use it so long as we were making any attempt to maintain secrecy. The +alternative was a long haul down our own gulch, around the end of the +spur, and across the slope of the mountain-side below. Even this, the +only other practicable route, would be in plain sight from the +Lawrenceburg workings, once the team should pass out upon the bare +lower hillside. + +Moreover, we were obliged to consider the risk involved in taking at +least one other man--the driver of the team--into our confidence. +Since the hauling would have to be done in the night, an honest man +would suspect crookedness, and the other kind would blackmail us to a +finish. Gifford spoke of this, saying that it was a choice between the +devil and the deep blue sea. + +None the less, we were all agreed that the wagon-hiring hazard would +have to be taken, and at the close of the talk Barrett went to town to +make the arrangement. It was after dark when he returned. His mission +had been miraculously successful: he had not only found a trustworthy +teamster who was willing, for a good, round sum, to risk his horses on +the mountain at night; he had also interviewed the superintendent of +the sampling works and concluded a deal by the terms of which the +company--as a personal favor to Barrett--agreed to treat a limited +quantity of our highest-grade ore in wagon-load lots, making cash +settlements therefor. + +It lacked only an hour of midnight when the team, making a wide detour +to avoid being heard from the Lawrenceburg, reached our location on the +slope of the spur. We all helped with the loading; and when all was +ready, Gifford, whose turn it was to go to town, borrowed Barrett's +shot-gun and climbed to a seat beside the driver. + +With every precaution taken--a dragging pine-tree coupled on behind the +load to serve instead of the squealing brakes, and many injunctions to +the driver to take it easy and to do his swearing internally--the +outfit made more noise than a threshing-machine bumping down the gulch. +We kept pace with it, Barrett and I, following along the crest of the +spur with an apprehensive eye on the Lawrenceburg. But there was no +unusual stir at the big plant on the other side of the ridge; merely +the never-ceasing clank and grind of the hoist and the pouring thunder +of the ore as the skip dumped its load into the bins. + +Having nothing to detain him in town, Gifford made a quick trip and was +with us again a little after four o'clock in the morning. At the crack +of dawn Barrett and I were in the shaft under a new division of time. +Now that we had the team hauling for us, we chopped up the shifts so +that there would be two of us in the hole continuously, day and night. + +Again I have the memory of a week of grinding toil, broken--for me, at +least--only by the nights when it came my turn to ride to town on the +load of ore. On both occasions I recall that I went fast asleep on the +high seat before the wagon had gone twenty rods down the gulch; slept +sitting bolt upright, with the shot-gun across my knees, and waking +only when the driver was gee-ing into the yard of the sampling works in +town; lapses that I may confess here, though I was ashamed to confess +them to my two partners. + +During this second week we heard nothing from Blackwell or from any of +the Lawrenceburg contingent. But several strangers had drifted along, +stopping to peer down our shaft and to ask multitudinous questions. +Knowing well enough that we could not keep up the killing toil +indefinitely, and that the discovery crisis was only postponed from day +to day, we yet took heart of grace. The purchase money for the ore was +pouring in a steady stream into Barrett's bank to our credit; and with +the accounting for the third wagon-load we had upward of $80,000 in the +fighting fund. + +Gifford went in as wagon guard on the Monday night load, and getting an +early start from the mountain, he had a little time to spend on the +streets in town. On his return he brought news; the news we had all +been expecting and waiting for. + +"The big trouble's on the way," he reported. "Bennett Avenue's all lit +up with the news that there's been a new strike on Bull Mountain. I +heard about it mighty near everywhere I went. Up to date nobody seems +to know just where it is, or who has made it; but they've got hold of +the main guy, all right. One fellow told me he had it straight from +the sampling works. Some cuss on the inside, I reckon, who doesn't +know enough to keep his blame' mouth shut, has gone and leaked." + +"I'd like mighty well to see another eighty thousand in the bank before +we have to shut our eyes and begin handing it out to the lawyers," said +Barrett. "Besides, when we get ready to build a shaft-house and put in +machinery, we'll have to have more ground room. After the news gets +out, we'll just about have to blanket what land we buy with +twenty-dollar gold-pieces." + +"With the Lawrenceburg hemming us in the way it does, we won't be able +to buy elbow room at any kind of a price, will we?" asked Gifford, who +had not gone into the topographies as minutely as Barrett and I had. + +"There are the three corners of the original triangle which we weren't +able to cover in our claim," Barrett explained. "And down yonder on +that gulch flat that we are using for a wagon road there is a claim +called the 'Mary Mattock' which was taken up and worked and dropped a +year or so ago by a Nebraska syndicate. When I was in town last week I +gave Benedict, of Benedict & Myers, the job of running down the owners, +with the idea that we might possibly wish to buy the ground a little +later on. + +"Good work!" Gifford applauded. "I wouldn't have thought of anything +as foxy as that." + +"I told Benedict we'd buy the Mary Mattock if we could get it at a +reasonable figure, or lease it if we couldn't buy it," Barrett went on. +"It is probably worthless to its present owners as it stands; its three +shafts are full of water, and I'm told the Nebraskans spent fifty +thousand dollars trying to pump them. But the minute the 'Little +Clean-Up' gets into the newspapers, the Mary Mattock, being next door +to us, will figure in the market as a bonanza, whether it is or isn't." + +Gifford cut himself a chew of tobacco from his pocket-plug. + +"I wish to gracious we had that other eighty thousand you're honing +for, right now," he protested. "This tin-basin trot's sure getting on +my nerves, as the fella said. We'd ought to have the shaft-house and +machinery set up and going, this minute, and a good, husky bunch of men +at work in that hole, digging out dollars where we're scratching for +pennies." + +"I don't want to be the shy man of this outfit," Barrett put it +quickly. "We can have the machinery if you fellows think we dare use +the money to buy it." + +Gifford and I both said No, deferring to Barrett's better judgment. +And since this talk was getting us nowhere and was wasting time which +was worth ten dollars a minute, we broke it off and went to work. + +It was in the latter part of this third week, on a night when my turn +at the wagon guarding had come in regular course, that I was made to +understand that no leaf in the book of a man's life can be so firmly +pasted down that a mere chance thumbing of the pages by an alien hand +may not flip it back again. + +By imperceptible inchings we had been starting the wagon earlier and +earlier on each successive trip; and on the evening in question it was +no later than ten o'clock when I turned the consignment of ore over to +the foreman at the reduction works. Ordinarily, I should have taken +the road back to the hills at once, intent only upon getting to camp +and between the blankets as speedily as possible. But on this night a +spirit of restlessness got hold of me, and, leaving Barrett's shotgun +in the sampling works office, I strolled up-town. + +Inasmuch as a three-months' residence in a mining-camp is the full +equivalent of as many years spent in a region where introductions +precede acquaintance, I was practically certain to meet somebody I +knew. The somebody in this instance proved to be one Patrick Carmody, +formerly a hard-rock boss on the Midland branch construction, and now +the working superintendent of a company which was driving a huge +drainage tunnel under a group of the big mines of the district. + +The meeting-place was the lobby of the hotel, and at the Irishman's +invitation I sat with him to smoke a comradely cigar. Carmody was not +pointedly inquisitive as to my doings; was content to be told that I +had been "prospecting around." Beyond that he was good-naturedly +willing to talk of the stupendous undertaking over which he was +presiding, expatiating enthusiastically upon air-drill performance, +porphyry shooting, the merits of various kinds of high explosives, +deep-mine ventilation, and the like. + +While he talked, I smoked on, luxuriating like a cat before a fire in +the comfortable lounging-chair, the cheerful surroundings, the stir and +bustle of the human ebb and flow, and the first half-hour of real +idleness I had enjoyed in many days. + +It was after Carmody had been dragged away by some fellow hard-rock +enthusiast that I had my paralyzing shock. Sitting in a chair less +than a dozen feet distant, smoking quietly and reading a newspaper, was +a man whose face would have been familiar if I had seen it in the +golden streets of the New Jerusalem or in the deepest fire-chamber of +the other place; a face with boring black eyes, and with a cruel mouth +partly hidden by freshly crimped black mustaches: the face, namely, of +my sometime prison-mate, Kellow. + +My shocked recognition of this man who tied me to my past annihilated +time and distance as if they had never been. In a flash I was back +again in a great stone building in the home State, working over the +prison books and glancing up now and then to the cracked mirror on the +opposite wall of the prison office which showed me the haggard features +and cropped hair of the convict Weyburn. + +The memory shutter flicked, and I saw myself walking out through the +prison gates with the State's cheap suit of clothes on my back and the +State's five dollars in my pocket, a paroled man. Another click, and I +had dragged through the six months of degradation and misery, and saw +myself sitting opposite Kellow in the back room of a slum saloon in a +great city, shivering with the cold, wretched and hungry. Once again I +saw his sneer and heard him say, "It's all the same to you now, whether +you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you can live the prison +smell down, but you can't; it'll stick to you like your skin. Wherever +you go, you'll be a marked man." + +It is a well-worn saying that life is full of paper walls. A look, a +turn of the head, the recognition which would follow, and once more I +should be facing a fate worse than death. Kellow knew that I had +broken my parole. He would trade upon the knowledge, and if he could +not use me he would betray me. I knew the man. + +Five minutes earlier I had been facing the world a free man; free to go +and come as I pleased, free to sit and smoke with a friend in the most +public place in the camp. But now I slid from my chair with my hat +pulled over my eyes and crept to the door, watching Kellow every step +of the way, ready to bolt and run, or to turn and fight to kill, at the +slightest rustling of the upheld newspaper. Once safely outside in the +cool, clean night air of the streets I despised myself with a loathing +too bitter to be set in words. But the fact remained. + +It was like the strugglings of a man striving to throw off the +benumbing effects of an opium debauch--the effort to be at one again +with the present. The effort was no more than half successful when I +stepped into a late-closing hardware store and bought a weapon--a +repeating rifle with its appropriate ammunition. Barrett had said +something about the lack of weapons at the claim--we had only the +shot-gun and Gifford's out-of-date revolver--and I made the purchase +automatically in obedience to an underlying suggestion which was +scarcely more than half conscious. + +But once more in the street, and with the means in my hands, a sudden +and fierce impulse prompted me to go back to the hotel lobby and kill +the man who held my fate between his finger and thumb. Take it as a +virtue or a confession of weakness, as you will, but it was only the +thought of what I owed Barrett and Gifford that kept me from doing it. + +So it was a potential murderer, at least in willing intention, who took +the long trail back under the summer stars to the hills, with the rifle +and Barrett's shot-gun--the latter picked up in passing the sampling +works--nestling in the hollow of his arm. God or the devil could have +given me no greater boon that night than the hap to meet Kellow on the +lonesome climb. I am sure I should have shot him without the faintest +stirring of irresolution. By the time I reached our gulch I was fuming +over my foolishness in buying the rifle--a clumsy weapon that would +everywhere advertise my purpose. What I needed, I told myself, was a +pocket weapon, to be carried day and night; and the next time I should +go to town the lack should be supplied. + +For by now all scruples were dead and I was assuring myself grittingly +that the entire Cripple Creek district was too narrow to hold the man +who knew, and the man who was afraid. + + + + +XV + +The Broken Wagon + +The day following the Kellow incident being Sunday, the three of us +snatched an hour or so in the early forenoon for a breathing space. +Sitting around the plank table in the bunk shack we took account of +stock, as a shopkeeper would say. It was apparent to all of us that +the blazoning abroad of our secret could not now be long delayed. A +new gold strike yielding ore worth anywhere from one to twenty-five +dollars a pound was startling enough to make a stir even in the one and +only Cripple Creek, and it seemed nothing short of a miracle that we +had not already been traced and our location identified. + +It was Barrett's gift to take the long look ahead. At his suggestion, +Gifford, who was something of a rough-and-ready draftsman, sketched a +plan for the necessary shaft-house and out-buildings, fitting the +structures to our limited space. When the fight to retain possession +should begin we meant to strike fast and hard; Barrett had already gone +the length of bargaining, through a friend in town, for building +material and machinery, which were to be rushed out to us in a hurry at +the firing of the first gun in what we all knew would be a battle for +existence. + +During this Sunday morning talk I was little more than an abstracted +listener. I could think of nothing but the raw hazard of the previous +night and of the frightful moral abyss into which it had precipitated +me. In addition there were ominous forebodings for the future. So +long as Kellow remained in Cripple Creek, danger would lurk for me in +every shadow. Since the calamity which was threatening me would also +involve my partners, at least to the extent of handicapping them by the +loss of a third of our fighting force, it seemed no less than a duty to +warn them. But I doubt if I should have had the courage if Barrett had +not opened the way. + +"You're not saying much, Jimmie. Did the trip to town last night knock +you out?" he asked. + +It was my opportunity, and I mustered sufficient resolution to seize it. + +"No; it didn't knock me out, but it showed me where I've been making a +mistake. I never ought to have gone into this thing with you two +fellows; but now that I am in, I ought to get out." + +"What's that!" Gifford exploded; but Barrett merely caught my eye and +said, very gently, "On your own account, or on ours, Jimmie?" + +"On yours. There is no need of going into the particulars; it's a long +story and a pretty dismal one; but when I tell you that last night I +was on the point of killing a man in cold blood--that it's altogether +probable that I shall yet have to kill him--you can see what I'm +letting you in for if I stay with you." + +Gifford leaned back against the shack wall and laughed. "Oh, if +_that's_ all," he said. But again it was Barrett who took the soberer +view. + +"You are one of us, Jimmie," he declared. "If you've got a blood +quarrel with somebody, it's our quarrel, too: we're partners. Isn't +that right, Gifford?" + +"Right it is," nodded the carpenter. + +"We are not partners to that extent," I objected. "If I should tell +you all the circumstances, you might both agree with me that I may be +obliged to kill this man; but on the other hand, you--or a jury--would +call it first-degree murder; as it will be." + +Barrett looked horrified, as he had a perfect right to. + +"You couldn't do a thing like that!" he protested. + +"Yesterday I should have been just as certain as you are that it was +beyond the possibilities; but now, since last night, it's different. +And that is why I say you ought to fire me. You can't afford to carry +any handicaps; you need assets, not liabilities." + +Gifford got up and went to sit on the doorstep, where he occupied +himself in whittling thin shavings of tobacco from a bit of black plug +and cramming them into his pipe. Barrett accepted this tacit +implication that he was to speak for both. + +"If you pull out, Jimmie, it will be because you want to; not because +anything you have said cuts any figure with us. And whether you go or +stay, there will be two of us here who will back you to the limit. +That's about all there is to say, I guess; only, if I were you, I +shouldn't be too sudden. Take a day to think it over. To-morrow +morning, if you still think it's the wise thing to do--the only thing +to do--we'll write you a check, Gifford and I, for your share in the +bank account; and after we get going we'll make such a settlement with +you for your third as will be fair and just all around." + +This put an entirely new face upon the matter. I hadn't dreamed of +such a thing as standing upon my rights in the partnership. + +"Like the mischief, you will!" I retorted. "Do you think I'm that kind +of a quitter?--that I'd take a single dollar out of the Little +Clean-up's war chest? Why, man alive! my only object in getting out +would be to relieve you two of a possible burden!" + +Barrett's smile was altogether brotherly. "It's the only way you can +escape us," he averred; and with that the dissolution proposal was +suffered to go by default. + +There were half a dozen stragglers to come lounging over the spur or up +the gulch that Sunday afternoon, sharp-set, eager-eyed prospectors, +every man of them, and each one, we guessed, searching meticulously for +the mysterious bonanza about which everybody in town was gossiping. It +was only the fact that the hills were fairly dotted with embryotic +mines like our own--this and the other fact that our dump showed no +signs of ore--that saved us. + +Two of these prying visitors hung around for an hour or more, and one +of the pair wanted to go down in the shaft, which was now deep enough +to be quite safe from prying eyes at the surface. I was acting as +windlass-man at the time, and I bluffed him, telling him that with two +men working in the hole there wasn't room for a third--which was true +enough. But beyond this fact there were by this time the best of +reasons for keeping strangers out of our shaft. To name the biggest of +them, our marvelous Golconda vein had widened steadily with the +increasing depth until now we were sinking in solid ore. + +It was Gifford's turn to guard the ore load that night, and after the +team got away I persuaded Barrett to go to bed. He was showing the +effects of the terrible toil worse than either the carpenter or myself, +and I was afraid he might break when the fighting strain came. I had +yet to learn what magnificent reserves there were in this clean-cut, +high-strung young fellow who, when we began, looked as if he had never +done a day's real labor in his life. + +Since we had never yet left the shaft unguarded for a single hour of +the day or night, I took my place at the pit mouth as soon as Barrett's +candle went out. It was a fine night, warm for the altitude and +brightly starlit, though there was no moon. In the stillness the +subdued clamor of the Lawrenceburg's hoists floated up over the spur +shoulder; and by listening intently I fancied I could hear the distant +rumble of our ore wagon making its way down the mountain. + +In the isolation and loneliness of the night watch it was inevitable +that my thoughts should hark back to the near-meeting with Kellow, and +to the moral lapse which it had provoked. Doubtless every man +rediscovers himself many times in the course of a lifetime. In prison +I had been sustained by a vindictive determination to win out and +square accounts with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. After my release +another motive had displaced the vengeful prompting: the losing fight +for reinstatement in the good opinion of the world seemed to be the +only thing worth living for. + +But now I was finding that there was a well-spring of action deeper +than either of these, and the name of it was a degrading fear of +consequences--of punishment. With a most hearty loathing for the lower +depths of baseness uncovered by craven fear, one may be none the less a +helpless victim of a certain ruthless and malign ferocity to which it +is likely to give birth. Sitting with my back propped against the +windlass and the newly purchased rifle across my knees, I found that +cowardice, like other base passions, may suddenly develop an infection. +With nerves twittering and muscles tensely set, I was ready to become a +homicidal maniac at the snapping of a twig or the rolling of a pebble +down the hillside. + +In such crises the twig is predestined to snap, or the pebble to roll. +Some slight movement on my part set a little cataract of broken stone +tumbling into the shaft. Before I could recover from the prickling +shock of alarm, I heard footsteps and a shadowy figure appeared in the +path leading over the spur from the Lawrenceburg. Automatically the +rifle flew to my shoulder, and a crooking forefinger was actually +pressing the trigger when reason returned and I saw that the +approaching intruder was a woman. + +I was deeply grateful that it was too dark for Mary Everton to see with +what teeth-chatterings and reactionary tremblings I was letting down +the hammer of the rifle when she came up. For that matter, I think she +did not see me at all until I laid the gun aside and stood up to speak +to her. She had stopped as if irresolute; was evidently disconcerted +at finding the claim shack dark and apparently deserted. + +"Oh!" she gasped, with a little backward start, as I rose from the +empty dynamite box upon which I had been sitting. Then she recognized +me and explained. "I--I thought you would be working--you have been +working nights, haven't you?--and I came over to--to speak to Mr. +Barrett." + +Under other conditions I might have been conventionally critical. My +traditions were still somewhat hidebound. In Glendale a young woman +would scarcely go alone at night in search of a man, even though the +man might be her lover. + +"Barrett has gone to bed: I'll call him," I said, limiting the +rejoinder to the bare necessities. + +"No; please don't do that," she interposed. "I am sure he must be +needing his rest. I can come again--at some other time." + +I was beginning to get a little better hold upon my nerves by this time +and I laughed. + +"Bob is needing the rest, all right, but he will murder me when he +finds out that you've been here and I didn't call him. If you want to +save my life, you'd better reconsider." + +"No; don't call him," she insisted. "It isn't at all necessary, +and--and perhaps you can tell me what I want to know--what I ought to +know before I----" the sentence trailed off into nothing and she began +again rather breathlessly: "Mr. Bertrand, can you--can you satisfy me +in any way that you and your two friends have a legal right to this +claim you are working? It's a perfect--impertinence in me, to ask, I +know, but----" + +"It is a fair question," I hastened to assure her; "one that any one +might ask. With the proper means at hand--maps and records--I could +very easily answer it." + +"But--but there may have been mistakes made," she suggested. + +"Doubtless there were; but we haven't made them. The Lawrenceburg +Company owns the ground on two sides of us, and for some considerable +distance beyond us toward the head of the gulch; but I can assure you +that our title to the Little Clean-Up is perfectly good and legal in +every way." + +"It is going to be disputed," she broke in hurriedly. "Mr. Blackwell +has talked about it--before me, just as if I didn't count. Telegrams +have been passing back and forth, and the Lawrenceburg owners in the +East have given Mr. Blackwell full authority to take such steps as he +may think best. I--that is, Daddy and I--have known Mr. Barrett for a +long time, and I couldn't let this thing happen without giving him just +a little warning. Some kind of legal proceedings have already been +begun, and you are to be driven off--to-morrow." + +"Oh, I guess not; not so suddenly as all that," I ventured to say. +There were many questions to come crowding in, but I could scarcely +expect the assayer's daughter to answer them. Her father had plainly +declared his belief that we were stealing Lawrenceburg ore and planning +a blackmailing scheme: had he told Blackwell? The query practically +answered itself. If Blackwell had been told that we were salting our +claim with ore stolen from the Lawrenceburg sheds, the "legal +proceedings" would have been a simple arrest-warrant and a search for +stolen property. Had Everton told his daughter? This was blankly +incredible. If he had told her that we were thieves, she would never +have gone so far aside from her childhood hatred of duplicity and +wrong-doing as to come and warn us. + +"I was afraid you might not believe me," she said, with a little catch +in her voice; and then: "I can't blame you; after what you have +suf--after all that has happened." + +If I hadn't been completely lost in admiration for her keen sense of +justice, and more or less bewildered by her beauty and her nearness, I +might have caught the significance of what she was trying to say. But +I didn't. + +"No; I didn't mean that," I denied warmly. "I do believe every word +you have said. No one who knows you could disbelieve you for a moment." + +"But you don't know me," she put in quickly. + +I saw how near I had come to self-betrayal and tried to fend my little +life-raft off the rocks. + +"You will say that we have met only once before to-night, and then only +casually. Will you permit a comparative stranger to say that that was +enough? Your soul looks out through your eyes, Miss Everton, and it is +an exceedingly honest soul. I know you must have strong reasons for +coming to tell us what Blackwell is doing; and if I didn't quite +understand the motive at first--with you your father's daughter, you +know, and your father in the service of the----" + +"I know," she interrupted. "But you lose sight of the larger things. +If you have been telling me the truth about your ownership of this +claim, a great wrong is going to be done. I couldn't stand aside and +let it be done, could I?" + +Something in her manner of saying this recalled most vividly the little +girl of the long ago, hot-hearted in her indignation against injustice +of every sort. + +"No, I am sure you couldn't: I don't believe you know how to compromise +with wrong of any kind. But you ought not to take my unsupported word +about the matter of ownership. Let me call Barrett." + +"It isn't necessary. If you say that you three have an honest right to +be here, I believe you implicitly. And what I have done is nothing. +My father would have done it if he hadn't--if he didn't----" + +"You needn't say it," I helped out. "Your father thinks we are trying +to hold the Lawrenceburg people up, and I don't blame him. When he was +up here the other day--the day you were both here--he thought he caught +us red-handed. It wasn't so; he was quite mistaken; but for reasons +which I can't explain just now I couldn't very well take the only +course which would have undeceived him." + +"I--I think I understand," she returned, guardedly. "You--you haven't +been stealing ore from the Lawrenceburg sheds?" + +I laughed and said a thing that I wouldn't have said to any other +living human being on earth at that stage of the game. + +"If we can manage to hold our own for just a little while longer, +Robert Barrett will be a very rich man, Miss Everton. May I venture to +hand you a lot of good wishes before the fact? I know this is only a +very old friend's privilege, but----" + +Her embarrassment was very charming, and, as I saw it, most natural. + +"I--indeed, I wasn't thinking any more of Mr. Barrett than I was of--of +you and--and Mr. Gifford," she faltered. "I simply couldn't bear to +think of this terrible thing dropping upon you out of a clear sky +if--if you hadn't been doing anything to deserve it. Can you defend +yourselves in any way?" + +"We can try mighty hard," I asserted. "That is what I meant when I +said that we were not going to be driven off to-morrow. Possession is +nine points of the law. We have our little foothold here, and we shall +try to keep it. I'll tell Barrett when he wakes, and we'll be ready +for them when they come. Now you must let me take you back home. You +really oughtn't to be here alone, you know." + +She made no objection to the bit of elder-brother-ism, but half-way up +to the summit of the spur she had her small fling at the conventions. + +"I don't admit that I ought not to have come alone; neither that, nor +your right to question it," she said definitively. "You protest +because you are conventional: so am I conventional--but only so far as +the conventions subserve some good end. There are situations in which +the phrase, 'it isn't done,' becomes a mere impertinence. This is life +in the making, up here in these desolate hills, and we who are taking +part in the process are just plain men and women." + +"That is true enough," I rejoined; and other than this there was little +said, or little chance for saying it, since the distance over the spur +was short and she would not let me show myself under the Lawrenceburg +masthead electrics. + +I did not know, at the time, of any reason why I should have returned +to resume my lonesome watch at the shaft's mouth like a man walking +upon air, but so it was. There are women who keep the fair promise of +their childhood, and we admire them; there are others who prodigiously +and richly exceed that promise, and they own us, body and soul, from +the moment of re-discovery. + +Throughout the long night hours following Mary Everton's visit I was +far enough, I hope, from envying Barrett; far enough, too, from the +thought that I might ever venture to ask any good and innocent young +woman to step down with me into the abyss of unearned infamy into which +I had been flung, largely through the efforts of another woman who was +neither good nor innocent. None the less, the delight which was half +intoxication remained and the night was full of waking dreams. + +The dark shaft beside me sent up its dank breath of stale powder fumes, +and the acrid odor was as the fragrance of a fertile field ripe for the +sickle. In this reeking pit at my elbow, gold, the subtle, the potent, +the arbiter of all destinies, stood ready to fight for me. The liberty +which I had stolen, but which had first been stolen from me, would +shortly find a defender too strong to be overthrown by all the +prejudice and injustice which are so ready to fly at the throat of +helplessness. The reinstatement, which I had been unable to win as a +mendicant ex-convict, I could buy with gold in the open market; and +when it should be bought and paid for, all the world would clap and +cry, Well done! + +Barrett had gone to bed exacting a promise that I should call him at +two o'clock. But I let the hour go by, and another, and yet another, +until the stars were paling in the east when I got up, stiff in every +joint, to meet Gifford as he came up the gulch. He was haggard and +weary, trembling like an overworked draft horse, and he had to lick his +lips before he could frame the words which were to be our alarm signal. + +"It's all over," he croaked hoarsely. "The wagon's broke down a couple +of miles below, right out on the open mountain-side. We've been +working like hell all night trying to drag the load down to some place +where we could hide it, but it was no good. Dixon's gone on to town to +get another wagon, but the mischief is done. Come daylight, everybody +on this side of Bull Mountain will know what's in that wagon, and where +it comes from." + +The carpenter was practically dead on his feet from the night of fierce +toil, and in addition to his weariness was half-famished. He had come +in while it was yet dark to get something to eat, and was planning to +go back at once. I aroused Barrett promptly, and together we tramped +out to the crest of the spur overlooking the Lawrenceburg workings and +the mountain-side below. In the breaking dawn, with the help of +Barrett's field-glass, we could make out the shape of the disabled +wagon on the bare slope hundreds of feet below. Early as it was, there +was already a number of moving figures encircling it; a group which +presently strung itself out in Indian file on a diagonal course up to +our gulch. The early-morning investigators were taking the plainly +marked wagon trail in reverse, and Barrett turned to me with a brittle +laugh. + +"That settles it, Jimmie. The secret is out, and in another half hour +we'll be fighting like the devil to keep those fellows from relocating +every foot of ground we've got. Let's go back and get ready for them." + + + + +XVI + +In the Open + +Though there was between twenty and thirty thousand dollars' worth of +high-grade ore lying unguarded in the broken-down wagon two miles +below, we promptly forgot it. Losing no minute of the precious time, +we hastened to restake our claim, marking the boundaries plainly and +putting up "No Trespass" notices to let the coming invaders know that +we were alive and on the job. We knew very well that our boundary +lines would be disregarded; that in striving to cover every foot of the +unclaimed fragments of the original triangle, the excited gold-seekers +would overlap us in all directions. But we meant to have the law on +our side. + +Our next move was a hurried covering of the shaft mouth with planks +provided for just such an emergency; this and a barricading of the +shack against a possible rush to loot it. By working fast we were +ready by the time the vanguard of the rush appeared as a line of +toiling climbers at the foot of the gulch. Barrett glanced at his +watch. + +"The early trolley will be just about leaving Bennett Avenue with the +day-shift for the Ohio," he announced. "One of us must catch that car +back to town to start a string of freight teams up here with men and +material. Minutes now are worth days next week. I'm the freshest one +of the bunch, and I'll go, if you two fellows think you can hold your +own against this mob that is coming. You won't have to do any +fighting, unless it's to keep them out of our shaft. Let them drive +their stakes wherever they like, only, if they get on our ground, make +your legal protest--the two of you together, so you can swear straight +when it comes into the courts." + +We both said we would do or die, and Barrett struggled into his coat +and fled for the trolley terminal a mile away. He was scarcely out of +sight over the crest of the spur when the advance guard of the mob came +boiling up out of the gulch. A squad of three outran the others, and +its spokesman made scant show of ceremony. + +"We want to see what you got in that shaft," he panted. "Yank them +boards off and show us." + +"I guess not," said Gifford, fingering the lock of Barrett's shot-gun. +Then, suddenly taking the aggressive: "You fellers looking for a mine? +Well, by cripes, you get off of our ground and stay off, or you'll find +one startin' up inside of you in a holy minute! We mean business!" + +The three men cursed us like pickpockets, but they backed away until +they stood on the other side of our boundary, where they were presently +joined by half a dozen others. We had one point in our favor. In such +a rush it is every man for himself, with a broad invitation to the +devil to take the hindmost. Somebody called the fellow who wanted to +break into our shaft for the needful evidence a much-emphasized +jackass, and pointed to the wagon-tracks leading straight to our shack. + +"What more do you want than them tracks?" bellowed this caller of hard +names. And then: "Anybody in this crowd got a map?" + +Nobody had, as it seemed; whereupon the bellower turned upon us. + +"You fellers 've got one, it stands to reason. If you've got any +sportin' blood in you at all, you'll be sort o' half-way human and give +us a squint at it." + +Again Gifford took the words out of my mouth. "Not to-day," he refused +coolly. "If you want to know right bad, I'll tell you straight that +there isn't anything like a whole claim left in this gulch. Now go +ahead and do your stakin' if you want to, but keep off of us. You can +see all our lines; they're as plain as the nose on your ugly face. +I've got only one thing to say, and that is, the man that stakes inside +of 'em is goin' to stop a handful of blue whistlers." + +Following this there was a jangling confab which was almost a riot. +Two or three, and among them the man who wanted us to show our map, +openly counseled violence. We were but two, and there were by this +time a dozen against us, with more coming up the gulch. They could +have rushed us easily--at some little cost of life, maybe--but again +the every-man-for-himself idea broke the charm. Already a number of +stragglers were dropping out to skirt our boundaries, and in another +minute they were fighting among themselves, each man striving to be the +first to get his stakes down parallel with ours. + +In such a struggle there was necessarily much reckless crisscrossing +and overlapping. Claims were stepped off on all sides of us and in +every conceivable direction. The law requires only the driving of +corner stakes and the posting of a notice prior to the preliminary +entry; and as soon as a man got his stakes driven and his notice +displayed, he became a vanishing point on the horizon, joining a mad +race for town and the land office. + +The assault upon the harmless mountain-side did not last as long as we +both feared it might, and there was no occasion for gun-play. Gifford +and I patrolled the boundaries of our claim and made due protest when +it became evident that anybody was overlapping us. Before the sun was +an hour high the last of the locators had tailed off in the town +foot-race; and though there were more coming, the most of these +laggards turned back at once at sight of the forest of new stakes. + +It was not until after our guard duties had ceased to press upon us +that we remembered the wagon-load of precious stuff left at the mercy +of a robber world on the bare hillside two miles away. Gifford ran to +the shoulder of the over-looking spur with Barrett's field-glass, and I +could tell by his actions that the strain was off. + +"Dixon is back with another wagon, and he and a helper are transferring +the ore sacks," he reported when he came in. "I told him when he left +that he might get help wherever he could; that it was no use trying to +keep it dark any longer." + +There being nothing to prevent it now, we cooked breakfast on the camp +stove, sitting afterward to eat it on the shack door-step, with the +weapons handy. I think Gifford had quite forgotten that he had raided +the shack chuck-box at daybreak. Anyway, his appetite appeared +undiminished. He seemed to think that the worst of our troubles were +over, and I did not undeceive him. The later stragglers were still +tramping over the ground and reading the lately posted notices. A few +of them came up to ask questions, and one, a grizzled old fellow who +might have posed as "One-eyed Ike" in Western melodramas, stopped to +talk a while. + +"You boys shore have struck it big," he commented. "How come?" + +We explained briefly the finding of the unoccupied ground and the +taking of the average Cripple Creek prospector's chance, and he nodded +sagely. + +"Jest lit down 'twixt two days and dug a hole and struck hit right +there at grass-roots, did ye? That's tenderfoots' luck, ever' time. +Vein runnin' bigger?" + +Gifford admitted that it was, and the one-eyed man begged a bit of +tobacco for the filling of his blackened corn-cob pipe. + +"Here's hopin'," he said, with true Western magnanimity; then, with a +jerk of his head toward the thin column of stack smoke rising on the +still morning air from the Lawrenceburg: "I know this here ground, up +one side and down the other. Them fellers down yander 'll be grabbin' +fer ye, pronto, soon as they know you've struck pay." + +"Why should they?" I asked, scenting a possible source of information. + +"They own the ground on t' other side of ye, and ever'body allowed they +owned this." + +"But their vein runs the other way--southeast and northwest," Gifford +interposed. + +The old man winked his single eye. + +"Ever been in their workin's?" + +Gifford shook his head. + +"N'r nobody else that could 'r would talk," said our ancient. "You +can't tell nothin' about which-a-way a vein runs in this here hell's +half-acre. Bart Blackwell's the whole show on the Lawrenceburg, and +he's a hawg. He's the one that ran them Nebraska farmers off'm the +Mary Mattock down yander: give 'em notice that he was goin' to sink on +them upper claims o' his'n at the gulch head, and that his sump water'd +have to be turned loose to go where it had a mind to--which'd be +straight down the gulch, o' course. The farmers they allowed that'd +swamp 'em worse'n they was already swamped--ez it would--so they up and +quit. Blackwell, he's a cuss, with a snoot like a hawg. He don't want +no neighbors." + +I had been observing the old man's face as he talked. It was +villainous only in its featurings. + +"Which are you; a prospector or a miner?" I asked. + +"A little b'ilin' o' both, I reckon," was his rejoinder. "I driv' the +first tunnel in the Buckeye, and they made me boss on the +two-hundred-foot level. I kin shoot rock with any of 'em's long as I +kin make out to let the bug-juice alone." + +"Are you out of work?" + +"Sure thing." + +I caught Gifford's eye and the carpenter nodded. We were going to need +men and more men, and here was a chance to begin on a man who knew the +Lawrenceburg, or at least some of the history of it. + +"You're hired," I told him; and it was thus that we secured the most +faithful and efficient henchman that ever drew pay; a man who knew +nothing but loyalty, and who was, besides, a practical miner and a +skilful master of men. + +Hicks--we carried him thus on the pay-roll, though he himself spelled +it "Hix," for short, as he said--left us to go back to town for his +dunnage, and Gifford, knowing that I had been on watch all night, urged +me to turn in. But that was a game that two could play at. + +"I'm no shorter on sleep than you are," I told him. "You were up all +night with the wagon." + +We wrangled over it a bit and I finally yielded. But first I told +Gifford about the Lawrenceburg threat for the day, omitting nothing but +the source of my information. + +"So they're going to jump us, are they?" he said. "All right; the +quicker the sooner. Does Barrett know?" + +"Not yet. I thought we'd all get together on it this morning. Tell +him when he comes back; and if anything develops before he gets here, +sing out for me." And with that I made a dive for the blankets. + +Between the two of them, Gifford and Barrett let me sleep until the +middle of the afternoon. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my +senses when I turned out and saw the miracles that had been wrought in +a few short hours. While I slept, the transformation of the Little +Clean-Up from a three-man prospect hole to a full-fledged mine had +taken giant strides. Machinery and material were arriving in a +procession of teams laboring up the gulch; a score of carpenters were +raising the frame of the shaft-house; masons were setting the +foundations for the engine and hoist. I had slumbered peacefully +through all the din and hammering and the coming and going of the +teams; would doubtless have slept longer if the workmen had not put +skids and rollers under the shack to move it out of their way. + +Gifford, now thirty-odd hours beyond his latest sleep, was too busy to +talk; but Barrett took time to bridge the progress gap for me. + +"There was nothing you could do," he explained, at my protest for being +left for so many hours out of the activities. "Gifford will have to +knock off pretty soon, but the work will go on just the same. Take a +look around, Jimmie, and pat yourself on the back. You are no longer a +miner; you are a mine owner." + +"Tell me," I said shortly. + +"There isn't much to tell. I caught that first car to town this +morning and got busy. You're seeing some of the results, and the ready +money in bank is what produced them. But we've got to dig some more of +it, and dig it quick. Blackwell has begun suit against us for +trespassing upon Lawrenceburg property, and as you know, every foot of +ground all around us was relocated by the early-morning mob that +trailed up from our broken-down wagon." + +"I ought to have told you about the Blackwell move this morning before +you got away, but there was so much excitement that I lost sight of +it," I cut in. "I knew about it last night." + +"How was that?" + +"Somebody who knew about it before I did came here and told me." + +"In the night?" + +"In the early part of the night; yes." + +"Was it Everton?" + +"Not on your life. It was some one who thinks a heap more of you than +Phineas Everton does." + +"You don't mean----" + +"Yes; that's just who I do mean. She came over expecting to find you. +She wanted to ask you if we had a sure-enough, fire-proof, legal right +to be here. She asked me, when she found you were in bed and asleep. +I told her we had, and succeeded in making her believe it. Then she +told me what was coming to us--what Blackwell had up his sleeve." + +"That explains what Gifford was trying to tell me, but he didn't tell +me where it came from," said Barrett. + +"He couldn't, because I didn't tell him. It's between you and Polly +Everton, and it'll never go any farther. I shall forget it--I've +already forgotten it." + +In his own way Barrett was as scrupulous as an honest man ought to be. +"I wish she hadn't done it, Jimmie. It doesn't ring just right, you +know; while her father is still on the Lawrenceburg pay-rolls." + +Right there and then is when I came the nearest to having a quarrel +with Robert Barrett. + +"You blind beetle!" I exploded. "Don't you see that she did it for +you? But beyond that, she was perfectly right. She saw that an unjust +thing was about to be done, and she tried to chock the wheels. The man +doesn't live who can stand up and tell me that her motives are not +always exactly what they ought to be. I know they are!" + +Barrett was smiling good-naturedly before I got through. "I like your +loyalty," said he; adding: "and I shan't quarrel with you over Miss +Everton's motives; she is as good as she is pretty; and that is putting +it as strong as even you could put it." + +It was time to call a halt on this bandying of words about Mary Everton +and her motives. I had already said enough to warrant a cross-fire of +questions as to how I came to know so much about her. + +"We're off the track," I threw in, by way of making a needed diversion. +"You began to tell me about the Blackwell demonstration. I see we're +still here." + +"You bet we're here; and we're going to stay. It may take all the +money we can dig out of that hole in the next six months to pay court +costs, but just the same, we'll stay. Blackwell tried the bullying +game first; came over here this forenoon with a bunch of his men and +tried to scare Gifford out. Gifford stood the outfit off with the +shotgun; was still standing it off when I came up with the first gang +of workmen. I had bought a few Winchesters against just such an +emergency, and I passed them out to the boys and told them to stand by. +That settled it and Blackwell backed down, threatening us with the +law--which he had already invoked." + +"Can he get an injunction and hang us up?" + +"It's a cinch that he'll try. But we have the best lawyers in Cripple +Creek, and they're right on the job. There will be litigation a mile +deep and two miles high, but we'll get delay--which is all we are +playing for, right now. If the lawyers can stand things off until we +have had one month's digging, we'll have money enough to fight a dozen +Lawrenceburgs." + +"We are going to be terribly crowded in this little space," I lamented, +with a glance at the building chaos which was already overflowing our +narrow limits. + +Barrett slapped me on the back. "There was one time when your Uncle +Bob had the right hunch," he bragged exultantly. "Our attorneys, +Benedict & Myers, have succeeded in buying the Mary Mattock for us, +which gives us room for the dump. It cost us twenty thousand dollars +yesterday, when the deal was closed, and to-day it would cost a hundred +thousand--or as much more as you like. To-morrow morning there will be +a syndicate of farmers back in Nebraska reading their newspapers and +kicking themselves all over the barnyard." + +"Even the Mattock ground won't give us any too much room," I suggested. + +"No; but we can acquire the outer corners of our triangle, sooner or +later. We can buy of these new stakers after they find that they +haven't room enough to swing a cat on their little garden patches. The +big fight is going to be with the Lawrenceburg. Benedict has been +digging into that, and he says we are up against a bunch that will +fight to the last ditch. The mine is backed by Eastern capital, and +the claim the owners will make is that their upper ground here in the +gulch joins the original location, and that we are trespassers." + +"Give me something to do," I begged. "I can't stand around here, +looking on." + +"Your job is waiting for you," Barrett rejoined tersely. "You have +never told me much about yourself, Jimmie, but I know you are a +business man, with a good bit of experience. Isn't that so?" + +"It was, once," I admitted. + +"All right. You're going to handle the money end of this job in town. +When you're ready, pull your freight for the camp, open an office, +organize your force, and get busy with the machinery people, the banks, +and the smelters. We'll be shipping in car-load lots within a week." + +Two hours later I boarded a car on the nearest trolley line. On the +long, sweeping rush down the hills I put in the time trying, as any +bewildered son of Adam might, to find myself and to rise in some +measure to the stupendous demands of the new task which lay before me. + +But at the car-stopping in Bennett Avenue it was the escaped convict, +rather than the newly created business manager of the Little Clean-Up, +who slipped into the nearest hardware shop and purchased a revolver. + + + + +XVII + +Aladdin's Lamp + +It is no part of my purpose to burden this narrative with the story of +the development of our mine. Let it be sufficient to say that it +speedily proved to be one of the most phenomenal "producers" among the +later discoveries in the Cripple Creek district. The stories of such +spectacular successes have been made commonplace by the newspapers, and +that of the "Little Clean-Up" would--if I should give the real name of +our bonanza--be remembered and recognized by many who saw it grow by +leaps and bounds from a mere prospect hole to a second "Gold Coin." + +To summarize briefly. Within a month we had settled down to business +and were incorporated, with Barrett as president, and Gifford, who +chose his own job, resident manager and superintendent. The +secretary-treasurership, combined under one office head, fell to me. +With a modern mining plant in operation, the sinking and driving paused +only at the hours of shift-changing; and after we began shipping in +quantity our bank balances grew like so many juggler's roses--this +though we had to spend money like water in the various lawsuits which +sprang up from day to day. + +Many of these suits were based upon cross-claims--contentions that we +were overlapping other properties--and most of these we were able to +compromise by buying off the litigants. By this means we acquired the +entire area of the original triangle. When the news of our strike +reached Nebraska, the owners of the Mary Mattock sought to break their +sale to us on the ground that we had stacked the cards against them. +But our lawyers were too shrewd to be caught in such a flimsy net as +this. At Benedict's suggestion we drove a drainage tunnel on the +purchased property and unwatered the three shafts which the Nebraskans +had sunk; an expedient which enabled us to prove to the satisfaction of +the courts that the Mary Mattock, at the time of its abandonment by its +original owners, was nothing more than a series of prospect holes, and +that the property was valueless save for a dumping ground. + +Through all these bickerings and compromisings the Lawrenceburg fight +held on, giving us the most trouble and costing the most money. +Blackwell proved himself to be a scrapper of sorts, leaving no +expedient untried in his attempts to tie us up and put us out of +business. Shortly after we began developing in earnest, he put a +shaft-sinking force on the nearest of the Lawrenceburg upper claims on +the hillside above us, hoping, as we supposed, to flood us out by +tapping one of the numerous underground water bodies with which the +region abounds and turning it loose on us. At least, we could imagine +no other reason for the move, since the growing dump at this upper +working was entirely barren of ore, and remained so. + +On our own part we were able to get back at Blackwell only in small +ways. When he tried to shut us out of our wagon road right-of-way in +the gulch, we beat him in the courts and made him pay damages for +obstructing us. Later, when his upper dump began to encroach upon our +ground, we sued him again and got more damages, with a peremptory order +from the court to vacate. + +Still later we took Phineas Everton away from him. The assayer had had +some disagreement with Blackwell, the nature of which was not +explained, but which I, for one, could easily understand, and Everton, +apologetic now for his early suspicion of us, had told Barrett that he +was open to a proposal. The proposal was promptly made and we +installed Everton as our assayer and expert in the town offices, +fitting up a laboratory for him which lacked nothing that money could +buy in the way of furnishings and equipment. + +Consequent upon this change, Barrett and I both saw more of the +Evertons. They took a small house in town and Polly welcomed us both, +making no distinction, so far as I could determine, between the +president and the secretary-treasurer. Barrett's attitude toward Polly +puzzled me not a little. He was a frequent visitor in the cottage on +the hill, but he rarely went without asking me to go along. If he were +really Mary Everton's lover, he was certainly going about his +love-making most moderately, I concluded. + +I like to remember that I was loyal to him at this time in spite of the +puzzlement. It is perhaps needless to say that these cottage visits +had done their worst for me and I was hopelessly in love with the +sweet-faced, honest-hearted young woman who had grown out of the +brown-eyed little girl of the Glendale school-days. Nevertheless, I +was still able to recognize the barrier which my conviction, +imprisonment and escape, together with the ever-present peril of +recapture, interposed; also I was able to recognize Barrett's prior +claim, and the fact that he could leave wife and children the priceless +heritage of a good name and a clean record--as I could not. + +Touching this matter of peril, the period of our beginnings as a +corporation was not without its alarms. Twice I had seen Kellow at a +distance, and once I had stood beside him at the hotel counter where he +had been examining the registered list of names at a moment when I, all +unconscious of his presence until I was elbowing him, had stopped in +passing to ask a question of the clerk. That near-encounter showed me +that I was neither better nor worse than the man who had stood, loaded +weapon in hand, on the sidewalk in the heart of a June night, coldly +deliberating upon the advisability of committing a murder. I was +conscious of a decent hope that Kellow wouldn't look up and recognize +me--as he did not--but coincident with the hope the homicidal devil was +whispering me to be ready with the pistol, without which I never went +abroad any more, even to cross the street from my rooms to the office. +And I was ready. + +This mania, which seemed fated to seize me at any moment when my +liberty was threatened, added another stone to the barrier of good +resolutions which I had builded in behalf of my loyalty to Barrett and +a more or less chivalrous consideration for Mary Everton and her future +peace of mind. If the ex-convict might not venture, the potential +man-slayer was at a still greater disadvantage. + +I recall, as vividly as if it were yesterday, how the first small +breach was made in this barrier of good resolutions. Barrett and I +were in Denver together, joining forces in our regular monthly fight +with the smelter pirates. We had been to the theater and were smoking +bedtime cigars in the mezzanine lounge of the Brown Palace. I have +forgotten the name of the play we had seen, and even the plot of it; +all that I recollect is that it turned upon the well-worn theme of +loyalty in love. + +Barrett seldom talked of himself or his past, even to me; and I was +closer to him, I think, than anyone else in the West. But the play +seemed to have touched some hidden spring. Almost before I knew it he +was telling me of his college days, and of his assured future at that +time as the only son of a well-to-do New England manufacturer. + +"Those were the days when I didn't have a care in the world," he said. +"My father was the typical American business man, intent upon piling up +a fortune for my mother and sister and me. I couldn't see that he was +wearing himself out in the effort to get ahead, and at the same time to +give us all the luxuries as we went along; none of us could see it. +His notion was to put me through the university, give me a year or so +abroad, and then to take me into the business with him. . . . Don't +let me bore you." + +"You are not boring me," I said. + +"Then there was the girl: that had been arranged for both of us, too, +though we were carefully kept from suspecting it. I can't tell you +what she was to me, Jimmie, but in a worldful of women she was the only +one. She was in college, too, but we had our vacations together--at a +little place on the Maine coast where her people and mine had cottages +less than a stone's throw apart." + +Barrett's cigar had gone out, but he seemed not to know it. His eyes +were half-closed, and for the moment his strong clean-cut young face +looked almost haggard. I let him take his own time. In such +confidences it is only the sympathetic ear that is welcome; speech in +any sort can scarcely be less than impertinent. + +"I shall never forget our last summer together," he went on, after a +bit. "It seemed as if everything conspired to make it memorable. We +were both fond of canoeing and sailing and swimming; she could do all +three better than most men. Then there were the moonlit nights on the +beach when we sat together on the white sands and planned for the +future, the future of clear skies, of ambitions working out their +fulfilment in the passing years, the blessed after-while in which there +were to be an ideal home and little children, and always and evermore +the love that makes all things beautiful, all things possible. + +"We planned it all out in those August days and moonlit nights. I had +one more year in the university, and after that we were to be married +and go to Europe together. No young fellow in this world ever had +brighter prospects than I had on the day when I went back to college to +begin my senior year, Jimmie." He paused for a moment and then went on +with a deeper note in his voice. "The lights all went out, blink, +between two days, as you might say. The treasurer of the company of +which my father was the president became an embezzler, and the crash +ruined us financially and practically killed my father--though the +doctors called it heart failure. And I had been at home less than a +month, trying to save something out of the wreck for my mother and +sister, when I lost the girl." + +"She couldn't stand the change in circumstances?" I offered. + +"She was drowned in a yachting accident, and they never found her body." + +"Oh, good heavens!" I exclaimed, suddenly and acutely distressed and +remorseful for the cynical suggestion I had thrust in. + +He shook his head slowly. "It came near smashing me, Jimmie. It +seemed so unnecessary; so hideously out of tune with everything. I +thought at the time that I should never get over it and be myself +again, and I still think so, though the passing years have dulled the +sharp edges of the hurt. There never was another girl like her, and +there never will be another--for me." + +"But you will marry, some day, Bob," I ventured. + +"Possibly--quite probably. Sentiment, of the sort our fathers and +mothers knew, has gone out of fashion, and the money chase has made new +men and women of the present generation. But some of the old longings +persist for a few of us. I want a home, Jimmie, and at least a few of +the things that the word stands for. Some day I hope to be able to +find a woman who will take what there is left of me and give me what +she can in return. I shan't ask much because I can't give much." + +"I guess you have already found her," I said, with a dull pain at my +heart. + +"Not Polly," he denied quickly. "I couldn't get my own consent to +cheat a woman like Polly Everton. She has a right to demand the best +that a man can give, and all of it. Besides, it doesn't lie altogether +with me or my possible leanings, in Polly's case--as no man knows +better than yourself." + +"Oh, you are wrong there, entirely wrong!" I hastened to say. "Polly +and I are the best of good friends--nothing more." + +His smile was a deal more than half sad. + +"If there is 'nothing more,' Jimmie, it is very pointedly your own +fault," he returned. "I've been wondering what you are waiting for. +You have been poking your head into the sand like a silly old ostrich, +but you haven't fooled me--or Polly, either, I think--for a single +minute. What's the obstacle?" + +I was silent. Not even to so close a friend as Robert Barrett could I +give the real reason why my lips were sealed and must remain so. He +went on, after a time, good-naturedly ignoring my hesitancy. + +"It was all right at first, of course; while we couldn't tell whether +we had a mine or only a costly muddle of litigation. But it's +different now. We are going to beat the Lawrenceburg people in the +end, and apart from that, if we should split up right here and now, +we've got an undivided surplus of--how much was it yesterday?--you've +got the records." + +"A little under a million." + +"Call it nine hundred thousand to divide among the three of us. Your +share of that would at least enable you and Polly to begin light +house-keeping in a five-room flat, don't you think?" + +What could I say? How could I tell him that he was opening a door for +me that I could never enter; that by all the canons of decency and +honor I should never seek to enter? In the mingled emotions of the +moment there was a blind anger at the thought that he had unconsciously +made my hard case infinitely harder by showing me that my loyalty to +him was entirely needless. + +"There are good reasons why I can't think of such a thing," I began; +but when I would have gone on the words froze in my throat. Since the +hour was nearly midnight, the mezzanine lounge was practically +deserted. But as I choked up and stopped, a couple, a man and a woman +who had come around from the other side of the gallery parlors, passed +us on their way to the elevator alcove. + +I hardly saw the man of the pair. A second after they had passed I +could not have told whether he was black or white. That was because +the woman, fair, richly gowned, statuesquely handsome and apparently in +perfect health, was Agatha Geddis. + + + + +XVIII + +"The Woman . . . Whose Hands are as Bands" + +If I looked as stricken as I felt--and I doubtless did--Barrett had +ample reason for assuming that I had been suddenly taken sick. + +"Why, Jimmie, old man!" he exclaimed in instant concern; and then he +took the half-burned cigar from between my fingers and threw it away, +at the same time sending the floor boy scurrying after a drink for me. + +I couldn't touch the whiskey when it came; and I was still trying to +persuade Barrett that I wasn't sick when he walked me to the elevator. +Wanting only to be free, I still had to let him go all the way with me +to the door of my room. But the moment he was gone I hurried out again +and descended to the lobby. + +The night clerk knew me; or if he didn't, he knew the Little Clean-Up; +and he was quite willing to talk. Miss Geddis was only temporarily a +guest of the house, he told me. She was with a party of friends from +the East, but her Denver home was with Mrs. Altberg, a widow and a +prominent society woman. Yes, Miss Geddis was quite well known in +social circles; she was reputed to be wealthy, and the clerk understood +that she had originally come to Colorado for her health. + +Under the stimulus of a particularly good gift cigar the man behind the +register grew more confidential. Miss Geddis had always impressed him +as being a woman with a history. It was not generally known, he said, +but there was a whisper that she had come perilously near getting +herself dragged into the lime-light as co-respondent in a certain +high-life divorce case. The clerk did not vouch for this, but he did +know that she had been seen often and openly in public with the man in +the case, since the granting of the divorce. + +I didn't sleep very well that night, as may be imagined; and the +following day I should certainly have taken the first train for Cripple +Creek if business had permitted. But business would not permit. There +was an accumulated difference of some fifteen thousand dollars in ore +values between us and the smelter people, and I was obliged to stay on +with Barrett and help wrangle for our side in the discrepancy dispute. + +At dinner time that evening I managed to elude Barrett, and upon going +to the lobby desk for my mail, found a violet-scented envelope +addressed to "Mr. James Bertrand" in a handwriting that I remembered +only too well. + +To anyone looking over my shoulder the enclosed note might have read as +a casual and friendly greeting from an old acquaintance. But for me it +spelled out death and destruction. + + +"Dear 'Bert," it ran. "I am not going to scold you for not speaking to +me last night in the mezzanine parlor; nor for changing your name; nor +for growing a beard. But if you should call this evening between eight +and nine at Mrs. Altberg's house on the Boulevard, you will find me at +home and more than willing to listen to your apologies and explanations. + +"AGATHA." + + +My appetite for dinner had gone glimmering when I sat at the most +secluded table the cafe afforded and went through the motions of +eating. Not for a single instant did I mistake the purport of Agatha +Geddis's note. It was not a friendly invitation; it was a veiled +command. If it should be disobeyed, I made sure that not all the money +in the Little Clean-Up's treasury could save me from going back to the +home State as a recaptured felon. + +Eight o'clock found me descending from a cab at the door of a rather +dissipated looking mansion in the northern suburb. A servant admitted +me, but I had to wait alone for a quarter of an hour or more in the +stuffy and rather tawdry luxury of a great drawing-room. After a time +I realized that Agatha was making me wait purposely in a refinement of +cruelty, knowing well what torments I must be enduring. + +When the suspense ended and she came into the room I saw at a glance +that she was the same woman as of old; beautiful, alluring, but +infinitely more sophisticated. Her charm now, as in girlhood, was +chiefly the charm of physical perfection; but it was not entirely +without its appeal when she made me sit beside her on the heavily +carved mock-antique sofa. + +"I didn't know certainly whether you would come or not," was the way +she began on me, and if the tone was conventional I knew well enough +what lay beneath it. "Old times are old times, but----" + +She was merely playing with me as a cat plays with a mouse, but I could +neither fight nor run until she gave me an opening. + +"Of course you knew I would come; why shouldn't I?" I asked, striving +for some outward appearance of self-possession. + +"I'm sure I don't think of any reason, if you don't," she countered. +"Did you know I was in Denver?" + +"Not in Denver, no. But I heard, some time ago, that you had come to +Colorado for your health." + +"It seems absolutely ridiculous, doesn't it?--to look at me now. But +really, I was very ill three years ago; and even now I can't go back +home and stay for any length of time. You haven't been back, have you, +since your--since you----" + +"No; I haven't been back." + +She was rolling her filmy little lace handkerchief into a shapeless +ball, and if I hadn't known her so well I might have fancied she was +embarrassed. + +"I can't endure to think of that dreadful time four years ago--it is +four years, isn't it?" she sighed; then with a swift glance of the +man-melting eyes: "You hate me savagely, don't you, Bert?--you've been +hating me all these years." + +"No," I said, and it was the truth, up to that time. I knew that the +feeling I had been entertaining for her had nothing in it so robust as +hatred. There was no especial need for palliating her offense--far +less, indeed, than I knew at that moment; yet I did it, saying, "You +did what you thought you had to do; possibly it was what your father +made you do--I don't know." + +She was silent for a moment before she began again by asking me what +made me change my name. + +"My name isn't Herbert," I explained; "it never was. I think you must +know that I was christened 'James Bertrand,' after my father." + +"I didn't know it," she denied, adding: "but you have dropped the +Weyburn?" + +"Naturally." + +Again there was a little interval of silence, and as before, she was +the first to break it. + +"So you are one of the owners of the famous Little Clean-Up? Are you +very rich, Bertie?--you see, I can't give up the old name, all at once." + +"No; I am not rich--as riches are counted nowadays." + +"But you are going to be in just a little while," she put in, following +the confident assertion with a query that came as suddenly as a +stiletto stab: "Who is the girl, Bertie?" + +"What girl?"' + +"The girl you are going to marry. I saw her with you at the Broadway +one night three weeks ago; I sat right behind you. She doesn't +'pretty' very much, to my way of thinking." + +Once again I felt the murder nerve twittering. This woman with a +mocking voice and a heart of stone knew everything; I was as certain of +it as if I could have seen into the plotting brain behind the +long-lashed eyes. I knew now why she hadn't glanced aside at me as she +passed on the way to the elevators in the Brown Palace the previous +evening. She had discovered me long before. At whatever cost, I must +know how long before. + +"You saw me last night, and three weeks ago at the theater," I said. +"How long have you known that I was in Colorado?" + +"Ever since you came, I think," she returned quietly. "I was a member +of a private-car party up at Cripple Creek about that time--with some +of the Midland officials and their friends, you know. Our car was +taken out over a new branch line they were building at that time, and I +saw you standing beside the track. Perhaps I shouldn't have recognized +you if I hadn't been thinking so pointedly of you. The home newspapers +had told of your es--of your leaving the State; and I was +naturally--er--well, I was thinking about you, as I say." + +I saw that I was completely in her power. She knew, better than anyone +else on earth, save and excepting only her father, that I was an +innocent man. But she also knew that I had broken my parole. + +"What do you want of me, Agatha?" I asked; and I had to wet my lips +before I could say it. + +"Supposing we say that I am asking only a little, common, ordinary +friendliness, Bertie--just for the sake of the old days, and to show +that you don't bear malice. I'm like other women; I get horribly bored +and lonesome sometimes for somebody to talk to--somebody who knows, and +for whom I don't have to wear a mask. The other girl doesn't live +here, does she?" + +"No." + +"That's better. When you come to Denver, you must let me see you now +and then; just for old sake's sake. You come up quite often, don't +you? But I know you do; I see your name in the arrivals quite +frequently." + +I formed a swift resolve not to come as often in the future as I had in +the past, but I did not tell her so. + +"You'll come to see me when you're in town," she went on. "I'll try to +learn to call you 'Jimmie,' and when we meet people, I'll promise to +introduce you as the Mr. Bertrand, of Cripple Creek and the Little +Clean-Up. Does that make you feel better?" + +It made me feel as if I should like to lock my fingers around her fair +pillar-like throat. I have said that I did not hate her. But one may +kill without hatred in self-defense. Short of cold-blooded murder, +however, there was nothing I could do--nothing anyone could do. Beyond +this, she went on chatting easily and lightly of the old times in +Glendale and the people we had both known, rallying me now and then +upon my unresponsiveness. At my leave-taking, which was a full hour +later, she went with me to the hall, helped me into my overcoat, and +gave me another of the breath-taking shocks. + +"There was a time, once, when you really thought you were in love with +me, wasn't there, Bertie?" she asked sweetly. + +Again I told her the simple truth. "There was a time; yes. It was +when I was still young enough to carry your books back and forth on the +way to and from the old school." + +"But you got bravely over it, after awhile?" + +"Yes; I got over it after I grew up." + +She laughed softly. + +"Don't you know that is a frightfully dangerous thing to say to a +woman--to any woman, Bertie?" + +"It is the honest thing to say to you." + +"I suppose it is. Yet there are some things a woman likes better than +honesty. Perhaps you haven't been making love to the Cripple Creek +girl long enough to find that out. But it is so, and it always will be +so." + +It was at the outer door opening that she gave me the final stab. + +"I am taking your business excuse at its face value to-night and +letting you go. But the next time you come you mustn't have any +business; at least, nothing more important than entertaining me--and +that is important. Just jot that down in your little vest-pocket +memorandum, and don't allow yourself to forget it for a single moment; +not even while you are making love to Little Brown-Eyes. Good-night." + +The old-fashioned preachers used to describe a terrifying hell in which +fire and brimstone and all manner of physical torments awaited the +impenitent. I was brought up to believe implicitly in such a hell, but +the puerility of it as compared with the refined tortures which I +endured that winter can never be set forth in any words of mine. + +With a desire keener than the hunger of the famishing for +respectability and the privilege of living open-eyed and honestly +before all men, I was forced, from the night of that first visit to +Agatha Geddis, to lead a wretched, fear-frozen, double existence. On +my return to Cripple Creek after the interview which I have just +detailed, I swore roundly that I would stop going to the Everton's; +that, come what might, Polly should never be dragged into the horrible +morass of degradation which I saw clearly, even at that bare beginning, +was waiting to engulf me. + +But at best, a man is only a man, human in his desires, human in his +powers of resistance; and a man in love can rarely be a complete master +of circumstances. Though I had been holding back, both for Barrett's +sake and because of my own wretched handicap, it soon became apparent +that I had gone too far to be able to retreat with honor; that Polly +Everton's name had already been coupled with mine in the gossip of the +great gold camp; and that--if what Barrett had said were true--Polly +herself had to be considered. + +So the double life began and continued. In Cripple Creek I was Mary +Everton's lover; in Denver I was Agatha Geddis's bondman and slave. +Oftener and oftener, as the winter progressed, the business of the mine +took me to the capital; and Agatha never let me escape. One time it +would be a theater party, at which I would be obliged to meet her +friends; people who, as I soon learned, were of the ultra fast set. At +another it would be a driving party to some out-of-town resort with the +same, or a worse, crowd; midnight banquetings, with champagne in the +finger-bowls, cocktails to go before and after, and quite likely some +daring young woman to show us a new dance, with the cleared +dinner-table for a stage. Many times I tried to dodge; to slip into +Denver on the necessary business errand and out again before the +newspapers could publish my arrival. It was no use. That woman's +ingenuity, prescience, intuition--whatever it may be called, was simply +devilish. Before I could turn around, my summons would find me, and I +had to obey or take the consequences. + +Now and again I rebelled, even as the poorest worm will turn if it be +sufficiently trodden upon; but that, too, was useless. My tormentor +held me in a grip of steel. Worse than all, the dog's life she was +leading me caused me to lose all sense of proportion. As a choice +between two evils, a return to prison would have been far more +endurable than this indefinite sentence of degradation Agatha Geddis +was making me serve. But I could not see this: all I could see was +that this woman had the power to make a total wreck of all that I had +builded. The larger fact that I was myself the principal contributor +to the wreck, helping it on by the time-serving course I was pursuing, +did not lay hold of me. + +One night, or rather early one morning, when I had taken her home from +a road-house revel so shameful that the keeper of the place had +practically turned us out, I asked her where all this was to end. + +"Perhaps it will end when I have taught you how to make love to me +again," she returned flippantly. + +"And if I refuse to learn?" + +Her smile was no longer alluring; it was mockingly triumphant. + +"You can't keep it up indefinitely--with the Cripple Creek girl, I +mean, Bertie"--she still called me "Bertie" or "Herbert" when we were +alone together. "Sooner or later, she is going to find out what you +are doing to her; and after that, the fireworks." + +I shook my head. "It is hard to decide, sometimes, Agatha, whether you +are a woman or merely a she-devil in woman's shape." + +"Oh, I'm a woman--all woman." + +"But the motive," I gritted. "If I had done you the greatest injury a +woman could suffer--if you had a lifelong grudge to satisfy--you could +hardly be more vindictively merciless." + +Her smile at this was not pleasant to look upon. + +"Somebody has said that the keenest pleasure in life is the pleasure of +absolute possession. I own you, Bertie Weyburn, body and soul, and you +know it. If you were a big enough man, you'd kill me: if you were big +enough in another way, you'd defy me and take what is coming to you." + +"And since I am not yet ready to become either a murderer or a martyr?" + +"You will probably do the other remaining thing--marry me some day and +give me a chance to teach you how to spend the money which, thus far, +you don't seem to know what to do with." + +"You have money enough of your own--or your father's," I retorted. + +"I'd rather spend yours," she said coolly. + +It was the old _impasse_ at which we had arrived a dozen times before, +only the wretched involvement seemed to be adding coil upon coil with +the passing of time. I have often wondered if she really meant the +marriage threat. At this distance in time it appears extremely +doubtful. She may have had moments in which the steadily augmenting +output of the Little Clean-Up tempted her, but this is only a surmise. +And a little later I was to learn that during this very winter when she +was dragging me bound and helpless at the end of her trail-rope, she +was--but I need not anticipate. + +"You have me bluffed to a standstill, but sometimes I wonder if it +isn't only a bluff," I said, in reply to her remark that she'd rather +spend my money than her father's. "What if I should tell you here and +now that this is the end of It?--that you can't make a plaything of me +any longer? What would you do?" + +"There are a number of things I might do--to one who is so temptingly +vulnerable as you are, Bertie. For one, I might send a wire to the +sheriff of the home county, or to the warden of the penitentiary. +Really, when I come to think of it, I'm not sure that I oughtn't to do +it, anyway, on the score of public morals. Nobody would blame me; and +some few would applaud." + +"Morals!" I exploded. "You don't know the meaning of the word!" + +"Maybe not," she rejoined lightly. "Not many women do. But sending +the wire would be a rather crude way of bringing you to terms; +especially since I know of at least one better way. I'm going to +hazard a guess. You haven't told the Cripple Creek girl anything about +your past?" + +I was silent. + +"I thought not," she went on smoothly. "With some women, perhaps with +most women, it wouldn't make any great difference, one way or the +other. So far as anybody out here knows to the contrary, you are a +free man--and a rich one; and so long as you haven't committed bigamy +or something of that sort, the average girl wouldn't care the snap of +her finger. Up to a few days ago I thought the brown-eyed little thing +you brought up here one night last fall to the theater was the average +girl. But now I know better." + +It had always seemed a sheer sacrilege to even mention Mary Everton in +Agatha Geddis's presence. But this time I broke over. + +"You know who she is?" I queried. + +"I do now. And I know her _métier_ even better than you do, Bertie, +dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but she +would never have an ex-convict for the father of her children--not if +she knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew Phineas +Everton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactly +what to expect of his daughter." + +I sat up quickly, and the lights in the high-swung drawing-room +chandelier began to turn red for me. + +"You devil! Do you mean to say that you would tell Polly Everton?" I +burst out savagely. + +"I'm not going to tell her because you are not going to drive me to +it,"--this with a half-stifled yawn behind a faultless white hand that +was just beginning to show the blue veining of bad hours and +dissipation. Then: "Go back to your hotel and go to bed, Bertie. +You'll wake up in a better frame of mind a few hours later, perhaps. +Kiss me, and say good-night." + +As I have confessed, I carried a gun in those days; had carried one +ever since that memorable afternoon when I had dropped from the +trolley-car in Cripple Creek to preface the opening of our business +office by going first to a hardware shop for the purchase of a weapon. +After leaving the Altberg house I dismissed the night-owl cab on the +north bank of the river and crossed the Platte on the viaduct afoot. + +Half-way over I stopped to look down into the winter-dry bed of the +stream. There was one way out of the wretched labyrinth of shame and +double-dealing into which my weakness and cowardice had led me. The +weapon sagged heavily in my pocket as if it were a sentient thing +trying in some dumb fashion to make its presence felt. + +It was but a gripping of the pistol and a quick pull at the trigger, +and I should be out of the labyrinth for good and all. I don't know +why I didn't do it; why I hadn't done it long before--or rather, I do +know. It was because, when the deciding moment came, I was always +confronted by a vivid and soul-harrowing flash-light picture of Polly +Everton's face as it would look when they should tell her. + + + + +XIX + +A Reckoning and a Hold-Up + +I imagine it is only in fiction that a man is able to live a double +life successfully to the grand climax. I failed because the mounting +fortunes of the Little Clean-Up, my share of which was as yet merely +giving me money to squander on the extravagant whims and caprices of +Agatha Geddis, were making all three of us, Gifford, Barrett and +myself, marked men. + +One incident of the marking timed itself in one of my trips to Denver. +I had breakfasted at the Brown and was leaving my room-key with the +clerk when I ran up against the plain-clothes man who had arrested me +on the day of my arrival as a runaway. I should have passed him +without recognition, as a matter of course, but he stopped and accosted +me. + +"Carson's my name," he said, offering me his hand and showing his +concealed badge in one and the same motion. Then: "You'll excuse me +for butting in, Mr. Bertrand, but there is something you ought to know. +You've got a double kicking around here somewhere; a fellow who has +swiped your name and looks just a little like you. He's a crook, all +right, and we've got his thumb-print and his 'mug' in the headquarters +records. I ran across his dope the other day in the blotter, and +thought the next time I saw you I'd give you a tip. You never can tell +what these slick 'aliases' 'll do. He might be following you up to get +a graft out of you. That's done, every day, you know." + +Naturally, there was nothing to do but to thank the purblind city +detective, to press a bank-note into his hand, and to beg him to be on +the lookout for this dangerous "double" of mine. But the incident +served to show what the bonanza-fed publicity campaign was doing for us. + +Gifford, grubbing in the various levels of the mine, had the most +immunity; the newspaper reporters let him measurably alone. But +neither Barrett nor I could dodge the spotlight. Every move we made +was blazoned in type, and I lived in daily fear of the moment when some +enterprising newspaper man would begin to make copy of the theater +parties and road-house rides and midnight champagne suppers. + +I knew that the blow had fallen one morning when Phineas Everton came +unannounced into my private office and asked me to send the +stenographer away. The _débâcle_ had arrived, and I was no more ready +to meet it than any other spendthrift of good repute caught red-handed +would have been. + +"I think you can guess pretty well what I have come to say, Bertrand," +Everton said, after the door had closed behind the outgoing shorthand +man. "I have been putting it off in the hope that your own sense of +the fitness of things would come to the rescue. I may be old-fashioned +and out of touch with the times and the manners of the new generation, +but I can't forget that I am a father, or that common decency still has +its demands." + +Out of the depths of my humiliation there emerged, full-grown, a huge +respect for this quiet-eyed ex-schoolmaster who, for the few of us who +knew him, lived the life of a studious recluse among his technical +mechanisms in the laboratory. He was a salaried man, and I was one of +his three employers. That he was able to ignore completely the +business relation was a mark of the man. + +He waited for his reply but I had none to make. After a time he went +on, without heat, but equally without regard for anything but the +despicable fact. + +"For quite a long time, if I am informed correctly, you have been +associating in Denver with a set of people who, whatever else may be +said about them, are not people with whom my daughter would care to +associate. More than this, you have allowed your name to become +coupled with that of a woman whose reputation, past and present, is not +altogether of the best. Tell me if I am accusing you wrongfully." + +"You are not," I admitted. + +"I have been waiting and postponing this talk in the hope that you +would realize that you are not doing Polly fair justice. Like most +American fathers, I am not supposed to know how matters stand between +you, and I deal only with the facts as they appear to an onlooker. The +home has been open to you, and you have made such use of your welcome +as to lead others to believe that you are Polly's lover." + +"I am," I asserted. + +"Ah," he said; "that clears the ground admirably. I like you, +Bertrand, and I shall be glad to hear your defense, if you have any." + +What could I say? Driven thus into a corner, I could only protest, +rather incoherently, that I loved Polly, and that, in other +circumstances, I should long since have asked her to be my wife. + +"The 'circumstances' are connected with Miss Geddis?" he asked +pointedly. + +"Only incidentally. Considered for herself, Miss Geddis is a woman for +whom any self-respecting man could have little regard." + +For the first time in the interview the ex-schoolmaster's mild eyes +grew hard. + +"Then I am to infer that she has a hold of some sort upon you?" + +"She has," I rejoined shortly. + +"That simplifies matters still more," he averred, with as near an +approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compass. "I +don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have +heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you +should be man enough to stay away from the house and let Polly alone. +Am I unreasonable?" + +"Not in the least. You might go much farther and still be blameless. +I have no valid excuse to offer, but if I should say that there are +extenuating circumstances----" + +He raised a thin hand in protest. + +"Let us leave it at the point at which there will be the least +ill-feeling," he cut in; and from that he switched without preface to a +discussion of the varying ore values in a newly opened adit of the mine. + +When he was gone I went into Barrett's room. As I have intimated, one +of the troubles of mine-owning--if the mine be a producer--is to hold +the smelter people in line. Like other Cripple Creek property owners, +we had been up against the high costs of reduction almost from the +first, and we were constantly sending test consignments of our ore to +various smelters throughout the country, and even to Europe, in order +to obtain checking data. + +"About that car-load of Number Three ore we are sending to Falkenheim +in California," I said to Barrett. "I'm going to break away and go +with it if you have no objections." + +Barrett looked up quickly. + +"I think that is a wise move, Jimmie; a very wise move," he said +gravely; and this meant that he, too, had been reading the Denver +newspapers. Then he added: "We can get along all right without you, +for awhile, and you may stay as long as you like. When will you go?" + +"To-day; on the afternoon train." + +"Straight west?--or by way of Denver?" + +"Straight west, over the Midland, I guess." + +This is what I said, and it is what I meant to do when I went back to +my own office to set things in order for the long absence--for I fully +meant it to be long. My office duties were not complicated, and the +few things to be attended to were soon out of the way. One of the +letters to be written was one that I did not dictate to the +stenographer. It was to the Reverend John Whitley, enclosing a draft +to be forwarded to my sister in Glendale. Ever since he had served me +in the matter of returning Horace Barton's pocketbook, I had used him +as an intermediary for communicating, money-wise, with my people. He +had kept my secret, and was still keeping it. + +The business affairs despatched, I crossed to the hotel to pack a +couple of suit-cases. All these preliminary preparations included no +word or line to Polly. I promised myself that I should write her when +it was all over. The thing to be done now and first was to drop out as +unostentatiously as possible. So ran the well-considered intention. +But when I went down to an early luncheon there was a telegram awaiting +me. It was from Agatha Geddis, and its wording was a curt mandate. +"Expect you on afternoon train. Don't fail." + +During the half-hour which remained before train-time I fought the +wretched battle all over again, back and forth and up and down until my +brain reeled. At the end there was a shifty compromise. I was still +fully determined to drop out and go to California; at one stroke to +break with Polly Everton, and to put myself beyond the reach of the +woman with claws; but I weakly decided to go by way of Denver, taking +the night train west from the capital city over the Union Pacific. It +was a cowardly expedient, prompted wholly by the old, sharp-toothed +fear of consequences if I should fall to obey the wire summons, and I +knew it. I offer nothing in extenuation. + +Agatha met me at the Denver Union Station, and at her suggestion we +went together to dinner at the Brown Palace. I did not know until +later why she had sent for me, or why she chose a particular table in +the dining-room, or why she went to pieces--figuratively +speaking--when, at the serving of the dessert, a note was handed her. + +After that, I should have said that she had been drinking too much +champagne, if I had not known better. + +"I want you to go with me up to my suite, Bertie; I've moved to the +hotel," she said hurriedly as we were leaving the dining-room. + +If I went reluctantly it was not owing to any new-born squeamishness. +Heaven knows, I had been compromised with her too many times to care +greatly for anything that could be added now. In the sitting-room of +her private suite she punched the light switch and came to sit on the +arm of my chair. If she had put an arm around my neck, as she did now +and then when the wine was in and what few scruples she had were pushed +aside, I think I should have strangled her. + +"You are going to be awfully sweet to me to-night, Bertie," she began, +with honey on her tongue. "You are going to be my good angel. I need +a lot of money, and I want you to be nice and get it for me." + +"No," I refused briefly. "You've bled me enough." + +"Just this one more time, Boy," she coaxed. "I've simply _got_ to have +it, you know." + +"Why don't you get it from your father?" + +"He has quit," she said, with a toss of the shapely head. "Besides, +you are so much easier." + +"How much do you want, this time?" + +She named a sum which was a fair measure of my entire checking account +in the Cripple Creek bank; no small amount, this, though by agreement +Gifford, Barrett and I had set aside a liberal portion of the mine +earnings as undivided profits. When I hesitated, fairly staggered by +the enormity of her demand, she added: "Don't tell me you haven't got +it; I know you have. You don't spend anything except the little you +dole out for me." + +"If I have that much, I am not carrying it around with me." + +"I didn't suppose you carried it in your pocket. But you are well +known here in Denver, and you can get your checks cashed at any hour of +the day or night, if you go to the right places. You've done it +before." + +I was desperate enough to be half crazed. Not content with making me +lose the love of the one woman in the world, she was preparing to rob +me like a merciless highwayman. + +"Nothing for nothing, the world over," I said, between set teeth. "I +mean to have the worth of my money, this time." + +With a quick twist on the arm of the chair she leaned over and put her +cheek against mine. "There are others," she laughed softly, "but there +has never been a day or an hour when you couldn't make them wait, +Bertie, dear." And then: "No; I haven't been drinking." + +"You will give me what I want, if I will pay the price?" I demanded. + +"You heard what I said," she whispered. + +I made her sit up and tried to face her. + +"This is what I want. Four years ago you and your father sent me to +prison for a crime that I didn't commit. Go over to that table and +write and sign me my clearance--tell the bald truth and sign your name +to it--and you shall have your money." + +In a flash she slipped from her place on the arm of the chair and stood +before me transformed into a flaming incarnation of vindictive rage. +In spite of the pace she had been keeping she was still very beautiful, +and her anger served to heighten that physical charm which was the +keynote of her power over men. + +"_Oh_!" she panted; "so _that_ was what you were willing to pay for! +You want a bill of health so you can go back to that little hussy in +Cripple Creek! Listen to me, Bert Weyburn: you've broken the last +thread. I could kill you if you couldn't serve my turn better alive +than dead! _I want that money_. If you don't bring it here to me by +ten o'clock, the Denver police are going to find out that you, the +wealthy third partner in the Little Clean-Up, are the man they +photographed nearly a year ago, the man whose thumb-print they took, +the man who is wanted as an escaped convict who has broken his +parole--No, don't speak; let me finish. For the money you are going to +bring me, I'll keep still--to the police. But for the slap you've just +given me. . . . Did you ever read that line of Congreve's about a +woman scorned? You've had your last little love-scene with Polly +Everton!" + +I'll tell it all. This time the murder demon proved too strong for me. +It was a sheer madman who sprang at her out of the depths of the +arm-chair and bent her back over the little oak writing-table with his +hands at her throat. She was not womanly enough to scream; instead, +she fought silently and with the strength and cunning of mortal fear. +Even as my fingers clutched at her for the strangling hold she twisted +herself free and put the breadth of the table between us; then I found +myself looking into the muzzle of a small silver-mounted revolver. + +"You fool!" she gasped. "Do you think I would take any chances with +you? If you should kill me, the axe would fall and find your neck, +just the same! I put it in a letter to the chief of police. Get me +that money before ten o'clock if you want me to stop the letter!" + +I was beaten, this time not by fear of her or what she could do, but by +the crushing loss I had suffered in those few mad moments. I had done +the thing that no man may do and still claim that he has a single drop +of gentle blood in his veins; I had laid my hands in violence upon a +woman, and with murder in my heart. + +Convinced now that there was no deeper depth of degradation to which I +could sink, I set about the task she had given me, laboring through it +like a man in a dream. To gather up such a huge sum of money after +banking hours was well nigh impossible; but I compassed the end by +chartering a cab and going to anybody and everybody who could by any +possibility cash my checks, leaving a disgraceful trail of the bank +paper in dives and gambling dens and night resorts without +number--driven to this because all respectable sources were closed at +that time in the evening. + +Returning to the hotel only a few minutes before the critical hour, I +went directly to her rooms, carrying the money in a small hand-bag that +I had bought for the purpose. I found her waiting for me, gowned and +hatted as if for a journey. She was standing before a mirror, dabbing +her neck with a powder-puff--histronic to the last; she was showing me +how she had to resort to this to cover up the marks of my assault. I +have failed in my picture of her if I have not portrayed her as a woman +of moods and lightning changes. There was no trace of the late +volcanic outburst in her manner when she greeted me and handed me a +sealed and stamped envelope addressed to the Denver chief of police. + +"You got the money?" she said quietly. "I knew you would." And then +with a sudden passion: "Oh, Bertie! if you weren't such a cold-blooded +fish of a man!--but never mind; it's too late now." + +I placed the small hand-bag on the table, pocketed the fateful letter, +and backed toward the door. "If there is nothing else," I said. + +"Oh, but there is!" she put in quickly. "I want you to get a cab and +take me to the station. I'm leaving for California. Don't you want to +go with me?" + +"God forbid!" I exclaimed, and it came out of a full heart. Then I +went down to order the cab. + +She was curiously silent on the short drive down Seventeenth Street to +the Union Station, sitting with the little hand-bag on her knees and +breathing as they say the Australian pearl fishers breathe before +taking the deep-sea dive. In the station she stood at a window in the +women's room and waited while I purchased her ticket for San Francisco +and paid for the sleeper section which had evidently been reserved some +time in advance. + +It is perhaps needless to say that I did not buy my own California +ticket at the same time, though the train she was taking was the one I +had planned to take. My journey could be postponed; and in the light +of what had happened, and what was now happening, I was beginning to +understand that my runaway trip to the Pacific Coast was no longer +necessary, on one account, at least. But in any event, wild horses +couldn't have dragged me aboard of the same train with Agatha Geddis. + +She seemed strangely perturbed when I went to her with the tickets, and +she made no move to leave the window. + +"Your train is ready," I told her, as she thrust the ticket envelope +into the bosom of her gown. + +"Wait!" she commanded; then she turned back to the window which looked +out upon the cab rank. + +There were cabs coming and going constantly, and I didn't know until +afterward what she saw that made her eyes light up and the blood surge +into her cheeks. + +"Now I'm ready," she announced quickly. "Put me on the sleeper." + +I took her through the gates and at the gate-man's halting of us I saw +that we were followed. + +Our shadow was an alert, dapper young man who wore glasses, and I +remembered having seen him, both at the ticket window and in the +women's room. Outside of the gates he confirmed my suspicion by +trailing us to the steps of the sleeping-car. + +Even then I didn't suspect what was going on. While the sleeping-car +conductor was examining the tickets and taking the section number I saw +the young man with the spectacles making a hurried reconnaissance of +the car by walking back and forth beside it and peering curiously in +through the lighted windows. Then I missed him for a minute or two +until he came running from the gates with a railroad ticket in his hand. + +"I'm going to Cheyenne, and I want a berth in this car," he told the +Pullman conductor, "They said they couldn't sell me one at the +office--that you had the diagram." + +The conductor looked over his list. "Nothing doing," he returned. +"All sold out." + +"That's all right," snapped the young man; "I'll take my chance sitting +up." With that, he climbed aboard and disappeared in the car. + +All this time we had been waiting for the conductor to return my +companion's tickets. When he did so, I helped her up the steps. The +air-brakes were sighing the starting signal, and she turned in the +lighted vestibule and blew me a kiss. + +"Good-by, Bertie, dear," I heard her say. "Be a good boy, and give my +love to Little Brown-Eyes." Then, as if to prove the immortal saying +that there is no such thing as ultimate total depravity in the human +atom, she leaned over to whisper the parting word: "Make good with her +if you can, and want to, Bertie: I didn't mean it when I said I'd spoil +your chances. Good-night and good-by." And with that the train moved +off and she was gone. + +I slept late in my room at the hotel the next morning, waking with a +vague sense of inexpressible relief, which was quickly followed by the +emotions which may come to a man regaining consciousness after he has +been sandbagged and robbed. At table in the breakfast-room the boy +brought me a morning paper. On the first page, in screaming headlines, +I saw the complete explanation of the mysteries of the previous +evening. Agatha Geddis had eloped with a married man notably prominent +in social and business circles. The newspaper had two reliable sources +of information. The deserted wife had been interviewed, and the guilty +pair had been followed on the train by a reporter. + +I laid the paper aside and stared out of the breakfast-room window like +a man awakening from a horrid dream. Once again the submerging wave of +realization and relief rushed over me. Truly, I had been held up and +robbed; had in fact innocently financed this city-shaking elopement. +But, so far as Agatha Geddis's banishment from Denver and Colorado +could accomplish it, I was once more a free man. + + + + +XX + +Broken Faith + +"Sweet are the uses of adversity," sang the great bard who is supposed +to have known human nature in all its mutations; and humanity has +echoed the aphorism until it has come to believe in some sort that +bufferings are benedictions, and hard knocks merely the compacting +blows that harden virtues, as the blacksmith's hammer beats a finer +temper into the steel upon the anvil. + +With all due respect for the shades of the mighty, and for the tacit +approval of the many, I beg leave to offer the _argumentum ad hominem_ +in rebuttal. Fight the conclusion as I may, I cannot resist the +convincement that ill winds have never blown me any good; that, on the +contrary, the steady pressure of hardship and misfortune, during a +period when my life was still in a great measure in the formative +state, exerted an influence which was altogether evil, weakening the +impulses which should have been growing stronger, and giving free rein +to those which, under more favoring conditions, might never have been +quickened. + +When I forsook the breakfast-table and the hotel, after having read the +newspaper story telling how effectively Agatha Geddis had removed +herself from my path, it was to make a joyous dash for the first train +leaving the capital for Cripple Creek. With shame I record it, I had +already forgotten my own culpable weakness in permitting a dastardly +fear of consequences to make me Agatha's puppet and a sharer in her +more than questionable dissipations; had forgotten that by every step I +had taken with Agatha Geddis I had increased the distance separating me +from Mary Everton. + +Perhaps it is only a characteristic of human nature to minimize evils +past, and evils to come, at the miraculous removal of a great and +pressing evil present; even so, one may suffer loss. I was hastening +back to take up the dropped thread of my relations with Phineas Everton +and his daughter, and I should have gone softly, as one who, knowing +himself the chief of sinners yet ventures to tread upon holy ground. +But by the time the train was slowing into the great gold camp at the +back of Pike's Peak, these, and all other chastening thoughts, were +crowded aside to make room for the one jubilant fact: I was free and I +was going back to Polly. + +Barrett was the first man I met upon reaching our offices. If he were +surprised at seeing me in Cripple Creek when I should have been well on +my way to the Pacific Coast, he was quite as evidently disappointed. + +"I thought you had started for California," he said in his evenest +tones. + +"I thought so, too; but it was only a false start." Then I had it out +with him. "You and I both know, Barrett, why you thought I ought to +go, and the reason wasn't even remotely connected with the shipping of +the car-load of test-ore. If you have seen the morning papers, you +probably know why it is no longer necessary for me to leave Colorado." + +He turned to stare absently out of the office window. When he faced +about again there was a frown of friendly concern wrinkling between his +straight-browed level eyes. + +"How the devil did you ever come to get mixed up with the Geddis woman, +Jimmie?" he demanded. + +I evaded the direct question. "It is a long story, and some day I may +be able to tell you all of it. But I can't do it now. You must take +my word for it, Bob, that I haven't done a single thing that I didn't +believe, at the time, I was compelled to do. That sounds idiotic, I +know; but it is the simple truth." + +Again he turned to the window and was silent for a full minute. I knew +that I had in no uncertain measure forfeited his good opinion--that, I +had earned the forfeiture: also, I knew perfectly well what he was +doing; he was leaving me entirely out of the question and was weighing +the hazards for Polly. When he turned it was to put a hand upon my +shoulder. + +"I'm taking you 'sight unseen,' old man," he said, with the brotherly +affection which came so easily to the front in all his dealings with +me. "If you tell me it's done and over with, and won't be resurrected, +that's the end of it, so far as I am concerned. What comes next?" + +"A little heart-to-heart talk with Polly's father," I said, and began +to move toward the door. But he stopped me before I could get away. + +"Just one other word, Jimmie: wouldn't it be better to let things rock +along for awhile until the dust has time to settle and the smoke to +blow away? You've come back red-handed from this thing--whatever it +is--and----" + +"No," I returned obstinately. "It is now or never for me, Bob. I'm +sinking deeper into the mire every day, and Polly has the only rope +that will pull me out. You'll say that I am much more likely to drag +her in; maybe that is true, but just now I'm like a drowning man. +Possibly it would be better for all concerned if I should drown, but +you can't expect me to take that view of it." And with that I crossed +the corridor to the laboratory. + +I can say for Phineas Everton that he was at all times and in all +things a fair man, generous to a fault, and always ready to give the +other fellow the benefit of the doubt. I sought him that afternoon +with an explanation which was very far from explaining, but he listened +patiently and with an evident desire to draw favorable inferences where +he could from my somewhat vague story of my entanglement with Agatha +Geddis. + +It was perfectly apparent to me that I was not making the story very +clear to him; I couldn't, because any complete explanation would have +reached back too far into my past. The half-confidence was +inexcusable, and I was aware of this. I owed this man, whose daughter +I wished to marry, the fullest and frankest statement of all the facts. +But I didn't give it to him. + +"You are trying to tell me that the affair with this woman had its +origin in a former foolish infatuation?" he said at length. + +"It might be called that; but it dates back to my--to a time long +before I came to Cripple Creek." + +"You gave me to understand yesterday that she had a hold of some sort +upon you. Were you under promise to marry her?" + +"No, indeed; never in this world!" + +He was sitting back in his chair and regarding me gravely. + +"I am an old-fashioned man, Bertrand, as I told you yesterday. I have +always entertained an idea--which may seem archaic to the present +generation--that a young man intending to marry ought to be able to +give as much as he asks. You haven't made a very good beginning." + +I admitted it; admitted everything save the imputation that my +relations with Agatha Geddis had been in any sense wilfully immoral. + +He gave a wry smile at this, as if the distinction were finely drawn +and the credit small. + +"Because it fell to my lot to be a schoolmaster in her native town, I +had an opportunity of observing Miss Geddis while she was yet only a +young girl, Bertrand," he remarked. "She gave promise, even then, of +becoming a disturbing element in the affairs of men. As a school-girl +she had a following of silly boys who were ready to take her at her own +valuation of herself. There are times when you remind me very strongly +of one of them, though the resemblance is only a suggestion: the boy I +speak of was a bright young fellow named Weyburn, who afterward became +a clerk in Mr. Geddis's bank." + +There are moments when the promptings of the panic-stricken ostrich lay +hold upon the best of us. Since I could not thrust my head into the +sand, I wheeled quickly to stare at a framed photograph of Bull +Mountain and the buildings of the Little Clean-Up hanging on the +laboratory wall. + +"He was one of the fools, too, was he?" I said, without taking my eyes +from the photograph. + +"He turned out badly, I am sorry to say, and I have often wondered if +the young woman was not in some way responsible. There was a +defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to +the penitentiary." + +Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have +punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete +recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the +rending touch. But Everton's return to the question at issue turned +the danger of recognition aside. + +"To get back to the present time, and your plea for a rehearing," he +went on. "I wish to be entirely fair to you, Bertrand; as fair as I +can be without being unfair to Polly. Barrett told me yesterday +afternoon that you had gone, or were going, to the Pacific Coast. I am +taking it for granted that you had no intention of accompanying this +woman?" + +"I certainly had not. Nothing was further from my intentions. On the +other hand, her flight last night with another woman's husband is the +one thing that makes it possible for me to be here to-day." + +"You can assure me that your connection with her is an incident closed; +and for all time?" + +"It is, unquestionably. I hope I shall never see her or hear of her +again." + +For a moment he sat nibbling the end of the pencil with which he had +been figuring, trying, as I well understood, to be fairly equitable as +between even-handed justice and his prejudices. There was a sharp +little struggle, but at the end of it he said: "As I remarked +yesterday, I labor under all the disadvantages of the average American +father. I can occupy the position only of a deeply interested +onlooker. But I'll meet you half-way and lift the embargo. You may +resume your visits to the house if you wish to." + +"I want more than that," I broke in hastily. "I am going to ask Polly +to be my wife. If she says Yes, I don't want to wait a minute longer +than I'm obliged to." + +He demurred at that, intimating that I ought to be willing to wait +until a reasonable lapse of time could prove the sincerity of my +protestations. He was entirely justified in asking for delay, but I +begged like a dog and he finally gave a reluctant consent--contingent, +of course, upon his daughter's wishes in the matter. Half an hour +later I was sitting with Polly Everton before a cheerful grate fire in +the living-room of the cottage on the hill, trying, as best I might, to +tell her how much I loved her. + +One of the things a man doesn't find out until after he has been +married quite some little time is that the best of women may not always +wear her heart on her sleeve, nor always open the door of the inner +confidences even to the man whose life has become a part and parcel of +her own. Mary Everton's eyes were deep wells of truth and sincerity as +I talked, but I read in them nothing save the love which matched my own +when she gave me her answer. If I had known all that lay behind, I +think I should have fallen down and worshiped her. + +I did not know then how much or how little she had heard of the Agatha +Geddis affair. None the less, I broke faith, if not with her, at least +with myself. I did not tell her that she was about to become the wife +of an escaped convict; that her life must henceforth be lived under a +threatening shadow; that her children, if she should have any, might be +made to share the disgrace of their father. + +Once more I make no excuses. A little later, if I had waited, the just +and honorable impulse might have reasserted itself; I might have +realized that the removal of one unscrupulous woman out of my path +merely took the lightning out of the edge of the nearest cloud. But in +the supreme exaltation of the moment I considered none of these things. +In this climaxing of happiness the disaster which had hung over my head +for weeks and months seemed as far removed and remote as it had been +imminent only a few hours before. + +We were together through what remained of the afternoon; until it was +nearly time for Phineas Everton to come home. When we parted I had +gained my point and our plans were all made. We were to be married +very quietly the following day. I had no wish to make the wedding the +social function which my position as one of the three partners in the +Little Clean-Up might have justified; and Polly agreed with me in this. + +It was not until after I had left the house that I remembered that the +forced financing of Agatha Geddis's elopement had practically drained +my bank account. There had been no mention of money in our talk before +the fire; we were both far and away beyond the reach of any such sordid +topic. But Phineas Everton would have a right to ask questions, and I +must be prepared to answer them. After dinner at the hotel I captured +Barrett, drove him into a quiet corner of the lobby, and made my wail. + +"Heavens and earth!" he gasped when I had told him the shameful truth. +"Are you telling me that you let that woman hold you up for all the +ready money you had in the world?" + +"It listens that way," I confessed; adding, out of the heart of +sincerity: "It was cheap at the price; I was glad enough to be quit of +her at any price." + +"This is pretty serious, Jimmie," he asserted, after he had re-lighted +his cigar. "It isn't the mere fact that you have recklessly chucked a +small fortune at the Geddis person--that is a mere matter of dollars +and cents, and the Little Clean-Up will square you up on that. But +there is another side to it. The dreadful thing is the fact that she +had enough of a grip on you to make you do it. I'll like it better if +you will say that you were blind drunk when you did it." + +"I wasn't--more's the pity, Bob; on the contrary, I was never soberer +in my life." + +"Of course, you haven't told Polly." + +"No--not yet." + +"Nor Everton?" + +I shook my head. "I didn't want to commit suicide." + +Barrett chuckled softly. + +"I happen to know this fellow the Geddis woman is running away with," +he said. "He has gone through his wife's fortune, in addition to +squandering a good little chunk that his father left him. And you've +grub-staked 'em both to this! Well, never mind; it's a back number, +now, and you have given me your word for it. Don't worry about the +money you are going to need for the honeymoon. There is plenty in the +bank--in my account, if there isn't any in yours." + +I thanked him with tears in my eyes. Was there ever another such +generous soul in this world, or in any other? He stopped me in mid +career, wishing to know more about the wedding. + +"Let the money part of it go hang and tell me more about this hurry +business you've planned for to-morrow. It's scandalous and unheard of, +but I don't blame you a little bit. Dope my part out for me while +you're here--so I'll know where I am to come on and go off." + +For a little while longer--as long a while as I could spare from +Polly--we talked of the impromptu wedding and arranged for it. Barrett +was a brother to me in all that the word implies. He took on all of +the "best man's" responsibilities--and more. When I was leaving to +walk up the hill he walked to the corner of the side street with me, +and at the last moment business intruded. + +"I forgot to tell you," he cut in abruptly. "After you left yesterday +afternoon a court notice was served upon us. Blackwell's lawyers have +taken the Lawrenceburg suit to the Federal court--on the ground of +alien ownership--and we've got to show cause all over again why we +shouldn't be enjoined for trespass. Benedict seems to be more or less +stirred up about it." + +"If that is the case, I oughtn't to be going away," I said. + +"Yes, you ought; Gifford and I can handle it." + +Notwithstanding Barrett's assurance I was vaguely disturbed as I +climbed the hill to the Everton cottage. Blackwell had proved to be a +veritable bull-dog in the long-drawn-out fight, and the tenacity with +which he was holding on was ominous. Why the Lawrenceburg people +should make such a determined struggle to wipe us out was beyond my +comprehension. It had been proved in the State courts, past a question +of doubt, that our title to the Little Clean-Up was unassailable, and +still Blackwell hung on. What was the animus? + +If I could have had the answer to that question it is conceivable that +my one evening as Polly Everton's affianced lover--an evening spent in +the seventh heaven of ecstasy before the cheerful coal blaze in the +cottage sitting-room--would have been sadly marred. + + + + +XXI + +The End of a Honeymoon + +Our high-noon wedding was in all respects as quiet and unostentatious +as we had planned it. The little brown box of a church, bare of +decorations because there was neither time nor the group of vicariously +interested young people to trim it, was only a few doors from the +Everton cottage, and we walked to it; Phineas Everton and I on each +side of the plank walk, and Polly between us with an arm for each. + +Barrett had told a few of his friends, so there were enough people in +the pews to make it look a little less than clandestine. Barrett acted +as usher in one aisle and Gifford, very much out of his element but +doggedly faithful, did his part in the other. There was even a bit of +music; the Wagner as we went in, and a few bars of the Mendelssohn to +speed us as we went out. The good-byes were said at the church-door, +and the only abnormal thing about the leave-taking was Barrett's gift +to the bride, pressed into her hand as we were getting into the +carriage to go to the railroad station--a silver filigree hand-bag +stuffed heavy with five- and ten-dollar gold pieces, "to be blown in on +the wedding journey," as he phrased it. + +We had agreed not to tell anybody where we were going; for that matter, +I didn't even tell Polly until after we had started. Turning southward +from Colorado Springs and stopping overnight in Trinidad, we took a +morning train on the Santa Fe and vanished into the westward void. A +day and a night beyond this we were debarking at Williams, Arizona, and +in due time reached our real hiding-place; a comfortable ranch house +within easy riding distance of that most majestic of immensities, the +Grand Canyon of the Colorado. It was Polly's idea; the choice of a +quiet retreat as against the social attractions of the great hotel on +the canyon's brink. We had each other, and that was sufficient. + +Of that heavenly month, spent in a world far removed from all the +turmoil and distractions of modern civilization, there is nothing to be +here written down. For those who have drained a similar cup of +blissful happiness for themselves there is no need; and those who have +not would not understand. What I recall most vividly now is a single +unnerving incident; unnerving, I say, though at the time it was quickly +drowned in the flowing tide of joy. + +It chanced upon a day toward the month's end when we had broken the +heavenly sequence of quiet days by riding a pair of our host's +well-broken cow ponies over to El Tovar for dinner. Since it was not +the tourist season there were not many guests in the great inn; but +one, a man who sat by himself in a far corner of the dining-room, gave +me a turn that made me sick and faint at my first sight of him. The +man was big and swarthy of face, and he wore a pair of drooping +mustaches. For one heart-stopping instant I made sure it was William +Cummings, the deputy prison warden who had so miraculously missed +seeing me in the dining-car of my train of escape. But since nothing +happened and he paid no manner of attention to us, I decided gratefully +that it was only a resemblance. There was no such name as Cummings on +the hotel register, which I examined after we left the dining-room, and +I saw no more of the man with the drooping mustaches. + +Momentary as the shock had been, I found that Polly had remarked it. +She spoke of it on the ride back to our retreat at Carter's. + +"Are you feeling entirely well, Jimmie, dear?" she asked; and before I +could reply: "You had a bad turn of some sort while we were at table. +I saw it in your face and eyes." + +I hastened to assure her that there was nothing the matter with me; +that there couldn't be anything the matter with a man who had died and +gone to heaven nearly a month previous to the dinner at El Tovar. + +"But the man has got to go back to earth again pretty soon, and take +the woman with him," she retorted, laughing. "Just think, Jimmie; it +has been nearly a month, as you say, and we haven't had a letter or a +telegram in all that time! Not that I'm regretting anything; I'm +happy, dearest--as happy as an angel with wings; but I want to see my +daddy." + +The heavenly path was leading back into the old world again, the +fighting world, and I knew it, and presently we were taking all the +steps of the delightful vanishing in reverse; boarding the through +train at Williams, catching glimpses of the stupendous majesty of +mountain and plain as the powerful locomotives towed us up the grades +of the Raton, doing a brisk walk on the platform at Albuquerque while +the train paused, and all the rest of it. + +From Trinidad I wired Barrett, telling him that we were on our way +home; that we should go in by way of Colorado Springs instead of +Florence, with a stop-over between trains for dinner at the Antlers. I +half-expected he would run down to the Springs to meet us, and so he +did, bringing Father Phineas with him. Polly's love for her father was +always very sweet and touching, and Barrett and I left them to +themselves at the meeting. + +"I'm mighty glad to see you back, Jimmie, old man," Barrett declared, +when we had found a quiet corner in the rotunda. "You are looking like +a new man, and I guess you are one. And you are on your feet again +financially, too. We declared a dividend yesterday, and you've got a +bank account that will warm the cockles of your silly old heart." + +"How is Gifford? and how are things at the mine?" I asked. + +"Gifford is all right; only he's got too much money--doesn't know what +to do with it now that he has built all the new houses the camp will +stand for. And the Little Clean-Up is all right, too; though we are +digging into a small mystery just now." + +"A mystery?" I queried. + +"Yes. You remember how the branch vein in the two-hundred-foot level +was bearing off to the east?" + +"I do." + +"Well, three weeks ago the sloping carried us over into the Mary +Mattock ground, and I tell you what, Jimmie, I was more than glad we +had bought that claim outright while we could. The ore is richer than +anything we have found since we made the big strike at grass-roots, and +we'd be up against it good and hard if we hadn't paid those Nebraska +farmers what they asked and taken a clear title to the ground." + +"But the mystery," I reminded him. + +"It is a little trick of acoustics, I guess; it has happened in other +mines, so Hicks tells me. Some peculiar geological structure of the +porphyry in particular localities makes it carry sound like a telephone +wire. In that eastern adit of ours you can hear them working in the +Lawrenceburg as plainly as if they were only a few feet away." + +"That is odd," I mused; "especially as the Lawrenceburg workings are +all in exactly the opposite direction--down the hill on their side of +the spur." + +Barrett thrust his hands deep into his pockets. + +"I have often wondered, Jimmie, if they really _are_ downhill. Nobody, +outside of the men on their own pay-roll, knows anything about it +definitely; and Blackwell wouldn't let an outside engineer go down his +shaft for a king's ransom. I know it, because I have tried to send +one. If the downhill story that we've been hearing should happen to be +a fake; if he should be under-cutting us, instead; it would explain a +heap of things." + +"The stubborn lawsuit among others," I offered. + +"Yes; the lawsuit. By the way, we've been up to our necks in that +while you've been hiding out. Blackwell's lawyers succeeded in +persuading the Federal court to grant a temporary injunction, in spite +of everything we could do, and we are operating now under an indemnity +bond big enough to make your head swim. The hearing to determine +whether the injunction shall be dissolved or made permanent is timed +for next Monday." + +"Heavens!" I ejaculated. "We can't let them tie us up!" + +"I don't think they are going to be able to. Benedict is feeling a +little better now and he thinks he has them sewed up in a blanket, only +he won't tell me how, and you never can tell what's going to happen +when the lawyers get at you. There are lots of holes in the legal +skimmer: for example, at the preliminary hearing Blackwell had three +surveyors who went on the stand and swore flat-footed that the lines on +our side of the spur were all wrong; that the Lawrenceburg group of +claims covered not only our original triangle, but the Mary Mattock as +well. Paid-for perjury, of course, but we couldn't prove it; so there +you are." + +At my urging Barrett would have gone into this phase of the trouble +more deeply, but just then Polly and her father came across the rotunda +and we all went to the dining-room together. I shall never forget, the +longest day I live, just where our table for four stood, and how a +group of gabbling tourists had the three or four tables nearest to us, +and how the lights, due to some trouble with the electric current, +winked now and then, like the stage lights in a theater ticking off the +cues. + +We had got as far as the black coffees, and Barrett was joking Polly +and telling her that she shouldn't take sugar, when I saw, through a +vista of the tourists, a square-shouldered, dark-faced man rising from +his place at a distant table. There was no mistaking him. He was the +man I had seen in the dining-room of the hotel at the Grand Canyon. + +As he came toward us between the tables the resemblance, which I had so +confidently assured myself was only a resemblance, transformed itself +slowly into the breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up, wild-eyed +and speechless, into the face of the deputy warden, Cummings, when he +tapped me on the shoulder and said, loud enough for the others to hear: + +"You've led us a pretty long chase, Weyburn, but we don't often miss, +and it's ended at last. I guess you'll have to come with me, now." + + + + +XXII + +A Woman's Love + +It is useless for me to try to picture the consternation which fell +upon the four of us when the deputy warden touched me on the shoulder +and spoke to me. I can't describe it. I only know that Barrett sprang +up, gritting out the first oath I had ever heard him utter; that a look +of shocked and complete recognition leaped into the mild brown eyes of +the old metallurgist; that Polly was standing up with her arms +outstretched across the table as if she were trying to reach me and +drag me out of the crushing wreck of all our hopes. + +When he found that I was not going to offer any resistance, Cummings +was very decent--not to say kindly. He let me walk with the others out +of the dining-room; made no show of his authority in the rotunda or at +the elevators to point me out as a prisoner; and in the up-stairs room +to which he took me, pending the departure-time of the earliest +eastbound train, he let me see and talk, first with Barrett, and +afterward with my wife. + +In this most trying exigency Barrett proved to be all that my fancy had +ever pictured the truest of friends. His first word assured me that he +meant to stand by me to the last ditch, and I knew it was the word of a +man who never knew when he was beaten. While Cummings smoked a cigar +in the window-seat I told Barrett the whole pitiful story, beginning +with the night when I had promised Agatha Geddis that I would pull her +father out of the hole he had digged for himself and ending with my +appearance in the Cripple Creek construction camp. + +Barrett believed the story, and I didn't have to wait for him to tell +me so. I could see it in his eyes. + +"Jimmie!" he said, wringing my hand as if he would crush it, "you've +got the two of us behind you--I'm speaking for Gifford because I know +exactly what he will say. We'll spend every dollar that ever comes out +of the Little Clean-Up, if needful, to buy you justice! But I wish you +had told me all this before; and, more than that, I wish you had told +Polly." + +"My God, Bob!" I groaned; "don't rub it in!" And then I told him +brokenly how I had known Polly as a little girl in Glendale, and how I +was certain that her father had more than once been on the verge of +recognizing me. Then, in such fashion as I could, I made my will, or +tried to, telling him that Polly must have her freedom, and that he +must help her get it, and that my share in the mine must go to her. + +"It is the only return I can make her for the deception I have put upon +her," I said; "and I want you to promise me that----" + +In the midst of all this Barrett had turned aside, swearing under his +breath, which was his only way, I took it, of letting me know how it +was rasping him. But now he whirled upon me and broke in savagely: + +"Stop it, you damned maniac! If you have lived with Polly Everton a +whole month and don't know her any better than that, you ought to be +shot! She is waiting now to have her chance at you, and I'm not going +to take any more of her time." Then he went soft again: "You keep a +stiff upper lip, and we'll get you out of this if we have to retain +every lawyer this side of New York!" + +Polly came so soon after Barrett left that I knew she must have been +waiting in the corridor. Cummings was considerate enough to shift his +smoking-seat to the other window and to turn his back upon us. All the +cynics in the world to the contrary notwithstanding, there is a tender +spot in the heart of every man that was ever born, if one can only be +fortunate enough to touch it. + +"_My darling_!" That is what she said when I took her in my arms; and +for a long minute nothing else was said. Then she drew away and held +me at arm's length, and there was that in her dear eyes to make me feel +like the soldier who faces the guns with a shout in his heart and a +song on his lips, knowing that death itself cannot rob him of the Great +Recompense. + +"You needn't say one word--Jimmie--_my husband_! I have known it all, +every bit of it, from the first--from that Sunday morning when Daddy +took me over to your mine," she whispered. "I--I loved you, dearest, +when I was only a foolish little school-girl, and your sister and I +have exchanged letters ever since Daddy and I left Glendale. So I +knew; knew when they sent you to prison for another man's crime, and +knew, even better than your mother and sister did, why you let them do +it. Oh, Jimmie!"--with a queer little twist of the sweet lips that was +half tears and half smile--"if you could only know how wretchedly +jealous I used to be of Agatha Geddis!" + +"You needn't have been!" I burst out. "But you don't know it all. +Last winter--in Denver----" + +She nodded sorrowfully. + +"Yes, dear; I knew that, too. I knew that Agatha Geddis was using you +again--against your will; and that this time she had a cruel whip in +her hand. We had all heard of the broken parole; it was in the home +newspapers, and, besides, your sister wrote me about it." + +"And in the face of all this, you----" + +She nodded again, brightly this time, though her eyes were swimming. + +"Yes, my lover--a thousand times, yes! And I knew this would come, +too,--some time; this dreadful thing that has fallen upon us to-day. I +am heart-broken only for you, dear. What will they do to you?" + +I told her briefly. They would make me serve the remaining two years +of the original sentence, doubtless with an added penalty for the +broken regulations. + +"Dear God--two years!" she gasped, with a quick little sob; and then +she became my brave little girl again. "They will pass, Jimmie, dear, +and they won't seem so terribly long when we remember what we are +waiting for. I'm going with you, you know--as far as they'll let me; +and when things look their blackest you must remember that I'm only +just a little way off; just a little way--and waiting--and waiting----" + +She broke down at the last and cried in my arms, and when she could +find her voice again: + +"It mustn't be two years, Jimmie; it would kill you, and me, too. They +_must_ pardon you--you who have done no wrong! I'll go down on my +knees to the Governor, and----" + +There was something in this to send the blood tingling to my +finger-tips; to rouse the final reserves of manhood. + +"Never!" I forbade. "You must never do that, Polly; and you mustn't +let Barrett stir hand or foot in that direction. I shall come out an +ex-convict, if I have to, but never as a pardoned man with the +presumption of guilt fastened upon me for the remainder of my life. +Promise me that you won't do anything like that!" + +I don't know whether she promised or not. Cummings was stirring +uneasily in his window and looking at his watch. I led Polly to the +door, kissed her, and put her out into the corridor. The agony, the +keenest agony of all, was over, and I turned to the deputy warden. +"Whenever you are ready," I said. + +Barrett was at the train when we went down, as I was sure he would be, +and he seemed strangely excited. + +"Give me just a minute with your prisoner, Mr. Cummings," he begged; +and after the deputy warden had amiably turned his back: "I've just had +a telegram from Gifford. The Lawrenceburg lawyers are offering to +compromise. They say that their owners are tired of dragging the +quarrel through the courts, and they offer to buy us out, lock, stock +and barrel, for five million dollars." + +"After they've committed every crime in the calendar to smash us? Not +for a single minute!" I exploded. + +"Right you are, Jimmie!--I knew you'd be with me!" he agreed defiantly. +"We'll fight 'em till the last dog's too dead to bury. There's a hole +in the bottom of the sea, somewhere, and we'll find it before we're +through with that piratical outfit. Here's your conductor: you'll have +to go. Polly will follow you in a day or two. I had a handful of it +keeping her from going on this train; but, of course, that wouldn't do. +Put a good, stiff bone in your back, and remember that we shan't let +up, day or night--any of us--until you're free again. Good-by, old +man, and God help you!" + + + + +XXIII + +Skies of Brass + +The depressive journey from Colorado to the Middle West records itself +in memory as a dismal dream out of which there were awakenings only for +train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The +deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted +his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the +official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, because he is +dead now. + +On the final day of the journey I persuaded him to tell me how I had +been traced, and I was still human enough to find a grain of comfort in +the assurance that Agatha Geddis had not taken my money at the last +only to turn and betray me. + +Barton, the Glendale wagon sales manager, was the one who was +innocently responsible. He had talked too much, as I had feared he +would. The clue thus furnished had been lost in St. Louis, but was +picked up again, some months later, by Cummings himself through the +police-record photograph in Denver. + +Cummings admitted that he had followed Polly and me on our wedding +journey; that he had known where we were stopping, and had seen us in +the canyon-brink hotel. + +"Why didn't you take me then?" I asked. + +He explained gruffly that the requisition papers with which he was +provided were good only in Colorado, and that it was simpler to wait +than to go through all the red tape of having them reissued for +Arizona. Knowing that the wires were completely at his service, the +answer did not satisfy me. + +"Was that the only reason?" I queried. + +He turned his sober eyes on me and shook his head sorrowfully, I +thought. + +"I was young once, myself, Weyburn--and I had a wife: she died when the +baby came. Maybe you deserve what's coming to you, and maybe you +don't; but that little woman o' yours will never have another +honeymoon." + +Disquieting visions of harsh prison punishments were oppressing me when +we reached the penitentiary and I was taken before the eagle-eyed old +Civil War veteran who had given me my parole. But the warden merely +put me through a shrewd questioning, inquiring closely into my +experiences as a paroled man, and making me tell him circumstantially +the story of my indictment, trial and conviction, and also the later +story of the mining experience in Colorado. + +"I don't recall that you ever protested your innocence while you were +here serving your time, Weyburn," he commented, at the dose of the +inquisition. + +"I didn't," I replied, wondering why he should go behind the returns to +remark the omission. Then I added: "They all do that, and it doesn't +change anything. You set it down as a lie--as it usually is." + +"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you are not lying to me +now?" he demanded. + +I met the test soberly. "I can. I was convicted of a crime that I +didn't commit, and I broke my parole solely because that appeared to be +the one remaining alternative to becoming a criminal in fact." + +The interview over, I expected to be put into stripes, cropped, and +sent to the workshops. But instead I was taken to one of the detention +cells, and for an interval which slowly lengthened itself into a week +was left a prey to all the devils of solitude. It seemed as if I had +been buried out of sight and forgotten. Three times a day a kitchen +"trusty" brought my meals and put them through the door wicket, but +apart from this I saw no one save the corridor guard, who never so much +as looked my way in his comings and goings. + +That week of palsying, unnerving isolation got me. Consider it for a +moment. For a year I had been living at the very heart of life, +working, fighting, scheming, mixing and mingling, and succeeding--not +only in the money-winning, but also--until the Agatha Geddis incident +came along--in the field of good repute. At the last Agatha had set me +free, and Polly's love had opened the ultimate door of supreme +happiness; a joy so ecstatic that at the end of the honeymoon I was +only beginning to realize what it meant to me. + +And then, on the very summit of the mountain of joy, had come the touch +of the deputy warden's hand on my shoulder in the Antlers dining-room. +That touch had swept the new-born world ruthlessly aside--all save +Polly's love and loyalty. Success had been blotted out with the loss +of liberty wherewith to profit by it; and for those who had known me in +the great gold camp and elsewhere in the West--my new friends--I was +branded as an escaped convict. For two shameful years I should be shut +away from Polly, from freedom, from participation in the fight my +partners were making to save the mine, and most probably from any +knowledge of how the fight was going, either for or against us. + +Is it any matter for wonder that by the end of the solitary week I was +little better than a mad-man? If I might have had speech with the +warden, I should have prayed for work; for any employment, however hard +or menial, that would serve to stop the sapping of the very foundations +of reason. One hope I clung to, as the drowning catch at straws. I +could not doubt that Polly was near at hand. If the regular "visiting +day" should intervene they would surely admit her. But in this, too, I +was unlucky. The date of my reincarceration fell between two of the +regular visiting days. So I waited and looked and longed in vain. + +I don't know how many more circlings of the clock-hands were measured +off before the break came. I lost count of the time by days and was no +longer able to think clearly. In perfect physical condition when I was +arrested, I began to go to pieces, both mentally and physically, under +the strain of suspense. Then insomnia came to add its terrors; I could +neither eat nor sleep. I had an ominous foreboding of what the total +loss of appetite meant, and kept telling myself over and over that for +Polly's sake I must fight to save my sanity. + +Under such conditions I was beginning to see things where there was +nothing to be seen on the day when I had my first visitor, and the +shock of surprise when the cell door was opened to admit Cyrus +Whitredge, the lawyer whose bungling defense had done so little to +stave off my conviction, was almost like a premonition of further +disaster. Before I could rise from my seat on the cot he was shaking +hands with me and twisting his dry, leathery face into its nearest +approach to a smile. + +"Don't bother to get up, Bert," he began effusively. "Just stay right +where you are and take it easy. I've been trying for three solid days +to get up here, but court is in session and I couldn't break away. +You're not looking very well, and they tell me down below that you're +off your feed. That won't do, you know--won't do at all. We are going +to get you right out of this, one way or another, mighty quick. You've +taken your medicine like a man, and we don't propose to let 'em give +you a second dose of it--not by a jugful." + +All this was so totally unlike the Whitredge I had known that I fairly +gasped. Then I reflected--while he was drawing up the single +three-legged stool and sitting down--that in all probability the Little +Clean-Up was responsible for the change in him. I was no longer a poor +bank clerk without money or friends. + +"'We,' you say?" I put in, meaning to make him define himself. + +"Why, yes, of course I'm including myself; I'm your attorney, and as +soon as the news of your arrest came I made preparations to drop +everything else, right away, and get into the fight. You got your +sentence and served it, and we'll scrap 'em awhile on the proposition +of bringing you back for more of it simply because you happened to +forget, one day, and step over the State boundaries. I don't know but +what we could show that the law is unconstitutional, if we had to. But +it won't come to anything like that, I guess." + +I looked him straight in the eyes. + +"Whitredge, who has retained you this time?" I asked. + +"I don't know what you mean by that, Bert." + +"I mean that four years and a half ago there were pretty strong reasons +for suspecting that you were Abel Geddis's attorney, rather than mine." + +"Oh, pshaw!" he returned with large lenience. "Geddis wanted to be +fair with you--he thought a good bit of you in those days, Bert, little +as you may believe it--and he did offer to pay my fee, if you couldn't. +But that has nothing to do with the present aspect of the case. I was +your attorney then, and I'm your attorney now. It's a point of +professional honor, and I couldn't think of holding aloof when you're +needing me. Besides, your Colorado lawyers have been in communication +with me--naturally, since I was attorney for the defense four years and +a half ago." + +"They sent you to me here?" I inquired. + +"They knew I would come, of course; I was on the ground and had all the +facts. They couldn't come themselves, either of them. They have had +their hands full with the injunction business." + +"The injunction business?" + +"Yes; haven't you heard?" + +I shook my head. + +"It was in the newspapers, but I suppose they haven't let you see them +here. Your mine is shut down. You were operating as bonded lessees +under a temporary injunction, or something of that sort, weren't you? +Well, the Federal court has made the injunction permanent and tied you +up. As soon as I got this I smelled trouble for you, and as your +attorney in fact I got busy with the wires. The situation isn't half +as bad as it might be. I understand that the plaintiff company, a +corporation called the Lawrenceburg Mining & Reduction Company, has +offered you people five million dollars for a transfer of all rights +and titles under your holdings, and that, notwithstanding the +injunction, this offer still holds good." + +Since it is a proverb that an empty stomach is a mighty poor team-mate +for a befogged brain, I was unable to see what Whitredge was driving +at, and I told him so. + +"Nothing in particular," he countered, "except to remind you that you +still have a good chance to play safe. We are going to 'wrastle' you +out of here, just as I say, Bert, my boy, at any cost, and it's a piece +of great good luck that you won't have to count the pennies in whatever +it may cost." + +"But I shall have to count them if our mine is shut down." + +"Not if you and your partners make this sale to the Lawrenceburg +people. Five millions will give each of you a million and two-thirds +apiece. It's up to you right now to persuade your two partners to +close with the offer while it still holds good. It's liable to be +withdrawn any minute, you know. The other two may be able to hang on +and put up a further fight, but you can't afford to." + +"Why can't I?" + +"For one mighty good reason, if there isn't any other. I met your wife +this morning, Bert. She's stopping across town at the Buckingham--just +to be as near you as she can get. You can't afford to do, or to leave +undone, anything that'll keep that little woman dangling on the ragged +edge. She thinks too much of you." + +He had me on the run, and I think he knew it. What he did not know was +that the smash, the solitary cell, and a weakened body were pushing me +harder than any of his specious arguments. + +"I've got to get out!" I groaned, with the cold sweat starting out all +over me. "Whitredge, I've had enough in these few days to break an +iron man!" + +"Naturally; married only a month, and all that. I'm a dried-up old +bachelor, Bert, my boy, but I know exactly how you feel. As you say, +you've got to get out of here, and the quickest way is the right +way--when you stop to think of that poor lonesome little woman waiting +over yonder in the hotel. I've come fixed for you"--he was on his +feet, now, fumbling in his pockets for some papers and a fountain +pen--"I've drawn up a letter to your two partners,--let me see; where +is it? Oh, yes, here you are--a letter from you advising them to close +with that Lawrenceburg offer. If you'll just authorize me to send a +wire in your name, and then read this letter that I've blocked out and +sign it----" + +I glanced hastily over the type-written sheet he handed me. It was a +business-like letter addressed to Barrett and Gifford, going fully into +the situation from the point of view of a man needing ready money, and +urging the acceptance of the Lawrenceburg offer, not wholly for the +personal reason upon which Whitredge had been enlarging, but +emphatically as a prudent business measure--an alternative to the +possible loss of everything. + +"You see just how the matter stands," he went on while I was reading +the letter. "They've got you stopped, and that is pretty good evidence +that the court is holding you as trespassers on Lawrenceburg property. +The next thing in order, if you fellows hold out, will be a suit for +damages which will gobble up all your former returns from the mine and +leave you without anything--you and both of your partners." + +"What do you get out of it if this sale goes through, Whitredge?" I +asked him suddenly. + +He laughed as if I had perpetrated a new joke. + +"What do _I_ get out of it? Why, bless your innocent soul, Bert, ain't +I working for my fee? And I tell you I'm going to charge you a +rattling big one, too, when I can shake hands with you as a millionaire +and better on the sidewalk in front of this State eleemosynary +Institution!" + +"You talk as if you had the sidewalk means in your hand," I said, +yielding a little to his enthusiasm in spite of my suspicions of him +and my feeble efforts to stand alone. + +"I have!" he announced oracularly. "I have here"--slapping a second +folded paper which he had drawn from his pocket--"I have here a +petition for your free and unconditional pardon, addressed to the +Governor and signed by the trial judge, the prosecuting attorney, and +by ten of the twelve members of the jury. Oh, I tell you, young man, +I've been busy these last three days. You may have been setting me +down as a hard-hearted old lawyer, toughened to all these things, Bert, +but when I read that newspaper story, of how you were kidnapped, as you +may say--torn from the arms of a loving wife and dragged aboard of a +train and railroaded back to prison--every drop of blood in me rose up +in protest, and I swore then and there that if there was any such thing +as executive clemency in this broad land of ours, you should have it!" + +If I had been wholly well and out of prison perhaps the cheap bombast +in all this would have been apparent at once. But I was neither well +nor free. And Polly's heart was breaking; I didn't need Whitredge's +word for this--I knew it by all the torments of inward conviction. + +I understood well enough what he was asking me to do: to tip the scale +against what might be Barrett's and Gifford's better judgment, and to +sign a paper which would stamp me for all time as a criminal pleading, +not for justice, but for pardon. In spite of this knowledge the +pressure Whitredge had brought to bear was well-nigh irresistible. +Barrett and the Colorado lawyers evidently had their hands too full to +think of me; and, in any event, I could not see what possible chance +they might have of reopening my case and proving my innocence. At the +end of it I was reaching for the pen in Whitredge's hand, but at the +touch of the thing with which I was to sign away my fighting rights for +all time a little flicker of strength came. + +"You must give me time, Whitredge; a little time to think this over," I +pleaded. "Four years and a half ago I told you I was innocent--I tell +you so again. You are asking me to confess that I was guilty; if I +sign that petition it will be a confession in fact. I have sworn a +thousand times that I'd rot right here inside of these walls before I'd +ask for a pardon for a crime that wasn't mine. Leave these papers and +let me think about it. Give me a chance to convince myself that there +is no other way!" + +He looked at his watch, and if he were disappointed he was too well +schooled in his trade to show it. + +"All right; just as you say," he agreed. "Shall we make it this +afternoon--say, some time after three o'clock?" + +"Make it to-morrow morning," I begged. + +This time he hesitated, again pulling out his watch and consulting its +face as if it were an oracle. I had no means of knowing--what I +learned later--that he was making a swift calculation upon the arriving +and departing hours of certain railroad trains. None the less, he +agreed somewhat reluctantly to the further postponement; but when the +turnkey was unlocking the door he gave me a final shot. + +"I don't want to influence you one way or the other, Bert--that is, not +against your best interests; but while you're making up your mind don't +leave the little woman out. I shall see her at dinner to-night, and +she'll want to know what's what. I'm going to give her your love and +tell her you're trying mighty hard to be reasonable. Is that right?" + + + + +XXIV + +Restoration + +At the clanging of the cell door behind the departing lawyer I was to all +intents and purposes a broken reed. The theorists may say what they +please about the fine and courageous quality of resolution which rises +only the higher the harder it is beaten down; but man is human, and there +are limits beyond which the finest resiliency becomes dead and brittle +and there is no rebound. + +The temptation to yield was both subtle and compelling. Reason, the kind +of reason which scoffs at ideals, told me that I was foolish to fight for +a principle. On the one hand there were sharp misery, the loss of +freedom, poverty and suffering for Polly: on the other, liberty and a +generous degree of affluence. We could hide ourselves, Polly and I, in +some remote corner of the world where no one knew; and our share of the +five millions, wealth even as wealth is reckoned in the day of wealth, +would put us far enough beyond the reach of want; nay, it would do +more--it would silence the gossiping tongues if there were any to wag. + +Up and down the narrow limits of my cell I paced, praying at one moment +for strength to hold out to the end, and at the next cursing myself for +an idiotic splitter of hairs helpless to break away from the manaclings +of an idea. Love, reason, common sense were all ranged on the side of +the compromise with principle; and opposed to them there was only the +stubborn protest against injustice pleading feebly and despairingly for +its final hearing. + +In the midst of the struggle the kitchen "trusty" brought the mid-day +meal, and for the first time in forty-eight hours I forced myself to eat. +A sound body, weakened only by anxiety and abstinence, is quick to +respond to a resumption of the normal. Under the food stimulus I felt +better, stronger. But now the strength was all on the side of yielding. +With the quickening pulses came the keen lust of life. To live, to be +free, to enjoy, in the years, few or many, of the little earthly span: +after all, these were the only realities. + +Whitredge had left his fountain pen, and the papers--the letter to +Barrett and Gifford and the petition--were lying on the cot where I had +thrown them. For the last time I put the pleading protest under foot. +Freedom, a fortune, and Polly's happiness: the triple bribe was too great +and I uncapped the pen. + +It was at this precise moment that footsteps in the corridor warned me +that someone was coming. A bit of the old convict secretiveness made me +hastily thrust the papers out of sight under the cot blankets, and at the +rattling of the key in the lock I stood up to confront--Whitredge. + +"You?" I said. "I thought you were going to give me until to-morrow +morning." + +He looked strangely perturbed, and the nervousness was also in his voice +when he said: "I meant to, Bert, but I've had a wire, and I've got to go +back to Glendale on this next train"--dragging his watch out of its +pocket and glancing at it hurriedly. "Those papers: you've had time +enough to think things over, and I'm sure you've made up your mind to do +the sensible thing. Let me have them so I can set things in motion +before I leave town." + +I wondered why he kept jerking his head around to look over his shoulder +as he talked, and why the turnkey jingled his keys and waited. But the +time for indecision on my part was past and I reached under the blanket +for the two papers. With the three-legged stool for a writing-table I +was kneeling to put my name at the bottom of the letter to my partners +when there were more footsteps in the corridor, hurried ones, this time, +and I looked up to see the squarely built, competent figure of our +Western lawyer, Benedict, standing in the cell doorway, with the deputy +warden, Cummings, backgrounding him. + +"Hello, Whitredge; at your old tricks, are you?" snapped the new-comer +brusquely. And then to me: "What are you signing there, Bertrand?" + +"Nothing, now--without your advice," I said, getting up and handing him +the letter. + +Whitredge couldn't get out, with Benedict filling the doorway, so he had +to stand a cringing second prisoner, looking this way and that, like a +rat searching for a hole, while the big Westerner read calmly through the +letter which had been written out for me. That moment amply repaid me +for much that I had suffered at the hands of Cyrus Whitredge. + +"Humph!" said Benedict, folding the letter and thrusting it into his +pocket. "Now what's that other document?" + +I gave him the petition for pardon, and again he took his time with the +reading. + +"Nice little scheme you were trying to pull off!" he said to Whitredge, +after the petition, accurately refolded, had gone to join the pocketed +letter. "You are certainly an ornament to an honorable profession." +Then, stepping into the cell and standing aside: "You may go. We'll know +where to find you when you're needed." + +Whitredge's vanishing was like a trick of legerdemain; one moment he +stood before us, and at the next he was gone. At his going, Cummings and +the turnkey also disappeared and I was left alone with Benedict. There +was a hearty handgrasp to assure me that I was not dreaming, and then I +said: + +"I had given you up, Benedict. I thought they had you tied hand and foot +back yonder in the big hills." + +"Myers is handling that end of it," he returned. "I had other irons in +the fire, and they've been getting hot in such rapid succession that I +couldn't leave them. But I did what I could by wire--got the warden's +promise that he would hold your case 'in suspension' until I could show +up in person. Have they been treating you well? I'm afraid they +haven't. You're not looking quite up to the mark." + +I was beginning to understand--a little. + +"When did you telegraph the warden?" I asked. + +"Immediately; from Cripple Creek, and as soon as Barrett had told me your +story. We had our reply at once, and I took the first train for +Glendale, your old home town. What I have been able to dig up in that +little dead-alive burg is a great plenty, Bertrand. Your arrest has +turned out to be just about the most unfortunate thing that could +possibly have happened for certain persons who were most anxious to bring +it to pass--namely, two old rascals who made use of the traveling-man +Barton's story and started the pursuit in the right direction." + +"Call me Weyburn," I broke in. "That is my name--James Bertrand +Weyburn--and I'm going to wear it, all of it, from this time on." + +"I know," laughed the big attorney, drawing up the stool and seating +himself beside the cot much as Whitredge had done at an earlier hour of +the same day. "They call you 'Bert' and 'Herbert' down yonder in your +home village, and they don't seem to know that your middle name is +Bertrand." + +"You say you have been digging: what did you find out?" I questioned +eagerly. + +"Some things that I was looking for and some that I wasn't. I had the +advantage of being a total stranger to everybody, and all I had to do was +to stroll around and ask questions. Let me ask you one, right now; do +you know who the owners of the Lawrenceburg are?" + +"A New York syndicate, I've always understood." + +"Not in a thousand years!" retorted the lawyer, laughing again. "It is +owned, pretty nearly in fee simple, by two old friends of yours--Abel +Geddis and Abner Withers. More than that, it is a reorganized and +renamed corporation founded upon a certain gold-brick proposition, called +'The Great Oro Mining and Reduction Company,' promoted and floated down +in your section of the State something like five years ago by two men +named Hempstead and Lesherton. Does that stir up any old memories for +you?" + +It did, indeed. "The Great Oro" was the mine for the capitalization of +which Abel Geddis had used the money belonging to his depositors; the +basis of the theft which had cost me three good years of my life. + +"But I had understood that the 'Oro' was a fake, pure and simple!" I +protested. + +"It was. A claim had been located and a shaft sunk to ninety feet, but +there was no mineral. That shaft is the present main shaft of the +Lawrenceburg. After Geddis and Withers found they had been +'gold-bricked' they went to Colorado and looked the ground over for +themselves. The result of that visit was a determination on their part +to send a little good money after the bad, so they put a force in the +mine and began to drift from the shaft-bottom, and shortly after that the +workings began to pay." + +"Which direction did that drift take?" I asked. + +Benedict did not answer the question directly. "Things began to fit +themselves together pretty rapidly after I got the facts in the history +of 'The Great Oro'," he went on. "By that time the news of your arrest +and return to the penitentiary had reached Glendale and the gossip bees +were buzzing. Whitredge was rattling around like a pea in a dried +bladder, holding midnight conferences in the bank with the two hoary old +villains who had sworn your liberty away, starting a petition for your +pardon, and I don't know what all. I didn't pay much attention to him +because I was at that time more deeply interested in a number of other +things." + +"Go on," I begged breathlessly. + +"First, I investigated carefully the records of your trial and it didn't +take very long to discover that Whitredge had doubled-crossed you. He +bribed the two deputies sent to transfer you from the police station in +Glendale to the county seat. They were to bully and browbeat you into +making an attempt to escape--thus affording proof presumptive of your +guilt--and this they proceeded to do. They've admitted it under +oath--after I had shown them what we could do to them if they didn't." + +"Whitredge began to plan for that very thing almost at the first," I put +in. "It was he who put the idea of running way into my head." + +"Sure he did. But speaking of affidavits, I have another; from a fellow +named Griggs; you remember him, of course,--your understudy in Geddis's +bank at the time when you were bookkeeper and cashier? He swears that +the original stock certificates in 'The Great Oro' were made out in the +name of Abel Geddis--as you know they were--and that on a certain night +just previous to your arrest, when he had been working late and had gone +to the back room for his hat and coat, Geddis and Whitredge came in and +Geddis opened the vault. Are you paying attention?" + +I was choking with impatience, as he well knew, but he refused to be +hurried. + +"All in good time," he chuckled. "I'm coming to it by littles. Griggs +was curious to know what was going on and he played the spy. He saw +Geddis's name taken out of the stock certificates with an acid and your +name written in its place. You see, they were confidently counting upon +'getting' you through Geddis's daughter and were framing things up to +fit. How much or how little they took the young woman into their +confidence I don't know." + +"That doesn't matter now," I hastened to say. + +"No; Griggs was the man I wanted, and I got him. He will testify in +court, if he is obliged to. He would have done it at the time if Geddis +and Whitredge hadn't discovered him and scared him stiff with a threat to +put him in the prisoner's dock with you, as an accomplice. After I had +secured Griggs's affidavit I wanted one more thing, and I got it--bought +it. That was a map of the Lawrenceburg underground workings, corrected +up to date. I knew Geddis and Withers must have one, and by a piece of +great good luck I found a young surveyor's clerk who had made a tracing +for Geddis from one of Blackwell's blue-prints. He had spoiled his first +attempt by spilling a bottle of ink on it, so he made another. He didn't +see any reason why he shouldn't sell me the spoiled copy." + +"I know what you are going to say!" I shouted. + +"I imagine you do," he laughed. "The Lawrenceburg workings have never +gone downhill at all. They've been burrowing in the opposite direction +all the time, and according to their own map they never touched pay-ore +until they cut the Little Clean-Up vein below your hundred-and-fifty-foot +level. Now you know why they have been fighting us so desperately, and +why, as a final resort, they are willing to pay us five million dollars +for a quit-claim to the Little Clean-Up. We've got them by the neck, +Jimmie. We can make them pay for every dollar's worth of ore they have +stolen from us." + +It was too big to be surrounded at the first attempt. I completely lost +sight of my own involvement in the upflash of joy at the thought that at +the long last the two old scoundrels who had robbed others right and left +were going to get what was coming to them. Benedict went on with his +story quietly and circumstantially. + +"I guessed at once what Whitredge was up to when I found that he was +circulating that pardon petition. He was aiming to make you a +self-confessed criminal before we could have time to turn a wheel. At +that, I wired a Cincinnati detective agency, and a young man who knew his +business was put on the job. The detective's reports showed the whole +thing up. Geddis, Withers and Whitredge were hustling like mad to make +capital out of your recapture by the prison authorities. Whitredge was +to advise you to urge the sale of the Little Clean-Up upon Barrett and +Gifford, and your reward was to be a pardon, by the asking for which you +would be virtually confessing your guilt. Thus the past would be buried +beyond any possibility of a resurrection. Nice little scheme, wasn't it?" + +"You have those two papers--the letter and the petition," I said, with an +uncontrollable shudder. "You'll never know how near Whitredge came to +winning out. I was just about to sign when you came." + +"Whitredge is a dangerous man," was Benedict's comment. "He took the +train from Glendale last night, and the detective went with him, wiring +me from a station up the line. I caught the next train and got here two +hours ago. I might have headed him off of you, I suppose, but I had a +bit of legal business to attend to first. If you are ready, we'll go. +Your wife is waiting for you in the warden's office, and she'll be +wondering why we are so long about getting the doors unlocked." + +"Go?" I stammered. "You--you mean that I'm free?" + +"Sure you are! My legal business was to press the _habeas corpus_ +proceedings which were begun as soon as I had obtained evidence of the +miscarriage of justice in your trial before Judge Haskins. You are a +free man. I left the order of the court with the warden as I came in." + +There is a limit to human endurance, either of sorrow or of joy. I got +up and tried to walk with Benedict to the cell door, which had been left +standing open. I remember catching at the big lawyer's arm, and then the +world went black before my eyes. And that is all I do remember. + + * * * * * * + +We held our council of war--the final one in the long series--late in the +evening of the day of climaxes in the sitting-room of a Hotel Buckingham +suite, Benedict, Barrett and I. Barrett had arrived just as we were +sitting down to dinner, having hurried east as soon as he could be spared +at Cripple Creek. + +"They are all in, down and out," was Barrett's summing-up of the +situation, after he had heard Benedict's story. And then: "It's up to +you, Jimmy"--looking away from me. "You owe those two old men and their +scamp of a lawyer a pretty long score, and I guess you'll be wanting to +pay it." + +"I do!" I gritted. In a flash all the injustice I had suffered at the +hands of Abel Geddis and Abner Withers and Cyrus Whitredge piled in upon +me and there was no room in my heart for anything but retaliation. + +Benedict clipped and lighted a cigar, and Barrett sat back in his chair +and stared at the gas-fixture in the center of the ceiling. + +"I can't blame you much, Jimmie," he offered. "I guess maybe, if the +shoe were on my foot, I'd want to give them the limit. And yet----" + +"There isn't any 'and yet'," I cried out. + +"Perhaps not; but I don't know, Jimmie. If I were going to be the father +of Polly's children, as you are, I--well, I don't believe I'd care to +hand down that sort of a legacy to the children; a legacy of hatred--even +a just hatred--gorged and surfeited on the thumb-screwing of two old men. +Whitredge will get what is coming to him; the Bar Association will see to +that. But these two old misers who are already tottering on the edge of +the grave----" + +"They have robbed me of my good name, and they have robbed us all of our +good money!" I cut in rancorously. + +At this, Benedict, who had been saying little, put in his word. + +"I saw Whitredge an hour ago. He has been wiring Geddis and Withers--to +tell them that the game is up. He says he supposes he will have to take +his own medicine, but he asked me to intercede for the two old men. They +have wired their Colorado attorneys to withdraw the Lawrenceburg suit and +to lift the injunction, and they offer to turn in all their property if +they are permitted to leave the country. That's as bad as a prison +sentence for two men as old as they are. Will you let them do it, and +call the account square, Weyburn?" + +"No, by God!" If I set down the very words that I uttered, it is only in +the interest of truth. At that moment I was like the soldiers who have +seen their dead; I had seen the look in Polly's eyes, put there by that +horrible week of waiting and suspense. + +The room, as I have said, was the sitting-room of our suite--Polly's and +mine--and I had neither seen nor heard the door of communication with the +bed-room open. When I glanced up she was standing in the doorway, and I +knew that she had heard. In the turning of a leaf she had flown across +the room to drop on her knees beside me and bury her face in my lap. + +"Oh, Jimmie--Jimmie, dear!" she sobbed; "you _must_ forgive--forgive and +forget! For my sake--for your own sake--you must!" + +That settled it. Benedict flung his freshly lighted cigar into the grate +and turned away, and Barrett got up and crossed to the window. I stood +up and lifted my dear girl to her feet, and with her tear-stained face +between my palms I turned my back upon the past and told her what we were +going to do. + +"It shall be as you say, Polly; we'll go back to the tall hills and +forget it--and make other people forget it. And we'll let Mr. Benedict, +here, do just what he pleases, no more and no less, with a pair of old +plotters who haven't so very many years to wait before they will have to +turn in their score to the Great Evener." + +At this Barrett jerked out his watch and broke in brusquely; and as at +other times, the brusquerie was only a mask for the things that a man +doesn't wear on his sleeve. + +"Cut it short, you two turtle-doves; you've got about forty-five minutes +before the Westbound Limited is due, and you'd better be packing your +grips. Come on downstairs, Benedict, and I'll buy you a drink to go with +that red necktie of yours. Let's go." + + + + +XXV + +The Mountain's Top + +There is little to add; nothing, perhaps, if the literary unities only +were to be considered. The trials and tribulations have all been lived +through; the man and the woman have found each other; the villains have +been given--if not altogether a full measure of their just dues, at +least a sufficient approach to it; and virtue--but no, here the figure +breaks down; virtue hasn't been rewarded. There wasn't any especial +virtue, since there is little credit in merely enduring what cannot be +cured. + +Of what happened after our return to Colorado only a few things stand +out as being at all worthy of note. For one, Barrett and I, with +Benedict's help, took up the case of one Dorgan, _alias_ Michael +Murphey, _alias_ No. 3126, whom we found still preserving his incognito +in a dam-building camp in Idaho. Appealing to the Governor and Board +of Pardons of my home State, we made it appear that Dorgan was a +reformed man and no longer a menace to society, and in due time had the +satisfaction of seeing him set legally free. + +As another act of pure justice, tempered with a good bit of filial and +fraternal affection--Polly was the prime mover in this--my mother and +sister were brought to Colorado, and a home was built for them in +Colorado Springs, where my sister, ignoring a bank account which would +have enabled her to sit with folded hands for the remainder of her +days, promptly gathered a group of little girls about her and began +teaching them the mysteries of the three "R's." + +A third outreaching--and this, also, was Polly's idea--was in the +altruistic field. A fund was set apart out of the lavish yieldings of +the Little Clean-Up, the income from which provides in perpetuity that +at the doors of at least one prison of the many in our land the +outcoming convict shall be met and helped to stand upon his own feet, +if so be he has any feet to stand upon. + +Gray granite peaks and valleys fallow-dun under the westering autumn +sun; vistas of inspiring horizons leading the eye to vanishing levels +remote and vaguely deliminating earth and sky, or soaring with it to +shimmering heights dark-green or bald; these infinities were spread +before us in celestial array one afternoon in the first year of peace +and joy when we--my good angel and I--clambered together to the summit +of the mountain behind the Little Clean-Up. + +After the little interval of reverent adoration which is claimed by all +true lovers of the mountain infinities at the opening of the +illimitable doors, we fell to talking of the past--my past--as we sat +on a projecting shelf of the summit rock. + +"No," I said. "I can't admit that there is anything regenerative in +punishment. If I had been the thief that everybody believed I was, I +should have come out of prison still a thief--with an added grudge +against society. While I was treated well, as a whole, nothing was +done to arouse the better man in me, or even to ascertain if there +might possibly be a better man in me." + +There was what I have learned to call the light of all-wisdom in +Polly's eyes when she answered. + +"Oh, if one must lean altogether upon sheer logic and the pure +materialism of this divided by that and multiplied by something else," +she returned. "But there are two kinds of regeneration, Jimmie, dear; +the kind which involves a radical change in the life-motive, and the +other which is merely a stripping of the husks from a strong soul that +never needed changing." + +"Your love would put me where I don't belong," I protested humbly. + +"No; not my love: what you are, and what you have done." + +"What I am, you have made me; and what I have done you have suggested. +No; the injustice, the prison, the brand of the convict, the dodging +and evading, the knowledge that, if the truth were to be blazoned +abroad, I could never hope to recross the chasm which Judge Haskins's +sentence had opened between me and the world at large; these things +made a shuddering coward of me--which I was not in the beginning. It +was this prison-bred cowardice that made me potentially Kellow's +murderer, willing in heart and mind, and waiting only for the firing +spark of provocation. It was the same cowardice that made me Agatha +Geddis's slave, and very nearly her murderer. Worse still, it sent me +to you with sealed lips when I should have told you all that you had a +right to know." + +"Well? If you will have it so, what then?" + +"Only this: that the brand which the law put upon the man wasn't any +sign of the cross to make a new creature of him, as you have been +trying to make me believe. That's all." + +Polly's smile is a thing to make any man tingle to the roots of his +hair. "As if the past, or anything in it, could make any difference to +us now!" she chided. "Haven't we learned to say: + + 'Not heaven itself upon the past has power, + But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour'? + +Beloved man, I'm hungry; and it's miles and miles to dinner. Shall we +go?" + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Branded, by Francis Lynde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRANDED *** + +***** This file should be named 19472-8.txt or 19472-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/7/19472/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Branded + +Author: Francis Lynde + +Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #19472] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRANDED *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="The resemblance . . . transformed itself slowly into the breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up . . . into the face of Cummings." BORDER="2" WIDTH="384" HEIGHT="575"> +<H3> +[Frontispiece: The resemblance . . . transformed itself slowly <BR> +into the breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up . . . into <BR> +the face of Cummings.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +BRANDED +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +FRANCIS LYNDE +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF +<BR> +THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, +<BR> +THE CITY OF NUMBERED DAYS, ETC. +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FRONTISPIECE BY +<BR> +ARTHUR E. BECHER +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP +<BR> +PUBLISHERS ————— NEW YORK +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY +<BR> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +<BR><BR> +Published April, 1918 +<BR> +Reprinted April, 1918 +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="dedication"> +To the one who, more clearly than<BR> +any other, can best understand and<BR> +appreciate the motive for its writing,<BR> +this book is affectionately inscribed by<BR> +<BR> +THE AUTHOR<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE HEATING OF THE IRON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">THE SEARING TOUCH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">IN THE NAME OF THE LAW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">SCARS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">THE DOWNWARD PATH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">A GOOD SAMARITAN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">THE PLUNGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">WESTWARD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">THE CUP OF TREMBLING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">THE PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">NUMBER 3126</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">A CAST FOR FORTUNE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">FOR THE SINEWS OF WAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">PAPER WALLS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">THE BROKEN WAGON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">IN THE OPEN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">ALADDIN'S LAMP</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">"THE WOMAN . . . WHOSE HANDS ARE AS BANDS"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">A RECKONING AND A HOLD-UP</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">BROKEN FAITH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">THE END OF A HONEYMOON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">A WOMAN'S LOVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">SKIES OF BRASS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">RESTORATION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">THE MOUNTAIN'S TOP</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +BRANDED +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Heating of the Iron +</H3> + +<P> +It was not until the evening when old John Runnels, who had been the +town marshal in my school days, and was now chief of police under the +new city charter, came into the dingy little private banking room to +arrest me that I began to realize, though only in a sort of dumb and +dazed fashion, how much my promise to Agatha Geddis might be going to +cost me. +</P> + +<P> +But even if the full meaning of the promise had been grasped at the +time when my word was given, it is an open question if the earlier +recognition of the possible consequences would have made any +difference. Before we go any farther, let it be clearly understood +that there was no sentiment involved; at least, no sentimental +sentiment. Years before, I, like most of the other town boys of my +age, had taken my turn as Agatha's fetcher and carrier; but that was +only a passing spasm—a gust of the calf-love which stirs up momentary +whirlwinds in youthful hearts. The real reason for the promise-making +lay deeper. Abel Geddis had been crabbedly kind to me, helping me +through my final year in the High School after my father died, and +taking me into his private bank the week after I was graduated. And +Agatha was Abel Geddis's daughter. +</P> + +<P> +Over and above the daughterhood, she was by far the prettiest girl in +Glendale, with a beauty of the luscious type; eyes that could toll a +man over the edge of a bluff and lips that had a trick of quivering +like a hurt baby's when she was begging for something she was afraid +she wasn't going to get. All through the school years she had been one +of my classmates, and a majority of the town boys were foolish about +her, partly because she had a way of twisting them around her fingers; +partly, perhaps, because her father was the rich man of the community +and the president of the Farmers' Bank. +</P> + +<P> +She had sent for me to come up to the big house on the hill the night +before this other night of old John Runnels's call. I went, taking it +as a matter of course that she wished to talk to me about the trouble +at the bank, and saying to myself that I was going to be iron and steel +and adamant; this when I might have known that I should be only putty +in her hands. She met me on the porch, and made me sit with my back to +the window, which was open, while she faced me, sitting in the hammock +where the house lights fell fairly upon her and I could get the full +benefit of the honeying eyes and baby lips as she talked. +</P> + +<P> +She had begun by saying in catchy little murmurings that I knew better +than any one else what it was going to mean to her—to all of them—if +her father's crookedness (she called it his "mistake") in using the +depositors' money for his own speculations should be published abroad; +and I did. She was engaged to young Wheeland, son of the copper +magnate Wheeland, of New York, and the wedding date was set. Black +ruin was staring them all in the face, she said, and I could save them, +if I only would. What would be shouted from the housetops as a +penitentiary offense in the president of the bank would be condoned as +a mere error in judgment on the part of a hired bookkeeper. +</P> + +<P> +If I would only consent to let the directors think that I was the one +who had passed upon and accepted the mining-stock collateral—which had +taken the place in the bank's vault of the good, hard money of the +depositors—well, I could see how easily the dreadful crisis would be +tided over; and besides earning the undying gratitude of the family, +her father would stand by me and I would lose nothing in the end. +</P> + +<P> +For one little minute she almost made me believe what she didn't +believe herself—that the crime wasn't a crime. Her father, "our +eminent and public-spirited fellow-citizen, the Hon. Abel Geddis," to +quote the editor of the Glendale <I>Daily Courier</I>, was desperately +involved. For months he had been throwing good money after bad in a +Western gold mine; not only his own money, but the bank's as well. At +the long last the half-dozen sleepy directors, three of them retired +farmers and the other three local merchants, had awakened to the fact +that there was something wrong. They didn't know fully, as yet, just +what they were in for; Geddis's part of the bookkeeping was in a +horrible muddle owing to his efforts to hide the defalcation. But they +knew enough to be certain that somebody had been skating upon thin ice +and had broken through. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't help seeing just how it is, Herbert," Agatha had pleaded, +with the soulful look in her pretty eyes and the baby lips all in a +tremble. "If the faintest breath of this gets out, VanBruce Wheeland +will have to know, and then everything will come to an end and I shall +want to go and drown myself in the river. You are young and strong and +brave, and you can live down a—an error of judgment"—she kept on +calling it that, as if the words had been put into her mouth; as they +probably had. "Promise me, Herbert, won't you?—for—for the sake of +the old times when you used to carry my books to school, and I—I——" +</P> + +<P> +What was the use? Every man is privileged to be a fool once in a +while, and a young man sometimes twice in a while. I promised her that +I would shoulder the load, or at least find some way out for her +father; and when she asked me how it could be done, I was besotted +enough to explain how the mining-stock business had really passed +through my hands—as it had in a purely routine way—and telling her in +so many words that everything would be all right for her father when +the investigating committee should come to overhaul the books and the +securities. +</P> + +<P> +When I got up to go, she went to the front steps with me, and at the +last yearning minute a warm tear had splashed on the back of my hand. +At that I kissed her and told her not to worry another minute. And +this brings me back to that other evening just twenty-four hours later; +I in the bank, with the accusing account books spread out under the +electric light on the high desk, and old John Runnels, looking never a +whit less the good-natured, easy-going town marshal in his +brass-buttoned uniform and gilt-banded cap, stumbling over the +threshold as he let himself in at the side door which had been left on +the latch. +</P> + +<P> +I had started, half-guiltily, I suppose, when the door opened; and +Runnels, who had known me and my people ever since my father had moved +in from the farm to give us children the advantage of the town school, +shook his grizzled head sorrowfully. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd ruther take a lickin' than to say it, but I reckon you'll have to +come along with me, Bertie," he began soberly, laying a big-knuckled +hand on my shoulder. "It all came out in the meetin' to-day, and the +d'rectors 're sayin' that you hadn't ort to be allowed to run loose any +longer." +</P> + +<P> +The high desk stool was where I could grab at it, and it saved me from +tumbling over backward. +</P> + +<P> +"Go with you?" I gasped. "You mean to—to <I>jail</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +Runnels nodded. "Jest for to-night. I reckon you'll be bailed, come +mornin'—if that blamed security comp'ny that's on your bond don't kick +up too big a fight about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on—wait a minute," I begged. "There is nothing criminal against +me, Uncle John. Mr. Geddis will tell you that. I——" +</P> + +<P> +The big hand slipped from my shoulder and became a cautionary signal to +flag me down. +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't tell me nothin' about it, Bertie; I don't want to have to +take the stand and testify against your father's boy. Besides, it +ain't no kind o' use. You done it yourself when you was up at Abel +Geddis's house las' night. Two of the d'rectors, Tom Fitch and old man +Withers, was settin' behind the window curtains in the front room +whilst you was talkin' to Miss Agathy on the porch. You know, better'n +I do, what they heard you say." +</P> + +<P> +For a second the familiar interior of the bank went black for me. I +was young in those days; much too young to know that human nature in +the lump is neither all saint nor all devil; that a man may be a second +father to you for years, and then turn and hold your head under water +until you drown when he is fighting for himself. It had been a trap, +deliberately set and baited with Agatha. I remembered now that she had +not spoken loud enough to be overheard; while I, with my back to the +open window, had talked in ordinary tones. Fitch and Withers had heard +me say that the investigating committee would find nothing against Abel +Geddis, and they had naturally taken it as a confession of my own guilt. +</P> + +<P> +I remember that I went quite methodically about putting things away +while Runnels waited, though every move was dumbly mechanical. +Something seemed to have died inside of me, and I suppose the +psychologists would say that it was the subconscious Bert Weyburn who +put the books in the vault, locked the iron door, set the high desk in +order, and turned off all the lights save the one we always left turned +on in front of the vault. +</P> + +<P> +Afterward, when we were in the street together, and Runnels was walking +me around the square to the police station, the dead thing inside of me +came alive. It had gone to sleep a pretty decent young fellow, with a +soft spot in his heart for his fellow men, and a boy's belief in the +ultimate goodness of all women. It awoke a raging devil. It was all I +could do to keep from throttling unsuspecting John Runnels as we +tramped along side by side. I could have done it. I had inherited my +father's well-knit frame and serviceable muscles, and all through my +office experience I had kept myself fit with long walks and a few bits +of home-made gymnastic apparatus in my room at Mrs. Thompson's. And +the new-born devil was ready with the suggestion. +</P> + +<P> +I have been glad many times since that old John never knew; glad that +the frenzied curses that came boiling up out of that inner hell were +wordless. I contrived to hold in while Runnels was hurrying me through +the station office and past the sleepy sergeant at the desk. But when +the cell door had opened and closed for me, and old John's heavy +footsteps were no longer echoing in the iron-floored corridor, the +newly hatched devil broke loose and I made a pretty bad night of it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Searing Touch +</H3> + + +<P> +Out of the first twenty-four hours, when my little raft of +respectability and good report was going to pieces under me, I have +brought one heart-mellowing recollection. In the morning it was old +John Runnels himself who brought me my cell breakfast, and he did it to +spare me the shame of being served by the police-station turnkey. Past +that, he sat on the edge of the iron cot and talked to me while I tried +to eat. +</P> + +<P> +"They was aimin' to telegraph the sheriff and have you railroaded slap +up to the county seat las' night, but I told 'em nary," he confided. +"I wasn't allowin' to have 'em jerk you out of your home town before +you'd had a chance to pick a lawyer and talk to your friends; no +sir-ee, I wasn't." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess I haven't any friends any more," I was still bitter enough to +say. And then: "Tell me, if you can, Uncle John, just what the charge +against me is." +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon you know a heap better'n I do, Bertie," was his sober +rejoinder, "but I can tell you what I heard. They say you've been +takin' the bank's money to put into a gold mine somewheres out yonder +in the Rocky Mountains." +</P> + +<P> +"Who swore out the warrant for my arrest?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ab Withers." +</P> + +<P> +Abner Withers, town miser, note-shaver and skinflint, was the one man +on the board of directors of the bank whom I had always most cordially +detested. Back in my childhood, before my father had got upon his +feet, Withers had planned to foreclose a mortgage on the home farm, +making the hampering of my father so that he could not pay the debt a +part of the plan. More than once I had half suspected that he was in +with Geddis on the mining deal, but I had no proof of this. +</P> + +<P> +"You say they were getting ready to railroad me out of town last night: +I suppose they will do it to-day, won't they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not if I can help it, Bertie. I'm goin' to try to hold you here till +you've had time to kind of straighten yourself around and ketch up with +the procession. I don't know what in Sam Hill you wanted to go and +bu'st yourself up for, this way, but I'm owin' it to Amos Weyburn dead +to help his boy get some sort of a fair show for his white alley. You +ask me anything in reason, and I'll do it." +</P> + +<P> +I considered the most necessary requirements hastily. My mother and +sister were absent on a visit to a distant relative in the far-away +Saskatchewan wheat country, and I thanked God for that. It was +altogether unlikely that they would see any of the home newspapers, for +some time, at least, and any anxiety on that score might be dismissed, +or at all events postponed. The most pressing need was for a lawyer, +and since lawyers do not serve without fees, I was glad to remember +that my savings, which were still reposing in Abel Geddis's bank vault, +would enable me to pay as I went. +</P> + +<P> +By this time, in bitter revulsion from gratitude to fierce enmity, I +was determined to defend myself tooth and nail. At one stroke Abel +Geddis had cancelled all my obligations to him. At the very moment +when I was promising his daughter to help cover up his criminality, he +had been deliberately plotting to make me his scapegoat. +</P> + +<P> +"I need a lawyer, of course," I told Runnels; and then I made the first +and worst of a long series of wretched mistakes. "Send word to Cy +Whitredge and tell him I'd like to see him." +</P> + +<P> +If anybody had asked me five minutes after Runnels went away why I had +chosen Cyrus Whitredge to be my counsel I doubt if I could have offered +any justifiable reason. Whitredge was known throughout our end of the +State as a criminal lawyer, shrewd, unscrupulous, and with a reputation +built up entirely upon his singular success in defeating the ends of +justice. Before a jury of farmers and small merchants, such as I was +likely to have, I had prejudiced my case at the very outset. +</P> + +<P> +I was completely and thoroughly convinced of this a little later when +Whitredge came to see me. He was a lean man, leather-faced, and with +an eye like that of a fish. To my consternation and keen +disheartenment he assumed my guilt from the moment the cell door was +locked upon him and he had seated himself upon the iron-framed cot to +nurse a knee in the locked fingers of his bony hands. +</P> + +<P> +"You've got the wrong idea of things, altogether, Weyburn," he +criticised, after I had tried to tell him that I was being made to hold +the bag for some one else; and his use of the bare surname, when he had +known me from boyhood, cut me like a knife. "You can't expect me to do +anything for you unless you are entirely frank with me. As your +counsel, I've got to know the facts; and you gain absolutely nothing by +insisting to me that you are not guilty." +</P> + +<P> +There was more of it; a good bit more in which I stubbornly asserted my +innocence while Whitredge used every trick and wile known to his craft +to entrap me into admitting that I was guilty, in the act if not in the +intention. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't deny—you don't deny—that you knew these mining sharps, +Hempstead and Lesherton, pretty intimately, that you saw them +frequently and talked with them in the way of business, and that you +knew all about the capitalization scheme they were trying to put over," +was Whitredge's summing up of the situation. "You'll have to loosen +up, Weyburn, if you expect to get any help. I'll come around again +this afternoon, and maybe by that time you will have taken a tumble to +yourself." +</P> + +<P> +He got up, rattled the door for the turnkey, and then wheeled upon me +with a sharp question. +</P> + +<P> +"I take it you've got a little ready money hid away somewhere, haven't +you?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +I told him I had; but when I added that my savings were all in the bank +he swore impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"That will mean an order from the court before you can even pay your +counsel's retainer—always providing your account hasn't already been +attached to apply on the shortage," he snapped; and at that the +corridor officer came to let him out and he went away. +</P> + +<P> +Having lived in Glendale practically all my life, I had a good right to +expect that at least a few of my friends would rally to my support in +the time of trouble. They came, possibly a half-dozen of them in all, +between Whitredge's visit and old John Runnels's bringing of my dinner +at one o'clock. +</P> + +<P> +Who they were, and what they said to me, are matters which shall be +burled in the deepest pit of oblivion I can find or dig. For the best +of them, in the turning of a single leaf in the lifebook, I had +apparently become an outcast, a pariah. One and all, they had already +tried and condemned me unheard, and though there were clammy-handed +offers of assistance they were purely perfunctory, as I could see, and +there was never a man of them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, I +don't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these cold +comfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegar +in me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness and +isolation to the very dregs. +</P> + +<P> +I know now, of course, that I was boyishly hot-hearted and unfair; that +I was too young and inexperienced to make allowances for that deathless +trait in human nature—in all animate nature—which prompts the well to +recoil instinctively from the pest-stricken. Later on—but I needn't +anticipate. +</P> + +<P> +It was along in the latter part of the afternoon, and before +Whitredge's return, that Agatha came. Her appearance in my cell was a +total surprise. I was standing at the little grated window when I +heard footsteps in the corridor. I thought it was Whitredge coming +back, and was morose enough not to turn or look around until after the +door had opened and clanged shut again. Then I wheeled to find myself +looking straight into the man-melting eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Herbert!" she gasped; and with that she dropped upon the cot and +put her face in her hands. +</P> + +<P> +If only the women wouldn't weep at us how vastly different this world +would be! All day long I had been praying that I might some time have +the chance to hold a mirror up to Agatha Geddis; a mirror that would +reflect her soul and show her what a mean and shriveled thing it was. +But what I did was to sit beside her and put my arm around her and try +to comfort her as I might have comforted my sister. +</P> + +<P> +When her sobbing fit had subsided and she began to talk I found out +what she had come for—or I thought I did. It was all a miserable +mistake—so she protested—and Abner Withers was the responsible one. +It was he who had insisted that I should be arrested and prosecuted; +and, thus far, her father had not been able to make him listen to +reason. But it would come out all right in the end, if I would only be +patient and wait. Mr. Whitredge had been up to the house to see her +father, and they had had a long talk. Among other things, she had +heard her father say that he would bear all the expenses, meaning—I +supposed—that he would see to it that Whitredge did not lose his fee. +</P> + +<P> +I have more than once had professional mesmerists try to hypnotize me, +without success. But there is little doubt that Agatha Geddis turned +the trick for me that afternoon in the steel cell of the Glendale +police station. As she talked, my heart grew putty-soft again. As +before, she dwelt upon the terrible consequences, the awful disgrace, +the wreck of her happiness, and all that; and once more I promised her +that I would stand by her. Even after she had gone I told myself that +since the worst had already happened, it would be cowardly and unmanly +to turn back. +</P> + +<P> +Later, when the reaction came, it is more than likely that I swung back +to the other extreme, writing Agatha Geddis down in the book of bitter +remembrances as a cold-blooded, plotting fiend in woman's form. She +was not that. It may be said that, at this earlier period, she was +merely a loosely bound fagot of evil potentialities. Doubtless the +threatened cataclysm appeared sufficiently terrifying to her, and she +was willing to use any means that might offer to avert it. But it may +be conceded, in bare justice, that in this stage of her development she +was nothing worse than a self-centered young egoist, immature, and +struggling, quite without malice, to make things come her way. +</P> + +<P> +It was quite late in the afternoon when Whitredge made his second visit +to my cell, and this time his attitude was entirely different. Also, +he dropped the curt use of my surname. +</P> + +<P> +"We're going to ignore the question of your culpability for the +present, Bert, and wrestle with the plain facts of the case," was the +way he began on me. "From what you said this morning, I was led to +infer that you had some notion of trying to shift the responsibility to +Mr. Geddis. I won't say that something couldn't be done along that +line; not to do you any good, you understand, but to do other folks a +lot of harm. You could probably roil the water and stir up the mud +pretty badly for all concerned. But in the outcome, and before a jury, +you'd be likely to get the hot end of it. I'll be frank with you. If +I were in your shoes, I'd rather have Geddis for me than against me. +He has money and influence, and you are a young man without either." +</P> + +<P> +"You are trying to advise me to plead guilty?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course, the formal plea in court would be 'Not guilty.' I'm +merely advising you not to make the fight vindictive. If you don't, +I'm inclined to believe that Geddis will stand by you and you'll get +off easy." +</P> + +<P> +It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I would fight to the last +gasp before I would suffer myself to be tried and condemned for a crime +of which I was innocent. Then the distorted sense of honor got in its +work again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make me +believe that I owed her something. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll have to get me out of it in some way," I returned. "I can't +afford to be convicted." +</P> + +<P> +"Abel Geddis has been a pretty good friend of yours in the past, Bert," +the lawyer suggested. "You don't want to forget that." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not forgetting it, and I'm giving him all the credit that is due +him. But you can't blame me for thinking a little of my mother and +sister, and myself. You know what a prison sentence means to a man, +better than I do. I couldn't stand for that." +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge stroked his long chin and looked past me out of the little +grated window. +</P> + +<P> +"We'd hope for the best, of course," he returned. "If we can make it +appear as an error in judgment"—there was that cursed phrase +again—"without any real criminal intention, and if we can prove that +you didn't reap any monetary benefit from the transfer of the mining +stock, there is good reason to hope that the court may be lenient. Do +I understand that you are giving me a free hand in the case, Bert?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see that there is anything else for me to do," I said, +half-doubtfully; and as he was going I asked him about the question of +bail. +</P> + +<P> +"I have waived the preliminary examination for you—merely to save you +the humiliation of appearing in a justice's court in Glendale," was the +evasive reply. +</P> + +<P> +"But without the examination I shan't have a chance to offer bail, +shall I?" +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge shook his head. "The guaranty company that is on your bond +beat us to it, I'm sorry to say. They sent their attorney over from +Cincinnati last night, and he is here now, prepared to refuse the +company's consent in the matter of ball. That is another reason why, +acting for you, I have waived the preliminary. Without the guaranty +company's assent to the arrangement it would be useless for us to offer +sureties, though Geddis and two or three others have expressed their +willingness to sign for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Then what am I to expect?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing worse than a little delay. Court is in session, and you will +be taken to Jefferson. If the grand jury finds a true bill against +you, the cause will probably be tried at the present term of court. +There need be nothing humiliating or embarrassing for you here in +Glendale. Sam Jorkins will take you over to Jefferson on the midnight +train, and you needn't see any of the home-town folks unless you want +to." +</P> + +<P> +Remembering the clammy handshakings of the forenoon, I thought I should +never again want to see anybody that I knew. And thus I made the +second of the miserable blunders which led to all that followed. +</P> + +<P> +"Let it be that way," I said. "If Jorkins will go with me up to Mrs. +Thompson's so that I can get a few things and pack a grip——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course," said Whitredge, readily enough. "I'll have a carriage +to take you to the train, and it can drive around by your +boarding-house. But you mustn't try to run away. I suppose you +wouldn't do anything like that, would you?—even if you had a good +chance?" +</P> + +<P> +I turned upon him as quick as a flash. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean that you're trying to give me a hint that I'd better run +away?" I demanded. +</P> + +<P> +He took a step toward the cell door and I had a fleeting impression +that he was listening to determine whether or not there was any one in +the corridor. When he faced me again he was frowning reprovingly. +</P> + +<P> +"I am a member of the bar in good standing," he reminded me stiffly. +"If you knew the first letter of the legal alphabet you'd know that I +couldn't advise a client to run away." +</P> + +<P> +"Damn the legal alphabet!" I broke out hotly. "You're a man, Cy +Whitredge; and I'm another man and in trouble. Can't you drop the +professional cant for half a minute and talk straight?" +</P> + +<P> +At this he shook his head again. +</P> + +<P> +"It would prejudice your case mighty badly—that is, if you should try +it and not succeed. On the other hand—but no; I won't say another +word. Your best friend wouldn't advise you to make such a break. +Besides, you have no money, and you couldn't get very far without it. +I shouldn't even think of it, if I were you. Dwelling on a thing like +that sometimes gives it a chance to get hold of you. But this is all +foolishness, of course. You are going to Jefferson, and you'll take +your medicine like a man if you have to. That's all, I believe, for +the present. Keep a stiff upper lip, and if anybody comes to see you, +don't talk too much. I'll be over at the county seat in a day or two, +and we'll thresh it out some more." +</P> + +<P> +After Runnels had brought me my supper, and I had nothing to do but to +wait for the constable and train-time, I did the very thing that +Whitredge had advised me not to do; I couldn't get it out of my mind +that freedom at any price was now the most desirable thing on earth—in +the universe, for that matter. It was facilely easy to picture a +future in some far distant corner of the country where I might begin +all over again and make good. Other men had done it. Every once in a +while I had read in the newspapers the story of some fellow who had +eluded his fate, deserved or otherwise, years before and had lived and +builded anew and in a fashion to win the applause of all men. +</P> + +<P> +Because I had lived in a small town the better part of my life, I had +the mistaken notion that the world is very wide and that there must be +no end of safe hiding-places for the man who needs to seek one. From +that to imagining the possible details was only a series of steps, each +one carrying me a little nearer to the brink of decision. As I have +said, I had money of my own in the bank vault; much more than enough to +bribe easy-going Sam Jorkins, the constable who, as Whitredge had said, +was to take me to Jefferson. I weighed and measured all the chances +and hazards, and there were only two for which I could not provide in +advance. There was a possibility that Geddis might be staying late in +the bank; and if he were not, there was the other possibility that he +might have changed the combination on the vault lock since my arrest. +</P> + +<P> +The more I thought about it, the more fiercely the escape notion +gripped me. Whitredge's talk had made it perfectly plain that the best +I could hope for in a court trial would be a light sentence. As +train-time drew near, the obsession pushed reason and all the scruples +aside. If I could only persuade Jorkins to let me go to the bank on +the drive to the station—— +</P> + +<P> +The town clock in the tower of the new city hall was striking eleven +when good old John Runnels and the constable came for me. At the final +moment I was telling myself feverishly that it would be of no use for +me to try to bribe honest Sam Jorkins; that this was the fatal weakness +in my plan of escape. Hence, I could have shouted for joy when Runnels +unlocked the cell door and turned me over, not to Jorkins, but to a +stranger; a hard-faced man roughly dressed, and with the scar of a +knife slash across his right cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"This is Bill Simmons, a deputy from Jefferson, Bertie; come to take +you over to the county ja—to the sheriff's office," said Runnels. +"I've told him he ain't goin' to have no use for them handcuffs he's +brought along." +</P> + +<P> +"That may be," growled the sheriff's messenger. "All the same, I ain't +takin' no chances—not me!" and with that he whipped the manacles from +his pocket. But Runnels intervened quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Nary!—not here in my shop, you don't, Simmons," he said. "For two +cents I'd go along with Bertie, myself, if only to see to it that he +gets a fair show. You treat him right and white, or I'll fire you out, +warrant or no warrant!" +</P> + +<P> +When we reached the street I said I wanted to go around by way of my +boarding-house for a change of clothing. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all been 'tended to," said the surly deputy, with a jerk of his +thumb toward a suitcase in the seat beside the driver of the hack +carriage. "You get in and keep quiet; that's all you've got to do." +</P> + +<P> +After this he said nothing and made no further move until we were +jouncing along on our way to the railroad station. Then, without +warning, he turned upon me suddenly and tried to snap the hand-cuffs on +my wrists. +</P> + +<P> +It was all I was waiting for; something to pull the trigger. In a +flash the savage, which, in the best of us, lies but skin-deep under +the veneer of habit and the civilized conventions, leaped alive. There +was a fierce grapple in the interior of the darkened carriage—fierce +but silent—and the blood sang in my veins when I found that I was more +than a match for the scar-faced deputy. With fingers to throat I +choked him into submission, and when I had taken his pistol and +hand-cuffed him with his own manacles, the step that made me a criminal +in fact had been overpassed. +</P> + +<P> +"One yip out of you, and you get a bullet out of your own gun!" I +warned him; and then I got speech with the driver, a squat, thickset +Irishman, whose face and brogue were both strange to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Drive to the Farmers' Bank—side door—and be quick about it!" I +called to him over the lowered window-sash. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm hired to go to the train. Who's payin' me for the side-trip?" he +queried impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"I am," I snapped; adding: "There's money in it for you if you put the +whip on." +</P> + +<P> +He obeyed the order with what might have seemed suspicious readiness, +if I had been cool enough to consider it, and a minute or two later the +hack ground its wheels against the curb at the side door of the bank +building. With the pistol at his ribs I pushed the deputy out ahead of +me. My keys were still in my pocket—Runnels hadn't searched me for +anything—and I opened the door and entered, driving Simmons a step in +advance. +</P> + +<P> +The bank was untenanted, as I knew it would be if Geddis should not be +there, since we had never employed a night watchman. At that time of +night there was nothing stirring in the town, and in the midnight +silence the ticking of the clock on the wall over Abel Geddis's desk +crashed into the stillness like the blows of a hammer. I made the +deputy sit down under the vault light while I worked the combination. +The lock had not been changed, and the door opened at the first trial. +</P> + +<P> +Again pushing Simmons ahead of me, I entered the vault. It was a +fairly modern structure; Geddis had had it rebuilt within the year; and +it was electric-lighted and large enough to serve the double purpose of +a bank strong-room and a safety deposit. Shoving the deputy into a +corner I opened the cash-box and took out the exact amount of my +savings, neither more nor less. Simmons stretched his neck and leered +at me with an evil grin. +</P> + +<P> +"You're the fine little crook, all right enough," he remarked. "They +was sayin' over at Jefferson that you was a Sunday-school +sup'rintendent, or somethin' o' that sort. Them kind is always the +flyest." +</P> + +<P> +It struck me suddenly that he was taking his defeat pretty easily, but +there was no time for a nice weighing of other men's motives. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm fly enough to give you what's coming to you," I said; and with +that I snapped off the electric light, darted out, slammed the vault +door and shot the bolts. For a few hours at least, during the latter +part of which he might have to breathe rather bad air, the deputy was +an obstruction removed. +</P> + +<P> +My hurriedly formed plan of escape would probably have made a +professional criminal weep; but it was the only one I could think of on +the spur of the moment. In the next county, at a distance of +thirty-odd miles, there was another railroad. If I could succeed in +bribing the Irish hack-driver, I might be far on my way before the bank +vault would be opened and the alarm given. +</P> + +<P> +The Irishman took my money readily enough and offered no objections +when I told him what I wished to do. Also, he claimed to be familiar +with the cross-country road to Vilasville, saying that he could set me +down in the village before daylight. Oddly enough, he made no comment +on the absence of the deputy, and seemed quite as willing to haul one +passenger as two. With my liberal bribe for a stimulant he whipped up +his horses, and in a few minutes we were out of town and rolling +smoothly along the intercounty pike. +</P> + +<P> +For a time the sudden break with all the well-behaved traditions kept +me awake and in a fever heat of excitement. But along in the small +hours the monotonous <I>clack-clack</I> of the horses' hoofs on the +limestone pike and the steady rumbling of the wheels quieted me. +Reflecting that I had had little sleep the night before, and that the +way ahead would be perilous enough to ask for sharpened faculties and a +well-rested body, I braced myself in a corner of the carriage and +closed my eyes. +</P> + +<P> +When I awakened, after what seemed like only the shortest hand-space of +dreamless oblivion, a misty dawn was breaking and the carriage was +stopped in a town street and in front of a brick building with barred +windows. While I was blinking and rubbing my eyes in astoundment, a +big, bearded man whose face was strangely familiar opened the door and +whipped the captured pistol from the seat. +</P> + +<P> +"This was one time when the longest way 'round was the shortest way +home," chuckled the big pistol-snatcher quizzically. And then: "Old Ab +Withers seems to know you better than most of us do, Bert. He told me +I'd better not risk you on the train with just one Glendale constable; +that I'd better send a rig and two deputies after you, if I wanted to +make sure o' seein' you. What have you done with Simmons?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," he said. "Climb down out o' that and come on in. The +jig's up." +</P> + +<P> +It was not until I was standing on the sidewalk beside the gigantic +sheriff, with the Irishman grinning at me from his seat in the hack, +that I realized fully what had happened. Instead of taking me to +Vilasville, the driver, who was Simmons's partner and fellow deputy, +had changed his route while I was asleep and brought me to the county +seat. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +In the Name of the Law +</H3> + + +<P> +Of course, I didn't have to wait until Whitredge came over to the +county seat to learn that I had hopelessly cooked my goose by the +clumsy attempt at an escape. What I did not suspect then, nor, indeed, +for a long time afterward, was the possibility that Withers or Geddis, +or both of them, had forestalled me in the matter of bribing the two +deputies; that my foolish attempt had been anticipated, and that +Whitredge, himself, was not wholly above suspicion as an accessory +before the fact. For it was his thinly veiled suggestion that put the +thing into my head. +</P> + +<P> +However, that is neither here nor there. With the charge before it, +the grand jury quickly brought in a true bill against me; and on the +plea of the county prosecuting attorney my case was advanced on the +docket and set for trial within the week, the argument for haste being +the critical state of affairs in the business of the Farmers' Bank of +Glendale; a state of affairs which demanded that the responsibility for +certain shortages in the bank's assets be fixed immediately as between +the accused bookkeeper and cashier and his superiors. Whitredge +brought me word of this hurry-up proposal, and either was, or pretended +to be, properly indignant over the unseemly haste. +</P> + +<P> +"You just say the word, Bert, and I'll have the case postponed until +the next term of court, or else I'll know the reason why!" he blustered +stoutly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I wish to have it postponed, when the delay would merely +mean six months more of jail for me?" I objected. +</P> + +<P> +"It might give us some chance to frame up some sort of a defense; and, +besides, it would give public opinion a little time to die down," he +suggested. "I say it isn't fair to try you while everybody's hot and +excited and wrathy about the money loss. Still, if you think you're +all ready, and want to take the chance——" +</P> + +<P> +He knew I did, and was only egging me on. What he and all the rest of +them were working for was to get me out of the way as swiftly as +possible. I knew this afterward, after I had time to think it out and +piece it together; and God knows, they gave me all the time I needed to +do the thinking. +</P> + +<P> +So, with the prisoner's counsel making no motion to the contrary, the +trial date stood, and shortly I found myself in the dock, with good old +Judge Haskins peering down at me over the top of his spectacles. Like +many of the older people in the county, the judge had known my father +well, and I am willing to believe that it was not easy for him to sit +in judgment upon that father's son. +</P> + +<P> +The trial was fair enough, as such things go. In the selection of the +jury, Whitredge made free use of his challenging privilege; but it +seemed to me that he always objected to the intelligent man and chose +the other kind. When our Anglo-Saxon ancestors fought for the right of +trial by jury, and got it, they passed down to us a sword with two +edges. Their idea, which was embodied in the common law, was that a +man should be tried by a jury of his peers. But the way things have +worked out, the man of average intelligence is apt to have to face a +dozen jurors who are chosen partly for their lack of intelligence, and +partly because their earning ability is so low that they are willing to +serve for the paltry wage of a juror, whatever it may be. +</P> + +<P> +So far as the presentation of the case went, the county attorney had it +all his own way. Certain of the bank's moneys were missing, and they +had been replaced by worthless mining stock. Specifically, the charge +was that I had been borrowing the bank's money and investing it in the +mining stock—all without authority from anybody higher up—and that at +the last I had grown panic-stricken, or something, and had turned the +stock in as part of the bank's assets. +</P> + +<P> +Chandler, the prosecuting attorney, called only two witnesses, Withers +and Fitch. They both testified that they had heard me admit that I was +guilty. There were no details given which could involve Agatha Geddis. +It was merely stated that my admission of guilt was made at Abel +Geddis's house, and both witnesses asserted that Geddis himself was not +present. +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge leaned over and whispered to me while this evidence was being +taken. +</P> + +<P> +"Chandler knows, and we all know, that this acknowledgment of yours was +made in a talk with Miss Geddis. We are all willing to spare her the +humiliation of being brought into court. But it is your perfect right +to have her called if you wish it." +</P> + +<P> +Knowing well enough by this time what I was in for, I was still foolish +enough, or besotted enough, to shake my head. "I don't wish it," I +said; and since this was practically telling Whitredge not to do so, he +did not cross-examine the two witnesses. +</P> + +<P> +When the prosecution rested, Whitredge took up his line of defense. He +tried to show, rather lamely, I thought, that I had always lived within +my means, hadn't been dissipated, and had never been known to bet, +either on horse races or on the stock market; that whatever I had done +had been done without criminal intent. In this part of the trial I had +a heart-warming surprise. The afternoon train from Glendale brought a +big bunch of young people, and a good sprinkling of older ones, all +eager to testify to my former good character. I saw then how unfair I +had been in the bitterness of that first day. The shock of my arrest +had simply dammed up the sympathy stream like a sudden frost; but now +the reaction had come and I was not without friends. That little +demonstration went with me though many a long and weary day afterward. +</P> + +<P> +Naturally, the greater part of this "character evidence" was thrown out +as irrelevant. The trial wasn't held for the purpose of ascertaining +what sort of a young man I had been in the past. It was supposed to be +an attempt to get at the facts in a particular case; and according to +the testimony of two uncontradicted witnesses, I had admitted these +facts. +</P> + +<P> +Chandler said nothing about my attempt to escape until he came to +address the jury. But then he drove the nail in good and hard. The +deputy sheriff, Simmons, bruised and beaten, was shown to the jurors, +and the prosecuting attorney made much of the fact that I had not +stopped at a possible murder in shutting Simmons up in the bank vault. +There was nothing said about the bribe to the other deputy who had +figured as the hack driver; from which I inferred that the Irishman had +pocketed my money and held his peace. +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge's summing-up was as lame in effect as it was rantingly +emotional. He liked to hear himself talk, and his stock in trade as a +criminal lawyer consisted mainly of perfervid appeals to the sympathies +of his juries. Here, he pleaded, with the tremolo stop pulled all the +way out, was a young man whose entire future would be blasted—and all +that sort of thing. It hadn't the slightest effect upon the group of +stolid hill farmers and laborers in the box who sat and yawned through +it, and I fancy it wasn't intended to have any. +</P> + +<P> +Good old Judge Haskins's charge to the jury was all that a fair and +upright judge could make it. He was no party to the agreement between +the attorneys to keep Agatha Geddis out of it, or even to any knowledge +of it, as he proved by pointing out to the jury the lack of detail in +Fitch's and Withers's testimony. Also, he cautioned the twelve not to +make too much of the attempted escape. He said—what most judges +wouldn't have said—that the attempt was entirely extraneous to the +charge upon which I had been arraigned; that it was not to be taken as +a presumption of guilt; that it proved nothing either way. He added +that an innocent man badly involved might be as easily terrified into +taking flight as a guilty one. If the jury, upon due deliberation, +should be convinced that I had misappropriated the bank's funds, the +verdict should be "Guilty"; but not otherwise. +</P> + +<P> +It was merely in conformity with time-honored custom that the jurymen +rose and left the box and filed out of the court-room, I am sure, for +they were back again in almost no time. Though I had every reason to +expect it, the low-voiced verdict of "Guilty as charged" struck me like +the blow of a fist. +</P> + +<P> +"Brace up and be a man!" Whitredge leaned over to whisper in my ear; +and then the good old judge, with his voice shaking a little, +pronounced my sentence. Five years was the minimum for the offense +with which I stood charged. But a law recently passed gave the judges +a new power. Within the nominal period of five years my sentence was +made indeterminate. The law was vindicated and I became a convict. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Scars +</H3> + + +<P> +I was twenty-five years old, almost to a day, when Judge Haskins +pronounced the words which were to make me for the next five years or +less—the period to be determined upon my good behavior—an inmate of the +State penitentiary. Lacking the needful good behavior, five long years +would be taken out of the best part of life for me, and what was worse (I +realized this even in the tumultuous storm of first-moment impressions +and emotions), my entire point of view was certain to be hopelessly +twisted and distorted for all the years that I might live beyond my +release. +</P> + +<P> +Surely little blame can attach to the confession that out of the tumult +came a hot-hearted and vindictive determination to live for a single +purpose; to work and strive and endure so that I might be the sooner free +to square my account with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. I need make no +secret now of the depth of this hatred. At times, when the obsession was +strongest upon me, the fear that one or both of them might die before my +chance should come was almost maddening. They were both old men, and in +the nature of things there was always a possibility that death might +forestall me. +</P> + +<P> +So it was this motive at first that made me jealous of my good-conduct +marks; made me study the prison regulations and live up to them with a +rigidity that knew no lapses. I am not defending the motive; I +cheerfully admit that it was unworthy. None the less, I owe it +something: it sustained me and kept me sane and cool-headed at a time +when, without some such stimulus, I might have lost my reason. +</P> + +<P> +Of the three succeeding years and what they brought or failed to bring +the least said will be, perhaps, the soonest mended. I am glad to be +able to write it down that my native State had, and still has, a fairly +enlightened prison system; or at least it is less brutalizing than many +others. During my period of incarceration the warden-in-office was an +upright and impartial man, just to his charges and even kindly and +fatherly when the circumstances would warrant. After my steady +determination to earn an early release became apparent, I was made a +"trusty," and for two of the three years I was the prison bookkeeper. +</P> + +<P> +Study as I might, I could never determine how the prison life affected my +associates; but for me it held few real hardships beyond the confinement, +the disgrace, and the fear that before I could outlive it I should become +a criminal in fact. Fight the idea as we may, environment, association, +and suggestion have a great deal to say to the human atom. I was treated +as a criminal, was believed to be a criminal, and mingled daily with +criminals. Put yourself in my place and try to imagine what it would +make of you in three changes of the calendar. +</P> + +<P> +During the three years I received but one letter from home, and wrote but +one. Almost as soon as my sentence period began I had a heart-broken +letter from my sister. She and my mother had returned from Canada, only +to find me dead and buried to the world. I answered the letter, begging +her not to write again, or to expect me to write. It seemed a refinement +of humiliation to have the home letters come addressed to me in a prison; +and besides, I was like the sick man who turns his face to the wall, +wishing neither to see nor to hear until the paroxysm has passed. I may +say here that both of these good women respected my wishes and my foolish +scruples. They wrote no more; and, what was still harder for my mother, +I think, they made no journeys half across the State on the prison +visiting days. +</P> + +<P> +It will be seen that I have cut the time down from the five-year limit +imposed by my sentence; and so it was cut down in reality. After I had +been promoted to the work in the prison offices my life settled into a +monotonous routine, with nothing eventful or disturbing to mark the +passing weeks and months; and by living strictly within the prison +requirements, working faithfully, and never once earning even a reprimand +from the kindly warden or his deputy, I was given the full benefit of my +"good time," and at the end of the third year, with a prison-provided +suit on my back and five dollars of the State's money in my pocket, I was +paroled. +</P> + +<P> +Though I have been its beneficiary and victim, and have been made to +suffer cruelly under its restrictions, I make here no arraignment of the +law which provides in some States—my own among the number—for the +indeterminate prison sentence. The reform was doubtless conceived in +mercy and a true spirit of sociological lenity toward the offender. But +in practice it may be so surrounded with safeguards and limitations, so +wrapped up in provisos and conditions, as to completely defeat its own +end and reverse its intent. +</P> + +<P> +Under the law as it stood—and still stands, I believe—in my own +commonwealth, I was required to remain in the State; to report, at least +once a month, by letter to the prison authorities, and in person to the +chief of police in any city in which I might be living; to retain my own +name; and to bind myself to tell a straightforward story of my conviction +and imprisonment at any time and to any one who should require it. The +omission to comply with any of these restrictions and requirements would +automatically cancel my parole and subject me to arrest and +re-imprisonment for the unexpired period of the original sentence. +</P> + +<P> +Again I ask you to put yourself in the place of a man paroled under such +conditions. With such handicaps, what possible chance can a released man +have to secure honest employment? Fortunately for me, I was still only +twenty-eight—young and hopeful; and I started out to do my best, saying +only that nothing should tempt me to go back to Glendale where, I was +told, my mother and sister were still living in retirement and under the +shadow of the family disgrace. +</P> + +<P> +Knowing that the released convict usually heads for the largest city he +can reach, thus obeying the common-sense instinct which prompts him to +lose himself quickly in a crowd, I planned to do the opposite thing. I +told myself that I was not a criminal, and therefore would not follow the +criminal's example. I would board an interurban trolley and expend a +portion of my five dollars in reaching some obscure town in a distant +part of the State, where I would begin the new life honestly and openly +in any employment that might offer. +</P> + +<P> +There was nobody to meet me as I forthfared from the prison gates, but I +was not expecting any one and so was not disappointed. None the less, on +my way to the central trolley station I had a half-confirmed conviction +that I was followed; that the follower had been behind me all the way +from the prison street. +</P> + +<P> +After making several fruitless attempts I finally succeeded in fixing +upon the particular person in the scattering sidewalk procession who made +all the turns that I made, keeping always a few paces in the rear. He +was a man of about my own age, round-faced and rather fleshy. In my +Glendale days I should have set him down at once as a traveling salesman. +He looked the part and dressed it. +</P> + +<P> +Farther along, upon reaching the interurban station, I was able to +breathe freer and to smile at the qualms of my new-liberty nervousness. +Just as I was parting with two of my five dollars for a ticket to the +chosen destination my man came up to the ticket window, followed by a +hotel porter carrying a grip and a sample case. I saw then how facilely +easy it was going to be to take fright at shadows. Evidently the young +man was a salesman, and his apparent pursuit of me had been merely a +coincidence in corner turnings. And in the recoil from the apprehensive +extreme I refused to attach any significance to the fact that he was +purchasing a ticket to the same distant town to which I had but now paid +my own passage. +</P> + +<P> +During the leisurely five-hour run across the State the object of my +suspicions—my foolish suspicions, I was now calling them—paid no +attention to me, so far as I could determine. Save for the few minutes +at noon when the interurban car stopped to permit its passengers to +snatch a hasty luncheon at a farm-town restaurant, he did not once leave +his place, which was two seats behind mine and on the opposite side of +the car. On the contrary, like a seasoned traveler, he made himself +comfortable behind the barricade of hand-baggage and wore out the entire +time with sundry newspapers and magazines. Moreover, at our common +destination he did not follow me to the one old-fashioned hotel; instead, +he led the way to it, and was buying a cigar at the little counter +show-case when I came up to bargain, with another of my precious dollars, +for the supper, lodging and breakfast which were to launch me upon the +new career. +</P> + +<P> +After this, I saw the fat-faced traveling man but twice, and both times +casually. At supper he had a small table to himself in one corner of the +room; and the following morning, when I went out to lay siege to my new +world, he was smoking in the hotel office and again buried in a +newspaper. Two hours later I had found employment driving a grocer's +delivery wagon, and in the triumph of having so soon found even this +humblest of footholds in a workaday world, I had completely forgotten him. +</P> + +<P> +Having thus made my cast for fortune and secured the foothold, it took me +less than a week to learn that I had made a capital mistake in choosing a +small town. Under that condition of my parole which required me to +report in my true character to the town marshal I assured myself that I +might as well have published my story in the county newspaper. Before +the end of the week half of my customers on the delivery route were +beginning to look askance at me, and when the Saturday night came I was +discharged. I knew perfectly well what was coming when the boss, a +big-bodied, good-natured man who had made his money as a farmer and was +now losing it as the town grocer, called me into his little box of an +office at the back of the shop. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, Weyburn; when I asked you where you had been working before you +came here, you didn't tell me the truth," was the way he began on me. +</P> + +<P> +"I told you I had worked in a bank in Glendale," I protested; "which was +and is the truth." +</P> + +<P> +"I know; but you didn't tell me that you'd put in the last three years in +the pen, and were out on parole." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I didn't tell you that. But I would have told you if you had asked +me." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't stand for it," he grumbled, chewing at the unlighted cigar which +was his Saturday night indulgence. "And if I could, the customers +wouldn't. I suppose as many as a dozen women have been to me in the last +few days. They say they can't afford to be watchin' the back door every +time you come 'round with the groceries. You see how it is." +</P> + +<P> +I saw; but I was still foolish enough to try to stem the pitiless tide. +</P> + +<P> +"Would it make any difference if I were to say that I was as innocent of +the crime for which I was convicted as any of these frightened women?" I +suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"They all say that," was the colorless retort. "The point is, Weyburn, +that you was convicted. There ain't no gettin' 'round that. You've worn +the stripes, and you'll just have to make up your mind to live it down +before you can expect people to forget it." +</P> + +<P> +If I hadn't been the wretched victim of this paradox it might have +provoked a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"How am I ever going to live it down, Mr. Bucks, if nobody will give me a +chance?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I know," he agreed readily enough. "But I'm losin' money here, every +day, as it is, and I can't afford to make experiments. I'm sorry for +you, honestly, Weyburn; but you see how it is." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see," I returned. "You think I ought to be given a chance, but +you prefer to have somebody else give it to me. I don't blame you. +Perhaps under similar conditions I'd do the same thing myself. Pay me +and I'll disappear." +</P> + +<P> +He did pay me, and tried to give me two dollars more than the agreed +weekly wage, generously putting it upon the ground of the lack of notice. +I shall always be glad that I still had pride enough left to refuse the +charity. Even at this early twisting of the thumb-screws I was beginning +to realize that self-respect would be the first thing to go by the board, +and the fight to save it was almost instinctive. +</P> + +<P> +Before leaving Bucks I tried to find out how he had learned my story; +this though I was definitely charging the exposure to the town marshal as +being the only person who could have spread it abroad. To my surprise, +the grocer defended the marshal promptly and warmly. +</P> + +<P> +"That shows how little you know Cal Giddings," he retorted. "He's the +last man on top of earth to go 'round givin' you a black eye of that +sort." +</P> + +<P> +"May I ask what reason you have for thinking so?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure you may. I've known Cal ever since we was little kids together. +I've seen him every day this week, and he knew you was workin' for me. +If he'd 'a' told anybody, it would 'a' been me; you can bet your hat on +that." +</P> + +<P> +"Then where did you hear the story?" I persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I dunno just where I did hear it first. Everybody in town seems to +know it," he asserted; and with this unsatisfying answer I was obliged to +be contented. +</P> + +<P> +The next attempt was made in a small industrial city on the opposite side +of the State. This time I went to the chief of police as soon as I +arrived, and after making the required report, I had it out with him in +plain speech. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to try to get work here in your city," I said, "and I'd like +to know beforehand how much leeway you are going to give me." +</P> + +<P> +The portly thief-taker leaned back in his chair and regarded me with a +coldly appraisive eye. He was a coarse-featured man with a face that +would have fitted admirably in any rogues' gallery in the land. +</P> + +<P> +"You're in bad, young fellow," he growled. "We've got plenty and more +than enough of your kind in this town, without takin' on any more." +</P> + +<P> +"But I am keeping my parole," I pleaded. "I have come to you like a man +the first thing, and have made my report according to the conditions. +Somebody has got to give me a chance." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll earn it, damn' good and plenty, if you stay here to get it," was +the gruff response. "What kind of a job are you lookin' for?" +</P> + +<P> +It was hard to confide in such a man, even casually, but I had no choice. +</P> + +<P> +"I am willing to take anything I can get, but my experience has been +mostly in office work," I told him; adding: "I suppose I might call +myself a fairly expert bookkeeper." +</P> + +<P> +"Umph!" he grunted, shifting his cigar from one corner of the hard-bitted +mouth to the other. "That means that you want to try for a job where you +can work the till-tapping game again." +</P> + +<P> +Not having as yet learned my lesson line by line, I was incautious enough +to say: "I have yet to work it the first time." +</P> + +<P> +"Like hell you have! See here, young fellow—you needn't spring that +kind of talk on me. I know you and your kind up one side and down the +other. You say you've put three years in 'stir' and that settles it." +At this point he broke off short, righted his chair with a snap and +reached for a bill-spindle on his desk. After a glance at one of the +impaled memoranda he sat back again, chewing his cigar and staring into +vacancy. A full minute elapsed before he deigned to become once more +aware of my presence. Then he whirled upon me to rap out an explosive +question. +</P> + +<P> +"What did you say your name was?" and when I told him: "Aw right; you +come back here this afternoon and we'll see whether you stay or move on. +That's all. Now get out. I'm busy." +</P> + +<P> +I went away and killed time as I could until the middle of the afternoon. +Upon returning to police headquarters I found the hard-faced chief tilted +in his chair with his feet on his desk, looking as if he hadn't moved +since my visit of the forenoon. When he saw who it was cutting off the +afternoon sunlight he straightened up with a growl, rummaged in a file of +papers and jerked out a typewritten sheet which he glanced over as one +who reads only the headings. +</P> + +<P> +"James Bertrand Weyburn, eh?" he rasped. "I know all about you now, and +you may as well can all that didn't-do-it stuff. Forget it and come down +to business. You say you want to hit the straight-and-narrow: how would +a job in a coal yard fit you?—keepin' books and weighin'-in the coal +cars?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him, humbly enough, that I was too nearly a beggar to be a +chooser; that I'd be only too glad to get a chance at anything at which I +might earn a living. +</P> + +<P> +"Aw right," was the curt rejoinder. "You hike over to the Consolidated +Coal Company's yard on the West Side, and tell Mullins, the head +book-keeper, that I sent you, see? Tell him to call me on the 'phone if +he wants to know anything more about you. That's all. Pull your freight +out of here and get busy—if you don't want to get the 'move on' out of +this burg." +</P> + +<P> +Notwithstanding this crabbed speech, matching all the other things this +man had said to me, I left police headquarters with a warm spot in my +heart, thinking that I had lighted upon a diamond in the rough and hadn't +had discernment enough to recognize it. +</P> + +<P> +Yet there was a small mystery thrusting itself into this second interview +with the chief. What was the content of the typewritten sheet he had +consulted, and who had written it? If it had been a telegram I might +have concluded that he had wired the warden of the penitentiary for a +corroboration of my story. But it was not a telegram. +</P> + +<P> +I was still puzzling over the mystery half an hour later when I found the +coal yard and the bookkeeper, Mullins, a red-faced Irishman who winked +solemnly when I told him that Chief Callahan had sent me. +</P> + +<P> +"Know anything at all about the railroad end of the coal business?" was +the first inquiry shot at me; but it was not made until after the +book-keeper had shut himself into the telephone booth, presumably for a +wire talk with Callahan. +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. "None of the details. But I can learn." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe you can, and maybe you can't. We'll try you out on the railroad +desk, and Peters 'll show you what you don't know. Peel your coat and +jump in. Hours eight to six; pay, sixty dollars a month: more bimeby if +you're worth it." +</P> + +<P> +Robert Louis Stevenson's cheerful little opening verse: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Light foot and tight foot,<BR> +And green grass spread;<BR> +Early in the morning,<BR> +And hope is on ahead,"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +was ringing in my ears when I squared myself at the railroad desk and +attacked the first big bunch of "flimsies," as the tissue copies of the +waybills are called. It was almost unbelievable that my luck had turned +so soon, and yet the fact seemed undeniable. I had a job to which I had +been recommended by the one man in the city who knew my record. No +questions had been asked, and the inference seemed to be that none were +going to be asked. +</P> + +<P> +I was all of a busy week getting a firm working hold upon the routine of +my desk, and during that time I didn't exchange a dozen words with +Mullins, who appeared to be the head and front of Consolidated Coal, +locally, at least, and whose word, in the office and about the yards, was +law. None the less, the little mystery connected with this easy finding +of a job in a strange city persisted, and it kept me from dwelling too +pointedly upon the object for which I meant to live and work; namely, the +squaring of accounts with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. +</P> + +<P> +Singularly enough, it took me, trained accountant as I was, a full month +to find out what I had been let in for, and why the job I was holding +down had been given to an ex-convict. It was my duty to check the +railroad waybills on consignments of coal, to correct the weights, and to +make claims for overcharges and shortages. I made these claims as I had +been told to make them, taking the figures of the weights from Peters, +who, in turn, took them from the scale men in the yard. It was Peters +who gave the snap away one night when we two were working overtime in the +otherwise deserted offices. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, Weyburn; you've got about the coldest nerve of any fellow I've ever +run up against," he said, looking up from his place across the +flat-topped desk. +</P> + +<P> +"What makes you say that, Tommy?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Because it's so. I've been watching you. You've been sitting on the +lid for an even month, now, and never batting an eye when these railroad +fellows come at you and make their little roar about the overcharges. +Believe me, it takes nerve to do that—and carry it off as if you were +reading 'em a verse out o' the Bible. Blaisdell, the lad who was here +before you, went batty and talked in his sleep. Told me once he couldn't +see anything but stripes, any way he looked." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, with a sudden sinking +of the heart. "Why should it take nerve to tell a railroad agent he's +been overcharging us?" +</P> + +<P> +Peters's laugh was a cackle. "You're the traffic man of this outfit: do +you know the rates on coal from the mines to Western Central common +points?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I do." +</P> + +<P> +"Got 'em all down in the printed tariff, so you can't help knowing 'em, +eh? Consolidated Coal pays these rates, doesn't it?—all according to +Hoyle and the Interstate Commerce laws?" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose we pay them. I check the bills as they are presented." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. But every little so-while you have to make a whaling big claim +on the railroad company for overcharges, and maybe you've noticed that +these claims are always paid—or maybe you haven't?" +</P> + +<P> +I was beginning to see the hole in the millstone. +</P> + +<P> +"I make the claims on the weights as you give them to me, Peters. Do you +mean to tell me that you've been giving me false figures?" +</P> + +<P> +The yard clerk stuck his tongue in his cheek. "I'm not telling you +anything. You know as well as I do that it's against the law to give or +receive rebates. But if you're not a heap greener than you look, you +know that we're getting our cut rates, just the same. All we need is a +man right here at your desk who has the nerve to make out the claims, and +is fly enough to do a little bluffing and ask no questions. You're all +right, Bertie." +</P> + +<P> +"But the figures of the weights," I insisted. "You are the man who gives +them to me, and you are responsible if they are wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in a thousand years!" was the prompt retort. "I never put anything +on paper—you're the man that does that—and if the Interstate Commerce +people should break in, I'd have the best little forgettery of any +clock-watcher in the works. Nix for me, Weyburn; you are the chap with +the figures, and the only man in the shop who has them down in black on +white. When the roar comes, it'll be up to you, and Mullins will throw +up his hands and accuse you of having a private graft of some sort with +the railroad clerks in the claim office. That's about what he'll do." +</P> + +<P> +My overtime companion had finished his job and was putting on his coat. +I let him go without further talk, but after he had gone, I stayed long +enough to check over the files of the yard-master's blotter. When the +checking was completed I knew perfectly well why I had been hired so +promptly, and why Mullins had been willing to take on an ex-convict. My +basing figures, which Peters had been giving me verbally, were all wrong. +The majority of the claims I had been making from day to day were +fraudulent, and in paying them the railroad company was merely rebating +the coal rates for Consolidated Coal. +</P> + +<P> +It was easy to see where I stood. A scapegoat was necessary, and with a +prison record behind me I had about as much show as a rat in a trap. If +there should be an investigation, Mullins would swear that I had entire +charge of the claim department. And having no written data to fall back +upon, I should be helpless. +</P> + +<P> +The date of this disheartening discovery chanced to be the 25th of the +month—our regular pay-day, and I had my month's salary in my pocket when +I left the office about eleven o'clock to go to my boarding-house. At +the nearest street corner I met the patrolman on the beat. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, cully!" he growled as I was passing him; and then with a hand on +my arm he stopped me. "You're forgettin' somethin', ain't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess not," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess yes," he retorted. "It's pay-day at the works, and you gotta +come across." +</P> + +<P> +Here was the remainder of the conspiracy made plain as day. The crooked +chief of police had turned me over to the crooked coal company to do +crooked work, and I was to be held up for a graft on my salary. With a +swift return of the blood-boiling which had once helped me to manhandle +the deputy, Simmons, I faced the patrolman. +</P> + +<P> +"And if I don't come across—what then?" +</P> + +<P> +The policeman grinned good-naturedly. "You're goin' to 'produce' all +right. You're a paroled man, and you can't afford to have the chief get +it in for you." +</P> + +<P> +It was just here that the three nerve-breaking years got in their work. +I couldn't face the grafter down, and—I confess it with shame—I was +horribly afraid. +</P> + +<P> +"How much?" I asked, and my tongue was dry in my mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the first mont', and we'll let you down easy. You fork over a +ten-spot for the campaign fund and we'll call it square. Next mont' +it'll be more." +</P> + +<P> +I paid the blackmail with trembling hands, and when the patrolman was out +of sight around the corner I ran to reach my boarding place, intent only +upon flight, instant and secret, from this moral cesspool of a city. I +remembered that there was a westbound train passing through at midnight, +and by hurrying I hoped to be able to catch it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Downward Path +</H3> + + +<P> +I had left the board money and a note for my landlady on the mantel in +the darkened dining-room, had reached the railroad station, and was +about to buy a ticket to the farthest corner of the State, when I +suddenly remembered that I was running away with an additional handicap +to be added to all the others. Leaving the coal company and the city +without notice or explanation, I was making it impossible to keep my +record clear in the monthly report to the prison authorities. +</P> + +<P> +With a sinking heart I realized that I must wait and fight it out with +Mullins to some sort of a conclusion which would give me a clean slate. +There must be nothing that I could not explain clearly to any one who +might ask. I had a job, and I must be able to give my reason for +quitting it. With this new entanglement to put leaden shoes on my +feet, I retraced my steps through the eight weary blocks to the +boarding-house, dodging through back streets and walking because I +hadn't the nerve to face the cheerful throng of theater-goers at that +hour crowding the street-cars. +</P> + +<P> +I think Mullins knew or suspected what was coming when I went to him +the next morning and told him I wished to have a talk with him. +Without a word he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the little +private office which was used at odd times by the district manager. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm quitting this morning, Mr. Mullins," I began, when the door was +shut. "If my work has been satisfactory, I should like to have a +letter of recommendation." +</P> + +<P> +The bookkeeper smoked a corn-cob pipe, and he stopped to refill and +light it before he opened on me. +</P> + +<P> +"What's wrong?" he demanded. For an Irishman he was always exceedingly +sparing of his words. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose we say that the climate doesn't agree with me here." +</P> + +<P> +"You're no sick man!" he shot back; and then: "Want more pay?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I want a letter of recommendation." +</P> + +<P> +"We never give 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"So I have heard. But this time, Mr. Mullins, you are going to make an +exception and break your rule." +</P> + +<P> +"Not for you, we won't." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not for me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because we're knowing your record. You're fixing to go back to the +pen, where you came from." +</P> + +<P> +"You knew my record when you hired me. Chief Callahan gave it to you, +and I knew that he did. But that is neither here nor there; I want my +letter, and I want you to say in it that I am leaving to look for a +more favorable climate." +</P> + +<P> +"And if I don't give it to you?—if I tell you to go straight plumb to +hell?" +</P> + +<P> +"In that case I shall take all the chances—<I>all</I> of them, mind +you—-and write a letter to the Interstate Commerce Commission." +</P> + +<P> +If the man had had a gun in his hands I believe he would have killed +me. There was manslaughter in his little gray, pig-like eyes. But he +recovered himself quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"If you're that kind of a gink, I'm damned glad to get rid of you at +any price," he rasped; and then went to the district manager's desk and +wrote me the letter, "To Whom it may Concern," practically as I +dictated it. +</P> + +<P> +That ended it, and when the letter was signed and flung across the desk +at me I lost no time in getting out of the noxious atmosphere of the +place. But before I was well out of the yard it occurred to me that I +had still left a loaded weapon in Mullins's hands. Though the threat +of exposure might tie him and his grafting coal company up, he could +still appeal to Callahan, who would doubtless find an excuse for +arresting me before I could leave town. And once in the hands of the +chief crook I should be lost. +</P> + +<P> +Under the spur of this new menace I returned quickly to the coal +office, with some inchoate idea of trying to bully the scoundrelly +chief of police through the hold I had acquired upon the coal company. +The office was empty when I reached it, and at first I thought Mullins +had gone out. But at a second glance I saw that he was in the +telephone closet, the door of which he had left ajar. Overhearing my +own name barked into the transmitter, I listened without scruple. +</P> + +<P> +"——Yes, Weyburn; that's what I'm telling you. He's flew the +coop.… Yes, he knows something—too damned much.… No, I +wouldn't snag him here; he might talk too loud and get somebody to +believe him—some fool in a Federal grand jury, for instance. Let him +go—with a plain-clothes man to find out where he heads for—and then +wire that outfit that piped him off when he came here. That'll settle +him." +</P> + +<P> +There may have been more of it, but I did not wait to hear. Speed was +my best chance now, and I slipped out noiselessly and ran for the +railroad station. If I should be lucky enough to find a train ready to +leave, I might yet hope to escape whatever trap it might be that the +bookkeeper and his official accomplice were going to set for me. +</P> + +<P> +Reaching the station I found that the first train through would be a +westbound, and that it was not due for half an hour. The wait was +painfully trying. I did not dare to buy a ticket for fear Callahan +might have telephoned the ticket office. As the passengers for the +expected train straggled in I sought vainly to identify the spy who was +undoubtedly among them; and when the train thundered up to the platform +I made haste to board it and to lose myself quickly in the crowded +smoking-car. Later, when the conductor made his round, I paid a cash +fare to the end of the division, forbearing to draw a full breath of +relief until the cesspool city had faded to a smoky blur on the horizon. +</P> + +<P> +With time to think, I began to puzzle anxiously over the new +development of mystery opened up by the overheard telephone talk. Who +or what was the "outfit" that had been meddling in my sorry +affair?—that was to be wired when my new destination should be +ascertained? One by one the suspicious circumstances remarshaled +themselves; the feeling that I had been spied upon, the speedy +publicity which my story had attained in the town where I had made my +earliest attempt at wage-earning, the memorandum which Chief Callahan +had consulted before sending me to the crooked coal company. It seemed +singular to me afterward that the one answer to all of these small +mysteries should not have suggested itself at once. But it did not. +</P> + +<P> +The end of the conductor's run—the point which I had paid fare—came +at midday at the capital of the State, where there was a stop long +enough to enable the train's people—or those who chose to evade the +dining-car—to seek a lunch counter. I went with the others and had a +frugal sandwich and a cup of coffee, hastening afterward to the station +ticket office to buy a ticket to a town well over toward the western +boundary of my prison State, and chosen haphazard from its location on +the wall-map beside the ticket window. A little later, upon resuming +my seat in the train, I had a small shock. Sitting just across the +aisle, and once more barricaded behind his hand-baggage and buried in a +newspaper, was the round-faced salesman who had been my traveling +companion on the day of my release from prison. +</P> + +<P> +Naturally, all the suspicions I had been harboring for the past few +hours leaped alive again at the sight of this man. But at the second +train stop in the westward flight they were promptly disconnected from +my <I>vis-à-vis</I> across the aisle when the salesman gathered his +belongings and disappeared; left the train—as I made sure by looking +out of the window and seeing him cross the station platform. In the +short run from the capital he had not so much as looked in my +direction, emerging from his newspaper only once for a word with the +conductor at the moment of ticket-collecting. +</P> + +<P> +After he was gone I was able to smile grimly and call it a coincidence, +wondering meanwhile, if one of the consequences of my hideously +disarranged life was to be a lapse into chittering cowardice; an +endless starting aside at shadows. +</P> + +<P> +The new field of endeavor, chosen blindly at the ticket window in the +capital, proved to be a small manufacturing city. Here the chief of +police, to whom I reported on the evening of my arrival, was of a type +exactly opposite to the grafting brute from whose jurisdiction I had +fled; a promoted town-marshal, like John Runnels of Glendale; a +shrewd-eyed, kindly old man who heard my story patiently and gave me a +word of encouragement that was like a draft of cold water in the desert. +</P> + +<P> +"You're goin' to get a square deal in this town, my boy," he said, +after I had enlarged upon my story sufficiently to make it include my +late experience with Callahan and Mullins. "It ain't any part of my +job to bruise the broken reed n'r quench the smokin' flax. You don't +look like a thief, and, anyways, if you're tryin' to make an honest +livin', that settles all the old scores—or it ort to. Go find you a +job, if you can. What you've told me stays right in here"—tapping his +broad chest—"leastwise, it won't be used against you as long as you +walk straight." +</P> + +<P> +Under such kindly auspices it did seem as if I ought to be able to dig +a quiet little rifle-pit in the field of respectability and good repute +and to hold it against all comers. But, oddly enough, I couldn't do +it—not to save my life. My experience had all been in office work, +and since business was good in the small city, I had little difficulty +in finding employment. Yet in each case—and there were five of them, +one after another—I secured work only to lose it almost immediately. +By some means my story had got out, and it spread through the town like +an epidemic. After the fifth failure I went back to the fatherly old +chief of police to confess defeat and to notify him that I was leaving +town. +</P> + +<P> +In this interview he made me tell him more about my trial and +conviction, and when I finished he was shaking his head. "There's +something sort o' queer about this pull-down of yours, Weyburn," he +commented. "I gave you my word not to talk unless you went back on me, +and I've kept it. You hain't told anybody else?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a soul." +</P> + +<P> +"Still, it's been told—not once, but a heap o' times. Have you tried +chasin' it back to its startin' point?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; but it is no good. It seems to be in the air." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's a dum shame. It looks as if you had somebody houndin' you +out o' sheer spite. Is there anybody back behind that would do that?" +</P> + +<P> +I suppose I was bat-blind; but the suggestion, even when it was added +to the mysterious entanglements that were tripping me at every step, +failed to open my eyes. Truly, Abel Geddis and Abner Withers had used +me ruthlessly as their criminal stop-gap, but since I had paid the +penalty and still bore the criminal odium, I could postulate no +possible reason why they should reach out across the three-year +interval to add cruel persecution to injury. +</P> + +<P> +"No," I said, after a reflective pause. "There are only the two old +men I have named. And now that it is all over, I can see that they +were only shoving me into the breach to save themselves." +</P> + +<P> +He nodded, half-doubtfully, I thought; and then: "You're goin' to try +again somewheres else?" +</P> + +<P> +I replied that there was nothing else to do; whereupon this +white-haired old angel, who seemed so vastly out of place as the head +of even a small city's police department, made an astounding proposal. +</P> + +<P> +"Get your bit of dunnage—I s'pose you hain't got very much, have +you?—and come around here about dark this evenin'. I'll have my buggy +ready and we'll drive over to Altamont, so you can take the train there +instead of here. If there's anybody follerin' you up and blacklistin' +you, maybe that'll throw 'em off the track." +</P> + +<P> +It was a splendid bit of kindness; and when I could swallow the lump it +brought into my throat I accepted joyfully. And as the disappearance +was planned, so it was carried out. In the dusk of the evening the +good old man drove me the ten miles across to the neighboring village, +and after thanking him out of a full heart I boarded a train and began +my wanderings afresh. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A Good Samaritan +</H3> + + +<P> +After such a disheartening experience in a community where I had had +the help and countenance of a just and charitable head of the police +department, I went back to the smaller places. Merely because it +seemed foolish to take the time to learn a new trade when I already had +one, I still sought office work. There was little difficulty in +finding such employment—at humble wages; the unattainable thing was +the keeping of it. Though I could never succeed in running it down and +bringing it to bay, a pitiless Nemesis seemed to dog me from town to +town. Gossiping marshals there may have been, now and then, to spread +my story; but I had twice been given proof that another agency must be +at work—a mysterious persecution that I could neither fight nor +outwit, nor account for upon any reasonable hypothesis. +</P> + +<P> +So the hopeless and one-sided battle went on as I fled from post to +pillar up and down and back and forth in the "permitted" area, doing a +bit of extra bookkeeping here and another there. The result was always +the same. Work of that kind necessarily carried more or less +responsibility, and in consequence I was never retained more than a few +days at a time. +</P> + +<P> +It was borne in upon me more and more that I must sink lower, into some +walk in life in which no questions were asked. This conviction +impressed itself upon me with greater emphasis at each succeeding +failure, and the decision to drop into the ranks of the unidentified +was finally reached in a small city in the agricultural section of the +State where I had been employed for a few days in a hardware and +implement store as shipping clerk. Once more I was discharged, +peremptorily, and with a reproachful reprimand for having thrust +myself, unplacarded, upon well-behaved people. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't admit your right to say such things to me, Mr. Haddon," I +protested, after the reproach had been well rubbed in. "I have given +you good service for small pay, and there was no reason why I should +have furnished you with an autobiography when you didn't ask it. In +the circumstances it seems that I am the one to be aggrieved, but I'll +waive the right to defend myself if you'll tell me where you got your +information." +</P> + +<P> +The implement dealer was a thin, ascetic person, with cold gray eyes +and two distinct sets of manners; one for his customers and another for +his employees; and the look he gave me was meant to be withering. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't recognize your right to question me, at all," he objected, +with the air of one who brushes an annoying insect from his +coat-sleeve. "It is enough to say that my source of information is +entirely reliable. By your own act you have placed yourself outside of +the pale. If you break a natural law, Nature exacts the just penalty. +It is the same in the moral field." +</P> + +<P> +"But if any penalty were due from me I have paid it," I retorted. +</P> + +<P> +"No; you have paid only a part of it—the law's part. Society still +has its claims and they must be met; recognized and satisfied to the +final jot and tittle." +</P> + +<P> +Though this man was a church member, and a rather prominent one in +Springville—we may call the small city Springville because that isn't +its real name—I did not accuse him, even mentally, of conscious +hypocrisy. What I said, upon leaving him, was that I hoped he'd never +have to pay any of the penalties himself. I did not know then—what I +learned later—that he was a very whited sepulchre; a man who was +growing rich by a systematic process of robbing his farmer customers on +time sales. +</P> + +<P> +Turned out once again upon an unsympathetic world, I was minded to do +what I had done so many times before—take the first train and vanish. +But a small incident delayed the vanishing—for the moment, at least. +On the way to the railroad station I saw a sight, commoner at that time +in my native State than it is now, I am glad to be able to say; a +young, farmer-looking fellow overcome by liquor, reeling and stumbling +and finding the sidewalk far too narrow. He was coming toward me, and +I yielded to the impulse which prompts most of us at such times; the +disposition to give the inebriate all the room he wants—to pass by, +like the priest and the Levite, on the other side. +</P> + +<P> +Just as I was stepping into the roadway, the drunken man collided +heavily with a telephone pole, caught clumsily at it to save himself, +and fell, striking his head on the curbstone and rolling into the +gutter. It was a case for the Good Samaritan, and, as it happened, +that time-honored personage was at hand. Before I could edge away, as +I confess I was trying to do, a clean-cut young man in the fatigue +uniform of the Church militant came striding across the street. +</P> + +<P> +"Here, you!" he snapped briskly to me. "Don't turn your back that way +on a man needing help! That fellow's hurt!" +</P> + +<P> +We got the pole-bombarder up, between us, and truly he was hurt. There +was a cut over one eye where he had butted into one of the +climbing-steps on the pole, and either that, or the knock on the +curbstone, had made him take the count. Since Springville wasn't +citified enough to have a hospital or an ambulance, I supposed we would +carry the wounded man to the nearest drug store. But my Good Samaritan +wasn't built that way. Hastily commandeering a passing dray, he made +me help him load the unconscious man into it, and the three of us were +trundled swiftly through a couple of cross streets to a—to a church, I +was going to say, but it was to a small house beside the church. +</P> + +<P> +Here, with the help of the driver, we got the John Barleycorn victim +into the house and spread him out on a clean white bed, muddy boots, +sodden clothes, bloody head and all. I asked if I should go for a +doctor, but the Samaritan shook his head. "No," he said; "you and I +can do all that is necessary." Then he paid the dray driver and we +fell to work. +</P> + +<P> +It was worth something to see that handsome, well-built young +theologue—it didn't seem as if he could have been more than a boy +freshly out of the seminary—strip off his coat and roll up his sleeves +and go to it like a veteran surgeon. In a few minutes, with such help +as I could render, he had the cut cleaned and bandaged, the red face +sponged off, and the worst of the street dirt brushed from the man's +clothing. +</P> + +<P> +"That is about all we can do—until he gets over the double effects of +the hurt and the whiskey," he said, when the job was finished; and +then, with a sort of search-warrant look at me: "Are you very busy?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him I was not. +</P> + +<P> +"All right; you stay here with him and keep an eye on him while I go +and find out who he is and where he belongs." And with that he put on +his coat and left the house. +</P> + +<P> +He was gone for over an hour, and during that time I sat by the bed, +keeping watch over the patient and letting my thoughts wander as they +would. Here was a little exhibition of a spirit which had been +conspicuously absent in my later experiences of the world and its +peopling. Apparently the milk of human kindness had not become +entirely a figure of speech. One man, at least, was trying to live up +to the requirements of a nominally Christian civilization, and if this +bit of rescue work were a fair sample, he was making a success of it. +</P> + +<P> +I took it for granted that he was the minister of the next-door church, +and that the house was its parsonage or rectory. It was a simple +story-and-a-half cottage, plainly furnished but exquisitely neat and +home-like. There were books everywhere, and an atmosphere about as +much of the place as I could see to make me decide that it was a man's +house—I mean that the young minister wasn't as yet sharing it with a +woman. You can tell pretty well. A woman's touch about a house +interior is as easily distinguishable as the stars on a clear night. +</P> + +<P> +From my place at the bedside I could look through an open door into the +sitting-room. There were easy-chairs and a writing-table and a general +air of man-comfort. Among the pictures on the walls was one of a +stately group of college buildings; another was a class picture taken +with a church, or perhaps it was the college chapel, for a background. +</P> + +<P> +When the hour was about up, the man on the bed began to stir and show +signs that he was coming out of the unconscious fit. Pretty soon he +opened his eyes and asked, in a liquor-thickened voice, where he was. +I told him he had had an accident and was in the hands of his friends; +and at that he dropped off to sleep, and was still sleeping when a farm +wagon stopped at the cottage gate and the Good Samaritan came in. His +search had been successful. Our broken-winged bird was a young farmer +living a few miles out of town. The young minister had found his team, +and a friend to drive it, and both friend and team were at the gate +ready to take the battered one home. +</P> + +<P> +With the help of the volunteer driver we got the young farmer up and +out and into the wagon; and there the Samaritan outreaching ended—or I +supposed it was ended. But as a matter of fact, it was merely +transferring itself to me. As I was moving off to resume my +interrupted dash for the railroad station, Whitley—I read his name on +the notice board of the near-by church—stopped me. +</P> + +<P> +"What's your hurry?" he asked; adding: "I haven't had time to get +acquainted with you yet." +</P> + +<P> +I answered briefly that I was leaving town, and this brought the +questioner's watch out of his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"There is no train in either direction before nine o'clock this +evening," he demurred. And then: "It is nearly six now: if you haven't +anything better to do, why not stay and take dinner with me? I'm a +lone bachelor-man, and I'd be mighty glad of your company." +</P> + +<P> +The wagon had driven off and the street was empty. I looked my +potential host squarely in the eyes and said the first thing that came +uppermost. +</P> + +<P> +"I have just been discharged from Mr. Haddon's store—for what Mr. +Haddon considers to be good and sufficient cause. I don't believe you +want me at your dinner-table." +</P> + +<P> +His smile was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot summer day. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care what Mr. Haddon has said or done to you. If you can't +give any better reason than that——" +</P> + +<P> +"But I can," I interposed. "I am a paroled convict." +</P> + +<P> +Without another word he opened the gate and drew me inside with an arm +linked in mine. And he didn't speak again until he had planted me in +the easiest of the big chairs before the grate fire in the cozy +sitting-room, and had found a couple of pipes, filling one for me and +the other for himself. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, then, tell me all about it," he commanded, "You are having plenty +of trouble; your face says that much. Begin back a bit and let it lead +up to Mr. Zadoc Haddon as a climax, if you wish." +</P> + +<P> +It had been so long since I had had a chance really to confide in +anybody that I unloaded it all; the whole bitter burden of it. Whitley +heard me through patiently, and when I was done, put his finger on the +single omission in the story. +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't told me whether you did or did not use the bank's money +for your own account in the mining speculation," he said. +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. "I have learned by hard experience not to say much +about that part of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"If you knew convicts you wouldn't ask. They will all tell you that +they were innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced." +</P> + +<P> +He smoked in silence for a minute or two and then said: "You are not a +criminal, Weyburn." +</P> + +<P> +"I am not far from it at the present time—whatever I was in the +beginning." +</P> + +<P> +Another silence, and then: "It seems incredible to me that you, or any +man in your situation, should find the world so hard-hearted. It isn't +hard-hearted as a whole, you know; on the contrary, it is kind and +helpful and charitable to a degree that you'd never suspect until you +appeal to it. I know, because I am appealing to it every day." +</P> + +<P> +Again I shook my head. +</P> + +<P> +"It draws a line in its charity; and the ex-convict is on the wrong +side of that line." I was going on to say more, but at that moment a +white-haired old negro in a spotless serving jacket came to the door to +say that dinner was ready, and we went together to the tiny dining-room +in the rear. +</P> + +<P> +At dinner, which was the most appetizing meal I had sat down to in many +a long day, Whitley told me more about himself, sparing me, as I made +sure, the necessity of further talk about my own wretched experiences. +He was Southern born and bred—which accounted for the old negro +serving man—and Springville was his first parish north of the Ohio +River. He was enthusiastic over his work, and he seemed to forget +completely who and what I was as he talked of it. +</P> + +<P> +Later, when we had come again to the sitting-room with its cheerful +fire, we talked of books, finding common ground in the field of +autobiography and travel. Whitley's reading in this field had been +much wider than mine, and his knowledge of far countries and the men +who wrote about them was a revelation to such a dabbler as I had been. +Book after book was taken from the shelves and dipped into, and before +I realized it the evening—so different from any I had enjoyed for +months and years—had slipped away and the little clock on the mantel +was chiming the half-hour after eight. It was time for me to efface +myself, and I said so—a bit unsteadily, perhaps, for the pleasant +evening had been as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Whitley, quite definitely. "You are not going to-night. I +have a spare bed upstairs and I want you to stay—as my guest. Beyond +that, you are not going to leave Springville merely because Mr. Haddon +has seen fit to deny you your little meed of justice and a fair show." +</P> + +<P> +"It's no use," I said. "The story is out, and it will follow me +wherever I go—doubtless with Mr. Haddon's help. You'd best let me go +while the going is easy." +</P> + +<P> +"No," he Insisted. "You are a part of my work—one of my reasons for +existence. Christianity means something, Weyburn, and I am here to +define its meaning in specific cases. There is a little legacy of +common justice due you, and I shall take it upon myself to see that you +get it. As for Zadoc Haddon, you needn't worry about him. I am +ashamed to say that he is a member of my own church, but that doesn't +prevent him from being a wolf in sheep's clothing. I have told him so +to his face, and he has tried to get me ousted—without success, so +far." +</P> + +<P> +I saw difficulties and more difficulties for this generous young fellow +who was so ready to champion my cause, and it seemed only decent to +spare him if I could. But at the end of my protest he summed the +situation up in a single sentence: +</P> + +<P> +"What you say about me is all beside the mark; somebody has got to give +you the chance you are needing, and the fight may just as well be made +here in Springville as anywhere. Sit down again and let's dig a little +deeper into that Mexican book of Enock's. I do like his blunt English +way of describing things; don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Though the next three days were full of hopes and despairings for me I +shall pass over them lightly. Each day, though he did not tell me in +detail what he was doing, I knew that Whitley was trying his best to +find a place for me; and I knew, too, that he was meeting with no +success. He was such a fine, upstanding fellow, and so full of holy +zeal and enthusiasm, that it was hard for him to acknowledge defeat. +But on the third evening, after a dinner at which he had tried vainly +to bridge the gaps that were continually opening out in the talk, he +threw up his hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Weyburn," he began, when the pipes were lighted and he had poked the +grate fire into a roaring blaze, "don't you know, these last three days +have come mighty near to making me lose faith in my kind. It's simply +wretched—miserable!" +</P> + +<P> +"I would have saved you if you had been willing to let me," I reminded +him. +</P> + +<P> +"The question is much bigger than Bert Weyburn or John Whitley, or both +of them put together," he asserted soberly. "It involves the entire +fabric of Christianity, and our so-called Christian civilization. The +Church is here to shadow forth the spirit and teachings of Christ, or +it isn't—one of the two. If it falls in its mission it is a hollow +mockery; a thing beneath contempt. I go to my fellow Christians with a +simple plea for justice for a man who needs it, and what do I get? I +am told, with all the sickening variations, that it won't do; that the +thing I am proposing is one of the things that 'isn't done'; that +society must be protected, and all that!" +</P> + +<P> +"The mills of the gods," I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing of the sort! It's a radical defect in the existing scheme of +things. Heavens and earth, Weyburn, you are not a pariah! Assuming +that you really did the thing for which you were punished—and I don't +believe you did—is that any reason why we should stultify ourselves +absolutely and deny the very first principles of the religion we +profess? But I mustn't be unfair. Perhaps the fault is partly mine, +after all. Perhaps I haven't done my duty by these people." +</P> + +<P> +"No; the fault is not yours," I hastened to say. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm hoping it is; some of it, at least. Just the same, the wretched +fact remains. You might be the biggest villain unhung—if only you +hadn't passed through the courts and the penitentiary. As you thought +probably was the case, your story is known all over town; though how it +has got such a wide publication in so short a time is more than I can +fathom. Men whom I would bank on; men to whom I have felt that I could +go in any conceivable extremity, have turned me down as soon as I +mentioned your name. The prison story is like a big, brutal, inanimate +mountain standing squarely in the way; and I—I haven't the faith +needful for its removal!" +</P> + +<P> +Being under the deepest obligation to this dear young fellow who was +bruising himself for me, I said what I could to lighten his burden. +But in the midst of it he got up and reached for his hat and overcoat. +</P> + +<P> +"I have just thought of something," he explained hastily; "something +that may throw a good bit of light on this thing. You sit right here +and toast your shins. I'm going out for a little while." +</P> + +<P> +He was gone for the better part of an hour, during which interval I +obeyed his injunction literally, sitting before the fire and basking in +its home-like warmth; making the most of the comfort of it all before I +should again go forth to face an inclement world. When Whitley came in +and flung himself into a chair on the opposite side of the hearth his +dark eyes were blazing. +</P> + +<P> +"Weyburn," he began abruptly, "what I have to tell you will stir every +evil passion you've ever harbored; and yet, in decent justice to you, +it must be told. Have you ever suspected that your fight for +reinstatement has been deliberately handicapped, right from the +beginning?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have suspected it at times; yes," I returned. "But there is no +proof." +</P> + +<P> +"There <I>is</I> proof," he shot back. "By the merest chance I stumbled +upon it a few minutes ago. I went out with the intention of going to +Zadoc Haddon and making him tell me where he got the information that +you are the desperate criminal he professes to believe you to be. +While we were sitting here it struck me all at once that this thing was +being helped along by some one who had an object in view. At Haddon's +house the doorman told me that Haddon had an appointment with an +out-of-town customer and had gone to the hotel to keep it; and rather +than wait, I went over to the Hamilton House to try to find my man. I +didn't find him; but in the lobby of the hotel somebody found me. As I +was turning away from the desk after asking for Haddon, a heavy-set +young man, neatly dressed, stepped up and asked if my name was Whitley. +I admitted it. Then he asked if I would give him a few minutes, and we +went aside to sit facing each other in a couple of the lobby chairs. +Weyburn, that young man is in the employ of a private detective agency, +and what he wished to do, and did do, was to warn me that I was +sheltering a dangerous criminal in my house!" +</P> + +<P> +In a flash all the small mysteries that had been befogging me for +months made themselves transparently clear: the man I had called a +traveling salesman who had followed me from the prison gates to the +scene of my first humble effort; the memorandum Chief Callahan had +consulted; the "outfit" that was to be notified when my next +destination was known; the second appearance of the "salesman" on the +train at the capital, and his disappearance when he had learned from +the conductor the name of my next stopping-place; and after this the +long series of hitherto unaccountable blacklistings. My mouth was dry, +but I contrived to tell Whitley to go on. +</P> + +<P> +"I will," he conceded; "but you must promise me to control yourself. +Naturally, my first impulse, when this scamp began on me, was to cut +him off short and tell him what I thought of the despicable business to +which he was lending himself. But the second thought was craftier, and +I hope I may be forgiven for yielding to it. By leading him on I got +the entire brutal story. It seems that the two old men upon whose +complaint you were indicted knew when you were to be paroled. They +profess to believe that you are a menace to society; that the prison +authorities were at fault in releasing you short of the limit of your +sentence. Hence, through his employers, they have set this man upon +your track to see to it—I use his own words—that you do not have an +opportunity to rob some one else." +</P> + +<P> +I suppose I should have been driven mad with vindictive fury at this +plain revelation of the true cause of most of my misfortunes, but there +is a point beyond which the beaten man cannot rise to renew the fight, +and I had reached and passed it. Wherefore I found myself saying, +quite calmly: +</P> + +<P> +"Neither Abel Geddis nor Abner Withers would spend one copper penny for +any such altruistic reason as this man has given you, Whitley. Their +motive is strictly selfish and personal. They are either afraid that I +may go back to Glendale and try to expose them; or that I may take the +shorter and surer way of balancing the account by killing them—as, at +one time, I meant to." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but my dear fellow!" Whitley protested. "In that case they would +hardly take a course which was calculated to drive you to desperation!" +</P> + +<P> +"You don't understand it all," I rejoined. "Everything has been done +secretly, and it is only by the merest chance that I have now learned +the truth. This man you have been talking to has been following me, or +keeping track of me, ever since I left the penitentiary. I have seen +him twice, and I took him to be a traveling salesman—as he doubtless +intended I should. You can see how it was designed to work out. With +a sufficient amount of discouragement it was reasonable to assume that +the prison bird would finally yield to the inevitable; become a +criminal in fact and get himself locked up again out of harm's way." +</P> + +<P> +"You think that was the motive?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am as certain of it as I should be if I could read the minds of +those two old plotters in my home town. You see, I've summered and +wintered them. The only thing I can't understand is why I have been so +blind; why I didn't assume all this long ago and act accordingly." +</P> + +<P> +"But why, <I>why</I> should they be so utterly lost to every sense of right +and justice; to all the promptings of common humanity? It's hideously +incredible!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have given you two reasons, and you may take your choice. It is +either the fear of death—the fear of the vengeance of a man whose life +they have ruined, or else the transaction in which they involved me, +and in which they made me their scapegoat, was more far-reaching than +I, or anybody in Glendale, supposed it was." +</P> + +<P> +Whitley sat for a full minute staring absently into the fire. Then he +said, very gently: "Now that you know the truth, what will you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know well enough what I ought to do. We may pass over the fellow at +the Hamilton House; he is only a poor tool in the hands of the master +workmen. I bear him no malice of the blood-letting sort. But really, +Whitley, I ought to go back to Glendale and rid the earth of those two +old villains who have earned their blotting-out." +</P> + +<P> +Again there was a pause, and then: "Well, why don't you do it?" +</P> + +<P> +I laughed rather bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +"Because all the fight has been taken out of me, Whitley. That is the +reason and the only reason." +</P> + +<P> +His smile was beatific. "No, it isn't," he denied. "You know you +couldn't do it; you couldn't bring yourself to do it. Maybe, in the +heat of passion … but to go deliberately: no, Weyburn; if you think +you could do such a thing as that, I can tell you that I know you +better than you know yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"I merely said that that was what I ought to do. I know well enough +that I shan't do it, but the reason is far beneath that which you are +good enough to hint at. I'm a broken man, Whitley; what I have gone +through in the past few months has smashed my nerve. You can't +understand that—I don't expect you to. But if I should meet those two +old men when I leave this house, I should probably run away from them +and try to hide." +</P> + +<P> +"But what <I>will</I> you do?" he queried. +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do, more than I've been doing?" +</P> + +<P> +Again a silence intervened. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I knew how to advise you," Whitley said at length. "If there +were only some way in which you might shake off this wretched hired +spy!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't. If I dodge him, he has only to wait until I report myself +again to the prison authorities. The one thing I can do is to relieve +you of my threatening presence, and I'll do that now—to-night, while +the going is good." +</P> + +<P> +He was at the end of his resources, as I knew he must be, and he made +no objections. But at train-time he got up and put on his overcoat to +accompany me as far as the station. It was a rough night outside, and +I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn't have it that way. "No," he +said; "it's my privilege to speed the parting guest, if I can do no +more than that," and so we breasted the spitting snow-storm which was +sweeping the empty streets, tramping in silence until we reached the +shelter of the train-shed. +</P> + +<P> +It was after the train had whistled for the crossing below the town +that Whitley asked me again what I intended doing. I answered him +frankly because it was his due. +</P> + +<P> +"It has come down to one of two things: day-labor, in a field where a +man is merely a number on the pay-roll—or that other road which is +always open to the prison-bird." +</P> + +<P> +He put his hand on my shoulder. "You are not going to take the other +road, Weyburn," he said gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not—I hope I shan't be driven to." +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't make it conditional. I know you are not a criminal; you +were not a criminal when you were convicted. You can't afford to begin +to be one now." +</P> + +<P> +"Neither can I afford to starve," I interposed. "Other men live by +their wits, and so can I, if I'm driven to it. But I'll play fair with +you, Whitley. So long as I can keep body and soul together, with a +pick and shovel, or any other implement that comes to hand, I'll stick. +I owe you that much, if only for the reason that you are—with the +single exception of an old police chief who lives at the other edge of +the State—the one really human being I've met since I shook hands with +the warden." +</P> + +<P> +The train was in and the conductor was waving his lantern. Whitley +grasped my hand and wrung it. "Be a man, and God bless you!" he said +in low tones. "And when the pinch comes again and you are tempted to +the limit, just remember that there is a fellow back here in +Springville who believes in you, and who will limp a little all the +rest of his days if you stumble and fall and refuse to get up. +Good-night and good-by!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Plunge +</H3> + + +<P> +By the train which bore me away from Springville I went only far enough +to put me safely beyond the possibility of stumbling upon any of the +places where I had hitherto sought work; though as to that, I had +little hope of escaping the relentless blacklister who had been set +upon me. +</P> + +<P> +About midnight I had a talk with the flagman in the smoking-car, +calling myself a laborer looking for a job and asking about the +prospects in the region through which we were passing. I was told that +there were swamp lands in the next county, and that the contractors who +were installing systems of under-draining had been advertising for men. +</P> + +<P> +Accordingly, the next morning found me in the new field, with one set +of difficulties outpaced for the moment only to make room for another. +The first man I tackled was the foreman of a ditching crew, and he +looked me over with a cold and contemptuous eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Show yer hands!" he rasped, and when I held them out, palms upward: +"On yer way, Misther Counter-hopper; 'tis wor-rkin'min we're hirin' +here this day—not anny lily-fingered dudes!" +</P> + +<P> +So it was, in a disheartening number of instances; on a railroad +grading force in an adjoining county, on city buildings where I asked +to be taken as an unskilled helper, with a sewer contractor in another +city, as a shoveler in a village brick-yard. Finally I landed a job as +a stacker in a lumberyard; and now I found another of the day-laborer +difficulties lying in wait for me. At the time of my commitment for +trial I was in good physical condition. But the three years in prison +had made me soft and flabby, a handicap which liberty—with a string +tied to it—had done little to remove; and four hard days of the +stacking, in which two of us were handling two-by-ten eighteen-foot +joists to the top of a pile twelve feet high, finished me. +</P> + +<P> +The boss grinned understandingly when he gave me my time-check for the +four days. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you wouldn't last very long at the stacking," he commented; +"that's a man's job." Then: "Got any head for figures?" +</P> + +<P> +I faced him fairly. "I can't take a job of that kind." +</P> + +<P> +"Why can't you?" +</P> + +<P> +He got the reason in a single sentence. +</P> + +<P> +"Paroled man, hey? What was you in for?" +</P> + +<P> +I named the charge, and did not add that it was an unjust one. I had +pleaded the miscarriage of justice so many times, only to be called a +liar, that it seemed useless to try to explain. +</P> + +<P> +"Robbed a bank, did you? Well, I don't know as I think any worse of +you for spittin' it right out. Tryin' to brace up?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm trying to earn an honest living." +</P> + +<P> +"And havin' a mighty hard time of it, I reckon—'r you wouldn't be +makin' a push at stackin' lumber with them blistered hands. Say, boy; +I sort o' like your looks, and I'm goin' to give you a boost. They're +needin' a log-scaler in the sawmill. If you know figures, you can +catch on in half a day. Chase your feet down to the mill foreman and +tell him I sent you." +</P> + +<P> +I went gladly enough, secured the new job, learned how to do it +acceptably, and was temerariously happy and light-hearted for two whole +weeks. Then my Nemesis found me again. In the third week I chanced to +get a glimpse of a short, heavy-set man talking to a bunch of my fellow +laborers. Before I could cross the mill yard to identify the stranger +he turned and walked quickly away; but the sixth sense of apprehension +which develops so surely and quickly in the ex-convict told me that the +heavy-set man was Abel Geddis's hired blacklister, and that I was once +more on the toboggan slide. +</P> + +<P> +Pay-day came at the end of the week, and when the envelopes had been +given out the mill foreman took me aside. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry, Weyburn," he began curtly, "but I'm afraid you'll have to +be moving on. Personally, I don't care, one way or the other, what +you've been or where you hall from. You do your work well, and that's +all I ask of any man. But your story has got out among the hands, and +that settles it. They won't work with a convict." +</P> + +<P> +When I took the long road again after this latest rebuff I knew that +the fine resolution with which I had left the prison five months +earlier was breaking down. The relentless pressure was doing its work, +and I began to ask myself how long I could hold out as a law-abiding +citizen and a victim of injustice against the belief of the world that +I was neither. +</P> + +<P> +The five months' wanderings had carried me the length and breadth of +the State, and I had avoided only the large cities and my home +neighborhood. But with the lumber company's money in my pocket I +boarded a train for the State metropolis. At the end of the experiment +I was doing what the released criminal usually does at the +outset—seeking an opportunity to lose myself in the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +Jobs were notably harder to find in the great city, though police +headquarters, where I reported myself, placed no obstacles in my way so +far as I know; took no note of me in any fashion, as I was afterward +led to believe. That the hired traducer would follow and find me I +made no doubt; but by this time I was becoming so inured to this +peculiar hardship that I refused to cross bridges until I came to them, +and was at times even able to forget, in the discouragements of other +hardships, that I was a marked man. +</P> + +<P> +In the search for means to keep body and soul together it was easy to +forget. Day labor offered only now and then, and in my increasing +physical unfitness I could not hold my own against the trained muscles +of seasoned roustabouts, porters and freight-handlers. Worse still, +the physical deterrent grew by what it fed upon—or by the lack of +feeding. Part of the time I couldn't get enough to eat; and there were +cold and blustering nights when I had not the few cents which would +have given me a bed in a cheap lodging-house. +</P> + +<P> +It was in this deepest abyss in the valley of disheartenment that I met +a former prison-mate named Kellow; a forger whose time of release from +the penitentiary coincided nearly with my own. The meeting was wholly +by chance. I was crossing one of the city bridges at night, pointing +for one of the river warehouses where I hoped to find a tramp's lodging +and shelter from the bitter wind, when I walked blindly into a man +coming in the opposite direction. The recognition was instant and +mutual. +</P> + +<P> +Like myself, Kellow had been a "trusty," and under certain relaxations +of the rule of silence in the prison we had talked and an acquaintance +of a sort had slowly grown and ripened. In this intimacy, which I had +striven to hold at arm's length, I had come to know the forger as a +criminal of the most dangerous breed; a man of parts and of some +education, but wholly lacking in the moral sense; a rule-keeper in +prison only because he was shrewd enough to appreciate the fact that he +was bringing the day of release nearer by piling up "good-conduct" time. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, pinch me! Look who's here!" was his greeting when we met on the +bridge. +</P> + +<P> +For a silent moment it was I who did the looking. Kellow had grown a +pair of curling black mustaches since his release; he was well-dressed, +erect and alert, and was smoking a cigar the fragrance of which made me +sick and faint with an attack of the long-denied tobacco hunger. +</P> + +<P> +"You're out, too, are you?" I managed to say at last, shivering in the +cold blast which came sweeping up the river. +</P> + +<P> +"Three months, and then some," he returned jauntily. "I'm collecting a +little on the old debt now, and doing fairly well at it, thank you." +</P> + +<P> +"The old debt?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +"Yep; the one that the little old round world owes every man: three +squares, a tailor, a bed and a pocket-roll." +</P> + +<P> +"You look as if you had acquired all four," I agreed, setting my jaw to +keep my teeth from chattering. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure I have; and you look as if you hadn't," he countered. And then: +"What's the matter? Just plain hard luck? Or is it the parole scare?" +</P> + +<P> +"Both," I admitted. +</P> + +<P> +He shot me a quick look. +</P> + +<P> +"I can put you onto a dead sure thing, if you're game for it. Let's +hunt us a warm place and chew it over." +</P> + +<P> +The place was the back room of an all-night saloon in the slum quarter +beyond the bridge. It was warm, stiflingly warm and close, after the +outdoor blast and chill, and it reeked like a sty. Kellow kicked out a +chair for me and drew up one for himself on the opposite side of the +small round card-table over which a single gas-jet hissed and sizzled, +lighting the tiny box of a place with a sickly yellow glare. +</P> + +<P> +"What'll it be?" he asked, when the waiter came in. +</P> + +<P> +"A piece of bread and meat from the lunch counter, if you don't mind," +I said; and then, in an apology for which I instantly despised myself: +"Liquor doesn't agree with me lately; it—it would gag me." +</P> + +<P> +Kellow ordered whiskey for himself, and after the waiter was gone he +stared at me contemptuously. +</P> + +<P> +"So it's come to that, has it?" he derided. "You're so damned hungry +you're afraid to put a drop of bug-juice under your belt. You're a +fool, Weyburn. I know what you've been doing, just as well as if you'd +told me the whole story. Also, I'll believe now what I didn't believe +while we were in 'stir'; you were pinched for something you didn't do." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" I said, neither affirming nor denying. The free lunch had come +and I was falling upon it like a famished wolf. I hadn't a penny in my +pockets, and the bread and meat stood for breakfast, dinner and supper +combined. +</P> + +<P> +Kellow swallowed his whiskey at a gulp and stood the empty glass bottom +upward on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Been trying the honest lay, I suppose—handing in your name and number +wherever you went?" he suggested. +</P> + +<P> +I nodded, adding that there was nothing else to be done, as I saw it. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed scornfully. "A minute ago I said you were a fool, but +you're worse than that—you're an infant! Why, good hell, Weyburn, +there are a dozen ways to beat the parole game! Look at me: I'm here, +ain't I? And the warden knows all about it, does he? Not on your +life! Every four weeks he gets a letter from me telling him what a +fine time I'm having on Dad's farm down in Wayne, and how I'm all to +the good and thanking him every day for all he did for me. What?" +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody mails those letters for you in Wayne?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure! And a little split for the marshal in the nearest town does the +rest. Bimeby, when I've collected enough of the debt I spoke of, I'll +shake the dust and disappear." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll find you and bring you back." +</P> + +<P> +"Not without a fine-tooth comb, they won't. This old world is plenty +good and wide when you learn how to use it." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I haven't learned yet; and I don't want to learn—in your +way, Kellow." +</P> + +<P> +Again he gave me the sneering laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"You may as well begin, and have it over with. It's all the same to +you, now, whether you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you +can live square and live the prison-smell down, but you can't. It'll +stick to you like your skin. Wherever you go, you'll be a marked man." +</P> + +<P> +Though I had devoured the bar hand-out to the final crumb, I was still +half-famished; and hunger is but a poor ally in any battle. What he +was saying was truth of the truth, so far as the blunt facts were +concerned. Every failure I had made in the six weary months confirmed +it. There was little room in the world of the well-behaved for the man +who was honest enough—or foolish enough—to confess himself an +ex-convict; less still for a man who had been made the object of a +persecuting conspiracy. None the less, I had resolution, or obstinacy, +enough to say: +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe it." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what makes me say you're a fool!" he snapped back. "You've got +the name, and you may as well have the game. The world is dead easy, +if you take it on its blind side; easy living, easy money. Listen, +Weyburn, and I'll show you how you can climb into the bandwagon." +</P> + +<P> +I listened because I could not well help it, being the man's wretched +beneficiary, in a sense. As he talked I felt the ground of good +resolutions slipping from beneath my feet. He was staging the old and +time-honored swindle—the gold-brick game—and he needed a confederate. +The fish was almost as good as landed, and with a little coaching I +could step in and clinch the robbery. Kellow proposed to stake me for +the clothes and the needful stage properties; and my knowledge of +banking and finance, limited as it was, would do the rest. It was a +cinch, he averred, and when it was pulled off we could divide the +spoils and vanish. +</P> + +<P> +It was hardly a temptation. That word calls up a mental picture of +stern virtues assailed on every side and standing like a rock in a +storm. But, stripped of their poetic glamor, the virtues—and the +vices, for that matter,—are purely human; they can rise no higher or +sink no lower than the flesh-and-blood medium through which they find +their expression. The six months of hardship and humiliation which had +brought me to a pass at which I could eat a saloon luncheon at the +expense of a thief were pushing me over the brink. Kellow sat back in +his chair, smoking quietly, but I could feel his black eyes boring into +my brain. When he judged that the time was fully ripe, he drew a fat +roll of bank-notes from his pocket, stripped ten ten-dollar bills from +it and tossed them across the table to me. +</P> + +<P> +"There's the stake, and here's the lay," said he, tersely. "Your +name's Smollett; you've struck it rich, and you're on your way home to +New York, we'll say, from your mine in Colorado. You're stopping at +the Marlborough, and we'll run across you accidentally—I and the +come-on—to-morrow forenoon in the hotel lobby. Get that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I hear what you are saying." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. Now for the preliminaries. Any all-night pawnbroker can +fit you out with a couple of grips and some clothes that will let you +dress the part—or at least let you into the hotel. Then, to-morrow +morning bright and early you can hit the ready-made tailors and blossom +out right as the honest miner spending some of his money for the glad +rags. I'm at the Marlborough myself—J. T. Jewett, Room 706—but, of +course, I won't know you; you'll just butt in as a stranger to both of +us. When we get together I'll give you the cues as we go along." +</P> + +<P> +During all this talk the hundred dollars had lain on the table between +us. It didn't look like money to me; it stood for food and decent +clothing and a bath—but chiefly for food. Slowly I took it up and +fingered it, almost reverently, straightening out the crumpled corners +of the bills and smoothing them down.… +</P> + +<P> +I scarcely know how I got away from Kellow, nor do I know why he chose +to stay on there in the back room of that miserable doggery, drinking +whiskey sours alone and smoking his high-priced cigars. But I do know +that I was up against the fight of my life when I went out to face the +bitter night wind in the streets. +</P> + +<P> +It was a singular thing that helped me to win the fight, temporarily, +at least. By all accounts it ought to have been those three +heart-warming days spent with Whitley a month earlier, and his farewell +words of helpfulness and cheer spoken as I was boarding the outgoing +train at the Springville station. But though Whitley's sturdy faith in +me came to do its part, it was another and much longer leap of memory +that made me hesitate and draw back; a flash carrying me back to my +school-days in Glendale … to a certain afternoon when a plain-faced +little girl, the daughter of our physics and chemistry teacher, had +told me, with her brown eyes ablaze, what she thought of dishonesty in +general, and in particular of the dishonesty of a boy in her class who +was lying and stealing his way past his examinations. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know to this day why I should have recalled Polly Everton and +her flaming little diatribe against thievery and hypocrisy at that +desperate moment. She, and her quiet college-professor father who had +seemed so out of place teaching in a Glendale school, had dropped out +of my life years before. But the fact remained, and at the memory, +Kellow's bribe, gripped pocket-deep in my hand, burnt me like a coal of +fire. With a gasp I realized that I was over the brink at last, +stumbling and falling into the pit which has no bottom. With a single +dollar of the thief's money spent and gone beyond recall, I should be +lost. +</P> + +<P> +With that memory of little Polly Everton to drive me, I went doggedly +back to the riverside slum and sought for Kellow where I had left him. +He was gone, but the newly aroused resolution, the outworn swimmer's +stubborn steeling of the nerves and muscles to make one more stroke +before he drowns, persisted. Footsore and half-frozen, I tramped the +dozen squares to the great hotel in the business district. The night +clerk sized me up for precisely what I was, listening with only half an +ear to my stammering question. But he deigned to answer it, +nevertheless. Yes; Mr. Jewett was the gentleman who had Number 706, +but he was not in. His key was still in the box. +</P> + +<P> +There were writing-desks in the lobby, a number of them, and I went to +the first that offered. Some guest had left a few sheets of the hotel +paper and an envelope. Without a written word to go with it, I slipped +the unbroken bribe into the envelope, sealed the flap hurriedly and +went back to the clerk. +</P> + +<P> +"Put this in Mr. Jewett's key-box, if you please," I requested; and +when I had seen the thing done, and had verified the number of the box +with my own eyes, I headed once more for the inhospitable streets. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the icy sidewalk, directly in front of the revolving doors of +the big hotel, that my miracle was wrought. While I hesitated, not +knowing which way to turn for shelter for the remainder of the night, a +cab drove up and a man, muffled to the ears in a fur-lined overcoat, +got out. He was apparently an arrival from one of the night trains; +while he was slamming the cab door a bell-hop from the Marlborough +skated across the sidewalk, snatched a couple of grips from the front +seat of the cab and disappeared with them. +</P> + +<P> +Humped and shivering, I was almost at the traveler's elbow when he +turned and felt in his pockets for the money to pay the cab driver. I +was so busy envying him the possession of that warm, fur-lined coat +that I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing, but it was +evident that he had forgotten in which pocket he carried his change, +since he was feeling first in one and then in another. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly my heart skipped a beat and then fell to hammering a fierce +tattoo as a gust of the highwayman's madness swept over me. The man +had taken out a huge pocket roll of bank-notes and was running the +bills over to see if there were one small enough to serve the +cab-paying purpose. Obviously there was not, and with a grunt of +impatience he searched again, this time unearthing a handful of silver. +Dropping the proper coin into the cabman's outstretched hand, he turned +and disappeared through the revolving doors, and at the same instant +the cabby whipped up his horse and drove away. Then I saw it lying +almost at my feet; a small black pocketbook which the traveler had let +fall in his fumbling search for change. +</P> + +<P> +Judged by any code of ethics—my own, for that matter—what followed +was entirely indefensible. The grab for the treasure, its swift +hiding, the breathless dash into the shadows of the nearest cross +street; all these named me for what I was at the moment—a +half-starved, half-frozen, despair-hounded thief. When I had made sure +that there was no policeman in sight I examined my prize by the light +of a crossing electric. The black pocketbook contained sixty-three +dollars in bills and a single half-dollar in silver. And a hasty +search revealed nothing by which the loser could be identified; there +were no papers, no cards, nothing but the money. +</P> + +<P> +Though a desperate disregard for anything like property rights had +prompted the sudden snatch and the thief-like dash for cover, I am glad +to be able to say that common honesty, or some shadowy simulacrum of +it, revived presently and sent me back to the hotel, though not without +terrible foot-draggings, you may be sure. And as I went, many-tongued +temptation clamored riotously for a hearing: the man had so much—he +would never miss this carelessly spilt driblet; I had no means of +identifying him, and with the fur-lined coat removed I should probably +fail to recognize him; if I should try to describe him, the hotel +clerk, he of the detached and superior manner, would doubtless take the +pocketbook in charge and that would be the last I should ever hear of +it. +</P> + +<P> +Giving these arguments their just weight, I hope I may take some small +credit for the perseverance which finally drove me through the swinging +doors and up to the clerk's counter. For the second time that night I +sought speech with the bediamonded chief lackey, and got it grudgingly. +No; no one had registered within the past few minutes, and no man +answering my exceedingly incomplete description had presented himself +at the counter. Conscious that I must do, there and then, all that +ever could be done, I persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"The gentleman I speak of came in a cab and he had two hand-bags; they +were brought in by one of the bell-boys," I said, thinking that this +might afford the clue. +</P> + +<P> +The clerk looked afar over my head. "Some guest who already has his +room and had gone to fetch his grips." Then, with the contemptuous +lip-curl that I had encountered too often not to recognize it at sight: +"Who are you, anyway?—a plain-clothes man looking for crooks? You'll +not find them in the Marlborough. We don't keep that kind of a house." +</P> + +<P> +I turned away, gripping the precious treasure-trove in my pocket. For +a full half-year I had kept faith with the prison authorities and the +law, living the life of a hunted animal and coming at last to the +choice between starvation and a deliberate plunge into the underworld. +Through it all I had obeyed the requirements of my parole in letter and +in spirit. But now—— +</P> + +<P> +The black pocketbook was warm in my hand. It was mine, if not by the +finder's right, at least by the right of possession, and it contained +the price of freedom. Before I had reached the corner, of the first +street my determination was taken, and there had been but one instant +of hesitation. This had come in a frenzied burst of red rage when I +remembered that, when all was said, I owed this last downward step, as +well as all that had gone before, to two old men who … I stopped +short in my shuffling race to the railroad station. I had money; +enough to take me to Glendale—and far beyond when the deed should be +done. Years before I had sworn to kill them, and since that time they +had doubly earned their blotting-out. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know to this day whether it was some remaining shreds of the +conventional conscience, or a broken man's inability to screw +retaliatory determination to the murder point, that sent me onward to +the westbound station and framed my reply to the ticket agent's curt +question, "Where to?" when I thrust my money through his wicket. Be +that as it may, a short half-hour later I had boarded a through +westbound train and was crouching in the corner of a seat in the +overheated smoking-car with a ticket to Denver in my pocket. Though I +was not on my way to commit a double murder, I was none the less an +outlaw. I had broken my parole. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Westward +</H3> + + +<P> +A sleety rain was retarding the March dawn and obscuring the Middle +Western farmstead landscape when the lights were turned off in the +through-train smoking-car. A glance at the railroad time-table which +had been given me with my ticket proved that the train was well past +the boundaries of my home State, and suddenly the vile atmosphere of +the crowded, night-fouled car seemed shot through with the life-giving +ozone of freedom. +</P> + +<P> +Before long, however, the reaction set in. True, I was free at last, +but it was the freedom only of the escaped convict—of the fugitive. +To be recaptured now would mean a return to prison and the serving out +of the remainder of the full five-year term, with an added penalty for +the broken parole. I knew well the critical watchfulness with which +the workings of the new law were regarded. The indeterminate sentence +itself was on trial, and the prison authorities and others interested +were resolved that the trial should be fair and impartial. Therefore I +might count confidently upon pursuit. +</P> + +<P> +At first there seemed little likelihood that my midnight flight could +be traced. In the great city I had left behind I had been only an +uncounted unit in a submerged minority. It was doubtful if any one +besides Kellow and the keeper of the police records would know or +remember my name. There had been many travelers to board the through +train with me, and surely one might consider himself safely lost in +such a throng, if only by reason of the unit inconsequence. +</P> + +<P> +But now I was to be brought face to face with a peril which constantly +besets the fugitive of any sort in an age of rapid and easy travel. +Under such conditions the smallness of the modern world has passed into +a hackneyed proverb. I had scarcely rubbed the sleep out of my eyes +and straightened up in the car seat which had served for a bed when +some one came down the aisle, a hand was clapped on my shoulder, and a +cheery voice said: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll be dog-daddled! Bert Weyburn—of all the people in the +world!" +</P> + +<P> +There was murder in my heart when I looked up and recognized a Glendale +man whom I had known practically all my life; a rattle-brained young +fellow named Barton, who had tried a dozen different occupations after +leaving school, and had, at my last account of him, become a traveling +salesman for our single large factory—a wagon-making company. +</P> + +<P> +Under the existing conditions Barton was easily the last man on earth +whom I should have chosen out of a worldful of men for a traveling +companion; but before I could do more than nod a surly response to his +greeting he had slipped into the empty half of the seat and was +offering me a cigar. +</P> + +<P> +At first our talk was awkwardly constrained, as it was bound to be with +one party to it wishing fervently that the other were at the bottom of +the sea. But Horace Barton was much too good-natured, and too +loquacious, to let the constraint remain as a barrier. Working around +by degrees to the <I>status quo</I>—my <I>status quo</I>—he finally broke the +ice in the pond of the intimate personalities—as I knew he would. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm mighty glad to see you out, and alive and well, Bert," was the way +in which he brushed aside the awkwardnesses. "You've had pretty tough +lines, I know; but that's no reason why you should be grouchy with me. +I'm not letting it make any difference, am I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not here on the train," I conceded, sourly. +</P> + +<P> +"No; and, by George, I wouldn't let it at home, either! I'll bet +you've got a few friends left in Glendale, right now, and you've had +'em all along. Been back there since you—since—er——" +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head, and he went on as if he were afraid that a stop might +prove fatal to another start. +</P> + +<P> +"It sure isn't any of my butt-in, but I don't believe you ought to +dodge the home town, Bert. There are a lot of good people there, and +if I were in your fix, I believe I'd want to go and bully it out right +where it happened. You've bought your little chunk of experience and +paid for it, and now you're a free man just like the rest of us. You +want to buck up, and tell them that don't like it to go straight plumb +to the dickens." +</P> + +<P> +There was ample reason why he should take this tone with me if he felt +like it. I looked like a derelict and was acting like one. Moreover, +I was tormented to the verge of madness by the fear that the conductor +might come along on a ticket-punching tour, and that by this means +Barton would learn my ultimate destination—which would be equivalent, +I fancied, to publishing it in the Glendale <I>Daily Courier</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"Cut it out!" I said gruffly. "If Glendale were the last place in the +universe, I wouldn't go back there." +</P> + +<P> +He dropped the argument with perfect good-humor, and even made apology. +"I take it all back; it's none of my business. Of course, you know +best what you want to do. You're a free man, as I say, and can go +where you please." +</P> + +<P> +His repetition of this "free man" phrase suddenly opened my eyes. He +had forgotten, as doubtless a good many others had, all about the +indeterminate sentence and its terms, if, indeed, he—and the +others—had ever known anything about its conditions. It was not to be +wondered at. Three years and a half will ordinarily blot the best of +us out of remembrance—at least as to details. +</P> + +<P> +It was at this point that I twisted the talk by thrusting in a question +of my own. +</P> + +<P> +"No; I haven't been in Glendale right lately—been out on the road for +a couple of weeks," was Barton's answer to the question. "We've +widened the old wagon-shop out some few lines since you knew us, and +I've been making a round of the agencies. I was in the big city last +night and got a wire to go to St. Louis. The wire got balled up +somewhere, and I didn't get it until late at night. Made me hustle, +too. I'd been out of the city for the day and didn't get back to the +Marlborough until nearly midnight." +</P> + +<P> +This bit of detail made no impression upon me at the moment because I +was too busy with the thoughts suggested by the fact that I might have +Barton with me all day. Returning to Glendale at the end of his round, +he would be sure to talk, and in due time the prison authorities would +learn that I had been last seen in St. Louis. This accidental meeting +with Barton figured as a crude misfortune, but I saw no way to mitigate +it. +</P> + +<P> +About this time came the first call for breakfast in the dining-car, +and I hoped this would relieve me of Barton's presence, for a while, at +any rate. But I was reckoning altogether without my host. +</P> + +<P> +"Breakfast, eh?—that fits me all the way down to the ground," was his +welcoming of the waiter's sing-song call. "Come along, old man, and +we'll go eat a few things. This is on me." +</P> + +<P> +I tried to refuse. Apart from a frantic desire to be quit of him, I +was in no condition to present myself in the dining-car. I showed him +my grimy hands, and at that he made me forgive him in advance for all +the harm he might eventually do me. +</P> + +<P> +"That's perfectly all right," he laughed. "Fellow can't help getting +that way on the road. My sleeper is the first one back, and the +dining-car's coupled on behind. You come along into the Pullman with +me and wash up. I've got a bunch of clean collars and a shirt, if you +want them; and if the Pullman man makes a roar I'll tell him you're my +long-lost brother and give him the best ten-cent cigar he ever +smoked—I get 'em at a discount from a fellow who makes a little on the +side by selling his samples." And when I still hung back—"Don't be an +ass, Bertie. This old world isn't half as mean as you'd like to think +it is." +</P> + +<P> +I yielded, weakly, I was going to say; yet perhaps it wasn't altogether +weakness. For the first time since leaving the penitentiary I was +meeting a man from home; a man who knew, and apparently didn't care. I +went to the Pullman with Barton and was lucky enough to meet the +ticket-punching train conductor on the way. Barton was a step or two +ahead of me and he did not see my ticket. In consequence, the Colorado +destination was still my own secret. +</P> + +<P> +In the Pullman wash-room Barton stood by me like a man, fetching his +own clean linen and tipping the porter to make him turn his back while +I had a wash and a shave and a change. One who has always marched in +the ranks of the well-groomed may never realize the importance of soap +and water in a civilized world. As a moral stimulus, the combination +yields nothing to all the Uplift Foundations the multi-millionaires +have ever laid. When I took my place at the table for two opposite +Barton in the diner, I was able to look the world in the eye, and to +forget, momentarily at least, in the luxury of clean hands and clean +linen, that I was practically an outlaw with a price upon my head. +</P> + +<P> +Yearning like a shipwrecked mariner for home news, I led Barton on to +talk of Glendale and the various happenings in the little town during +my long absence. Though I had quartered the home State in all +directions for half a year he was, as I have said, the first Glendale +man I had met. +</P> + +<P> +He told me many things that I was eager to know; how my mother and +sister were living quietly at the town place, which the income from the +farm enabled them to retain. For several years after her majority my +sister, older than I, had taught in the public school; she was now, so +Barton said, conducting a small private school for backward little ones +at home. +</P> + +<P> +There were other news items, many of them. Old John Runnels was still +chief of police; Tom Fitch, the hardware man, was the new mayor; Buck +Severance, my one-time chum in the High School, was now chief of the +fire department, having won his spurs—or rather, I should say, his red +helmet and silver trumpet—at the fire which had destroyed the +Blickerman Department Store. +</P> + +<P> +"And the bank?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Which one? We've got three of them now, if you please, and one's a +National." +</P> + +<P> +"I meant the Farmers'," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Something right funny about that, Bert," Barton commented. "The old +bank is rocking along and doing a little business in farm mortgages and +note-shaving at the old stand, same as usual, but it's got a hoodoo. +The other banks do most of the commercial business—all of it, you +might say; still, they say Geddis and old Abner Withers are getting +richer and richer every day." +</P> + +<P> +"Agatha is married?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No; and that's another of the funny things. Her engagement with young +Copper-Money was broken off—nobody knew just how or why—shortly after +your—er—shortly after the trouble at the bank three years and a half +ago. Agatha's out West somewhere now—in a sanitorium, I believe. Her +health has been rather poor for the last year or so." +</P> + +<P> +This was news indeed. As I had known her as girl and woman, Agatha +Geddis had always been the picture of health. I put up a fervent +little prayer that her particular sanitorium might not prove to be in +the vicinity of Denver. If it should be it meant another move for me. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't see the finish of the bank trouble before they buried me, did +I, Barton?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +"You bet your life you didn't! There was the dickens to pay all +around. Under the State law, as you probably know, the depositors' +losses had to be made up, to the extent of twice the amount of the +stockholdings, by the stockholders in the bank. When they came to +count noses they found that Geddis and Withers hadn't done a thing but +to quietly unload their bank stock here and there and everywhere, until +they held only enough to give them their votes. There was a yell to +raise the roof, but the stockholders of record had to come across. It +teetotally smashed a round dozen of the best farmers in the county; and +I heard, on the quiet, that it caught a good many outsiders who had +been buying Farmers' stock at a bargain, among them this young Mr. +Copper-Money who was going to marry Agatha—and didn't. Geddis and +Withers played it mighty fine—and mighty low-down." +</P> + +<P> +All this was a revelation to me. In my time Geddis and Withers +together had held a majority of the stock in the close little +corporation known as the Farmers' Bank. The despicable trick by means +of which Geddis, or both of them, had shifted the defalcation loss to +other shoulders proved two things conclusively: that the scheme had +been well planned for in advance, and that the two old men had worked +in collusion. I remembered my suspicion—the one I couldn't +prove—that Withers had been as deep in the mud as Geddis was in the +mire. +</P> + +<P> +"What became of the mining stock?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Geddis put it into the assets, 'to help out against the loss,' as he +said. Nobody wanted it, of course; and then, to be right large-hearted +and generous, Geddis bought it in, personally—at ten cents on the +dollar." +</P> + +<P> +"And you say Geddis is still running the bank?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes; he and Withers run it and own it. As you'd imagine, Farmers' +Bank stock was mighty nearly a drug in the market, after all the bills +had been paid, and, just to help their neighbors out of a hole, as they +put it, the two old skinflints went around buying it back. I don't +know what they paid; different prices, I suppose. But Hawkins, our +manager, told me that he sold his for twenty-five cents on the dollar, +flat, and was blamed good and glad to get that much out of it." +</P> + +<P> +It was just here that my breakfast threatened to choke me. If I had +been as guilty as everybody believed I was, I should still have been a +white-robed angel with wings compared with these two old Pharisees who +had deliberately robbed their friends and neighbors, catching them both +coming and going. And yet I was a hunted outlaw, and they were honored +and respected—or at least they were out of jail and able to live and +flourish among their deluded victims. +</P> + +<P> +The choking was only momentary. Barton was in a reminiscent mood, and +he went rambling on about people in whom I was most deeply interested. +It was like a breath of the good old home air in my nostrils just to +sit and listen to him. +</P> + +<P> +But it seems as though there has to be a fly in everybody's pot of +sweetened jam. In the midst of things, at a moment when I was +gratefully rejoicing in the ability to push my wretched +life-catastrophe a little way into the background, I had a glimpse of a +new face at the farther end of the dining-car. A large-framed man with +drooping mustaches had just come in from the Pullman, and the +dining-car steward was looking his car over to find a place for the +newcomer at the well-filled tables. +</P> + +<P> +I did not have to look twice to identify the man with the drooping +mustaches. For three long and weary years I had seen him dally in the +office of the State penitentiary. His name was William Cummings, and +he was the deputy warden. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Cup of Trembling +</H3> + + +<P> +Why I should have chosen, haphazard, and solely because it chanced to +be the first that offered, a train which numbered among its passengers +not only a man from my home town of Glendale, but also the deputy +warden of the penitentiary, is one of those mysteries of coincidence +which we discredit impatiently when we run across them in fiction, but +which, nevertheless, are constantly recurring in every-day life. +</P> + +<P> +For the moment I was desperately panic-stricken. It seemed blankly +impossible that Cummings should not see and recognize me at once. I +could have sworn that he was looking straight at me while the steward +kept him waiting. My terror must have shown itself in my face, since +Barton spoke up quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, say—what's struck you, Bert?—are you sick?" he demanded; and +then he supplied an answer to his own query: "I ought to be kicked +around the block for loading you up with a big dining-car breakfast +when you had just told me that you were off your feed. Cut it short +and we'll trot up ahead and smoke a cigar. That'll help you get away +with it." +</P> + +<P> +The steward had found Cummings a seat at the forward end of the car, +and how to pass him without detection was a problem that made me dizzy +with the nausea of fear. Barton, with the lordly manner of the +American salesman away from home, made it possible. Snapping his +fingers for a waiter he paid for the breakfasts before we left our +seats, and then quickly led the way forward. At the pause in the +vestibule, while Barton was answering the steward's query as to how we +had been served, I could have reached out and touched Cummings's +shoulder. But the deputy warden was running an investigative finger +down the menu card and he did not see me. +</P> + +<P> +It may say itself that I was in no condition to enjoy the +after-breakfast cigar burned in the smoking-room of Barton's Pullman, +where the wagon salesman's tips, or his good-natured insistence, again +made me welcome. Every moment I expected to see the door curtain flung +aside to admit the burly figure of William Cummings. True, there were +a number of Pullmans in the train, and it was possible that I might not +be in the smoking-room of his car. But it was enough, and more than +enough, to know that we were fellow-travelers on the same train. +</P> + +<P> +There is little use piling on the agony by trying to tell what I +suffered during this forenoon of nerve-racking torture and suspense. +Let it be sufficient to say that the torments ended for me at Decatur, +Illinois, when, at the train stop, I saw Cummings cross the platform to +a street-car followed by a station porter carrying his grip. Barton +marked the change in me at once. +</P> + +<P> +"By George, Bert, what did you see in that platform jumble to make you +look as if you had suddenly taken on a new lease of life?" he inquired +jestingly. Then he passed the ever-ready cigarcase. "Smoke up, and +after a bit we'll go and try it on the dog—see if a second meal in the +diner will come as near to upsetting you as the first one did. Say, +don't you know, I'm bully glad we met up in the smoker this morning? I +was rawhiding myself to beat the everlasting band at the prospect of +having to make this long, tiresome day jump alone, and it's done me a +heap of good to talk you to frazzles. And that reminds me: you haven't +told me yet where you are heading for." +</P> + +<P> +I had not; and what was more, I did not mean to. There were distant +relatives on my mother's side of the family living somewhere in central +Missouri, and I spoke of them. +</P> + +<P> +"Sedalla, you say?" he commented. "Well, if that's the how of it, I +may see you again in a day or so, and here's hoping. I have a horrible +suspicion that our St. Louis general agent wants me to chase out with +him and dig up some of his dead-alive country dealers. We sell a raft +of wagons in Missouri." +</P> + +<P> +It was just here that it occurred to me that Barton was carrying it off +pretty toppingly for a mere traveling salesman; also that he dressed +better, smoked better cigars, and seemed a good bit freer with his +money than such a job warranted. +</P> + +<P> +"You were selling Whiteley Wagons by yourself, when I dropped out," I +said. "Have I been doing you an injustice by not allowing for a +promotion in the three years and a half?" +</P> + +<P> +"You sure have!" he laughed. "In the reorganization a year ago they +made me sales manager. Oh, yes, Bert; I've blossomed out some since +you knew me. I've actually got a little chunk of stock in the concern. +You never would have thought it of old Hod Barton, would you? Look at +this." +</P> + +<P> +He reached into a pocket and pulled out a money roll, riffling the ends +of the bills between thumb and forefinger to let me see that the +denominations were all comfortably large. There was something +instantly suggestive in the bit of braggadocio; a feeling that I had +seen somebody do that same thing in exactly that same way once before. +But before I could follow up the impression he was making me an offer +which put everything but his free-hearted generosity out of my mind. +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't said a word, Bert, and if it's none of my business, you +can tell me so—but if a couple of these yellow-backs would come in +handy to you just now, they're yours and you can toss 'em back to me +any old time when you're good and ready." +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head and thanked him out of a full heart. The purchase of +the Denver ticket hadn't left me much of a balance out of the black +pocketbook's holdings, but I couldn't borrow of Barton; that was out of +the question. +</P> + +<P> +Shortly after this we had another meal together in the dining-car, and +this time there were no sudden alarms to make me turn sick and panicky. +Afterward, I made another attempt to return to my place in the forward +end of the train, but since Barton would not hear of it, we spent the +remainder of the short afternoon in the Pullman smoker. +</P> + +<P> +During this interval, Barton did most of the talking, growing +confidential along toward the last and telling me a lot about the girl +he was going to marry—the youngest daughter of good old Judge Haskins, +of Jefferson—the man who had sentenced me. If all the world loves a +lover, certainly no considerable part of it cares to pay strict +attention while he descants at length upon the singular and altogether +transcendent charms of the loved one; and when Barton got fairly +started I had time to consider another matter which was of far greater +importance to me. +</P> + +<P> +Earlier in the day Barton had assured me that he would not fail to go +and see my mother and sister when he returned to Glendale. I could +scarcely urge him not to do so, though I knew very well that he would +not stop with telling the home-folks; that he would doubtless tell +every Tom, Dick and Harry in town how he had met me, and where. What I +was asking myself as he burbled on about Peggy Haskins was whether I +might dare give him the one cautionary word which would reveal the true +state of affairs. In the end I decided that it would be most +imprudent, not to say disastrous. He would have sympathized with me +instantly and heartily, but the knowledge would have been as fire to +tow when he got back where he could talk. I could foresee just how it +would bubble out of him as he button-holed each fresh listener: "Say! +you must keep it midnight dark, old man, but I met Bert Weyburn on the +train: he's jumped his parole and, skipped—lit out—vanished! Not a +word to any living soul, mind you; this is a dead secret. We mustn't +give him away, you know,"—and a lot more of the same sort. +</P> + +<P> +The arrival of the through train in the great echoing Terminal at St. +Louis was timed accurately with the coming of a gloomy twilight fitly +climaxing the bleak and stormy day. Having no hand-baggage I was the +first to leave the Pullman, and on the platform I waited for Barton who +had gone back into the body of the car to get his coat and hat and +bags. As he ran down the steps and gave his two suit cases to the +nearest red-cap, the links in a vague chain of recognition snapped +themselves suddenly into a complete whole, and I knew instantly why the +thumbing of the pocket-roll in my friend's generous offer to lend me +money had struck the chord of familiarity. The two hand-bags turned +over to the platform porter were the same two that I had seen snatched +out of a cab in front of the Marlborough entrance while their owner was +digging in his pockets for the cab fare, and the coat and hat Barton +had donned for the debarking were the fur-lined luxury and the soft +felt worn by the man who had dropped the black pocket-book. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, old boy," he said, gripping my hand in leave-taking, "the best +of friends must part. I suppose you'll wait here to take your Sedalla +train. Maybe we'll get together again in a day or so. If we +shouldn't, here's hoping that the world uses you well from this on—to +sort of make up for what has gone, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a minute," I gasped, as he was turning to follow the red-cap. +"You said you were at the Marlborough last night. I was there—on +an—on an errand. Did you come in late?—in a cab?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did; and I had a funny experience—or have I told you about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you didn't tell me," I contrived to say. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know but I had; I've talked so much about everything to-day. +It was this way: when I got out of the cab I saw a sort of hobo-ish +looking fellow standing at the curb with his hands in his pockets and +all doubled over as if he were cold. It never occurred to me for a +minute that he was anything but what he looked to be." +</P> + +<P> +The porter, with Barton's suit-cases, was disappearing in the direction +of the cab stand, and I suggested that we walk along. I had learned +all I needed to know. But Horace Barton never left a story unfinished +if he could help it. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir; that fellow fooled me good and proper," he went on, as we +hurried to overtake the suit-cases. "He wasn't any hobo at all; he was +a pickpocket, and one of the finest. I was hunting for a half-dollar +to pay the cabby, and I could have sworn that that 'dip' never got +within six feet of me. And yet he 'frisked' me before I could get +across the sidewalk and into the hotel. Luckily, all he got was a +little pocketbook with some sixty or so dollars in it." +</P> + +<P> +"You reported your loss to the police?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not for one little minute!" was the laughing rejoinder. "I didn't +discover the loss until after I got up to my room and found the St. +Louis wire waiting for me; and then there wasn't time. But I shouldn't +have done it anyway. Any fellow fly enough to do me that way when I'm +wide awake and 'at' myself is welcome to all he gets.… Well, +here's our jumping-off place, I guess. My man 'll be waiting for me at +the Southern, and I must go. Take care of yourself, and so long!" +</P> + +<P> +I let him go; saw him climb into a cab and disappear. There was +nothing to be done about the money, of course: I had spent more than +half of it for my Denver ticket. But, since honesty, like all other +human attributes, dies hard in any soil where it has once taken root, I +turned away with a great thankfulness in my heart. The owner of the +black pocketbook was found, and some day he should have his own +again—with interest. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing of any consequence happened after Barton left me. Finding upon +inquiry that the westbound connecting train would not leave until eight +o'clock, I ventured out in search of a slop-shop where I could purchase +a cheap suit to go with the clean shirt and collar given me by the +free-handed sales manager. The purchase left me with less than ten +dollars in my pocket, but it made a new man of me otherwise. In the +old life at home I had never dreamed that a few rags and wisps of +cloth, properly sewed together, make all the difference in a moralizing +world between the man and the vagrant. +</P> + +<P> +There was a wreck on the Missouri road some time during the night, and +our train was caught behind it and delayed. For this reason another +rainy afternoon was drawing to its close when I had my first glimpse of +Kansas City, high-perched on its hills from my glimpsing view-point on +the opposite bank of the Missouri River, but low-lying and crowded to +suffocation with railroad yards in that part of it where the train came +to a stand. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of course, I had missed my proper Denver connection, owing +to the wreck delay. But, a passenger agent directing me, I found the +evening Union Pacific train waiting at another platform. A short +half-hour later the tangle of railroad yards in the river "bottoms" was +left behind and the overland train was boring westward into a cloudy +night through Kansas. +</P> + +<P> +With the welcoming West lying fair and free before me, the memory of +the prison years and of the parole purgatory to which they had led was +already beginning to fade into a limbo of things past and irrevocable, +and therefore to be quickly and decently forgotten. There should be a +new life in the new world, and the humiliation and disgrace of the past +should be so deeply burled that it could never be resurrected. I was +still under twenty-nine, it must be remembered, and at that age Hope, +the one human quality which seems to have in it the precious germ of +immortality, will flap its wings over the most wretched ash-heap that +was ever blown together by the bleak winds of misfortune. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Plain-Clothes Man +</H3> + + +<P> +Upon landing in Denver in the middle of a day that seemed too bright +and exhilaratingly bracing to be true, I had an adventure which, while +it had no immediate bearing upon my escape, is worthy of record because +it led to a second hasty flight, and so became in a manner responsible +for much that happened afterward. +</P> + +<P> +As I left the train a squarely built man, sharp-eyed under the brim of +his modish soft hat, was standing aside on the track platform and +evidently scrutinizing each of the debarking passengers in turn. Some +acute inner sense instantly warned me, telling me that this silent +watcher was a plain-clothes man from police headquarters; and his first +word when he stepped out to confront and stop me confirmed the +foreboding. +</P> + +<P> +"You're wanted," he announced curtly, twitching his coat lapel aside to +show his badge. +</P> + +<P> +This was another of the crises in which I was made to feel the murder +madness leaping alive in blood and brain; but the publicity of the +place and the blank hopelessness of escape in a strange city made any +thought of resistance the sheerest folly. +</P> + +<P> +"What am I wanted for?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll find that out later. Will you go quietly, or do you want the +nippers?" +</P> + +<P> +The cooler second thought reassured me. It seemed entirely incredible +that the news of the broken parole had already been put on the wires. +In the natural order of things I should hardly be missed until after my +failure to report to the prison authorities at the month end should +raise the hue and cry. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go quietly, of course," I conceded; and then I added the lie of +sham bravado: "I don't know of any reason why I shouldn't. You are the +man who is taking all the chances." +</P> + +<P> +With no further talk I was marched through the station building, out +the long approach walkway to the foot of Seventeenth Street, and so on +up-town, the plain-clothes man keeping even step with me and indicating +the course at the corner-turnings by a push or a wordless jerk of his +head. +</P> + +<P> +As we went I was striving anxiously to invent a plausible story to be +told at headquarters. It was an entirely new experience. Hitherto I +had always told the plain truth, as the law required, and now I found +the inventive machinery singularly rusty. But the wheels were made to +turn in some fashion. By the time we were mounting the steps of the +antiquated City Hall at the crossing of Cherry Creek, I knew pretty +well what I was going to say, and how it must be said. +</P> + +<P> +At first they gave me little chance to say anything. In the +inspector's office my captor and two others got busy over a book of +newspaper clippings, pictures and descriptions of "wanted" criminals. +With wits sharpened now to a razor-edge, I came quickly to the +conclusion that I had been mistaken for some one else. The conclusion +was confirmed when they took an ink-pad impression of the ball of my +right thumb and fell to comparing it with one of the record prints. +</P> + +<P> +After a time the inspector put me on the rack, beginning by demanding +my name. +</P> + +<P> +Meaning to lie only when there should be no alternative, I told him a +half-truth. Though every one at home called me "Herbert" and "Bert," +and it was as "James Herbert Weyburn" that I had been arraigned and +convicted, that was not, strictly speaking, my right name. I had been +christened "James Bertrand," after my father. My mother had always +called me "Jimmie," but for others the "Bertrand" was soon shortened +into "Bert" and from that a few home-town formalists had soon evolved +the "Herbert," a change which my own boyish and unreasoning dislike for +"Bertrand" was ready enough to confirm. So, when the inspector asked +me my name I answered promptly, "James Bertrand." +</P> + +<P> +"Write it," was the curt command, and a pad and a pencil were shoved at +me across the desk. +</P> + +<P> +Since the name was two-thirds of my own, I was able to write it without +any of the hesitation which might otherwise have betrayed me if I had +chosen a combination that was unfamiliar. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you from?" was the next question. +</P> + +<P> +Here, as I saw it, was one of the holes in which a lie might be +profitably planted—profitably and safely. So I said, glibly enough: +"Cincinnati." +</P> + +<P> +"Street and number?" +</P> + +<P> +I had given Cincinnati merely because I chanced to be somewhat familiar +with that city, and now I gave the location of a boarding-house near +the river front where I had once stayed over-night. +</P> + +<P> +"Where were you born?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the country, about forty miles from Cincinnati." +</P> + +<P> +"Traveling for your health, I suppose? Where's your baggage?" +</P> + +<P> +I saw that I should have to call a halt somewhere, and this seemed as +good a point as any. +</P> + +<P> +"See here," I broke out; "you've got the wrong man, and you know it, +and I know it! You have no shadow of right to arrest me without a +warrant. Neither have you any right to try to tangle me in my +statements so that I shall fall down and give you an excuse for locking +me up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Say, young fellow—you cut all that out and quiet down!" advised the +plain-clothes man who had nipped me at the railroad terminal. +</P> + +<P> +"That's the one thing I shan't do!" I retorted boldly. "You have +arrested me without authority, and now you are trying to give me the +third degree. You've got me here, and you may make the most of +it—until I can find a lawyer. Lock me up if you feel like it; and are +willing to stand for the consequences." +</P> + +<P> +At this the three of them put their heads together and once more +compared the thumb-prints. Suddenly the inspector whirled upon me with +his lips drawn back and his hand balled into a fist as if he were going +to strike me. +</P> + +<P> +"How about that little job you pulled off with a forged check in +Chicago last week?" he rapped out. +</P> + +<P> +He was evidently counting upon the effect of a shock and a surprise, +but, naturally, the ruse fell flat. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know anything about a forged check; and I was never in Chicago +in my life," I replied; and since both statements were strictly true I +could make them calmly and without hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +For the third time they put their heads together. I think the +inspector was for letting me go without further ado. But the man who +had arrested me was apparently still suspicious and unsatisfied. As a +compromise they did the thing which determined my second flight. They +took me into a room at the rear of the building; a barn-like place bare +of everything save a screen and a tripoded photographer's camera; and +within the next five minutes I had been posed and "mugged." +</P> + +<P> +"Now you may go," said the harsh-voiced inspector; and I left the +building knowing that the Colorado capital had been effectually crossed +off in the list of possible refuges for me. With my photograph in the +police blotter, discovery and recapture would be only a question of +time, if I should stay where I could be identified by the local +authorities. Once during my prison term I had seen an escaped man +brought back from far-away Alaska. +</P> + +<P> +Since there was no immediate danger, however, there was time to plan +thoughtfully and prudently for a second disappearance. After a +lunch-counter meal, eaten in a cheap restaurant within a block or so of +the City Hall, I made a round of the employment offices. In front of +one of them there was a bulletin-board demand for railroad grade +laborers on the Cripple Creek branch of the Colorado Midland. +</P> + +<P> +At that time I knew next to nothing about the geography of the Rocky +Mountain States, and the great mining-camp at the back of Pike's Peak +was merely a name to me; though the name was familiar, in a way, +because the mine in which Abel Geddis had sunk his depositors' money +was said to be in the Cripple Creek district. What chiefly attracted +me in the bulletin-board notice was the announcement that free +transportation would be given to the work. With only a few dollars in +my pocket, the free ride became an object, and I entered the office. +</P> + +<P> +The arrangement was easily made. I gave the agent his fee of two +dollars, and let him put a name—not my own or any part of my own, you +may be sure—on his list for the evening shipment. It appeared to cut +no figure with this employment shark that I bore none of the marks of a +successful pick-and-shovel man. All he wanted or cared for was his two +dollars and something on two legs and in the shape of a man to put into +his gang against the collected fee. I was told to show up at the Union +Station at six o'clock, sharp; and after spending the remainder of the +afternoon wandering about the city, I reported as instructed, was +passed through the gates with some twenty-five or thirty other +"pick-ups," and so turned my back upon the Queen City of the +Plains—for a time. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Number 3126 +</H3> + + +<P> +In due deference to the "mugging" at police headquarters, I had +registered in the Denver employment office as "William Smith." But on +the work, which proved to be the construction of a branch feeder for +the Midland in the heart of the gold district, I took my own name—or +rather that part of it which had been given to the Denver police +inspector—arguing that the only way in which I could be traced would +be by means of the photograph. Against the photographic possibility, +my beard, which had been scraped off by the station barber during the +waiting interval between trains in St. Louis, was suffered to grow +again. +</P> + +<P> +The railroad labor was strenuous, as it was bound to be; and for the +first few days the thin, crisp air of the altitudes cut my already +indifferent physical efficiency almost to the vanishing point. +Nevertheless, there were two pieces of good fortune. My +fellow-laborers in the grading gang were principally Italians from the +southern provinces and their efficiency was also low. This helped, but +a better bit of luck lay in the fact that the contractors on the job +were humane and liberal employers; both of them with a shrewd and +watchful eye for latent capabilities in the rank and file. Within a +week I was made a gang time-keeper, and a fortnight later I became +commissary clerk. +</P> + +<P> +Before I forget it, let me say that my first month's pay, or the +greater part of it, went to replace the sixty-three dollars and a half +in the little black pocketbook which I had stolen—I guess that is the +honest word—-from Horace Barton. I debated for some time over the +safest method of returning the pocketbook and its restored contents to +the wagon salesman. I realized that it wouldn't do to let him know +where I was; and it seemed a needless humiliation to confess to him +that I was the "hobo" who had posed, in his imagination, as the skilful +sidewalk pickpocket. +</P> + +<P> +In casting about for a means of communication I thought of Whitley, the +Springville minister. So I wrote him a letter, enclosing the +pocketbook, with a truthful explanation of the circumstances in which +it had come into my possession, and telling him what to do with it. I +laid no commands upon his conscience, but begged him, if he could +consistently do so, to suppress my name and whereabouts. And since I +could not be quite sure as to what the ministerial conscience might +demand, I added, rather disingenuously, I fear, that he needn't reply +to my letter, as I had no permanent address. +</P> + +<P> +It was some little time after my promotion to the commissary that +Dorgan came on the job as a track-laying foreman. He was a heavy-set, +black-browed fellow with a sinister face and deeply caverned, brooding +eyes looking out furtively under their bushy coverts, and his chief +characteristic was a crabbed reticence which not even the exigencies of +handling a crew of steel-layers seemed able to break. His face was one +not to be easily forgotten; from the first sight I had of it, it was +vaguely familiar, and a thoughtful ransacking of the cubby-holes of +memory very shortly recalled it for me. Dorgan was an escaped convict. +</P> + +<P> +His jail-break dated back to my second year in the penitentiary, to a +period just after I had been slated for the prison office work. +Dorgan—his name on the prison books was Michael Murphey, but we knew +him only as "Number 3126"—had "brought" ten years for safe-blowing, +and he was known in the prison yard and shops as a dangerous man. +Twice within my recollection of him he had been put in solitary +confinement for fighting; and he was one of the few to whom the warden +denied the small privileges accorded the "good conducts." +</P> + +<P> +One day a hue and cry was raised and word was quickly passed that +Number 3126 was missing. He had planned his escape craftily. A new +shop building was at that time in process of erection, and each day a +gang of "trusties" went outside to haul stone. Of course, the +safe-blower was not included in this outside gang, but one dark and +rainy morning he included himself by the simple process of hog-tying +and gagging one of the trusties detailed for the job, exchanging +numbered jackets with him, and taking the man's place in the ranks of +the stone-loaders, where he contrived to pass unnoticed by the guards. +</P> + +<P> +The escape was entirely successful. At the critical moment Dorgan had +overpowered the single wagon guard, leaving the man a candidate for +admission to the hospital, and had made his break for liberty. We, of +the inside, never knew, of course, the various steps taken in the +attempt to recapture him. But they all appeared to be fruitless since +Number 3126 was never brought back. +</P> + +<P> +I failed utterly in an endeavor to analyze my own feelings when I +recognized Dorgan and realized that an escaped man from my own prison +was at work for my employers; an escaped criminal and a desperate one, +at that. What was my duty in the premises? Should I bind myself, once +for all, to the brotherhood of law-breakers—the submerged minority—by +shielding this man and conniving at his escape? Or should I turn +informer, telling the contractor-partners of the risk they ran by +keeping Dorgan in the force—the risk that some night, after the money +for the monthly pay-roll had been brought out from town, they would +find the camp safe smashed and its contents gone? +</P> + +<P> +While I was debating this question, inclined first in one direction by +some new generosity on the part of one or the other of my employers, +and again leaning the other way when I remembered that, in the eye of +the law, I, myself, was in precisely the same category with Number +3126, I had another promotion. One evening, just after I had closed +the commissary, one of the water-boys came to tell me that I was wanted +in the contractors' office, a little shack at the far side of the +end-of-track cantonments. Hadley, the senior member of the firm, was +alone when I showed myself at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Come in, Bertrand," he invited, gruffly genial; "come in and wait a +minute until I go over this estimate again. You'll find cigars in that +box on the bunk." +</P> + +<P> +Having nothing to do while I waited, I sat on a stool in a corner of +the shack, smoking the gift cigar and silently regarding the man who +had sent for me. He was a good example of the better type of Western +contractor and out-door man; big-bodied, burly, whiskered like a miner, +a keen driver on the work, but withal as kindly as a father when +kindness was called for. +</P> + +<P> +In due time he pushed the figuring pad aside and turned to me. "Drag +up your stool, Jim; I want to talk to you," he began. And then: "How +much experience have you had in keeping accounts?" +</P> + +<P> +I told him briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"In a bank, eh?" he queried, and I knew precisely what he was thinking. +He was wondering what I had done to break myself. In spite of all that +had happened or might happen, I believe I was ready to tell him; but to +my astonishment the curt questioning which all my previous experience +had taught me to expect at this stage of the game did not come. +</P> + +<P> +"This is a free country, Bertrand," he said, looking me squarely in the +eye. "I'm not going to ask you why you quit bank bookkeeping to come +out here and swing a pick in a construction camp. Here in the tall +hills we don't think much of digging up graves—the graves of any man's +past. You've done well in every job we've tried you at, and that's all +to the good for you." +</P> + +<P> +I said I had tried to fill the bill as well as I knew how, and he took +me up promptly. +</P> + +<P> +"We know you have; and that brings on more talk. Kenniston is leaving +us to go prospecting. We've talked it over—Shelton and I—and you're +to have the paymaster's job. Think you can hold it down?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure I can—so far as the routine duties are concerned. But——" +</P> + +<P> +Never, in all the soul-killing experiences of the parole period, had I +been confronted with a test so gripping. Would this large-hearted man +turn the keys of his money chest over to me if he knew I were an +ex-convict, liable at any moment to be re-arrested for having broken my +parole? I was silent so long that he began again. +</P> + +<P> +"Looking around for a spade to begin the grave-digging?" he asked, with +a sober smile. Then, with a note of unwonted gentleness in his voice: +"I shouldn't do that if I were you, Jimmie. The man doesn't live who +hasn't, at one time or another, had to dig a hole and bury something +decently out of sight. Whatever you may have done in the past, you're +not going to play marbles with the Hadley-and-Shelton pay-money. +That's about all there is to it. You may take hold to-morrow morning. +Kenniston will stay long enough to show you the ropes." +</P> + +<P> +It was not until after I had left the office shack and was crossing to +the bunk house set apart for the office squad that I remembered Dorgan. +Now, if never before, my duty in his case was plain. It was tempting +Providence to allow the presence in camp of a burglar who was probably +only waiting for his chance to "clean up"; doubly perilous now, indeed, +since in any case of loss my record would be shown up, and Dorgan, if +he had already recognized me as I had him, would not be slow to take +advantage of my vulnerability. +</P> + +<P> +My first impulse was to go straight back to Hadley and tell him, +without the loss of another moment. But there were difficulties in the +way; obstacles which I had not before stopped to consider. If I should +accuse Dorgan, he might retaliate by telling what he knew of me. This +difficulty was brushed aside at once: I judged there was little to fear +from this, in view of what Hadley had just said to me. But there was +another obstacle; the one which had kept me silent from the day I had +first seen Dorgan driving his track-layers. With a crushing sense of +degradation I realized the full force of the motive for silence, as I +had not up to this time. With every fiber of me protesting that I must +be loyal to my employers at any and all costs, that other loyalty, the +tie that binds the branded, proved the stronger. I could not bring +myself to the point of sending Dorgan, guilty as he doubtless was, back +to the living death of the "long-termer." I make no excuses. One +cannot touch pitch and escape defilement in some sort. For three years +I had lived among criminals; and the bond … but I have said all +this before. +</P> + +<P> +It may be imagined with what inward tremblings I took on the duties of +the new job the next day. Kenniston, eager to be gone on his +prospecting tour, gave me only a short forenoon over the pay-rolls; but +as to this, the routine was simple enough. It was what he said at +parting that gave me the greatest concern. +</P> + +<P> +"You have to go to the bank at the Creek and get the money, you know," +he said. "I usually go on the afternoon train. That will make you +late for banking hours, but if you wire ahead they'll have the money +counted out and ready for you. Then you can catch the evening train to +the junction and come up on one of the construction engines. Better +take one of the commissary .45's along, just for safety's sake—though +in all the trips I've made I've never needed a gun." +</P> + +<P> +The week following Kenniston's drop-out was a busy one, with time-books +to check and enter, commissary deductions to be made, and the payrolls +to be gotten out. My office was a small room or space partitioned off +from the commissary, the partition being of matched boards, +breast-high, and above that a rough slat grille like those in country +railroad stations. As I worked at the bracketed shelf which served as +a high desk, I could see the interior of the commissary, and those who +came and went. It may have been only a fancy, but it seemed to me that +Dorgan came in oftener than usual; and more than once I caught him +peering at me through the slatted grille, with the convict's trick of +looking aside without turning his head. It was for this reason, more +than for any other, that I recalled Kenniston's advice and armed myself +when I went to Cripple Creek on the day before pay-day to get the money +from the bank. +</P> + +<P> +The short journey to town was uneventful. A construction locomotive +took me down to the main line junction, where I caught the regular +train from Denver. But on the way from the railroad station to the +bank in Cripple Creek I had a shock, followed instantly by the +conviction that I was in for trouble. On the opposite side of the +street, and keeping even pace with me, I saw Dorgan. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett (for obvious reasons I cannot use real names) was the man I had +been told to ask for at the bank, and it was he who admitted me at the +side door, the hour being well past the close of business. He was a +clean-cut, alert young fellow; a Westerner, I judged, only by recent +adoption. +</P> + +<P> +"You are Bertrand, from the Hadley and Shelton camps?" he asked; and +then, as I produced my check and letter of authority; "You don't need +the letter. Kenniston told me what you'd look like. Your money is +ready." +</P> + +<P> +In one of the private rooms of the bank the currency was counted out, +the count verified, the money receipted for, and I was ready to start +back. Barrett walked to the railroad station with me, helping with the +valise money bag, which was heavy with a good bit of coin for making +change. We got better acquainted on the walk, and I warmed immediately +to the frank, open-mannered young bank teller, little dreaming what +this acquaintance, begun in pure business routine, was destined to lead +to in the near future. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett saw me safely aboard of my return train, and stood on the +platform at the open window of the car talking to me until the train +started. On my part this leave-taking talk was more or less +perfunctory; I was scanning the platform throng anxiously in search of +a certain heavy-shouldered man with a sinister face; and when, just as +the train began to move, I saw Dorgan swing himself up to the step of +the car ahead, I knew what was before me—or thought I did—and +surreptitiously drew the .45 from the inside coat-pocket where I had +carried it, twirling the cylinder to make sure that it was loaded and +in serviceable condition. +</P> + +<P> +There was an excellent chance for a hold-up at the junction. It was +coming on to dusk as the through train made the stop, and there was no +town, not even a station; nothing but a water tank and the littered +jumble of a construction yard. My engine was making up a train of +material cars to be taken to our end-of-track camp, and I had to wait +for it to come within hailing distance. +</P> + +<P> +Dorgan got off the through train at the same time that I did. I stood +with the money valise between my feet and folded my arms with a hand +inside of my coat and grasping the butt of the big revolver, shaking a +bit because all this was so foreign to anything I had ever experienced, +but determined to do what seemed needful at the pinch. Oddly enough, +as I thought, the track foreman made no move to approach me. Instead, +he kept his distance, busying himself with the filling and lighting of +a stubby black pipe. After a little time, and before it was quite +dark, my engine backed down to where I was standing and I climbed +aboard with my money bag, still with an eye on Dorgan. The last I saw +of him he was sitting on the end of a cross-tie, pulling away at his +pipe and apparently oblivious to me and to everything else. But I made +sure that when the material train should pull out he would be aboard of +it; and the event proved that he was. +</P> + +<P> +Obsessed with the idea that Dorgan had chosen the time to make his +"clean-up," I took no chances after the end-of-track camp was reached. +The money valise went with me to the mess tent, and I ate supper with +my feet on it, and with the big revolver lying across my knees. After +supper I lugged my responsibility over to the commissary pay-office, +and by the flickering light of a miner's candle stowed the money in the +ramshackle old safe which was the only security the camp afforded. +</P> + +<P> +Past this I lighted the lamps and busied myself with the account books. +There was little doing in the commissary—it was too near pay-day for +the men to be buying much—and the clerk who had taken over my former +job shut up shop quite early. At nine o'clock I was alone in the +store-room building; and at a little before ten I put out the lights +and lay down on the office cot with a sawed-off Winchester—a part of +the pay-office armament—lying on the mattress beside me. +</P> + +<P> +A foolish thing to do, you say?—when at a word I might have had all +the help I needed in guarding the pay-money? No; it wasn't altogether +foolhardiness; it was partly weakness. For, twist and turn it as I +might, there was always the unforgivable thing at the end: the fact +that by calling in help and betraying Dorgan to others, I, once his +prison-mate, and even now, like him—though in a lesser degree—a +law-breaker, would become a "snitch," an informer, a traitor to my +kind. A wretchedly distorted point of view? Doubtless it was. But +the three years of unmerited punishment and criminal associations must +account for it as they may. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know how long the silent watch was maintained. One by one the +night noises of the camp died down and the stillness of the solitudes +enveloped the commissary. The responsibility I was carrying should +have kept me awake, but it didn't. If the coming of sleep had been +gradual I might have fought it off, but the healthy life of the camp +had given me leave to eat like a workingman and to fall asleep like one +when the day was ended. So after the stillness had fairly laid hold of +me I was gone before I knew it. +</P> + +<P> +When I opened my eyes it was with a startled conviction that I was no +longer alone in the little boxed-in office. In the murky indoor +darkness of a moonless night I could barely distinguish the +surroundings, the shelf-desk, the black bulk of the old safe, the +three-legged stool, and at the end of the room the gray patch which +placed the single window. Then, with a cold sweat starting from every +pore, I saw the humped figure of a man beside the safe. As nearly as I +could make out, he was sitting with his back to the wall and his knees +drawn up, and by listening intently I could hear his measured breathing. +</P> + +<P> +It required a greater amount of brute courage than I had thought it +would to spring to a sitting posture on the cot and cover the squatting +figure with the rifle slewed into position across my knees. The man +made no move to obey when I ordered him to hold up his hands. Then I +spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got the drop on you, Dorgan—or Murphey; whichever your name is," +I said. "If you move I shall kill you. You see, I know who you are +and what you are here for." +</P> + +<P> +A voice, harsh but neither threatening nor pleading, came out of the +shadows beside the safe. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't tellin' me nothin' new, pally. I spotted you a good while +back, and I knowed you'd lamped me. You was lookin' f'r me to bust in +here to-night?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was. After you followed me to Cripple Creek and back I knew about +what to expect." +</P> + +<P> +"And you was layin' f'r me alone?—when you could 'a' had Collins and +Nixon and half a dozen more if yous 'd squealed f'r 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't need any better help than this," I answered, patting the +stock of the Winchester. "The jig's up, Dorgan. You can't crack this +safe while I'm here and alive. I suppose you got in by the window: you +can go out the same way." +</P> + +<P> +"You're aimin' to turn me loose?" said the voice, and now I fancied +there was a curious trembly hoarseness in it. +</P> + +<P> +"You heard what I said." +</P> + +<P> +"Listen a minute, pally: if you'll hold that gun right stiddy where it +is and let out a yell 'r two, you can earn five hundred doughboys. Ye +didn't know that, did you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know you broke jail and skipped for it, but I didn't know how much +the warden was willing to pay to get you back." +</P> + +<P> +"It's five hundred bones, all right. Study a minute: don't you want +the five hundred?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; not bad enough to send you back to 'stir' for it." +</P> + +<P> +There was a dead silence for the space of a long minute, and while it +endured the man sat motionless, with his back against the wall and his +hands locked over his knees. Then: "They'd all pat you on the back if +yous was to let out that yell. I brought ten years with me when the +warden give me my number, and I'm thinkin' they was comin' to me—all +o' them." +</P> + +<P> +"But you don't want to go back?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not me; if it was to come to that, I'd a damned sight rather you'd +squeeze a little harder on that trigger you've got under your finger; +see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Then why did you take this long chance?" I demanded. "You say you +knew I had spotted you; you might have known that I'd be ready for you." +</P> + +<P> +"I kind o' hoped you would," he said, drawling the words. "Yes; I sure +did hope ye would—not but what I'm thinkin' I could 'a' done it alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Done what alone? What are you driv——" +</P> + +<P> +The interruption was imperative; a fierce "Hist!" from the corner +beside the safe, and at the same instant a blurring of the gray patch +of the window, a sash rising almost noiselessly, and two men, following +each other like substance and shadow, legging themselves into the +office over the window-sill. At first I thought Dorgan had set a trap +for me; but before that unworthy suspicion could draw its second +breath, the track foreman had hurled himself upon the two intruders, +calling to me to come on and help him. +</P> + +<P> +The battle, such as it was, was short, sharp and decisive, as the +darkness and the contracted fighting space constrained it to be. +Though I dared not shoot, I contrived to use the rifle as a club on the +man who was trying to choke Dorgan from behind, and after a +hard-breathing minute or two we had them both down, one of them half +stunned by the blow on his head from the gun-barrel, and the other with +an arm twisted and temporarily useless. Under Dorgan's directions I +cut a couple of lengths from a rope coil in the commissary with which +we tied the pair hand and foot, dragging them afterward to the freer +floor space beyond the pay-office partition. +</P> + +<P> +"They'll be stayin' put till mornin', I'm thinkin'," was Dorgan's +comment as we retreated to the scene of the battle. Then, as he edged +toward the open window: "Ye won't be needin' me any more to-night … +I'll duck whilst the duckin's good." +</P> + +<P> +"Not just yet," I interposed, and pulled him to a seat on the cot +beside me. "I want to know a few things first. You knew about the +raid these fellows were planning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure, I did." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about it." +</P> + +<P> +"I piped 'em off about a week ago—when Kenniston 'd gone. They talked +too much, and too loud, d'ye see? The lay was f'r to chase in to the +Creek wit' you—an' they did—an' get you on the road, if they could; +if that didn't work, they was to crack the safe"—this with the +contempt of the real craftsman for a pair of amateurs. "D'ye see, the +boss 'd been dippy enough to write the combination on a piece o' paper +when Kenniston ducked out—f'r fear he'd be forgettin' it, maybe, and +these dubs o' the world nipped the paper." +</P> + +<P> +"See here, Dorgan; was that why you followed me to town this +afternoon?" I shot at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye've guessed it." +</P> + +<P> +"And it was for the same reason that you sneaked in here while I was +asleep?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye've guessed it ag'in." +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't want the bosses to be robbed?" +</P> + +<P> +The escaped convict had his face propped between his hands with his +elbows resting on his knees. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm thinkin' maybe it's six o' one and a half-dozen o' tother," he +said soberly. "I wasn't carin' so damned much about the bosses, square +as they've been to me. But I puts it up like this: here's you, and +you'd spotted me, and you hadn't snitched; you'd been in 'stir' +yourself, and knowed what it was: d'ye see?" +</P> + +<P> +I smiled in the darkness. It was the brotherhood of the underworld. +</P> + +<P> +"And you lined up square at the finish, too, as I knowed yous would," +he went on. "You sees me pipin' yous off in town, and you was thinkin' +maybe I'd drop in here to-night and crack this old box f'r the swag +there'd be in it. You laid f'r me alone, because yit you wouldn't be +willin' to give me up. Ain't that the size of it, pally?" +</P> + +<P> +"You've guessed it," I said, handing his own words back to him. "And +now one more question, Dorgan: have you quit the crooked business for +keeps?" +</P> + +<P> +He was up and moving toward the open window when he replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Who the hell would know that? I was a railroad man, pally, before I +took to the road. These days I'm eatin' my t'ree squares and sleepin' +good. But some fine mornin' a little man that I could break in halves +wit' my two hands 'll come dancin' along wit' a paper in his pocket and +a gun in his fist; and then it'll be all over but the shoutin'—or the +fun'ral. There's on'y the one sure thing about it, pally: I'll not be +goin' back to 'stir'—not alive; d'ye see? So long … don't let +them ducks get loose on yous and come at yous fr'm behind, whilst maybe +you'd be dozin' off." +</P> + +<P> +And with this parting injunction he was gone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A Cast for Fortune +</H3> + + +<P> +The incident of the frustrated safe robbery was an incident closed, so +far as any difference in Dorgan's attitude toward me was concerned, at +the moment when he disappeared through the open window of the +pay-office. For the next two or three weeks I saw him only as he +chanced to drop into the commissary of an evening; and upon such +occasions he ignored me absolutely. +</P> + +<P> +Only once more while the work of branch-line building continued did we +have speech together. It was in the evening of a day when the new +line, then nearly completed, had been honored with visitors; a car-load +of them up from Denver in some railway official's private +hotel-on-wheels. It so happened that my duties had taken me up to the +actual end-of-track—by this time some miles beyond our headquarters +camp at Flume Gulch—and I was there when the special, with its +observation platform crowded with sightseers, came surging and +staggering up over the uneven track of the new line. +</P> + +<P> +I paid little attention to the one-car train as it passed me, save to +note that there were women among the railroad official's guests. The +sightseers were quite outside of my purview—or within it only as +temporary hindrances to a job we were all pushing at top speed. A +short distance beyond me the train came to a stand in the midst of +Dorgan's crew and I saw some of the people getting off the car. Just +then a construction engine came along on the siding, and, my errand to +the front being accomplished, I flagged it and went back to +headquarters. +</P> + +<P> +As I have said, Dorgan dropped into the commissary that evening. His +ostensible errand was to buy some tobacco, but after he had filled his +pipe he lingered until the sleepy commissary clerk began to turn the +loiterers out preparatory to closing the place for the night. It was +then that Dorgan gave me a sign which I rightly interpreted; when I +released the catch of the pay-office door he slipped in and sat down on +the cot where he would be out of sight of those in front. Here he +smoked in sober silence until Crawford, the commissary man, had gone +out and locked the door on the empty storeroom. +</P> + +<P> +"I was wantin' to tip yez off," was the way he began, after we had the +needful privacy. "You'd be after seein' that kid-glove gang up at the +front this mornin'?" +</P> + +<P> +I nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Know anybody in that bunch?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't notice them particularly," I replied. "I understood they +were Denver people—friends of somebody in the railroad management." +</P> + +<P> +"There was women," he said significantly. +</P> + +<P> +"I know; I saw some of them." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and be the same token, there was one of them lamped yous off. I +listened at her askin' one o' the men who you was; d'ye see?" +</P> + +<P> +Instantly I began to ransack my brain for the possibilities, and almost +at once the talk on the train with Horace Barton, the wagon sales +manager, flashed into the field of recollection. +</P> + +<P> +"Could you describe the woman for me?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +Dorgan made hard work of this, though it was evident that he was trying +his best. His description would have fitted any one of a round million +of American women, I suppose; yet out of it I thought I could draw some +faint touches of familiarity. The stumbling description, coupled with +Barton's assertion that Agatha Geddis was living in Colorado, fitted +together only too well. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you hear what she said to the man?" I inquired, and my mouth was +dry. +</P> + +<P> +"On'y a bit of it. She says, says she: 'Who is that man wit' a French +beard—the young man in his shirt-sleeves?' The felly she t'rowed this +into was one o' the kid-gloves, and he didn't know. So he went to +Shelton, who was showin' the crowd around on the job. When he comes +back, he tells her your name is Jim Bertrand, and that you makes a +noise like the camp paymaster." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" I prompted. "Go on." +</P> + +<P> +"She laughs when he says that. 'Jim Bertrand, is it?' says she. 'Will +you do me a favor, Mister Jullybird'—'r some such name. 'Go and ask +that young man how did he leave all the folks in Glendale. I want to +see him jump,' says she. He didn't do it because at that same minute +yous was walkin' down the track to flag Benson's ingine." +</P> + +<P> +The bolt had fallen. The woman could have been no other than Agatha +Geddis. Once more I stood in critical danger of losing all that I had +gained. There was only one faint hope, and that was that she had not +heard of the broken parole. I had to go to the water jug in the +Commissary and get a drink before I could thank Dorgan for telling me. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis nothin'," he said shortly. Then, after a protracted pause: "What +can she do to yous, pally?" +</P> + +<P> +"She can send me up for two years; and then some—for the penalties." +</P> + +<P> +Again a silence intervened. +</P> + +<P> +"'Twas in the back part o' my head to take a chance and ditch that +damn' special when she was comin' back down the gulch," said Dorgan, at +length, as coolly as if he were merely telling me that his pipe had +gone out. "But if I'd done it, it would have been just my crooked luck +to 'a' killed everybody on it but that woman. What'll ye be doin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing at present. We shall finish here in a week or so more, and +then I'll see." +</P> + +<P> +That ended it. After Dorgan had got another match for his pipe, I let +him out at the side door of the commissary, and he went his way across +to the sleeping shacks on the other side of the tracks. +</P> + +<P> +Two weeks later it was this story of the inquisitive young woman, +weighing in the balance with some other things, that determined my +immediate future course. The work on the branch line was completed, +and my employers had taken a dam-building contract in Idaho. I was +offered the job of bookkeeper and paymaster, combined, on the new work, +with a substantial raise in salary, and the temptation to accept was +very strong. But I argued, foolishly, perhaps, that so long as I +remained in the same service as that in which she had discovered me, +Agatha Geddis would always be able to trace me; that my best chance was +to lose myself again as speedily as possible. +</P> + +<P> +The "losing" opportunity had already offered itself. By this time I +had made a few acquaintances in town and was beginning to be bitten by +the mining bug. Though I was a late comer in the district, and Cripple +Creek had fully caught its stride as one of the greatest gold-producing +camps in the world some time before my advent, "strikes" were still +occurring frequently enough to keep the gold seekers' excitement from +dying out. With the greater part of my Hadley-and-Shelton earnings in +my pocket, and with muscles camp-hardened sufficiently to enable me to +hold my own as a workingman, I decided to take a chance and become a +prospector. +</P> + +<P> +We went at it judiciously and with well-considered plans, three of us: +the bank teller, Barrett, a young carpenter named Gifford, and myself. +Altogether we could pool less than a thousand dollars of capital, but +we determined to make the modest stake suffice. By this time the +entire district had been plotted and replotted into mining claims; +hence we did our preliminary prospecting in the records of the land +office. A careful search revealed a number of infinitesimally small +areas as yet uncovered by the many criss-crossing claims; and among +these we chose a triangular-shaped bit of mountain side on the farther +slope of Bull Mountain, with a mine called the "Lawrenceburg," a fairly +large producer, for our nearest neighbor. +</P> + +<P> +There was a good bit of discussion precedent to the making of this +decision. Barrett thought that we stood but a slight chance of finding +mineral in the over-prospected area. The Lawrenceburg was a full +quarter of a mile distant from our triangle, and its "pay-streak" was +said to dip southward, while our gulch slope lay on the other side of a +spur and due northeast. It was a further examination of the +land-office records that turned the scale. Among the numerous unworked +claims lying higher up the gulch, beyond and adjoining our proposed +location, we found three whose ownership we traced, through a number of +transfers apparently designed to hide something, to the Lawrenceburg. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett, a fine, keen-witted young fellow whose real name, if I might +give it, would be familiar to everybody in the West, was the first to +draw the probable inference. +</P> + +<P> +"Jimmie, you've got the longest head in the bunch," was his comment; +this because I had chanced to be the one to make the discovery of the +well-concealed ownership. "At some period in the history of the +Lawrenceburg, which is one of the oldest mines on Bull Mountain, its +owners have had reason to believe that their pay streak was going to +run the other way—to the northeast. They undertook to cover the +chance by making these locations quietly, and through 'dummy' locators, +on the other side of the spur." +</P> + +<P> +"But how did they come to overlook this patch we're figuring on?" asked +Gifford, the carpenter. +</P> + +<P> +"That was somebody's blunder," Barrett offered. "These section plats +we have been studying may have been made after the locations were +staked out; in all probability that was the case. That sort of thing +happens easily in a new country like this. It was an oversight; you +can bet to win on that. If those Lawrenceburg people had any good +business reason for locating these claims beyond us, they had precisely +the same reason for covering this intervening bit of ground that we are +going to grab." +</P> + +<P> +Gifford took fire at once; and if I didn't it was only because we were +not yet in possession, and I thought there might be many chances for a +slip between the cup and the lip. This talk took place at night in +Barrett's room in town, and before we separated our plans were fully +made. Gifford and I were to start at once—that night, mind you—for +Bull Mountain to locate a claim which should cover as completely as +possible the entire area of the irregular triangle. The location made, +the carpenter and I were to work the claim as a two-man proposition. +Barrett was to retain his place in the bank, so that the savings from +his salary might add more capital. We even went so far as to christen +our as yet unborn mine. Since we were picking up—or were going to +pick up—one of the unconsidered fragments after the big fellows had +taken their fill of the loaves and fishes, we proposed to call our +venture "The Little Clean-Up." +</P> + +<P> +I shall always remember Barrett's good-natured grin when the meeting +was adjourned. +</P> + +<P> +"You two will have the hot end of it," he remarked. "You're going to +do the hard work, and all you've left me is a chance to do the starving +act. Right here is where I see myself giving up this palatial +apartment and going into a boarding-house. For heaven's sake, eat +light, you two. We may have to sink a hundred feet in solid rock +before we find anything." +</P> + +<P> +We went in light marching order, Gifford and I; and the early dawn of +the following morning found us driving our location stakes and pacing +off the boundaries of the new claim. I like to remember that we were +neither too new to the business, nor too much excited, to be careful +and methodical. The triangular patch of unclaimed ground lay along the +slope, with the apex of the triangle pointing toward the hill-hidden +Lawrenceburg. Ignoring any vein directions which might develop later +on, we laid off our location to fit the ground, taking in all the space +we could legally hold; which would be, of course, only the triangle, +though our staking necessarily overlapped this area on all sides. If +we should be lucky enough to make a strike, ground space for our +operations was going to be at a premium, and at the very best there +wasn't an inch of room to spare. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know just why we should have been afraid that anybody would +have been foolish enough to try to "jump" an unworked claim; but we +were, and we decided at once that we would not leave the ground +unwatched now that our stakes were driven and our notice duly posted. +Accordingly, Gifford went back to town to make the needful land-office +entry and to bring out the supplies, tools, and a wagon-load of lumber +for a shack, leaving me to stand guard with an old horse-pistol of +Gifford's for a weapon. It was after dark when I heard the wagon +trailing up the gulch, and I had had nothing to eat since morning. But +I was free and hopeful—and happy; with the nightmare past becoming +more and more a thing to be pushed aside and comfortably ignored. +</P> + +<P> +Looking back at it now, I can see that our venture was haphazard to the +tenderfoot degree. Having built a sleeping shack out of the lumber, we +picked a place for the prospect shaft solely with reference to its +convenience on the hillside. But for this we had plenty of precedents. +What the miners of any other district would have called sheer miracles +of luck were the usual thing in the Cripple Creek region. From the +earliest of the discoveries the region had been upsetting all the +well-established mining traditions, and the tenderfoot was quite as +likely to find mineral as was the most experienced prospector; more +likely, in fact, since the man with everything to learn would not be +hampered by the traditions. +</P> + +<P> +The top layer of fine gravel which answers for soil in the district +carries gold "float"—"color," a Californian would say,—in numberless +localities over an area of many square miles; a fact which was well +known long before any one knew of the underlying treasures which have +since been taken out of the deep workings. But there are no vein +outcroppings on the surface, and the prospector's first task is to +uncover the bed-rock by sinking one or more test pits through the +gravel. In some one of these shallow shafts he may—or may not—make +his discovery. If successful, he will find, on some well-cleaned +surface of the bed-rock, a fine broken line; a minute vein in many +instances so narrow as to be discoverable only by the use of a +magnifying-glass; and that discolored line will be his invitation to +dig deeper. +</P> + +<P> +By the morning of the second day Gifford had built our rude windlass, +and the work of shaft sinking was begun. The gravel layer varies in +thickness in different parts of the district, ranging from a few inches +in some places to many feet in others. In our case we were less than +waist-deep in the hole, and had not yet set up the windlass, when we +reached the upper surface of the bed-rock. +</P> + +<P> +Generally speaking, the Cripple Creek district is a dry region as to +its surface, but we were lucky enough to have a trickling rivulet in +our gulch. It was dark before we had carried water in sufficient +quantity to wash off the uncovered bed-rock bottom in our hole, so we +turned in without knowing what we had found, or whether or not we had +found anything. +</P> + +<P> +I was cooking the bacon and pan-bread the next morning when Gifford, +who had gone early into the hole with a bucket of water and a +scrubbing-brush, came running up to the shack with his eyes bulging. +</P> + +<P> +"We—we've got it!" he gasped. "Where's that magnifying-glass?" +</P> + +<P> +I left the bacon to burn if it wanted to and ran with him to the +shallow shaft. He had scrubbed the solid rock of the pit bottom until +it was as bare as the back of a hand, and across the cleaned stone, +running from southwest to northeast, there was a thin line of +discoloration showing plainly enough as a fissure vein. Gifford dug a +little of the crack-filling out with the blade of his pocket-knife and +we examined it under the magnifier. We were both ready to swear that +we could see flecks and dust grains of free gold in the bluish-brown +gangue-matter; but that was purely imagination. +</P> + +<P> +I think neither of us knew or cared that the bacon was burned to a +blackened crisp when we got back to it. The breakfast was bolted like +a tramp's hand-out, and before the sun was fairly over the shoulder of +the eastern mountain we were back in the hole with hammer and drills. +The frantic haste was entirely excusable. While it was true that a +greater number of the Cripple Creek discoveries had widened +satisfactorily from the surface down, becoming more and more profitable +at increasing depths, it was also true that some of them had begun as +"knife-blades" and had so continued. What Gifford and I did not know +about drilling and shooting rock would have filled a library of +volumes; none the less, by noon we had succeeded in worrying a couple +of holes in the solid shaft bottom, had loaded them, and were ready for +the blast. +</P> + +<P> +If any real miner should chance to read this true and unvarnished tale +of our beginnings he will smile when I confess that we cut the fuses +four feet long and retreated a good quarter of a mile up the gulch +after they were lighted. In our breathless eagerness it seemed as if +we waited a full half-hour before the shallow hole vomited a mouthful +of broken rock and dust, and a dull double rumble told us that both +shots had gone off. Gifford was a fairly good sprinter, but I beat him +on the home run. The hole was half full of shattered rock and loosened +gravel and we went at it with our bare hands. After a few minutes of +this senseless dog-scratching, Gifford sat down on the edge of the pit +and burst out laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess there ain't any manner o' need for us to go plumb locoed," he +said. "We've got all the time there is, and a shovel will last a heap +longer than our fingers." +</P> + +<P> +I may say, in passing, that this attitude was characteristic of our +carpenter partner. He was a country boy from Southern Indiana; a +natural-born mechanic, with only a common school education. But he had +initiative and a good gift of horse sense and balance, and in the +troublous times that followed he was always our level-headed stand-by. +</P> + +<P> +Acting upon his most sensible suggestion, we took our time, spelling +each other in shoveling out the debris. The two shots driven in +opposite corners had deepened the shaft over two feet. When the new +bottom of the hole was uncovered we nearly had a return of the +frenzies. The discolored line of the vein had widened to four inches +or more, and the last of the broken rock shoveled out was freely mixed +with fragments of the bluish-brown gangue-matter. +</P> + +<P> +A hasty estimate assured us that we had a sufficient quantity of the +lode matter for a trial assay, and we spent the better part of the +afternoon picking out pieces of the ore on the small dump and in +chipping more of them from the exposed face of the seam. It was +arranged that one of us should take the samples to town after dark, for +the sake of secrecy, and we put in what daylight there was left after +our sample was prepared drilling another set of holes—though we did +not fire them. +</P> + +<P> +Leaving Gifford to stand guard over what now might be something well +worth guarding, I made my way down the mountain after supper with the +two small sacks of selected samples. True to his promise, I found +Barrett already established in a rather cheap boarding-house. He was +surprised to see me so soon, and more than surprised when I showed him +the specimens of bluish rock. +</P> + +<P> +"Say—by George!" he exclaimed; "that sure does look like the real +stuff, Jimmie; though of course you can't tell. Have you roasted any +of it?" +</P> + +<P> +I was so green a miner at that time that I did not know what "roasting" +meant. Barrett had a tiny coal-stove in his room with a bit of fire in +it. Even the June nights are sometimes chilly at the Cripple Creek +altitude. Selecting a bit of the stone he put it upon the fire-shovel +among the coals and while it was heating listened to my recounting of +the short and exciting story of the "find." +</P> + +<P> +When the piece of bluish stone had been roasted and cooled we did not +need the magnifying-glass. It was covered with a dew of fine pin-point +yellow globules. Barrett went up in the air as if his chair had +exploded under him. "My God, Jimmie!" he choked, "it's—it's a +<I>bonanza</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +The next step was to have authoritative assays made, and together we +took the two small sacks of ore to the sampling works, which, at that +time, were running day and night. We waited in the office while the +tests were being made. The result, which came to us well past +midnight, was enough to upset the equanimity of a wooden Indian. Some +of the selected samples carried values as high as twenty-five dollars +in gold—not to the ton; oh, no; nothing like that: <I>to the pound</I>! +</P> + +<P> +Barrett had the situation firmly by the neck when we left the sampling +works. +</P> + +<P> +"I have a sort of provisional arrangement with Mr. Conaughy, our +president, and I can quit the bank without notice and explain +afterward," he said. "I'm going right back with you to-night. Three +of us will be none too many to handle this thing when the news gets +out." +</P> + +<P> +We went to his room first and loaded up with blankets, working clothes, +a shot-gun and a generous supply of fixed ammunition. On the long +tramp up the mountain, Barrett, who was older in the district than +either Gifford or myself, told me what we might expect. +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't think we are going to be allowed to dig that hole without +the toughest kind of a fight, Jimmie," he predicted. "The minute the +news gets loose, we shall be swamped with 'interferences,' relocations, +law-suits, process servers and constables, to say nothing of the +strong-hands and claim-jumpers. The Lawrenceburg people will doubtless +claim that mistakes were made in their surveys, as perhaps there were. +They've got a first-class fighting man for a superintendent; as I +happen to know: a man who won't stick at anything to carry his end." +</P> + +<P> +"But it's our strike," I urged. +</P> + +<P> +"It's ours if we can hold it," was the sober reply. "Our best play is +to keep the thing absolutely dark until we can dig out enough money to +give us a fighting fund. That's where we're lame. Our bit of capital +won't go anywhere when they drag us into the courts." +</P> + +<P> +Our shortest way to the new claim led us in sight of the Lawrenceburg +workings. They were running night shifts, and though it was now well +along in the small hours, the plant was in full swing. Like most of +the mines within trolley distance of the towns, it had no miners' +village, the men going back and forth at the shift-changing hours. But +the superintendent lived at the plant, and there were a few bunk houses +and one other detached cottage. +</P> + +<P> +There was a light in one room of this cottage as we passed, and Barrett +called my attention to it. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a man in that shack that I hope we may be able to get, if we +ever grow big enough to hire him," he said. Then he added, quite +irrelevantly: "He has a daughter, and I'm telling you right now, +Jimmie, she's a peach." +</P> + +<P> +I let the reference to the daughter go by default. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is this gentleman that we ought to be able to hire?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"He is the best, or at least one of the best, metallurgical chemists in +the district, and it goes without saying that an honest assayer counts +for everything in this mining game. Without one, the smelters will +skin you alive." +</P> + +<P> +I laughed. "I didn't ask what he was; I asked who he was—or is." +</P> + +<P> +"He is a school-teacher, or college professor, and I'm told he has +taught in High Schools and freshwater colleges all over the Middle +West," said Barrett, as we topped the hill to our side of the mountain +shoulder. And then I got my bucketing of cold water. "His name is +Phineas Everton, and his daughter's name is Mary—though everybody +calls her Polly." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +For the Sinews of War +</H3> + + +<P> +Gifford, sitting in the darkness with his back to the windlass and the +big old-fashioned holster revolver across his knees, held us up promptly +and peremptorily when we came over the spur. Seeing Barrett with me, he +knew pretty well what the results of the assay were before we told him. +At the edge of the shallow pit we held a council of war—the first of +many. Gifford fully agreed with Barrett that the most profound secrecy +was the first requisite. Though he was new to the business of +gold-mining—as new as either the bank teller or myself—he could +prefigure pretty accurately what was before us. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's where we'll have to ride and tie on the snoozing act," was his +drawling comment. "We mustn't leave her alone for a single minute, after +this; and it's got to be one of us, at that. We couldn't afford to hire +a watchman if we had a million dollars." +</P> + +<P> +Under the ride-and-tie proposal I volunteered to stand watch for the +remainder of the night; and after the other two had turned in I took +Gifford's place, with the windlass for a back rest and Barrett's shot-gun +for a weapon. +</P> + +<P> +I was not sorry to have a little time to think; to try in some fashion to +readjust the point of view so suddenly snatched from its anchorings in +the commonplace and shot high into the empyrean. It was the night of the +ninth of June. Three months earlier, to a day, I had been an outcast; a +miserable tramp roaming the streets of a great city; broken in mind, body +and heart; bitter, discouraged, and so nearly ready to fall in with +Kellow's criminal suggestion as actually to let him give me the money +which, if I had kept it or spent it as he directed, would have committed +me irretrievably to a life of crime. +</P> + +<P> +Looking back upon it from the vantage point gained by a few hours' toil +on a bare Colorado mountain-side, that ninth of March seemed to have +withdrawn into a fathomless past. I was no longer a hunted vagabond; I +was breathing the free clean air of a new environment, and in the narrow +pit beside me a fortune was waiting to be dug out; a fortune for the +ex-convict no less than for the two who had never by hint or innuendo +sought to inquire into their partner's past. It was too good to be true; +and yet it was true, contingent, as I saw it, only upon our fortitude, +discretion and manful courage. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, there was still one small disturbing note in the music of +the spheres. Barrett's mention of Phineas Everton as one of our nearest +neighbors disquieted me vaguely. It was quite in vain that I reasoned +that in all human probability Everton would fail to identify the bearded +man of twenty-eight with the schoolboy he had known ten or twelve years +earlier. He had taught only one year in the Glendale High School, and I +was not in any of his classes. Polly had known me much better. She had +been in one of the grammar grades, and was just at an age to make a +big-brother confidant of her teacher's brother—my sister being at that +time a teacher in the grammar school. +</P> + +<P> +Upon this I fell to wondering curiously how Polly, a plain-faced, +eager-eyed little girl in short dresses, could have grown into anything +meriting Barrett's enthusiastic description of her as a "peach." Also, I +wondered how her bookish, studious father had ever contrived to break +with the scholastic traditions sufficiently to become an assayer for a +Western mine. But I might have saved myself this latter speculation. +Cripple Creek, like other great mining-camps, served as a melting-pot for +many strange and diverse elements. +</P> + +<P> +At the earliest graying of dawn I roused my partners and took my turn +with the blankets, too tired and drowsy to stay awake while Gifford +cooked breakfast. I was sound asleep long before they fired the two +holes Gifford and I had drilled the previous afternoon, and they let me +alone until the noonday meal was ready on the rough plank table. Over +the coffee and canned things Barrett brought our bonanza story up to date. +</P> + +<P> +"It's no joke, Jimmie," he said soberly. "We've got the world by the +ears, if we can only manage to hold on and go on digging. The lead has +widened to over six inches, and we have two more sacks of the stuff +picked out and ready to take to town." +</P> + +<P> +"Any visitors?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a soul, as yet. But we'll have them soon enough; there's no doubt +about that. If our guess is right—that the Lawrenceburg people meant to +cover this hillside in their later locations—we'll hear from Bart +Blackwell before we are many hours older." +</P> + +<P> +"Blackwell is the superintendent you spoke of when we were coming up last +night?" +</P> + +<P> +"The same. I don't know why he hasn't been here before this time. They +must surely hear the blasting." +</P> + +<P> +We had our visitor that afternoon, while Barrett and I were working in +the hole and Gifford was sleeping. Luckily for us, Barrett never for a +single moment lost sight of the need for secrecy. We were drilling when +Blackwell's shadow fell across the mouth of the pit, but we had taken the +precaution to cover the gold-bearing vein with spalls and chippings of +the porphyry, and to see to it that none of the gold-bearing material +showed in the small dump at the pit mouth. +</P> + +<P> +Blackwell was a short man but heavy-set, with a curly black beard and +eyes that were curiously heavy-lidded. As he leaned over the windlass +and looked down upon us he reminded me of one of the fairy-tale ogres. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Bob," he said, speaking to Barrett, whom he knew. "Quit the +banking business, have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Taking a bit of a lay-off," Barrett returned easily. "We all have to +get out and dig in the ground, sooner or later." +</P> + +<P> +Blackwell laughed good-naturedly. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll get enough of it up here before you've gone very far," he +predicted. "Just the same, you might have come by the office and asked +permission before you began to work off your digging fit on Lawrenceburg +property." +</P> + +<P> +"We're not on Lawrenceburg," said Barrett cheerfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, you are," was the equally cheerful rejoinder. "Our ground runs +pretty well up to the head of the gulch. I'm not trying to run you off, +you know. If you feel like digging a well, it's all right: it amuses +you, and it doesn't hurt us any." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the hole. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's get this thing straight, Blackwell," he argued. "You've got three +claims in this gulch, but we are not on any one of them. Look at your +maps when you go back to the office." +</P> + +<P> +"I know the maps well enough. We cover everything up to the head of the +gulch, just as I say, joining with the original Lawrenceburg locations on +the other side of the spur." Then, suddenly: "Who's your friend?" +</P> + +<P> +Barrett introduced me briefly as Jim Bertrand, late of the Colorado +Midland construction force. Blackwell nodded and looked toward the shack. +</P> + +<P> +"Any more of you?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"One more; a fellow named Gifford. He's asleep just now." +</P> + +<P> +Blackwell straightened up. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right, as I say, Bob. If you three tenderfoots want to come up +here and play at digging a hole, it's no skin off of us. When you get +tired we'll buy the lumber in your shack and what dynamite you happen to +have left, just to save your hauling it away." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks," said Barrett; "we'll remember that. We haven't much money now, +but we'll probably have more—or less—when we quit." +</P> + +<P> +"Less it is," chuckled the square-shouldered boss of the Lawrenceburg. +"Go to it and work off your little mining fever. But if you should +happen to find anything—which you won't, up here—just remember that +I've given you legal notice, with your partner here as a witness, that +you're on Lawrenceburg ground." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett's grin was a good match for Blackwell's chuckle. +</P> + +<P> +"We're going to sink fifty feet; that's about as far as our present +capital will carry us. As to the ownership of the ground, we needn't +quarrel about that at this stage of the game. You've given us notice; +and you've also given us permission to amuse ourselves if we want to. +We'll call it a stand-off." +</P> + +<P> +After the superintendent had gone I ventured to point out to my +drill-mate that the matter of ownership had been left rather indefinite, +after all. +</P> + +<P> +"Diplomacy, Jimmie," was the quick reply. "The one thing we can't stand +for is to be tied up in litigation before we have contrived to dig a few +of the sinews of war out of this hole. Blackwell's little pop-call warns +us to use about a thousand times as much care and caution as we have been +using. I saw him scraping the dump around with his foot as he talked. +He is one of the shrewdest miners in Colorado, and if he had got his +sleepy eye on a piece of the vein matter as big as a marble, it would +have been all over but the shouting. You can see where all this is +pointing?" +</P> + +<P> +"It means that we've got to make this hole look like a barren hole, and +keep it looking that way—if we have to handle every piece of rock that +comes out of it in our fingers," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Just that," Barrett asserted, and then we went on with the drilling. +</P> + +<P> +We arranged our routine that evening over a supper of Gifford's +preparing. We planned to take out each day as much ore as the watch on +duty could dig, to sort it carefully, sacking the best of it and hiding +the remainder under the shack. Then, during the night, one of us would +carry what he could of the sacked ore down the mountain to the sampling +works to be assayed and sold on the spot. +</P> + +<P> +The sheer labor involved in this method of procedure was something +appalling, but we could devise no alternative. To have a wagon haul the +ore to town would, we were all agreed, be instantly fatal to secrecy; and +at whatever cost we must have more money before we could dare face a +legal fight with the Lawrenceburg people. Looking back upon it now, our +plan seems almost childish; but the enthusiasm born of the miraculous +discovery was accountable for the cheerful readiness with which we +adopted it. +</P> + +<P> +Gifford took the first turn at the ore-carrying while Barrett and I +shared the night watch, two hours at a time for each of us. The +carpenter came back just before daybreak, haggard and hollow-eyed, but +profanely triumphant. There had been no questions asked at the sampling +works, and his back-load of ore had been purchased on the strength of the +assay—doubtless with a good, round profit to the buyers. He had limited +his carry to seventy-five pounds, and he brought back the sampling +company's check for $1355 as the result of the day's work! +</P> + +<P> +Speaking for myself, I can say truly that I lived in the heart of a dream +for the next few days—the dream of a galley-slave. We worked like dogs. +Added to the drilling and shooting and digging, there was the all-night +job of ore-carrying—at which we took turn and turn about—for one of us. +Though I am not, and never have been, save in the parole starvation time, +what one would call a weakling, my first trip to town with eighty-five +pounds of ore on my back nearly killed me. A thousand times, it seemed +to me, I had to stop and rest; and when I got down it was always an open +question whether or not I could ever get up again with the back load in +position. +</P> + +<P> +As it came about, in the regular routine, mine was the third turn at the +carrying, and by this time the superintendent of the sampling works was +beginning to have his curiosity aroused. +</P> + +<P> +"So there are three of you, are there?" he commented, when he had +examined and recognized the sacked samples. "Any more?" +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. I was too nearly exhausted to talk. +</P> + +<P> +"At first I thought you fellows were raiding somebody," he went on. +"There is a mine not a thousand miles from where you're sitting that puts +out exactly this same kind of ore, only it's not anywhere near as rich as +these picked samples of yours." +</P> + +<P> +"What made you change your mind?" I queried, willing to see how far he +would go. "How do you know we are not raiding somebody's ore shed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I know Bob Barrett," was the crisp reply. Then: "Why are you +boys making this night play? Why don't you come out in the open like +other folks—honest folks, I mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"There are reasons," I asserted. +</P> + +<P> +"Afraid somebody will catch on and swamp you with a rush of claim +stakers?" +</P> + +<P> +"Call it that, if you like." +</P> + +<P> +"You're plumb foolish, and I told Bob Barrett so last night. You're +carrying this stuff miles; I know by the way you come in here with your +tongues hanging out. It's like trying to dip the ocean dry with a pint +cup. One good wagon-load of your ore—if you've got that much—would +count for more than you three could lug in a month of Sundays." +</P> + +<P> +I knew this as well as he did, but I was not there to argue. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess we'll have to handle it our own way," I answered evasively; and +while he was sending my sack out to the testing room I fell sound asleep. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of a week, after we had made two trips apiece, we had nearly +$7,000 in bank. Figured as a return for our labor, killing as that was, +it was magnificent. But as a war chest it was merely a drop in the +bucket. Given plenty of time, we might have won out eventually by the +sacked-sample route; but we knew we were not going to be given time. +Blackwell had been up twice; and the second time, Gifford, who was acting +as hammerman, had to sit in the bottom of the shaft, pretending to load +the half-drilled hole. Otherwise, the heavy-lidded eyes, peering down +over the barrel of the windlass would assuredly have seen the steadily +widening ore body. +</P> + +<P> +On the sixth day Everton came across the spur. I think I should have +known him anywhere, but he did not recognize me, though I stood and +talked with him at the shaft mouth. His visit, as I took it, was not a +spying one. On the contrary it appeared to be merely neighborly. After +beating about the bush for a little time, he came down to particulars. +We must surely know, he said, that we were on Lawrenceburg ground, and it +was too bad we were throwing away our hard work. To this he added a +vague warning. Blackwell had been taking our amateur effort as a good +joke on Barrett, whom he had known only as a bank clerk. But the edge of +the joke was wearing off, and the superintendent, who, as it seemed, had +been watching us more closely than we had supposed, was beginning to +wonder why we kept at it so faithfully; and why our camp was always +guarded at night. +</P> + +<P> +The following day was Sunday, and Everton came again, this time +accompanied by his daughter. Gifford was windlass winder at the moment, +and he let himself down into the shaft, swearing, when he saw them coming +over the shoulder of the spur. +</P> + +<P> +I left our carpenter-man busily covering up the lode while I scrambled +out to meet and divert the visitors. My first sight of Mary Everton, +grown, made me gasp. There had been no promise of her womanly +winsomeness and pulse-quickening beauty in the plain-faced little girl +with large brown eyes—the little girl who used to thrust her hand into +mine on the way home from school and tell me about the unforgivable +meanness of the boy who "cribbed" for his examinations. +</P> + +<P> +Everton introduced me as "Mr. Bertrand," and for a flitting instant I saw +something at the back of the brown eyes that made cold chills run up and +down my spine. And her first words increased rather than diminished the +burden of sudden misgiving. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew a Bertrand once," she said, shaking hands frankly after the +manner of the West. "It was when I was a little girl in school. Only +Bertrand was his Christian name." +</P> + +<P> +Without knowing that he was doing it, her father came to my rescue. "We +haven't any near neighbors, Mr. Bertrand, and Polly wanted to see your +mine," he said. And then: "Do you realize that it is Sunday?" +</P> + +<P> +I led the glorified Polly Everton of my school days to the mouth of the +shallow shaft. "Our 'mine,' as your father is polite enough to call it, +isn't very extensive, as yet," I pointed out. "You can see it at a +glance." +</P> + +<P> +She took my word for it and gave the windlass-straddled pit only a +glance. Barrett had had his nap out and was showing himself at the door +of the shack. My companion nodded brightly at him and he joined us at +once. "We are quite old friends, Mr. Barrett and I," she hastened to +say, when I would have introduced him; and this left me free to attach +myself to her father. +</P> + +<P> +Phineas Everton had changed very little with the passing years. I +remembered him as a sort of cut-and-dried school-man, bookworm and +scientist, and, as I afterward learned, he was still all three of these. +Partly because I was telling myself that it was safer for me to keep my +distance from the girl who remembered the boy Bertrand, and partly +because I wished to draw the assayer away from our dump, I took Everton +over to the shack and we sat together on the door-step. For some little +time I couldn't make out what he was driving at in his talk, but finally +it came out, by inference, at least. Somebody—Blackwell, perhaps—had +started the story that we were planning a raid on the Lawrenceburg. +</P> + +<P> +"How could that be?" I asked, remembering that, only the day before, +Everton had asserted that we were already trespassers on Lawrenceburg +property. +</P> + +<P> +"It is an old trick," he commented, rather sorrowfully, I fancied. "In +all the older locations there have been bits of ground missed in the +criss-crossing of the claims. Some one of you three has been sharp +enough to find one of those bits just here." +</P> + +<P> +"Well; supposing we have—what then?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +He was silent for a half-minute or so. Barrett had led Mary Everton to +the shoulder of the spur where the view of the distant town was +unobstructed, and Gifford was still in the shaft. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know you, Mr. Bertrand," my seatmate began slowly, "and I +shouldn't venture to set up any standard of right and wrong in your +behalf. But that young man out yonder with my daughter: I've known him a +long time, and I knew his people. It is a thousand pities to drag him +into your undertaking." +</P> + +<P> +"There has been no especial 'dragging' that I am aware of; and I don't +know why you should be sorry for Barrett," I returned rather tartly. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry because Robert Barrett has hitherto lived an upright and +honest life. He had excellent prospects in the bank, and it seems a +great pity that he has seen fit to throw them away." +</P> + +<P> +By this time I was entirely at sea. "You will have to make it +plainer—much plainer," I told him. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been hoping you wouldn't force me to call it by its ugly name," +was the sober rejoinder. "It is blackmail, Mr. Bertrand; criminal +blackmail, as I think you must know." +</P> + +<P> +"That is a pretty serious charge for you to make, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not more serious than the occasion warrants. You three have discovered +this little scrap of unclaimed ground in the middle of the Lawrenceburg +property. You are digging; and presently, when you are down far enough +so that your operations cannot be observed from the shaft mouth, you will +announce that you have struck the Lawrenceburg ore body. In that event, +as you have doubtless foreseen, our company will have no recourse but to +buy you off at your own figure." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" I challenged. +</P> + +<P> +"Your announcement, when you make it, will be a lie," was the cold-voiced +reply. "You are 'salting' the crevices as you go down—and with +Lawrenceburg ore." +</P> + +<P> +I sighed my relief. His guess was so far from the truth that I was more +than willing to help it along. If the Lawrenceburg people could only be +persuaded that our imaginary coup was to be postponed until the bottom of +our shaft should be out of sight from the surface, we were measurably +safe. +</P> + +<P> +"We may ask you to prove your charge when the proper time comes, Mr. +Everton," I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +He took a small fragment of bluish-gray ore from his pocket and showed it +to me, saying, quietly, "I can prove it now; this is Lawrenceburg ore: I +handle and test it every day, and I am perfectly familiar with it. I +picked this piece up a few minutes ago on your dump." +</P> + +<P> +It is always the impact of the unexpected that sends a man scurrying into +the armory of his past in search of the readiest weapon for the +emergency. Recall, once again, if you will, the three years of +association with criminals, and the fact that I was at that moment under +the ban of the law as an escaped convict. I could think of nothing save +the gaining of time, precious time, at whatever cost. +</P> + +<P> +I shall always be thankful that the temptation did not reach the length +of making me offer to buy Everton's silence. That, indeed, would have +been suicidal. Yet the prompting suggestion came to me, in company with +others still more ruthless. I was telling myself that the situation was +sufficiently alarming to warrant almost any expedient. Though he was not +yet aware of it, Everton had discovered our real secret; he knew we had +ore, which—as yet—he thought we were stealing from the Lawrenceburg +bins. If he should take one additional step.… +</P> + +<P> +The thought-loom shuttled pretty rapidly for a few short-lived seconds. +If Everton should show the bit of ore to Blackwell the superintendent +might believe the charge that we were stealing the Lawrenceburg values +for the "salting" purpose; in which case he would doubtless swear out +warrants for us. Or he might see farther than Everton had seen and jump +to the conclusion that we had actually made a strike of our own in the +shallow pit. Either way there was sharp trouble ahead. +</P> + +<P> +"You have us down pretty fine, haven't you?" I said, at the end of the +reflective pause. "May I ask what use you are going to make of your +discovery?" +</P> + +<P> +"I purpose giving you three young men a chance to talk it over seriously +among yourselves before I take any further steps. I suppose I should +have gone direct to Barrett. I know him, and I know there is plenty of +good in him to appeal to. But candidly, Mr. Bertrand, I didn't have the +heart to—well, to let him know that I knew." +</P> + +<P> +A bitter thought swept across me like a hot wind from the desert. Was +there never to be any let-up? Were people always going to take it for +granted that <I>I</I> was the criminal? I have known physical hunger and +hunger intellectual, but they were as nothing compared with the moral +famine that gripped me just then. I would have pawned my soul for a bare +modicum of the commonplace, every-day respectability which is able to +look the world squarely in the face without fear or favor—without asking +any odds of it. +</P> + +<P> +Everton was evidently waiting for his reply, and I gave it to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Criminality is largely relative—like everything else in the world, +don't you think?" I said, letting him feel the raw edge of the bitterness +that was rasping at me. "In coming to me, as you have, you, yourself, +are compounding a felony." +</P> + +<P> +He shrugged his thin shoulders and looked away at the two on the bluff's +edge. +</P> + +<P> +"Properly speaking, Mr. Bertrand, I am only an interested onlooker; and I +am interested chiefly on Barrett's account. What I may feel it my duty +to do if you three remain obdurate will be purely without reference to +your rather sophistical definition of criminality. In any event, +Blackwell is the man you will have to reckon with. As I say, I am +concerned only so far as the outcome may involve Robert Barrett." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell the others what you have said," I agreed; and with this the +matter rested. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Paper Walls +</H3> + + +<P> +We held our second war council shortly after Phineas Everton and his +daughter had disappeared over the shoulder of the spur on their way +back to the Lawrenceburg. I gave my two partners the gist of the +conversation with the assayer, briefly and without comment. Gifford +oozed profanity; but Barrett laughed and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Every little new thing we run up against merely urges us to let out +one more notch in the speed of the hurry hoist. Everton's suspicion is +an entirely natural one, and for my part, I only hope he and Blackwell +will hang on to it. If they should, there is an even chance that they +will watch their ore sheds a little closer and leave it to us to make +the first move in the imagined blackmailing scheme—all of which will +give us more time." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right; but we can't bet on the 'hang on,'" was Gifford's +demurrer. "They may think they've got the straight of it now, but +there's no law against their changing their minds mighty suddenly. +Suppose Everton shows up his bit of a sample, and they both take a +second whirl at the thing and pull down a guess that it isn't stolen +Lawrenceburg ore, after all? We've got to improve upon this +pick-a-back ore shipment of ours, some way, and do it mighty quick." +</P> + +<P> +This was the biting fact; we all accepted it as our most pressing need +and fell to discussing ways and means. There was already a full +wagon-load of the sacked ore hidden under the sleeping-shack, and at +the rate the lode was widening we could confidently figure on getting +out as much more every second day, or oftener. There was a good wagon +road to town from the Lawrenceburg plant, but of course we dared not +use it so long as we were making any attempt to maintain secrecy. The +alternative was a long haul down our own gulch, around the end of the +spur, and across the slope of the mountain-side below. Even this, the +only other practicable route, would be in plain sight from the +Lawrenceburg workings, once the team should pass out upon the bare +lower hillside. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover, we were obliged to consider the risk involved in taking at +least one other man—the driver of the team—into our confidence. +Since the hauling would have to be done in the night, an honest man +would suspect crookedness, and the other kind would blackmail us to a +finish. Gifford spoke of this, saying that it was a choice between the +devil and the deep blue sea. +</P> + +<P> +None the less, we were all agreed that the wagon-hiring hazard would +have to be taken, and at the close of the talk Barrett went to town to +make the arrangement. It was after dark when he returned. His mission +had been miraculously successful: he had not only found a trustworthy +teamster who was willing, for a good, round sum, to risk his horses on +the mountain at night; he had also interviewed the superintendent of +the sampling works and concluded a deal by the terms of which the +company—as a personal favor to Barrett—agreed to treat a limited +quantity of our highest-grade ore in wagon-load lots, making cash +settlements therefor. +</P> + +<P> +It lacked only an hour of midnight when the team, making a wide detour +to avoid being heard from the Lawrenceburg, reached our location on the +slope of the spur. We all helped with the loading; and when all was +ready, Gifford, whose turn it was to go to town, borrowed Barrett's +shot-gun and climbed to a seat beside the driver. +</P> + +<P> +With every precaution taken—a dragging pine-tree coupled on behind the +load to serve instead of the squealing brakes, and many injunctions to +the driver to take it easy and to do his swearing internally—the +outfit made more noise than a threshing-machine bumping down the gulch. +We kept pace with it, Barrett and I, following along the crest of the +spur with an apprehensive eye on the Lawrenceburg. But there was no +unusual stir at the big plant on the other side of the ridge; merely +the never-ceasing clank and grind of the hoist and the pouring thunder +of the ore as the skip dumped its load into the bins. +</P> + +<P> +Having nothing to detain him in town, Gifford made a quick trip and was +with us again a little after four o'clock in the morning. At the crack +of dawn Barrett and I were in the shaft under a new division of time. +Now that we had the team hauling for us, we chopped up the shifts so +that there would be two of us in the hole continuously, day and night. +</P> + +<P> +Again I have the memory of a week of grinding toil, broken—for me, at +least—only by the nights when it came my turn to ride to town on the +load of ore. On both occasions I recall that I went fast asleep on the +high seat before the wagon had gone twenty rods down the gulch; slept +sitting bolt upright, with the shot-gun across my knees, and waking +only when the driver was gee-ing into the yard of the sampling works in +town; lapses that I may confess here, though I was ashamed to confess +them to my two partners. +</P> + +<P> +During this second week we heard nothing from Blackwell or from any of +the Lawrenceburg contingent. But several strangers had drifted along, +stopping to peer down our shaft and to ask multitudinous questions. +Knowing well enough that we could not keep up the killing toil +indefinitely, and that the discovery crisis was only postponed from day +to day, we yet took heart of grace. The purchase money for the ore was +pouring in a steady stream into Barrett's bank to our credit; and with +the accounting for the third wagon-load we had upward of $80,000 in the +fighting fund. +</P> + +<P> +Gifford went in as wagon guard on the Monday night load, and getting an +early start from the mountain, he had a little time to spend on the +streets in town. On his return he brought news; the news we had all +been expecting and waiting for. +</P> + +<P> +"The big trouble's on the way," he reported. "Bennett Avenue's all lit +up with the news that there's been a new strike on Bull Mountain. I +heard about it mighty near everywhere I went. Up to date nobody seems +to know just where it is, or who has made it; but they've got hold of +the main guy, all right. One fellow told me he had it straight from +the sampling works. Some cuss on the inside, I reckon, who doesn't +know enough to keep his blame' mouth shut, has gone and leaked." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like mighty well to see another eighty thousand in the bank before +we have to shut our eyes and begin handing it out to the lawyers," said +Barrett. "Besides, when we get ready to build a shaft-house and put in +machinery, we'll have to have more ground room. After the news gets +out, we'll just about have to blanket what land we buy with +twenty-dollar gold-pieces." +</P> + +<P> +"With the Lawrenceburg hemming us in the way it does, we won't be able +to buy elbow room at any kind of a price, will we?" asked Gifford, who +had not gone into the topographies as minutely as Barrett and I had. +</P> + +<P> +"There are the three corners of the original triangle which we weren't +able to cover in our claim," Barrett explained. "And down yonder on +that gulch flat that we are using for a wagon road there is a claim +called the 'Mary Mattock' which was taken up and worked and dropped a +year or so ago by a Nebraska syndicate. When I was in town last week I +gave Benedict, of Benedict & Myers, the job of running down the owners, +with the idea that we might possibly wish to buy the ground a little +later on. +</P> + +<P> +"Good work!" Gifford applauded. "I wouldn't have thought of anything +as foxy as that." +</P> + +<P> +"I told Benedict we'd buy the Mary Mattock if we could get it at a +reasonable figure, or lease it if we couldn't buy it," Barrett went on. +"It is probably worthless to its present owners as it stands; its three +shafts are full of water, and I'm told the Nebraskans spent fifty +thousand dollars trying to pump them. But the minute the 'Little +Clean-Up' gets into the newspapers, the Mary Mattock, being next door +to us, will figure in the market as a bonanza, whether it is or isn't." +</P> + +<P> +Gifford cut himself a chew of tobacco from his pocket-plug. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish to gracious we had that other eighty thousand you're honing +for, right now," he protested. "This tin-basin trot's sure getting on +my nerves, as the fella said. We'd ought to have the shaft-house and +machinery set up and going, this minute, and a good, husky bunch of men +at work in that hole, digging out dollars where we're scratching for +pennies." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to be the shy man of this outfit," Barrett put it +quickly. "We can have the machinery if you fellows think we dare use +the money to buy it." +</P> + +<P> +Gifford and I both said No, deferring to Barrett's better judgment. +And since this talk was getting us nowhere and was wasting time which +was worth ten dollars a minute, we broke it off and went to work. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the latter part of this third week, on a night when my turn +at the wagon guarding had come in regular course, that I was made to +understand that no leaf in the book of a man's life can be so firmly +pasted down that a mere chance thumbing of the pages by an alien hand +may not flip it back again. +</P> + +<P> +By imperceptible inchings we had been starting the wagon earlier and +earlier on each successive trip; and on the evening in question it was +no later than ten o'clock when I turned the consignment of ore over to +the foreman at the reduction works. Ordinarily, I should have taken +the road back to the hills at once, intent only upon getting to camp +and between the blankets as speedily as possible. But on this night a +spirit of restlessness got hold of me, and, leaving Barrett's shotgun +in the sampling works office, I strolled up-town. +</P> + +<P> +Inasmuch as a three-months' residence in a mining-camp is the full +equivalent of as many years spent in a region where introductions +precede acquaintance, I was practically certain to meet somebody I +knew. The somebody in this instance proved to be one Patrick Carmody, +formerly a hard-rock boss on the Midland branch construction, and now +the working superintendent of a company which was driving a huge +drainage tunnel under a group of the big mines of the district. +</P> + +<P> +The meeting-place was the lobby of the hotel, and at the Irishman's +invitation I sat with him to smoke a comradely cigar. Carmody was not +pointedly inquisitive as to my doings; was content to be told that I +had been "prospecting around." Beyond that he was good-naturedly +willing to talk of the stupendous undertaking over which he was +presiding, expatiating enthusiastically upon air-drill performance, +porphyry shooting, the merits of various kinds of high explosives, +deep-mine ventilation, and the like. +</P> + +<P> +While he talked, I smoked on, luxuriating like a cat before a fire in +the comfortable lounging-chair, the cheerful surroundings, the stir and +bustle of the human ebb and flow, and the first half-hour of real +idleness I had enjoyed in many days. +</P> + +<P> +It was after Carmody had been dragged away by some fellow hard-rock +enthusiast that I had my paralyzing shock. Sitting in a chair less +than a dozen feet distant, smoking quietly and reading a newspaper, was +a man whose face would have been familiar if I had seen it in the +golden streets of the New Jerusalem or in the deepest fire-chamber of +the other place; a face with boring black eyes, and with a cruel mouth +partly hidden by freshly crimped black mustaches: the face, namely, of +my sometime prison-mate, Kellow. +</P> + +<P> +My shocked recognition of this man who tied me to my past annihilated +time and distance as if they had never been. In a flash I was back +again in a great stone building in the home State, working over the +prison books and glancing up now and then to the cracked mirror on the +opposite wall of the prison office which showed me the haggard features +and cropped hair of the convict Weyburn. +</P> + +<P> +The memory shutter flicked, and I saw myself walking out through the +prison gates with the State's cheap suit of clothes on my back and the +State's five dollars in my pocket, a paroled man. Another click, and I +had dragged through the six months of degradation and misery, and saw +myself sitting opposite Kellow in the back room of a slum saloon in a +great city, shivering with the cold, wretched and hungry. Once again I +saw his sneer and heard him say, "It's all the same to you now, whether +you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you can live the prison +smell down, but you can't; it'll stick to you like your skin. Wherever +you go, you'll be a marked man." +</P> + +<P> +It is a well-worn saying that life is full of paper walls. A look, a +turn of the head, the recognition which would follow, and once more I +should be facing a fate worse than death. Kellow knew that I had +broken my parole. He would trade upon the knowledge, and if he could +not use me he would betray me. I knew the man. +</P> + +<P> +Five minutes earlier I had been facing the world a free man; free to go +and come as I pleased, free to sit and smoke with a friend in the most +public place in the camp. But now I slid from my chair with my hat +pulled over my eyes and crept to the door, watching Kellow every step +of the way, ready to bolt and run, or to turn and fight to kill, at the +slightest rustling of the upheld newspaper. Once safely outside in the +cool, clean night air of the streets I despised myself with a loathing +too bitter to be set in words. But the fact remained. +</P> + +<P> +It was like the strugglings of a man striving to throw off the +benumbing effects of an opium debauch—the effort to be at one again +with the present. The effort was no more than half successful when I +stepped into a late-closing hardware store and bought a weapon—a +repeating rifle with its appropriate ammunition. Barrett had said +something about the lack of weapons at the claim—we had only the +shot-gun and Gifford's out-of-date revolver—and I made the purchase +automatically in obedience to an underlying suggestion which was +scarcely more than half conscious. +</P> + +<P> +But once more in the street, and with the means in my hands, a sudden +and fierce impulse prompted me to go back to the hotel lobby and kill +the man who held my fate between his finger and thumb. Take it as a +virtue or a confession of weakness, as you will, but it was only the +thought of what I owed Barrett and Gifford that kept me from doing it. +</P> + +<P> +So it was a potential murderer, at least in willing intention, who took +the long trail back under the summer stars to the hills, with the rifle +and Barrett's shot-gun—the latter picked up in passing the sampling +works—nestling in the hollow of his arm. God or the devil could have +given me no greater boon that night than the hap to meet Kellow on the +lonesome climb. I am sure I should have shot him without the faintest +stirring of irresolution. By the time I reached our gulch I was fuming +over my foolishness in buying the rifle—a clumsy weapon that would +everywhere advertise my purpose. What I needed, I told myself, was a +pocket weapon, to be carried day and night; and the next time I should +go to town the lack should be supplied. +</P> + +<P> +For by now all scruples were dead and I was assuring myself grittingly +that the entire Cripple Creek district was too narrow to hold the man +who knew, and the man who was afraid. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Broken Wagon +</H3> + + +<P> +The day following the Kellow incident being Sunday, the three of us +snatched an hour or so in the early forenoon for a breathing space. +Sitting around the plank table in the bunk shack we took account of +stock, as a shopkeeper would say. It was apparent to all of us that +the blazoning abroad of our secret could not now be long delayed. A +new gold strike yielding ore worth anywhere from one to twenty-five +dollars a pound was startling enough to make a stir even in the one and +only Cripple Creek, and it seemed nothing short of a miracle that we +had not already been traced and our location identified. +</P> + +<P> +It was Barrett's gift to take the long look ahead. At his suggestion, +Gifford, who was something of a rough-and-ready draftsman, sketched a +plan for the necessary shaft-house and out-buildings, fitting the +structures to our limited space. When the fight to retain possession +should begin we meant to strike fast and hard; Barrett had already gone +the length of bargaining, through a friend in town, for building +material and machinery, which were to be rushed out to us in a hurry at +the firing of the first gun in what we all knew would be a battle for +existence. +</P> + +<P> +During this Sunday morning talk I was little more than an abstracted +listener. I could think of nothing but the raw hazard of the previous +night and of the frightful moral abyss into which it had precipitated +me. In addition there were ominous forebodings for the future. So +long as Kellow remained in Cripple Creek, danger would lurk for me in +every shadow. Since the calamity which was threatening me would also +involve my partners, at least to the extent of handicapping them by the +loss of a third of our fighting force, it seemed no less than a duty to +warn them. But I doubt if I should have had the courage if Barrett had +not opened the way. +</P> + +<P> +"You're not saying much, Jimmie. Did the trip to town last night knock +you out?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +It was my opportunity, and I mustered sufficient resolution to seize it. +</P> + +<P> +"No; it didn't knock me out, but it showed me where I've been making a +mistake. I never ought to have gone into this thing with you two +fellows; but now that I am in, I ought to get out." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that!" Gifford exploded; but Barrett merely caught my eye and +said, very gently, "On your own account, or on ours, Jimmie?" +</P> + +<P> +"On yours. There is no need of going into the particulars; it's a long +story and a pretty dismal one; but when I tell you that last night I +was on the point of killing a man in cold blood—that it's altogether +probable that I shall yet have to kill him—you can see what I'm +letting you in for if I stay with you." +</P> + +<P> +Gifford leaned back against the shack wall and laughed. "Oh, if +<I>that's</I> all," he said. But again it was Barrett who took the soberer +view. +</P> + +<P> +"You are one of us, Jimmie," he declared. "If you've got a blood +quarrel with somebody, it's our quarrel, too: we're partners. Isn't +that right, Gifford?" +</P> + +<P> +"Right it is," nodded the carpenter. +</P> + +<P> +"We are not partners to that extent," I objected. "If I should tell +you all the circumstances, you might both agree with me that I may be +obliged to kill this man; but on the other hand, you—or a jury—would +call it first-degree murder; as it will be." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett looked horrified, as he had a perfect right to. +</P> + +<P> +"You couldn't do a thing like that!" he protested. +</P> + +<P> +"Yesterday I should have been just as certain as you are that it was +beyond the possibilities; but now, since last night, it's different. +And that is why I say you ought to fire me. You can't afford to carry +any handicaps; you need assets, not liabilities." +</P> + +<P> +Gifford got up and went to sit on the doorstep, where he occupied +himself in whittling thin shavings of tobacco from a bit of black plug +and cramming them into his pipe. Barrett accepted this tacit +implication that he was to speak for both. +</P> + +<P> +"If you pull out, Jimmie, it will be because you want to; not because +anything you have said cuts any figure with us. And whether you go or +stay, there will be two of us here who will back you to the limit. +That's about all there is to say, I guess; only, if I were you, I +shouldn't be too sudden. Take a day to think it over. To-morrow +morning, if you still think it's the wise thing to do—the only thing +to do—we'll write you a check, Gifford and I, for your share in the +bank account; and after we get going we'll make such a settlement with +you for your third as will be fair and just all around." +</P> + +<P> +This put an entirely new face upon the matter. I hadn't dreamed of +such a thing as standing upon my rights in the partnership. +</P> + +<P> +"Like the mischief, you will!" I retorted. "Do you think I'm that kind +of a quitter?—that I'd take a single dollar out of the Little +Clean-up's war chest? Why, man alive! my only object in getting out +would be to relieve you two of a possible burden!" +</P> + +<P> +Barrett's smile was altogether brotherly. "It's the only way you can +escape us," he averred; and with that the dissolution proposal was +suffered to go by default. +</P> + +<P> +There were half a dozen stragglers to come lounging over the spur or up +the gulch that Sunday afternoon, sharp-set, eager-eyed prospectors, +every man of them, and each one, we guessed, searching meticulously for +the mysterious bonanza about which everybody in town was gossiping. It +was only the fact that the hills were fairly dotted with embryotic +mines like our own—this and the other fact that our dump showed no +signs of ore—that saved us. +</P> + +<P> +Two of these prying visitors hung around for an hour or more, and one +of the pair wanted to go down in the shaft, which was now deep enough +to be quite safe from prying eyes at the surface. I was acting as +windlass-man at the time, and I bluffed him, telling him that with two +men working in the hole there wasn't room for a third—which was true +enough. But beyond this fact there were by this time the best of +reasons for keeping strangers out of our shaft. To name the biggest of +them, our marvelous Golconda vein had widened steadily with the +increasing depth until now we were sinking in solid ore. +</P> + +<P> +It was Gifford's turn to guard the ore load that night, and after the +team got away I persuaded Barrett to go to bed. He was showing the +effects of the terrible toil worse than either the carpenter or myself, +and I was afraid he might break when the fighting strain came. I had +yet to learn what magnificent reserves there were in this clean-cut, +high-strung young fellow who, when we began, looked as if he had never +done a day's real labor in his life. +</P> + +<P> +Since we had never yet left the shaft unguarded for a single hour of +the day or night, I took my place at the pit mouth as soon as Barrett's +candle went out. It was a fine night, warm for the altitude and +brightly starlit, though there was no moon. In the stillness the +subdued clamor of the Lawrenceburg's hoists floated up over the spur +shoulder; and by listening intently I fancied I could hear the distant +rumble of our ore wagon making its way down the mountain. +</P> + +<P> +In the isolation and loneliness of the night watch it was inevitable +that my thoughts should hark back to the near-meeting with Kellow, and +to the moral lapse which it had provoked. Doubtless every man +rediscovers himself many times in the course of a lifetime. In prison +I had been sustained by a vindictive determination to win out and +square accounts with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. After my release +another motive had displaced the vengeful prompting: the losing fight +for reinstatement in the good opinion of the world seemed to be the +only thing worth living for. +</P> + +<P> +But now I was finding that there was a well-spring of action deeper +than either of these, and the name of it was a degrading fear of +consequences—of punishment. With a most hearty loathing for the lower +depths of baseness uncovered by craven fear, one may be none the less a +helpless victim of a certain ruthless and malign ferocity to which it +is likely to give birth. Sitting with my back propped against the +windlass and the newly purchased rifle across my knees, I found that +cowardice, like other base passions, may suddenly develop an infection. +With nerves twittering and muscles tensely set, I was ready to become a +homicidal maniac at the snapping of a twig or the rolling of a pebble +down the hillside. +</P> + +<P> +In such crises the twig is predestined to snap, or the pebble to roll. +Some slight movement on my part set a little cataract of broken stone +tumbling into the shaft. Before I could recover from the prickling +shock of alarm, I heard footsteps and a shadowy figure appeared in the +path leading over the spur from the Lawrenceburg. Automatically the +rifle flew to my shoulder, and a crooking forefinger was actually +pressing the trigger when reason returned and I saw that the +approaching intruder was a woman. +</P> + +<P> +I was deeply grateful that it was too dark for Mary Everton to see with +what teeth-chatterings and reactionary tremblings I was letting down +the hammer of the rifle when she came up. For that matter, I think she +did not see me at all until I laid the gun aside and stood up to speak +to her. She had stopped as if irresolute; was evidently disconcerted +at finding the claim shack dark and apparently deserted. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she gasped, with a little backward start, as I rose from the +empty dynamite box upon which I had been sitting. Then she recognized +me and explained. "I—I thought you would be working—you have been +working nights, haven't you?—and I came over to—to speak to Mr. +Barrett." +</P> + +<P> +Under other conditions I might have been conventionally critical. My +traditions were still somewhat hidebound. In Glendale a young woman +would scarcely go alone at night in search of a man, even though the +man might be her lover. +</P> + +<P> +"Barrett has gone to bed: I'll call him," I said, limiting the +rejoinder to the bare necessities. +</P> + +<P> +"No; please don't do that," she interposed. "I am sure he must be +needing his rest. I can come again—at some other time." +</P> + +<P> +I was beginning to get a little better hold upon my nerves by this time +and I laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Bob is needing the rest, all right, but he will murder me when he +finds out that you've been here and I didn't call him. If you want to +save my life, you'd better reconsider." +</P> + +<P> +"No; don't call him," she insisted. "It isn't at all necessary, +and—and perhaps you can tell me what I want to know—what I ought to +know before I——" the sentence trailed off into nothing and she began +again rather breathlessly: "Mr. Bertrand, can you—can you satisfy me +in any way that you and your two friends have a legal right to this +claim you are working? It's a perfect—impertinence in me, to ask, I +know, but——" +</P> + +<P> +"It is a fair question," I hastened to assure her; "one that any one +might ask. With the proper means at hand—maps and records—I could +very easily answer it." +</P> + +<P> +"But—but there may have been mistakes made," she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Doubtless there were; but we haven't made them. The Lawrenceburg +Company owns the ground on two sides of us, and for some considerable +distance beyond us toward the head of the gulch; but I can assure you +that our title to the Little Clean-Up is perfectly good and legal in +every way." +</P> + +<P> +"It is going to be disputed," she broke in hurriedly. "Mr. Blackwell +has talked about it—before me, just as if I didn't count. Telegrams +have been passing back and forth, and the Lawrenceburg owners in the +East have given Mr. Blackwell full authority to take such steps as he +may think best. I—that is, Daddy and I—have known Mr. Barrett for a +long time, and I couldn't let this thing happen without giving him just +a little warning. Some kind of legal proceedings have already been +begun, and you are to be driven off—to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I guess not; not so suddenly as all that," I ventured to say. +There were many questions to come crowding in, but I could scarcely +expect the assayer's daughter to answer them. Her father had plainly +declared his belief that we were stealing Lawrenceburg ore and planning +a blackmailing scheme: had he told Blackwell? The query practically +answered itself. If Blackwell had been told that we were salting our +claim with ore stolen from the Lawrenceburg sheds, the "legal +proceedings" would have been a simple arrest-warrant and a search for +stolen property. Had Everton told his daughter? This was blankly +incredible. If he had told her that we were thieves, she would never +have gone so far aside from her childhood hatred of duplicity and +wrong-doing as to come and warn us. +</P> + +<P> +"I was afraid you might not believe me," she said, with a little catch +in her voice; and then: "I can't blame you; after what you have +suf—after all that has happened." +</P> + +<P> +If I hadn't been completely lost in admiration for her keen sense of +justice, and more or less bewildered by her beauty and her nearness, I +might have caught the significance of what she was trying to say. But +I didn't. +</P> + +<P> +"No; I didn't mean that," I denied warmly. "I do believe every word +you have said. No one who knows you could disbelieve you for a moment." +</P> + +<P> +"But you don't know me," she put in quickly. +</P> + +<P> +I saw how near I had come to self-betrayal and tried to fend my little +life-raft off the rocks. +</P> + +<P> +"You will say that we have met only once before to-night, and then only +casually. Will you permit a comparative stranger to say that that was +enough? Your soul looks out through your eyes, Miss Everton, and it is +an exceedingly honest soul. I know you must have strong reasons for +coming to tell us what Blackwell is doing; and if I didn't quite +understand the motive at first—with you your father's daughter, you +know, and your father in the service of the——" +</P> + +<P> +"I know," she interrupted. "But you lose sight of the larger things. +If you have been telling me the truth about your ownership of this +claim, a great wrong is going to be done. I couldn't stand aside and +let it be done, could I?" +</P> + +<P> +Something in her manner of saying this recalled most vividly the little +girl of the long ago, hot-hearted in her indignation against injustice +of every sort. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I am sure you couldn't: I don't believe you know how to compromise +with wrong of any kind. But you ought not to take my unsupported word +about the matter of ownership. Let me call Barrett." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't necessary. If you say that you three have an honest right to +be here, I believe you implicitly. And what I have done is nothing. +My father would have done it if he hadn't—if he didn't——" +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't say it," I helped out. "Your father thinks we are trying +to hold the Lawrenceburg people up, and I don't blame him. When he was +up here the other day—the day you were both here—he thought he caught +us red-handed. It wasn't so; he was quite mistaken; but for reasons +which I can't explain just now I couldn't very well take the only +course which would have undeceived him." +</P> + +<P> +"I—I think I understand," she returned, guardedly. "You—you haven't +been stealing ore from the Lawrenceburg sheds?" +</P> + +<P> +I laughed and said a thing that I wouldn't have said to any other +living human being on earth at that stage of the game. +</P> + +<P> +"If we can manage to hold our own for just a little while longer, +Robert Barrett will be a very rich man, Miss Everton. May I venture to +hand you a lot of good wishes before the fact? I know this is only a +very old friend's privilege, but——" +</P> + +<P> +Her embarrassment was very charming, and, as I saw it, most natural. +</P> + +<P> +"I—indeed, I wasn't thinking any more of Mr. Barrett than I was of—of +you and—and Mr. Gifford," she faltered. "I simply couldn't bear to +think of this terrible thing dropping upon you out of a clear sky +if—if you hadn't been doing anything to deserve it. Can you defend +yourselves in any way?" +</P> + +<P> +"We can try mighty hard," I asserted. "That is what I meant when I +said that we were not going to be driven off to-morrow. Possession is +nine points of the law. We have our little foothold here, and we shall +try to keep it. I'll tell Barrett when he wakes, and we'll be ready +for them when they come. Now you must let me take you back home. You +really oughtn't to be here alone, you know." +</P> + +<P> +She made no objection to the bit of elder-brother-ism, but half-way up +to the summit of the spur she had her small fling at the conventions. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't admit that I ought not to have come alone; neither that, nor +your right to question it," she said definitively. "You protest +because you are conventional: so am I conventional—but only so far as +the conventions subserve some good end. There are situations in which +the phrase, 'it isn't done,' becomes a mere impertinence. This is life +in the making, up here in these desolate hills, and we who are taking +part in the process are just plain men and women." +</P> + +<P> +"That is true enough," I rejoined; and other than this there was little +said, or little chance for saying it, since the distance over the spur +was short and she would not let me show myself under the Lawrenceburg +masthead electrics. +</P> + +<P> +I did not know, at the time, of any reason why I should have returned +to resume my lonesome watch at the shaft's mouth like a man walking +upon air, but so it was. There are women who keep the fair promise of +their childhood, and we admire them; there are others who prodigiously +and richly exceed that promise, and they own us, body and soul, from +the moment of re-discovery. +</P> + +<P> +Throughout the long night hours following Mary Everton's visit I was +far enough, I hope, from envying Barrett; far enough, too, from the +thought that I might ever venture to ask any good and innocent young +woman to step down with me into the abyss of unearned infamy into which +I had been flung, largely through the efforts of another woman who was +neither good nor innocent. None the less, the delight which was half +intoxication remained and the night was full of waking dreams. +</P> + +<P> +The dark shaft beside me sent up its dank breath of stale powder fumes, +and the acrid odor was as the fragrance of a fertile field ripe for the +sickle. In this reeking pit at my elbow, gold, the subtle, the potent, +the arbiter of all destinies, stood ready to fight for me. The liberty +which I had stolen, but which had first been stolen from me, would +shortly find a defender too strong to be overthrown by all the +prejudice and injustice which are so ready to fly at the throat of +helplessness. The reinstatement, which I had been unable to win as a +mendicant ex-convict, I could buy with gold in the open market; and +when it should be bought and paid for, all the world would clap and +cry, Well done! +</P> + +<P> +Barrett had gone to bed exacting a promise that I should call him at +two o'clock. But I let the hour go by, and another, and yet another, +until the stars were paling in the east when I got up, stiff in every +joint, to meet Gifford as he came up the gulch. He was haggard and +weary, trembling like an overworked draft horse, and he had to lick his +lips before he could frame the words which were to be our alarm signal. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all over," he croaked hoarsely. "The wagon's broke down a couple +of miles below, right out on the open mountain-side. We've been +working like hell all night trying to drag the load down to some place +where we could hide it, but it was no good. Dixon's gone on to town to +get another wagon, but the mischief is done. Come daylight, everybody +on this side of Bull Mountain will know what's in that wagon, and where +it comes from." +</P> + +<P> +The carpenter was practically dead on his feet from the night of fierce +toil, and in addition to his weariness was half-famished. He had come +in while it was yet dark to get something to eat, and was planning to +go back at once. I aroused Barrett promptly, and together we tramped +out to the crest of the spur overlooking the Lawrenceburg workings and +the mountain-side below. In the breaking dawn, with the help of +Barrett's field-glass, we could make out the shape of the disabled +wagon on the bare slope hundreds of feet below. Early as it was, there +was already a number of moving figures encircling it; a group which +presently strung itself out in Indian file on a diagonal course up to +our gulch. The early-morning investigators were taking the plainly +marked wagon trail in reverse, and Barrett turned to me with a brittle +laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"That settles it, Jimmie. The secret is out, and in another half hour +we'll be fighting like the devil to keep those fellows from relocating +every foot of ground we've got. Let's go back and get ready for them." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +In the Open +</H3> + + +<P> +Though there was between twenty and thirty thousand dollars' worth of +high-grade ore lying unguarded in the broken-down wagon two miles +below, we promptly forgot it. Losing no minute of the precious time, +we hastened to restake our claim, marking the boundaries plainly and +putting up "No Trespass" notices to let the coming invaders know that +we were alive and on the job. We knew very well that our boundary +lines would be disregarded; that in striving to cover every foot of the +unclaimed fragments of the original triangle, the excited gold-seekers +would overlap us in all directions. But we meant to have the law on +our side. +</P> + +<P> +Our next move was a hurried covering of the shaft mouth with planks +provided for just such an emergency; this and a barricading of the +shack against a possible rush to loot it. By working fast we were +ready by the time the vanguard of the rush appeared as a line of +toiling climbers at the foot of the gulch. Barrett glanced at his +watch. +</P> + +<P> +"The early trolley will be just about leaving Bennett Avenue with the +day-shift for the Ohio," he announced. "One of us must catch that car +back to town to start a string of freight teams up here with men and +material. Minutes now are worth days next week. I'm the freshest one +of the bunch, and I'll go, if you two fellows think you can hold your +own against this mob that is coming. You won't have to do any +fighting, unless it's to keep them out of our shaft. Let them drive +their stakes wherever they like, only, if they get on our ground, make +your legal protest—the two of you together, so you can swear straight +when it comes into the courts." +</P> + +<P> +We both said we would do or die, and Barrett struggled into his coat +and fled for the trolley terminal a mile away. He was scarcely out of +sight over the crest of the spur when the advance guard of the mob came +boiling up out of the gulch. A squad of three outran the others, and +its spokesman made scant show of ceremony. +</P> + +<P> +"We want to see what you got in that shaft," he panted. "Yank them +boards off and show us." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess not," said Gifford, fingering the lock of Barrett's shot-gun. +Then, suddenly taking the aggressive: "You fellers looking for a mine? +Well, by cripes, you get off of our ground and stay off, or you'll find +one startin' up inside of you in a holy minute! We mean business!" +</P> + +<P> +The three men cursed us like pickpockets, but they backed away until +they stood on the other side of our boundary, where they were presently +joined by half a dozen others. We had one point in our favor. In such +a rush it is every man for himself, with a broad invitation to the +devil to take the hindmost. Somebody called the fellow who wanted to +break into our shaft for the needful evidence a much-emphasized +jackass, and pointed to the wagon-tracks leading straight to our shack. +</P> + +<P> +"What more do you want than them tracks?" bellowed this caller of hard +names. And then: "Anybody in this crowd got a map?" +</P> + +<P> +Nobody had, as it seemed; whereupon the bellower turned upon us. +</P> + +<P> +"You fellers 've got one, it stands to reason. If you've got any +sportin' blood in you at all, you'll be sort o' half-way human and give +us a squint at it." +</P> + +<P> +Again Gifford took the words out of my mouth. "Not to-day," he refused +coolly. "If you want to know right bad, I'll tell you straight that +there isn't anything like a whole claim left in this gulch. Now go +ahead and do your stakin' if you want to, but keep off of us. You can +see all our lines; they're as plain as the nose on your ugly face. +I've got only one thing to say, and that is, the man that stakes inside +of 'em is goin' to stop a handful of blue whistlers." +</P> + +<P> +Following this there was a jangling confab which was almost a riot. +Two or three, and among them the man who wanted us to show our map, +openly counseled violence. We were but two, and there were by this +time a dozen against us, with more coming up the gulch. They could +have rushed us easily—at some little cost of life, maybe—but again +the every-man-for-himself idea broke the charm. Already a number of +stragglers were dropping out to skirt our boundaries, and in another +minute they were fighting among themselves, each man striving to be the +first to get his stakes down parallel with ours. +</P> + +<P> +In such a struggle there was necessarily much reckless crisscrossing +and overlapping. Claims were stepped off on all sides of us and in +every conceivable direction. The law requires only the driving of +corner stakes and the posting of a notice prior to the preliminary +entry; and as soon as a man got his stakes driven and his notice +displayed, he became a vanishing point on the horizon, joining a mad +race for town and the land office. +</P> + +<P> +The assault upon the harmless mountain-side did not last as long as we +both feared it might, and there was no occasion for gun-play. Gifford +and I patrolled the boundaries of our claim and made due protest when +it became evident that anybody was overlapping us. Before the sun was +an hour high the last of the locators had tailed off in the town +foot-race; and though there were more coming, the most of these +laggards turned back at once at sight of the forest of new stakes. +</P> + +<P> +It was not until after our guard duties had ceased to press upon us +that we remembered the wagon-load of precious stuff left at the mercy +of a robber world on the bare hillside two miles away. Gifford ran to +the shoulder of the over-looking spur with Barrett's field-glass, and I +could tell by his actions that the strain was off. +</P> + +<P> +"Dixon is back with another wagon, and he and a helper are transferring +the ore sacks," he reported when he came in. "I told him when he left +that he might get help wherever he could; that it was no use trying to +keep it dark any longer." +</P> + +<P> +There being nothing to prevent it now, we cooked breakfast on the camp +stove, sitting afterward to eat it on the shack door-step, with the +weapons handy. I think Gifford had quite forgotten that he had raided +the shack chuck-box at daybreak. Anyway, his appetite appeared +undiminished. He seemed to think that the worst of our troubles were +over, and I did not undeceive him. The later stragglers were still +tramping over the ground and reading the lately posted notices. A few +of them came up to ask questions, and one, a grizzled old fellow who +might have posed as "One-eyed Ike" in Western melodramas, stopped to +talk a while. +</P> + +<P> +"You boys shore have struck it big," he commented. "How come?" +</P> + +<P> +We explained briefly the finding of the unoccupied ground and the +taking of the average Cripple Creek prospector's chance, and he nodded +sagely. +</P> + +<P> +"Jest lit down 'twixt two days and dug a hole and struck hit right +there at grass-roots, did ye? That's tenderfoots' luck, ever' time. +Vein runnin' bigger?" +</P> + +<P> +Gifford admitted that it was, and the one-eyed man begged a bit of +tobacco for the filling of his blackened corn-cob pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's hopin'," he said, with true Western magnanimity; then, with a +jerk of his head toward the thin column of stack smoke rising on the +still morning air from the Lawrenceburg: "I know this here ground, up +one side and down the other. Them fellers down yander 'll be grabbin' +fer ye, pronto, soon as they know you've struck pay." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should they?" I asked, scenting a possible source of information. +</P> + +<P> +"They own the ground on t' other side of ye, and ever'body allowed they +owned this." +</P> + +<P> +"But their vein runs the other way—southeast and northwest," Gifford +interposed. +</P> + +<P> +The old man winked his single eye. +</P> + +<P> +"Ever been in their workin's?" +</P> + +<P> +Gifford shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"N'r nobody else that could 'r would talk," said our ancient. "You +can't tell nothin' about which-a-way a vein runs in this here hell's +half-acre. Bart Blackwell's the whole show on the Lawrenceburg, and +he's a hawg. He's the one that ran them Nebraska farmers off'm the +Mary Mattock down yander: give 'em notice that he was goin' to sink on +them upper claims o' his'n at the gulch head, and that his sump water'd +have to be turned loose to go where it had a mind to—which'd be +straight down the gulch, o' course. The farmers they allowed that'd +swamp 'em worse'n they was already swamped—ez it would—so they up and +quit. Blackwell, he's a cuss, with a snoot like a hawg. He don't want +no neighbors." +</P> + +<P> +I had been observing the old man's face as he talked. It was +villainous only in its featurings. +</P> + +<P> +"Which are you; a prospector or a miner?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"A little b'ilin' o' both, I reckon," was his rejoinder. "I driv' the +first tunnel in the Buckeye, and they made me boss on the +two-hundred-foot level. I kin shoot rock with any of 'em's long as I +kin make out to let the bug-juice alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you out of work?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure thing." +</P> + +<P> +I caught Gifford's eye and the carpenter nodded. We were going to need +men and more men, and here was a chance to begin on a man who knew the +Lawrenceburg, or at least some of the history of it. +</P> + +<P> +"You're hired," I told him; and it was thus that we secured the most +faithful and efficient henchman that ever drew pay; a man who knew +nothing but loyalty, and who was, besides, a practical miner and a +skilful master of men. +</P> + +<P> +Hicks—we carried him thus on the pay-roll, though he himself spelled +it "Hix," for short, as he said—left us to go back to town for his +dunnage, and Gifford, knowing that I had been on watch all night, urged +me to turn in. But that was a game that two could play at. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm no shorter on sleep than you are," I told him. "You were up all +night with the wagon." +</P> + +<P> +We wrangled over it a bit and I finally yielded. But first I told +Gifford about the Lawrenceburg threat for the day, omitting nothing but +the source of my information. +</P> + +<P> +"So they're going to jump us, are they?" he said. "All right; the +quicker the sooner. Does Barrett know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet. I thought we'd all get together on it this morning. Tell +him when he comes back; and if anything develops before he gets here, +sing out for me." And with that I made a dive for the blankets. +</P> + +<P> +Between the two of them, Gifford and Barrett let me sleep until the +middle of the afternoon. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my +senses when I turned out and saw the miracles that had been wrought in +a few short hours. While I slept, the transformation of the Little +Clean-Up from a three-man prospect hole to a full-fledged mine had +taken giant strides. Machinery and material were arriving in a +procession of teams laboring up the gulch; a score of carpenters were +raising the frame of the shaft-house; masons were setting the +foundations for the engine and hoist. I had slumbered peacefully +through all the din and hammering and the coming and going of the +teams; would doubtless have slept longer if the workmen had not put +skids and rollers under the shack to move it out of their way. +</P> + +<P> +Gifford, now thirty-odd hours beyond his latest sleep, was too busy to +talk; but Barrett took time to bridge the progress gap for me. +</P> + +<P> +"There was nothing you could do," he explained, at my protest for being +left for so many hours out of the activities. "Gifford will have to +knock off pretty soon, but the work will go on just the same. Take a +look around, Jimmie, and pat yourself on the back. You are no longer a +miner; you are a mine owner." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me," I said shortly. +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't much to tell. I caught that first car to town this +morning and got busy. You're seeing some of the results, and the ready +money in bank is what produced them. But we've got to dig some more of +it, and dig it quick. Blackwell has begun suit against us for +trespassing upon Lawrenceburg property, and as you know, every foot of +ground all around us was relocated by the early-morning mob that +trailed up from our broken-down wagon." +</P> + +<P> +"I ought to have told you about the Blackwell move this morning before +you got away, but there was so much excitement that I lost sight of +it," I cut in. "I knew about it last night." +</P> + +<P> +"How was that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody who knew about it before I did came here and told me." +</P> + +<P> +"In the night?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the early part of the night; yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Was it Everton?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not on your life. It was some one who thinks a heap more of you than +Phineas Everton does." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't mean——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; that's just who I do mean. She came over expecting to find you. +She wanted to ask you if we had a sure-enough, fire-proof, legal right +to be here. She asked me, when she found you were in bed and asleep. +I told her we had, and succeeded in making her believe it. Then she +told me what was coming to us—what Blackwell had up his sleeve." +</P> + +<P> +"That explains what Gifford was trying to tell me, but he didn't tell +me where it came from," said Barrett. +</P> + +<P> +"He couldn't, because I didn't tell him. It's between you and Polly +Everton, and it'll never go any farther. I shall forget it—I've +already forgotten it." +</P> + +<P> +In his own way Barrett was as scrupulous as an honest man ought to be. +"I wish she hadn't done it, Jimmie. It doesn't ring just right, you +know; while her father is still on the Lawrenceburg pay-rolls." +</P> + +<P> +Right there and then is when I came the nearest to having a quarrel +with Robert Barrett. +</P> + +<P> +"You blind beetle!" I exploded. "Don't you see that she did it for +you? But beyond that, she was perfectly right. She saw that an unjust +thing was about to be done, and she tried to chock the wheels. The man +doesn't live who can stand up and tell me that her motives are not +always exactly what they ought to be. I know they are!" +</P> + +<P> +Barrett was smiling good-naturedly before I got through. "I like your +loyalty," said he; adding: "and I shan't quarrel with you over Miss +Everton's motives; she is as good as she is pretty; and that is putting +it as strong as even you could put it." +</P> + +<P> +It was time to call a halt on this bandying of words about Mary Everton +and her motives. I had already said enough to warrant a cross-fire of +questions as to how I came to know so much about her. +</P> + +<P> +"We're off the track," I threw in, by way of making a needed diversion. +"You began to tell me about the Blackwell demonstration. I see we're +still here." +</P> + +<P> +"You bet we're here; and we're going to stay. It may take all the +money we can dig out of that hole in the next six months to pay court +costs, but just the same, we'll stay. Blackwell tried the bullying +game first; came over here this forenoon with a bunch of his men and +tried to scare Gifford out. Gifford stood the outfit off with the +shotgun; was still standing it off when I came up with the first gang +of workmen. I had bought a few Winchesters against just such an +emergency, and I passed them out to the boys and told them to stand by. +That settled it and Blackwell backed down, threatening us with the +law—which he had already invoked." +</P> + +<P> +"Can he get an injunction and hang us up?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a cinch that he'll try. But we have the best lawyers in Cripple +Creek, and they're right on the job. There will be litigation a mile +deep and two miles high, but we'll get delay—which is all we are +playing for, right now. If the lawyers can stand things off until we +have had one month's digging, we'll have money enough to fight a dozen +Lawrenceburgs." +</P> + +<P> +"We are going to be terribly crowded in this little space," I lamented, +with a glance at the building chaos which was already overflowing our +narrow limits. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett slapped me on the back. "There was one time when your Uncle +Bob had the right hunch," he bragged exultantly. "Our attorneys, +Benedict & Myers, have succeeded in buying the Mary Mattock for us, +which gives us room for the dump. It cost us twenty thousand dollars +yesterday, when the deal was closed, and to-day it would cost a hundred +thousand—or as much more as you like. To-morrow morning there will be +a syndicate of farmers back in Nebraska reading their newspapers and +kicking themselves all over the barnyard." +</P> + +<P> +"Even the Mattock ground won't give us any too much room," I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"No; but we can acquire the outer corners of our triangle, sooner or +later. We can buy of these new stakers after they find that they +haven't room enough to swing a cat on their little garden patches. The +big fight is going to be with the Lawrenceburg. Benedict has been +digging into that, and he says we are up against a bunch that will +fight to the last ditch. The mine is backed by Eastern capital, and +the claim the owners will make is that their upper ground here in the +gulch joins the original location, and that we are trespassers." +</P> + +<P> +"Give me something to do," I begged. "I can't stand around here, +looking on." +</P> + +<P> +"Your job is waiting for you," Barrett rejoined tersely. "You have +never told me much about yourself, Jimmie, but I know you are a +business man, with a good bit of experience. Isn't that so?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was, once," I admitted. +</P> + +<P> +"All right. You're going to handle the money end of this job in town. +When you're ready, pull your freight for the camp, open an office, +organize your force, and get busy with the machinery people, the banks, +and the smelters. We'll be shipping in car-load lots within a week." +</P> + +<P> +Two hours later I boarded a car on the nearest trolley line. On the +long, sweeping rush down the hills I put in the time trying, as any +bewildered son of Adam might, to find myself and to rise in some +measure to the stupendous demands of the new task which lay before me. +</P> + +<P> +But at the car-stopping in Bennett Avenue it was the escaped convict, +rather than the newly created business manager of the Little Clean-Up, +who slipped into the nearest hardware shop and purchased a revolver. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Aladdin's Lamp +</H3> + + +<P> +It is no part of my purpose to burden this narrative with the story of +the development of our mine. Let it be sufficient to say that it +speedily proved to be one of the most phenomenal "producers" among the +later discoveries in the Cripple Creek district. The stories of such +spectacular successes have been made commonplace by the newspapers, and +that of the "Little Clean-Up" would—if I should give the real name of +our bonanza—be remembered and recognized by many who saw it grow by +leaps and bounds from a mere prospect hole to a second "Gold Coin." +</P> + +<P> +To summarize briefly. Within a month we had settled down to business +and were incorporated, with Barrett as president, and Gifford, who +chose his own job, resident manager and superintendent. The +secretary-treasurership, combined under one office head, fell to me. +With a modern mining plant in operation, the sinking and driving paused +only at the hours of shift-changing; and after we began shipping in +quantity our bank balances grew like so many juggler's roses—this +though we had to spend money like water in the various lawsuits which +sprang up from day to day. +</P> + +<P> +Many of these suits were based upon cross-claims—contentions that we +were overlapping other properties—and most of these we were able to +compromise by buying off the litigants. By this means we acquired the +entire area of the original triangle. When the news of our strike +reached Nebraska, the owners of the Mary Mattock sought to break their +sale to us on the ground that we had stacked the cards against them. +But our lawyers were too shrewd to be caught in such a flimsy net as +this. At Benedict's suggestion we drove a drainage tunnel on the +purchased property and unwatered the three shafts which the Nebraskans +had sunk; an expedient which enabled us to prove to the satisfaction of +the courts that the Mary Mattock, at the time of its abandonment by its +original owners, was nothing more than a series of prospect holes, and +that the property was valueless save for a dumping ground. +</P> + +<P> +Through all these bickerings and compromisings the Lawrenceburg fight +held on, giving us the most trouble and costing the most money. +Blackwell proved himself to be a scrapper of sorts, leaving no +expedient untried in his attempts to tie us up and put us out of +business. Shortly after we began developing in earnest, he put a +shaft-sinking force on the nearest of the Lawrenceburg upper claims on +the hillside above us, hoping, as we supposed, to flood us out by +tapping one of the numerous underground water bodies with which the +region abounds and turning it loose on us. At least, we could imagine +no other reason for the move, since the growing dump at this upper +working was entirely barren of ore, and remained so. +</P> + +<P> +On our own part we were able to get back at Blackwell only in small +ways. When he tried to shut us out of our wagon road right-of-way in +the gulch, we beat him in the courts and made him pay damages for +obstructing us. Later, when his upper dump began to encroach upon our +ground, we sued him again and got more damages, with a peremptory order +from the court to vacate. +</P> + +<P> +Still later we took Phineas Everton away from him. The assayer had had +some disagreement with Blackwell, the nature of which was not +explained, but which I, for one, could easily understand, and Everton, +apologetic now for his early suspicion of us, had told Barrett that he +was open to a proposal. The proposal was promptly made and we +installed Everton as our assayer and expert in the town offices, +fitting up a laboratory for him which lacked nothing that money could +buy in the way of furnishings and equipment. +</P> + +<P> +Consequent upon this change, Barrett and I both saw more of the +Evertons. They took a small house in town and Polly welcomed us both, +making no distinction, so far as I could determine, between the +president and the secretary-treasurer. Barrett's attitude toward Polly +puzzled me not a little. He was a frequent visitor in the cottage on +the hill, but he rarely went without asking me to go along. If he were +really Mary Everton's lover, he was certainly going about his +love-making most moderately, I concluded. +</P> + +<P> +I like to remember that I was loyal to him at this time in spite of the +puzzlement. It is perhaps needless to say that these cottage visits +had done their worst for me and I was hopelessly in love with the +sweet-faced, honest-hearted young woman who had grown out of the +brown-eyed little girl of the Glendale school-days. Nevertheless, I +was still able to recognize the barrier which my conviction, +imprisonment and escape, together with the ever-present peril of +recapture, interposed; also I was able to recognize Barrett's prior +claim, and the fact that he could leave wife and children the priceless +heritage of a good name and a clean record—as I could not. +</P> + +<P> +Touching this matter of peril, the period of our beginnings as a +corporation was not without its alarms. Twice I had seen Kellow at a +distance, and once I had stood beside him at the hotel counter where he +had been examining the registered list of names at a moment when I, all +unconscious of his presence until I was elbowing him, had stopped in +passing to ask a question of the clerk. That near-encounter showed me +that I was neither better nor worse than the man who had stood, loaded +weapon in hand, on the sidewalk in the heart of a June night, coldly +deliberating upon the advisability of committing a murder. I was +conscious of a decent hope that Kellow wouldn't look up and recognize +me—as he did not—but coincident with the hope the homicidal devil was +whispering me to be ready with the pistol, without which I never went +abroad any more, even to cross the street from my rooms to the office. +And I was ready. +</P> + +<P> +This mania, which seemed fated to seize me at any moment when my +liberty was threatened, added another stone to the barrier of good +resolutions which I had builded in behalf of my loyalty to Barrett and +a more or less chivalrous consideration for Mary Everton and her future +peace of mind. If the ex-convict might not venture, the potential +man-slayer was at a still greater disadvantage. +</P> + +<P> +I recall, as vividly as if it were yesterday, how the first small +breach was made in this barrier of good resolutions. Barrett and I +were in Denver together, joining forces in our regular monthly fight +with the smelter pirates. We had been to the theater and were smoking +bedtime cigars in the mezzanine lounge of the Brown Palace. I have +forgotten the name of the play we had seen, and even the plot of it; +all that I recollect is that it turned upon the well-worn theme of +loyalty in love. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett seldom talked of himself or his past, even to me; and I was +closer to him, I think, than anyone else in the West. But the play +seemed to have touched some hidden spring. Almost before I knew it he +was telling me of his college days, and of his assured future at that +time as the only son of a well-to-do New England manufacturer. +</P> + +<P> +"Those were the days when I didn't have a care in the world," he said. +"My father was the typical American business man, intent upon piling up +a fortune for my mother and sister and me. I couldn't see that he was +wearing himself out in the effort to get ahead, and at the same time to +give us all the luxuries as we went along; none of us could see it. +His notion was to put me through the university, give me a year or so +abroad, and then to take me into the business with him.… Don't +let me bore you." +</P> + +<P> +"You are not boring me," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Then there was the girl: that had been arranged for both of us, too, +though we were carefully kept from suspecting it. I can't tell you +what she was to me, Jimmie, but in a worldful of women she was the only +one. She was in college, too, but we had our vacations together—at a +little place on the Maine coast where her people and mine had cottages +less than a stone's throw apart." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett's cigar had gone out, but he seemed not to know it. His eyes +were half-closed, and for the moment his strong clean-cut young face +looked almost haggard. I let him take his own time. In such +confidences it is only the sympathetic ear that is welcome; speech in +any sort can scarcely be less than impertinent. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall never forget our last summer together," he went on, after a +bit. "It seemed as if everything conspired to make it memorable. We +were both fond of canoeing and sailing and swimming; she could do all +three better than most men. Then there were the moonlit nights on the +beach when we sat together on the white sands and planned for the +future, the future of clear skies, of ambitions working out their +fulfilment in the passing years, the blessed after-while in which there +were to be an ideal home and little children, and always and evermore +the love that makes all things beautiful, all things possible. +</P> + +<P> +"We planned it all out in those August days and moonlit nights. I had +one more year in the university, and after that we were to be married +and go to Europe together. No young fellow in this world ever had +brighter prospects than I had on the day when I went back to college to +begin my senior year, Jimmie." He paused for a moment and then went on +with a deeper note in his voice. "The lights all went out, blink, +between two days, as you might say. The treasurer of the company of +which my father was the president became an embezzler, and the crash +ruined us financially and practically killed my father—though the +doctors called it heart failure. And I had been at home less than a +month, trying to save something out of the wreck for my mother and +sister, when I lost the girl." +</P> + +<P> +"She couldn't stand the change in circumstances?" I offered. +</P> + +<P> +"She was drowned in a yachting accident, and they never found her body." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, good heavens!" I exclaimed, suddenly and acutely distressed and +remorseful for the cynical suggestion I had thrust in. +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head slowly. "It came near smashing me, Jimmie. It +seemed so unnecessary; so hideously out of tune with everything. I +thought at the time that I should never get over it and be myself +again, and I still think so, though the passing years have dulled the +sharp edges of the hurt. There never was another girl like her, and +there never will be another—for me." +</P> + +<P> +"But you will marry, some day, Bob," I ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"Possibly—quite probably. Sentiment, of the sort our fathers and +mothers knew, has gone out of fashion, and the money chase has made new +men and women of the present generation. But some of the old longings +persist for a few of us. I want a home, Jimmie, and at least a few of +the things that the word stands for. Some day I hope to be able to +find a woman who will take what there is left of me and give me what +she can in return. I shan't ask much because I can't give much." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you have already found her," I said, with a dull pain at my +heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Not Polly," he denied quickly. "I couldn't get my own consent to +cheat a woman like Polly Everton. She has a right to demand the best +that a man can give, and all of it. Besides, it doesn't lie altogether +with me or my possible leanings, in Polly's case—as no man knows +better than yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you are wrong there, entirely wrong!" I hastened to say. "Polly +and I are the best of good friends—nothing more." +</P> + +<P> +His smile was a deal more than half sad. +</P> + +<P> +"If there is 'nothing more,' Jimmie, it is very pointedly your own +fault," he returned. "I've been wondering what you are waiting for. +You have been poking your head into the sand like a silly old ostrich, +but you haven't fooled me—or Polly, either, I think—for a single +minute. What's the obstacle?" +</P> + +<P> +I was silent. Not even to so close a friend as Robert Barrett could I +give the real reason why my lips were sealed and must remain so. He +went on, after a time, good-naturedly ignoring my hesitancy. +</P> + +<P> +"It was all right at first, of course; while we couldn't tell whether +we had a mine or only a costly muddle of litigation. But it's +different now. We are going to beat the Lawrenceburg people in the +end, and apart from that, if we should split up right here and now, +we've got an undivided surplus of—how much was it yesterday?—you've +got the records." +</P> + +<P> +"A little under a million." +</P> + +<P> +"Call it nine hundred thousand to divide among the three of us. Your +share of that would at least enable you and Polly to begin light +house-keeping in a five-room flat, don't you think?" +</P> + +<P> +What could I say? How could I tell him that he was opening a door for +me that I could never enter; that by all the canons of decency and +honor I should never seek to enter? In the mingled emotions of the +moment there was a blind anger at the thought that he had unconsciously +made my hard case infinitely harder by showing me that my loyalty to +him was entirely needless. +</P> + +<P> +"There are good reasons why I can't think of such a thing," I began; +but when I would have gone on the words froze in my throat. Since the +hour was nearly midnight, the mezzanine lounge was practically +deserted. But as I choked up and stopped, a couple, a man and a woman +who had come around from the other side of the gallery parlors, passed +us on their way to the elevator alcove. +</P> + +<P> +I hardly saw the man of the pair. A second after they had passed I +could not have told whether he was black or white. That was because +the woman, fair, richly gowned, statuesquely handsome and apparently in +perfect health, was Agatha Geddis. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"The Woman . . . Whose Hands are as Bands" +</H3> + + +<P> +If I looked as stricken as I felt—and I doubtless did—Barrett had +ample reason for assuming that I had been suddenly taken sick. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Jimmie, old man!" he exclaimed in instant concern; and then he +took the half-burned cigar from between my fingers and threw it away, +at the same time sending the floor boy scurrying after a drink for me. +</P> + +<P> +I couldn't touch the whiskey when it came; and I was still trying to +persuade Barrett that I wasn't sick when he walked me to the elevator. +Wanting only to be free, I still had to let him go all the way with me +to the door of my room. But the moment he was gone I hurried out again +and descended to the lobby. +</P> + +<P> +The night clerk knew me; or if he didn't, he knew the Little Clean-Up; +and he was quite willing to talk. Miss Geddis was only temporarily a +guest of the house, he told me. She was with a party of friends from +the East, but her Denver home was with Mrs. Altberg, a widow and a +prominent society woman. Yes, Miss Geddis was quite well known in +social circles; she was reputed to be wealthy, and the clerk understood +that she had originally come to Colorado for her health. +</P> + +<P> +Under the stimulus of a particularly good gift cigar the man behind the +register grew more confidential. Miss Geddis had always impressed him +as being a woman with a history. It was not generally known, he said, +but there was a whisper that she had come perilously near getting +herself dragged into the lime-light as co-respondent in a certain +high-life divorce case. The clerk did not vouch for this, but he did +know that she had been seen often and openly in public with the man in +the case, since the granting of the divorce. +</P> + +<P> +I didn't sleep very well that night, as may be imagined; and the +following day I should certainly have taken the first train for Cripple +Creek if business had permitted. But business would not permit. There +was an accumulated difference of some fifteen thousand dollars in ore +values between us and the smelter people, and I was obliged to stay on +with Barrett and help wrangle for our side in the discrepancy dispute. +</P> + +<P> +At dinner time that evening I managed to elude Barrett, and upon going +to the lobby desk for my mail, found a violet-scented envelope +addressed to "Mr. James Bertrand" in a handwriting that I remembered +only too well. +</P> + +<P> +To anyone looking over my shoulder the enclosed note might have read as +a casual and friendly greeting from an old acquaintance. But for me it +spelled out death and destruction. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Dear 'Bert," it ran. "I am not going to scold you for not speaking to +me last night in the mezzanine parlor; nor for changing your name; nor +for growing a beard. But if you should call this evening between eight +and nine at Mrs. Altberg's house on the Boulevard, you will find me at +home and more than willing to listen to your apologies and explanations. +<BR><BR> +"AGATHA." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +My appetite for dinner had gone glimmering when I sat at the most +secluded table the cafe afforded and went through the motions of +eating. Not for a single instant did I mistake the purport of Agatha +Geddis's note. It was not a friendly invitation; it was a veiled +command. If it should be disobeyed, I made sure that not all the money +in the Little Clean-Up's treasury could save me from going back to the +home State as a recaptured felon. +</P> + +<P> +Eight o'clock found me descending from a cab at the door of a rather +dissipated looking mansion in the northern suburb. A servant admitted +me, but I had to wait alone for a quarter of an hour or more in the +stuffy and rather tawdry luxury of a great drawing-room. After a time +I realized that Agatha was making me wait purposely in a refinement of +cruelty, knowing well what torments I must be enduring. +</P> + +<P> +When the suspense ended and she came into the room I saw at a glance +that she was the same woman as of old; beautiful, alluring, but +infinitely more sophisticated. Her charm now, as in girlhood, was +chiefly the charm of physical perfection; but it was not entirely +without its appeal when she made me sit beside her on the heavily +carved mock-antique sofa. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know certainly whether you would come or not," was the way +she began on me, and if the tone was conventional I knew well enough +what lay beneath it. "Old times are old times, but——" +</P> + +<P> +She was merely playing with me as a cat plays with a mouse, but I could +neither fight nor run until she gave me an opening. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you knew I would come; why shouldn't I?" I asked, striving +for some outward appearance of self-possession. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I don't think of any reason, if you don't," she countered. +"Did you know I was in Denver?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not in Denver, no. But I heard, some time ago, that you had come to +Colorado for your health." +</P> + +<P> +"It seems absolutely ridiculous, doesn't it?—to look at me now. But +really, I was very ill three years ago; and even now I can't go back +home and stay for any length of time. You haven't been back, have you, +since your—since you——" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I haven't been back." +</P> + +<P> +She was rolling her filmy little lace handkerchief into a shapeless +ball, and if I hadn't known her so well I might have fancied she was +embarrassed. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't endure to think of that dreadful time four years ago—it is +four years, isn't it?" she sighed; then with a swift glance of the +man-melting eyes: "You hate me savagely, don't you, Bert?—you've been +hating me all these years." +</P> + +<P> +"No," I said, and it was the truth, up to that time. I knew that the +feeling I had been entertaining for her had nothing in it so robust as +hatred. There was no especial need for palliating her offense—far +less, indeed, than I knew at that moment; yet I did it, saying, "You +did what you thought you had to do; possibly it was what your father +made you do—I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a moment before she began again by asking me what +made me change my name. +</P> + +<P> +"My name isn't Herbert," I explained; "it never was. I think you must +know that I was christened 'James Bertrand,' after my father." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know it," she denied, adding: "but you have dropped the +Weyburn?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally." +</P> + +<P> +Again there was a little interval of silence, and as before, she was +the first to break it. +</P> + +<P> +"So you are one of the owners of the famous Little Clean-Up? Are you +very rich, Bertie?—you see, I can't give up the old name, all at once." +</P> + +<P> +"No; I am not rich—as riches are counted nowadays." +</P> + +<P> +"But you are going to be in just a little while," she put in, following +the confident assertion with a query that came as suddenly as a +stiletto stab: "Who is the girl, Bertie?" +</P> + +<P> +"What girl?"' +</P> + +<P> +"The girl you are going to marry. I saw her with you at the Broadway +one night three weeks ago; I sat right behind you. She doesn't +'pretty' very much, to my way of thinking." +</P> + +<P> +Once again I felt the murder nerve twittering. This woman with a +mocking voice and a heart of stone knew everything; I was as certain of +it as if I could have seen into the plotting brain behind the +long-lashed eyes. I knew now why she hadn't glanced aside at me as she +passed on the way to the elevators in the Brown Palace the previous +evening. She had discovered me long before. At whatever cost, I must +know how long before. +</P> + +<P> +"You saw me last night, and three weeks ago at the theater," I said. +"How long have you known that I was in Colorado?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ever since you came, I think," she returned quietly. "I was a member +of a private-car party up at Cripple Creek about that time—with some +of the Midland officials and their friends, you know. Our car was +taken out over a new branch line they were building at that time, and I +saw you standing beside the track. Perhaps I shouldn't have recognized +you if I hadn't been thinking so pointedly of you. The home newspapers +had told of your es—of your leaving the State; and I was +naturally—er—well, I was thinking about you, as I say." +</P> + +<P> +I saw that I was completely in her power. She knew, better than anyone +else on earth, save and excepting only her father, that I was an +innocent man. But she also knew that I had broken my parole. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want of me, Agatha?" I asked; and I had to wet my lips +before I could say it. +</P> + +<P> +"Supposing we say that I am asking only a little, common, ordinary +friendliness, Bertie—just for the sake of the old days, and to show +that you don't bear malice. I'm like other women; I get horribly bored +and lonesome sometimes for somebody to talk to—somebody who knows, and +for whom I don't have to wear a mask. The other girl doesn't live +here, does she?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"That's better. When you come to Denver, you must let me see you now +and then; just for old sake's sake. You come up quite often, don't +you? But I know you do; I see your name in the arrivals quite +frequently." +</P> + +<P> +I formed a swift resolve not to come as often in the future as I had in +the past, but I did not tell her so. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll come to see me when you're in town," she went on. "I'll try to +learn to call you 'Jimmie,' and when we meet people, I'll promise to +introduce you as the Mr. Bertrand, of Cripple Creek and the Little +Clean-Up. Does that make you feel better?" +</P> + +<P> +It made me feel as if I should like to lock my fingers around her fair +pillar-like throat. I have said that I did not hate her. But one may +kill without hatred in self-defense. Short of cold-blooded murder, +however, there was nothing I could do—nothing anyone could do. Beyond +this, she went on chatting easily and lightly of the old times in +Glendale and the people we had both known, rallying me now and then +upon my unresponsiveness. At my leave-taking, which was a full hour +later, she went with me to the hall, helped me into my overcoat, and +gave me another of the breath-taking shocks. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a time, once, when you really thought you were in love with +me, wasn't there, Bertie?" she asked sweetly. +</P> + +<P> +Again I told her the simple truth. "There was a time; yes. It was +when I was still young enough to carry your books back and forth on the +way to and from the old school." +</P> + +<P> +"But you got bravely over it, after awhile?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; I got over it after I grew up." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed softly. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you know that is a frightfully dangerous thing to say to a +woman—to any woman, Bertie?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is the honest thing to say to you." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose it is. Yet there are some things a woman likes better than +honesty. Perhaps you haven't been making love to the Cripple Creek +girl long enough to find that out. But it is so, and it always will be +so." +</P> + +<P> +It was at the outer door opening that she gave me the final stab. +</P> + +<P> +"I am taking your business excuse at its face value to-night and +letting you go. But the next time you come you mustn't have any +business; at least, nothing more important than entertaining me—and +that is important. Just jot that down in your little vest-pocket +memorandum, and don't allow yourself to forget it for a single moment; +not even while you are making love to Little Brown-Eyes. Good-night." +</P> + +<P> +The old-fashioned preachers used to describe a terrifying hell in which +fire and brimstone and all manner of physical torments awaited the +impenitent. I was brought up to believe implicitly in such a hell, but +the puerility of it as compared with the refined tortures which I +endured that winter can never be set forth in any words of mine. +</P> + +<P> +With a desire keener than the hunger of the famishing for +respectability and the privilege of living open-eyed and honestly +before all men, I was forced, from the night of that first visit to +Agatha Geddis, to lead a wretched, fear-frozen, double existence. On +my return to Cripple Creek after the interview which I have just +detailed, I swore roundly that I would stop going to the Everton's; +that, come what might, Polly should never be dragged into the horrible +morass of degradation which I saw clearly, even at that bare beginning, +was waiting to engulf me. +</P> + +<P> +But at best, a man is only a man, human in his desires, human in his +powers of resistance; and a man in love can rarely be a complete master +of circumstances. Though I had been holding back, both for Barrett's +sake and because of my own wretched handicap, it soon became apparent +that I had gone too far to be able to retreat with honor; that Polly +Everton's name had already been coupled with mine in the gossip of the +great gold camp; and that—if what Barrett had said were true—Polly +herself had to be considered. +</P> + +<P> +So the double life began and continued. In Cripple Creek I was Mary +Everton's lover; in Denver I was Agatha Geddis's bondman and slave. +Oftener and oftener, as the winter progressed, the business of the mine +took me to the capital; and Agatha never let me escape. One time it +would be a theater party, at which I would be obliged to meet her +friends; people who, as I soon learned, were of the ultra fast set. At +another it would be a driving party to some out-of-town resort with the +same, or a worse, crowd; midnight banquetings, with champagne in the +finger-bowls, cocktails to go before and after, and quite likely some +daring young woman to show us a new dance, with the cleared +dinner-table for a stage. Many times I tried to dodge; to slip into +Denver on the necessary business errand and out again before the +newspapers could publish my arrival. It was no use. That woman's +ingenuity, prescience, intuition—whatever it may be called, was simply +devilish. Before I could turn around, my summons would find me, and I +had to obey or take the consequences. +</P> + +<P> +Now and again I rebelled, even as the poorest worm will turn if it be +sufficiently trodden upon; but that, too, was useless. My tormentor +held me in a grip of steel. Worse than all, the dog's life she was +leading me caused me to lose all sense of proportion. As a choice +between two evils, a return to prison would have been far more +endurable than this indefinite sentence of degradation Agatha Geddis +was making me serve. But I could not see this: all I could see was +that this woman had the power to make a total wreck of all that I had +builded. The larger fact that I was myself the principal contributor +to the wreck, helping it on by the time-serving course I was pursuing, +did not lay hold of me. +</P> + +<P> +One night, or rather early one morning, when I had taken her home from +a road-house revel so shameful that the keeper of the place had +practically turned us out, I asked her where all this was to end. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps it will end when I have taught you how to make love to me +again," she returned flippantly. +</P> + +<P> +"And if I refuse to learn?" +</P> + +<P> +Her smile was no longer alluring; it was mockingly triumphant. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't keep it up indefinitely—with the Cripple Creek girl, I +mean, Bertie"—she still called me "Bertie" or "Herbert" when we were +alone together. "Sooner or later, she is going to find out what you +are doing to her; and after that, the fireworks." +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. "It is hard to decide, sometimes, Agatha, whether you +are a woman or merely a she-devil in woman's shape." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm a woman—all woman." +</P> + +<P> +"But the motive," I gritted. "If I had done you the greatest injury a +woman could suffer—if you had a lifelong grudge to satisfy—you could +hardly be more vindictively merciless." +</P> + +<P> +Her smile at this was not pleasant to look upon. +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody has said that the keenest pleasure in life is the pleasure of +absolute possession. I own you, Bertie Weyburn, body and soul, and you +know it. If you were a big enough man, you'd kill me: if you were big +enough in another way, you'd defy me and take what is coming to you." +</P> + +<P> +"And since I am not yet ready to become either a murderer or a martyr?" +</P> + +<P> +"You will probably do the other remaining thing—marry me some day and +give me a chance to teach you how to spend the money which, thus far, +you don't seem to know what to do with." +</P> + +<P> +"You have money enough of your own—or your father's," I retorted. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather spend yours," she said coolly. +</P> + +<P> +It was the old <I>impasse</I> at which we had arrived a dozen times before, +only the wretched involvement seemed to be adding coil upon coil with +the passing of time. I have often wondered if she really meant the +marriage threat. At this distance in time it appears extremely +doubtful. She may have had moments in which the steadily augmenting +output of the Little Clean-Up tempted her, but this is only a surmise. +And a little later I was to learn that during this very winter when she +was dragging me bound and helpless at the end of her trail-rope, she +was—but I need not anticipate. +</P> + +<P> +"You have me bluffed to a standstill, but sometimes I wonder if it +isn't only a bluff," I said, in reply to her remark that she'd rather +spend my money than her father's. "What if I should tell you here and +now that this is the end of It?—that you can't make a plaything of me +any longer? What would you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"There are a number of things I might do—to one who is so temptingly +vulnerable as you are, Bertie. For one, I might send a wire to the +sheriff of the home county, or to the warden of the penitentiary. +Really, when I come to think of it, I'm not sure that I oughtn't to do +it, anyway, on the score of public morals. Nobody would blame me; and +some few would applaud." +</P> + +<P> +"Morals!" I exploded. "You don't know the meaning of the word!" +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe not," she rejoined lightly. "Not many women do. But sending +the wire would be a rather crude way of bringing you to terms; +especially since I know of at least one better way. I'm going to +hazard a guess. You haven't told the Cripple Creek girl anything about +your past?" +</P> + +<P> +I was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought not," she went on smoothly. "With some women, perhaps with +most women, it wouldn't make any great difference, one way or the +other. So far as anybody out here knows to the contrary, you are a +free man—and a rich one; and so long as you haven't committed bigamy +or something of that sort, the average girl wouldn't care the snap of +her finger. Up to a few days ago I thought the brown-eyed little thing +you brought up here one night last fall to the theater was the average +girl. But now I know better." +</P> + +<P> +It had always seemed a sheer sacrilege to even mention Mary Everton in +Agatha Geddis's presence. But this time I broke over. +</P> + +<P> +"You know who she is?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +"I do now. And I know her <I>métier</I> even better than you do, Bertie, +dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but she +would never have an ex-convict for the father of her children—not if +she knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew Phineas +Everton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactly +what to expect of his daughter." +</P> + +<P> +I sat up quickly, and the lights in the high-swung drawing-room +chandelier began to turn red for me. +</P> + +<P> +"You devil! Do you mean to say that you would tell Polly Everton?" I +burst out savagely. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to tell her because you are not going to drive me to +it,"—this with a half-stifled yawn behind a faultless white hand that +was just beginning to show the blue veining of bad hours and +dissipation. Then: "Go back to your hotel and go to bed, Bertie. +You'll wake up in a better frame of mind a few hours later, perhaps. +Kiss me, and say good-night." +</P> + +<P> +As I have confessed, I carried a gun in those days; had carried one +ever since that memorable afternoon when I had dropped from the +trolley-car in Cripple Creek to preface the opening of our business +office by going first to a hardware shop for the purchase of a weapon. +After leaving the Altberg house I dismissed the night-owl cab on the +north bank of the river and crossed the Platte on the viaduct afoot. +</P> + +<P> +Half-way over I stopped to look down into the winter-dry bed of the +stream. There was one way out of the wretched labyrinth of shame and +double-dealing into which my weakness and cowardice had led me. The +weapon sagged heavily in my pocket as if it were a sentient thing +trying in some dumb fashion to make its presence felt. +</P> + +<P> +It was but a gripping of the pistol and a quick pull at the trigger, +and I should be out of the labyrinth for good and all. I don't know +why I didn't do it; why I hadn't done it long before—or rather, I do +know. It was because, when the deciding moment came, I was always +confronted by a vivid and soul-harrowing flash-light picture of Polly +Everton's face as it would look when they should tell her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A Reckoning and a Hold-Up +</H3> + + +<P> +I imagine it is only in fiction that a man is able to live a double +life successfully to the grand climax. I failed because the mounting +fortunes of the Little Clean-Up, my share of which was as yet merely +giving me money to squander on the extravagant whims and caprices of +Agatha Geddis, were making all three of us, Gifford, Barrett and +myself, marked men. +</P> + +<P> +One incident of the marking timed itself in one of my trips to Denver. +I had breakfasted at the Brown and was leaving my room-key with the +clerk when I ran up against the plain-clothes man who had arrested me +on the day of my arrival as a runaway. I should have passed him +without recognition, as a matter of course, but he stopped and accosted +me. +</P> + +<P> +"Carson's my name," he said, offering me his hand and showing his +concealed badge in one and the same motion. Then: "You'll excuse me +for butting in, Mr. Bertrand, but there is something you ought to know. +You've got a double kicking around here somewhere; a fellow who has +swiped your name and looks just a little like you. He's a crook, all +right, and we've got his thumb-print and his 'mug' in the headquarters +records. I ran across his dope the other day in the blotter, and +thought the next time I saw you I'd give you a tip. You never can tell +what these slick 'aliases' 'll do. He might be following you up to get +a graft out of you. That's done, every day, you know." +</P> + +<P> +Naturally, there was nothing to do but to thank the purblind city +detective, to press a bank-note into his hand, and to beg him to be on +the lookout for this dangerous "double" of mine. But the incident +served to show what the bonanza-fed publicity campaign was doing for us. +</P> + +<P> +Gifford, grubbing in the various levels of the mine, had the most +immunity; the newspaper reporters let him measurably alone. But +neither Barrett nor I could dodge the spotlight. Every move we made +was blazoned in type, and I lived in daily fear of the moment when some +enterprising newspaper man would begin to make copy of the theater +parties and road-house rides and midnight champagne suppers. +</P> + +<P> +I knew that the blow had fallen one morning when Phineas Everton came +unannounced into my private office and asked me to send the +stenographer away. The <I>débâcle</I> had arrived, and I was no more ready +to meet it than any other spendthrift of good repute caught red-handed +would have been. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you can guess pretty well what I have come to say, Bertrand," +Everton said, after the door had closed behind the outgoing shorthand +man. "I have been putting it off in the hope that your own sense of +the fitness of things would come to the rescue. I may be old-fashioned +and out of touch with the times and the manners of the new generation, +but I can't forget that I am a father, or that common decency still has +its demands." +</P> + +<P> +Out of the depths of my humiliation there emerged, full-grown, a huge +respect for this quiet-eyed ex-schoolmaster who, for the few of us who +knew him, lived the life of a studious recluse among his technical +mechanisms in the laboratory. He was a salaried man, and I was one of +his three employers. That he was able to ignore completely the +business relation was a mark of the man. +</P> + +<P> +He waited for his reply but I had none to make. After a time he went +on, without heat, but equally without regard for anything but the +despicable fact. +</P> + +<P> +"For quite a long time, if I am informed correctly, you have been +associating in Denver with a set of people who, whatever else may be +said about them, are not people with whom my daughter would care to +associate. More than this, you have allowed your name to become +coupled with that of a woman whose reputation, past and present, is not +altogether of the best. Tell me if I am accusing you wrongfully." +</P> + +<P> +"You are not," I admitted. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been waiting and postponing this talk in the hope that you +would realize that you are not doing Polly fair justice. Like most +American fathers, I am not supposed to know how matters stand between +you, and I deal only with the facts as they appear to an onlooker. The +home has been open to you, and you have made such use of your welcome +as to lead others to believe that you are Polly's lover." +</P> + +<P> +"I am," I asserted. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," he said; "that clears the ground admirably. I like you, +Bertrand, and I shall be glad to hear your defense, if you have any." +</P> + +<P> +What could I say? Driven thus into a corner, I could only protest, +rather incoherently, that I loved Polly, and that, in other +circumstances, I should long since have asked her to be my wife. +</P> + +<P> +"The 'circumstances' are connected with Miss Geddis?" he asked +pointedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Only incidentally. Considered for herself, Miss Geddis is a woman for +whom any self-respecting man could have little regard." +</P> + +<P> +For the first time in the interview the ex-schoolmaster's mild eyes +grew hard. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I am to infer that she has a hold of some sort upon you?" +</P> + +<P> +"She has," I rejoined shortly. +</P> + +<P> +"That simplifies matters still more," he averred, with as near an +approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compass. "I +don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have +heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you +should be man enough to stay away from the house and let Polly alone. +Am I unreasonable?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the least. You might go much farther and still be blameless. +I have no valid excuse to offer, but if I should say that there are +extenuating circumstances——" +</P> + +<P> +He raised a thin hand in protest. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us leave it at the point at which there will be the least +ill-feeling," he cut in; and from that he switched without preface to a +discussion of the varying ore values in a newly opened adit of the mine. +</P> + +<P> +When he was gone I went into Barrett's room. As I have intimated, one +of the troubles of mine-owning—if the mine be a producer—is to hold +the smelter people in line. Like other Cripple Creek property owners, +we had been up against the high costs of reduction almost from the +first, and we were constantly sending test consignments of our ore to +various smelters throughout the country, and even to Europe, in order +to obtain checking data. +</P> + +<P> +"About that car-load of Number Three ore we are sending to Falkenheim +in California," I said to Barrett. "I'm going to break away and go +with it if you have no objections." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett looked up quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"I think that is a wise move, Jimmie; a very wise move," he said +gravely; and this meant that he, too, had been reading the Denver +newspapers. Then he added: "We can get along all right without you, +for awhile, and you may stay as long as you like. When will you go?" +</P> + +<P> +"To-day; on the afternoon train." +</P> + +<P> +"Straight west?—or by way of Denver?" +</P> + +<P> +"Straight west, over the Midland, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +This is what I said, and it is what I meant to do when I went back to +my own office to set things in order for the long absence—for I fully +meant it to be long. My office duties were not complicated, and the +few things to be attended to were soon out of the way. One of the +letters to be written was one that I did not dictate to the +stenographer. It was to the Reverend John Whitley, enclosing a draft +to be forwarded to my sister in Glendale. Ever since he had served me +in the matter of returning Horace Barton's pocketbook, I had used him +as an intermediary for communicating, money-wise, with my people. He +had kept my secret, and was still keeping it. +</P> + +<P> +The business affairs despatched, I crossed to the hotel to pack a +couple of suit-cases. All these preliminary preparations included no +word or line to Polly. I promised myself that I should write her when +it was all over. The thing to be done now and first was to drop out as +unostentatiously as possible. So ran the well-considered intention. +But when I went down to an early luncheon there was a telegram awaiting +me. It was from Agatha Geddis, and its wording was a curt mandate. +"Expect you on afternoon train. Don't fail." +</P> + +<P> +During the half-hour which remained before train-time I fought the +wretched battle all over again, back and forth and up and down until my +brain reeled. At the end there was a shifty compromise. I was still +fully determined to drop out and go to California; at one stroke to +break with Polly Everton, and to put myself beyond the reach of the +woman with claws; but I weakly decided to go by way of Denver, taking +the night train west from the capital city over the Union Pacific. It +was a cowardly expedient, prompted wholly by the old, sharp-toothed +fear of consequences if I should fall to obey the wire summons, and I +knew it. I offer nothing in extenuation. +</P> + +<P> +Agatha met me at the Denver Union Station, and at her suggestion we +went together to dinner at the Brown Palace. I did not know until +later why she had sent for me, or why she chose a particular table in +the dining-room, or why she went to pieces—figuratively +speaking—when, at the serving of the dessert, a note was handed her. +</P> + +<P> +After that, I should have said that she had been drinking too much +champagne, if I had not known better. +</P> + +<P> +"I want you to go with me up to my suite, Bertie; I've moved to the +hotel," she said hurriedly as we were leaving the dining-room. +</P> + +<P> +If I went reluctantly it was not owing to any new-born squeamishness. +Heaven knows, I had been compromised with her too many times to care +greatly for anything that could be added now. In the sitting-room of +her private suite she punched the light switch and came to sit on the +arm of my chair. If she had put an arm around my neck, as she did now +and then when the wine was in and what few scruples she had were pushed +aside, I think I should have strangled her. +</P> + +<P> +"You are going to be awfully sweet to me to-night, Bertie," she began, +with honey on her tongue. "You are going to be my good angel. I need +a lot of money, and I want you to be nice and get it for me." +</P> + +<P> +"No," I refused briefly. "You've bled me enough." +</P> + +<P> +"Just this one more time, Boy," she coaxed. "I've simply <I>got</I> to have +it, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you get it from your father?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has quit," she said, with a toss of the shapely head. "Besides, +you are so much easier." +</P> + +<P> +"How much do you want, this time?" +</P> + +<P> +She named a sum which was a fair measure of my entire checking account +in the Cripple Creek bank; no small amount, this, though by agreement +Gifford, Barrett and I had set aside a liberal portion of the mine +earnings as undivided profits. When I hesitated, fairly staggered by +the enormity of her demand, she added: "Don't tell me you haven't got +it; I know you have. You don't spend anything except the little you +dole out for me." +</P> + +<P> +"If I have that much, I am not carrying it around with me." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't suppose you carried it in your pocket. But you are well +known here in Denver, and you can get your checks cashed at any hour of +the day or night, if you go to the right places. You've done it +before." +</P> + +<P> +I was desperate enough to be half crazed. Not content with making me +lose the love of the one woman in the world, she was preparing to rob +me like a merciless highwayman. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing for nothing, the world over," I said, between set teeth. "I +mean to have the worth of my money, this time." +</P> + +<P> +With a quick twist on the arm of the chair she leaned over and put her +cheek against mine. "There are others," she laughed softly, "but there +has never been a day or an hour when you couldn't make them wait, +Bertie, dear." And then: "No; I haven't been drinking." +</P> + +<P> +"You will give me what I want, if I will pay the price?" I demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"You heard what I said," she whispered. +</P> + +<P> +I made her sit up and tried to face her. +</P> + +<P> +"This is what I want. Four years ago you and your father sent me to +prison for a crime that I didn't commit. Go over to that table and +write and sign me my clearance—tell the bald truth and sign your name +to it—and you shall have your money." +</P> + +<P> +In a flash she slipped from her place on the arm of the chair and stood +before me transformed into a flaming incarnation of vindictive rage. +In spite of the pace she had been keeping she was still very beautiful, +and her anger served to heighten that physical charm which was the +keynote of her power over men. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Oh</I>!" she panted; "so <I>that</I> was what you were willing to pay for! +You want a bill of health so you can go back to that little hussy in +Cripple Creek! Listen to me, Bert Weyburn: you've broken the last +thread. I could kill you if you couldn't serve my turn better alive +than dead! <I>I want that money</I>. If you don't bring it here to me by +ten o'clock, the Denver police are going to find out that you, the +wealthy third partner in the Little Clean-Up, are the man they +photographed nearly a year ago, the man whose thumb-print they took, +the man who is wanted as an escaped convict who has broken his +parole—No, don't speak; let me finish. For the money you are going to +bring me, I'll keep still—to the police. But for the slap you've just +given me.… Did you ever read that line of Congreve's about a +woman scorned? You've had your last little love-scene with Polly +Everton!" +</P> + +<P> +I'll tell it all. This time the murder demon proved too strong for me. +It was a sheer madman who sprang at her out of the depths of the +arm-chair and bent her back over the little oak writing-table with his +hands at her throat. She was not womanly enough to scream; instead, +she fought silently and with the strength and cunning of mortal fear. +Even as my fingers clutched at her for the strangling hold she twisted +herself free and put the breadth of the table between us; then I found +myself looking into the muzzle of a small silver-mounted revolver. +</P> + +<P> +"You fool!" she gasped. "Do you think I would take any chances with +you? If you should kill me, the axe would fall and find your neck, +just the same! I put it in a letter to the chief of police. Get me +that money before ten o'clock if you want me to stop the letter!" +</P> + +<P> +I was beaten, this time not by fear of her or what she could do, but by +the crushing loss I had suffered in those few mad moments. I had done +the thing that no man may do and still claim that he has a single drop +of gentle blood in his veins; I had laid my hands in violence upon a +woman, and with murder in my heart. +</P> + +<P> +Convinced now that there was no deeper depth of degradation to which I +could sink, I set about the task she had given me, laboring through it +like a man in a dream. To gather up such a huge sum of money after +banking hours was well nigh impossible; but I compassed the end by +chartering a cab and going to anybody and everybody who could by any +possibility cash my checks, leaving a disgraceful trail of the bank +paper in dives and gambling dens and night resorts without +number—driven to this because all respectable sources were closed at +that time in the evening. +</P> + +<P> +Returning to the hotel only a few minutes before the critical hour, I +went directly to her rooms, carrying the money in a small hand-bag that +I had bought for the purpose. I found her waiting for me, gowned and +hatted as if for a journey. She was standing before a mirror, dabbing +her neck with a powder-puff—histronic to the last; she was showing me +how she had to resort to this to cover up the marks of my assault. I +have failed in my picture of her if I have not portrayed her as a woman +of moods and lightning changes. There was no trace of the late +volcanic outburst in her manner when she greeted me and handed me a +sealed and stamped envelope addressed to the Denver chief of police. +</P> + +<P> +"You got the money?" she said quietly. "I knew you would." And then +with a sudden passion: "Oh, Bertie! if you weren't such a cold-blooded +fish of a man!—but never mind; it's too late now." +</P> + +<P> +I placed the small hand-bag on the table, pocketed the fateful letter, +and backed toward the door. "If there is nothing else," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but there is!" she put in quickly. "I want you to get a cab and +take me to the station. I'm leaving for California. Don't you want to +go with me?" +</P> + +<P> +"God forbid!" I exclaimed, and it came out of a full heart. Then I +went down to order the cab. +</P> + +<P> +She was curiously silent on the short drive down Seventeenth Street to +the Union Station, sitting with the little hand-bag on her knees and +breathing as they say the Australian pearl fishers breathe before +taking the deep-sea dive. In the station she stood at a window in the +women's room and waited while I purchased her ticket for San Francisco +and paid for the sleeper section which had evidently been reserved some +time in advance. +</P> + +<P> +It is perhaps needless to say that I did not buy my own California +ticket at the same time, though the train she was taking was the one I +had planned to take. My journey could be postponed; and in the light +of what had happened, and what was now happening, I was beginning to +understand that my runaway trip to the Pacific Coast was no longer +necessary, on one account, at least. But in any event, wild horses +couldn't have dragged me aboard of the same train with Agatha Geddis. +</P> + +<P> +She seemed strangely perturbed when I went to her with the tickets, and +she made no move to leave the window. +</P> + +<P> +"Your train is ready," I told her, as she thrust the ticket envelope +into the bosom of her gown. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait!" she commanded; then she turned back to the window which looked +out upon the cab rank. +</P> + +<P> +There were cabs coming and going constantly, and I didn't know until +afterward what she saw that made her eyes light up and the blood surge +into her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I'm ready," she announced quickly. "Put me on the sleeper." +</P> + +<P> +I took her through the gates and at the gate-man's halting of us I saw +that we were followed. +</P> + +<P> +Our shadow was an alert, dapper young man who wore glasses, and I +remembered having seen him, both at the ticket window and in the +women's room. Outside of the gates he confirmed my suspicion by +trailing us to the steps of the sleeping-car. +</P> + +<P> +Even then I didn't suspect what was going on. While the sleeping-car +conductor was examining the tickets and taking the section number I saw +the young man with the spectacles making a hurried reconnaissance of +the car by walking back and forth beside it and peering curiously in +through the lighted windows. Then I missed him for a minute or two +until he came running from the gates with a railroad ticket in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to Cheyenne, and I want a berth in this car," he told the +Pullman conductor, "They said they couldn't sell me one at the +office—that you had the diagram." +</P> + +<P> +The conductor looked over his list. "Nothing doing," he returned. +"All sold out." +</P> + +<P> +"That's all right," snapped the young man; "I'll take my chance sitting +up." With that, he climbed aboard and disappeared in the car. +</P> + +<P> +All this time we had been waiting for the conductor to return my +companion's tickets. When he did so, I helped her up the steps. The +air-brakes were sighing the starting signal, and she turned in the +lighted vestibule and blew me a kiss. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by, Bertie, dear," I heard her say. "Be a good boy, and give my +love to Little Brown-Eyes." Then, as if to prove the immortal saying +that there is no such thing as ultimate total depravity in the human +atom, she leaned over to whisper the parting word: "Make good with her +if you can, and want to, Bertie: I didn't mean it when I said I'd spoil +your chances. Good-night and good-by." And with that the train moved +off and she was gone. +</P> + +<P> +I slept late in my room at the hotel the next morning, waking with a +vague sense of inexpressible relief, which was quickly followed by the +emotions which may come to a man regaining consciousness after he has +been sandbagged and robbed. At table in the breakfast-room the boy +brought me a morning paper. On the first page, in screaming headlines, +I saw the complete explanation of the mysteries of the previous +evening. Agatha Geddis had eloped with a married man notably prominent +in social and business circles. The newspaper had two reliable sources +of information. The deserted wife had been interviewed, and the guilty +pair had been followed on the train by a reporter. +</P> + +<P> +I laid the paper aside and stared out of the breakfast-room window like +a man awakening from a horrid dream. Once again the submerging wave of +realization and relief rushed over me. Truly, I had been held up and +robbed; had in fact innocently financed this city-shaking elopement. +But, so far as Agatha Geddis's banishment from Denver and Colorado +could accomplish it, I was once more a free man. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Broken Faith +</H3> + + +<P> +"Sweet are the uses of adversity," sang the great bard who is supposed +to have known human nature in all its mutations; and humanity has +echoed the aphorism until it has come to believe in some sort that +bufferings are benedictions, and hard knocks merely the compacting +blows that harden virtues, as the blacksmith's hammer beats a finer +temper into the steel upon the anvil. +</P> + +<P> +With all due respect for the shades of the mighty, and for the tacit +approval of the many, I beg leave to offer the <I>argumentum ad hominem</I> +in rebuttal. Fight the conclusion as I may, I cannot resist the +convincement that ill winds have never blown me any good; that, on the +contrary, the steady pressure of hardship and misfortune, during a +period when my life was still in a great measure in the formative +state, exerted an influence which was altogether evil, weakening the +impulses which should have been growing stronger, and giving free rein +to those which, under more favoring conditions, might never have been +quickened. +</P> + +<P> +When I forsook the breakfast-table and the hotel, after having read the +newspaper story telling how effectively Agatha Geddis had removed +herself from my path, it was to make a joyous dash for the first train +leaving the capital for Cripple Creek. With shame I record it, I had +already forgotten my own culpable weakness in permitting a dastardly +fear of consequences to make me Agatha's puppet and a sharer in her +more than questionable dissipations; had forgotten that by every step I +had taken with Agatha Geddis I had increased the distance separating me +from Mary Everton. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it is only a characteristic of human nature to minimize evils +past, and evils to come, at the miraculous removal of a great and +pressing evil present; even so, one may suffer loss. I was hastening +back to take up the dropped thread of my relations with Phineas Everton +and his daughter, and I should have gone softly, as one who, knowing +himself the chief of sinners yet ventures to tread upon holy ground. +But by the time the train was slowing into the great gold camp at the +back of Pike's Peak, these, and all other chastening thoughts, were +crowded aside to make room for the one jubilant fact: I was free and I +was going back to Polly. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett was the first man I met upon reaching our offices. If he were +surprised at seeing me in Cripple Creek when I should have been well on +my way to the Pacific Coast, he was quite as evidently disappointed. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you had started for California," he said in his evenest +tones. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought so, too; but it was only a false start." Then I had it out +with him. "You and I both know, Barrett, why you thought I ought to +go, and the reason wasn't even remotely connected with the shipping of +the car-load of test-ore. If you have seen the morning papers, you +probably know why it is no longer necessary for me to leave Colorado." +</P> + +<P> +He turned to stare absently out of the office window. When he faced +about again there was a frown of friendly concern wrinkling between his +straight-browed level eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"How the devil did you ever come to get mixed up with the Geddis woman, +Jimmie?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +I evaded the direct question. "It is a long story, and some day I may +be able to tell you all of it. But I can't do it now. You must take +my word for it, Bob, that I haven't done a single thing that I didn't +believe, at the time, I was compelled to do. That sounds idiotic, I +know; but it is the simple truth." +</P> + +<P> +Again he turned to the window and was silent for a full minute. I knew +that I had in no uncertain measure forfeited his good opinion—that, I +had earned the forfeiture: also, I knew perfectly well what he was +doing; he was leaving me entirely out of the question and was weighing +the hazards for Polly. When he turned it was to put a hand upon my +shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm taking you 'sight unseen,' old man," he said, with the brotherly +affection which came so easily to the front in all his dealings with +me. "If you tell me it's done and over with, and won't be resurrected, +that's the end of it, so far as I am concerned. What comes next?" +</P> + +<P> +"A little heart-to-heart talk with Polly's father," I said, and began +to move toward the door. But he stopped me before I could get away. +</P> + +<P> +"Just one other word, Jimmie: wouldn't it be better to let things rock +along for awhile until the dust has time to settle and the smoke to +blow away? You've come back red-handed from this thing—whatever it +is—and——" +</P> + +<P> +"No," I returned obstinately. "It is now or never for me, Bob. I'm +sinking deeper into the mire every day, and Polly has the only rope +that will pull me out. You'll say that I am much more likely to drag +her in; maybe that is true, but just now I'm like a drowning man. +Possibly it would be better for all concerned if I should drown, but +you can't expect me to take that view of it." And with that I crossed +the corridor to the laboratory. +</P> + +<P> +I can say for Phineas Everton that he was at all times and in all +things a fair man, generous to a fault, and always ready to give the +other fellow the benefit of the doubt. I sought him that afternoon +with an explanation which was very far from explaining, but he listened +patiently and with an evident desire to draw favorable inferences where +he could from my somewhat vague story of my entanglement with Agatha +Geddis. +</P> + +<P> +It was perfectly apparent to me that I was not making the story very +clear to him; I couldn't, because any complete explanation would have +reached back too far into my past. The half-confidence was +inexcusable, and I was aware of this. I owed this man, whose daughter +I wished to marry, the fullest and frankest statement of all the facts. +But I didn't give it to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You are trying to tell me that the affair with this woman had its +origin in a former foolish infatuation?" he said at length. +</P> + +<P> +"It might be called that; but it dates back to my—to a time long +before I came to Cripple Creek." +</P> + +<P> +"You gave me to understand yesterday that she had a hold of some sort +upon you. Were you under promise to marry her?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed; never in this world!" +</P> + +<P> +He was sitting back in his chair and regarding me gravely. +</P> + +<P> +"I am an old-fashioned man, Bertrand, as I told you yesterday. I have +always entertained an idea—which may seem archaic to the present +generation—that a young man intending to marry ought to be able to +give as much as he asks. You haven't made a very good beginning." +</P> + +<P> +I admitted it; admitted everything save the imputation that my +relations with Agatha Geddis had been in any sense wilfully immoral. +</P> + +<P> +He gave a wry smile at this, as if the distinction were finely drawn +and the credit small. +</P> + +<P> +"Because it fell to my lot to be a schoolmaster in her native town, I +had an opportunity of observing Miss Geddis while she was yet only a +young girl, Bertrand," he remarked. "She gave promise, even then, of +becoming a disturbing element in the affairs of men. As a school-girl +she had a following of silly boys who were ready to take her at her own +valuation of herself. There are times when you remind me very strongly +of one of them, though the resemblance is only a suggestion: the boy I +speak of was a bright young fellow named Weyburn, who afterward became +a clerk in Mr. Geddis's bank." +</P> + +<P> +There are moments when the promptings of the panic-stricken ostrich lay +hold upon the best of us. Since I could not thrust my head into the +sand, I wheeled quickly to stare at a framed photograph of Bull +Mountain and the buildings of the Little Clean-Up hanging on the +laboratory wall. +</P> + +<P> +"He was one of the fools, too, was he?" I said, without taking my eyes +from the photograph. +</P> + +<P> +"He turned out badly, I am sorry to say, and I have often wondered if +the young woman was not in some way responsible. There was a +defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to +the penitentiary." +</P> + +<P> +Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have +punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete +recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the +rending touch. But Everton's return to the question at issue turned +the danger of recognition aside. +</P> + +<P> +"To get back to the present time, and your plea for a rehearing," he +went on. "I wish to be entirely fair to you, Bertrand; as fair as I +can be without being unfair to Polly. Barrett told me yesterday +afternoon that you had gone, or were going, to the Pacific Coast. I am +taking it for granted that you had no intention of accompanying this +woman?" +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly had not. Nothing was further from my intentions. On the +other hand, her flight last night with another woman's husband is the +one thing that makes it possible for me to be here to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"You can assure me that your connection with her is an incident closed; +and for all time?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is, unquestionably. I hope I shall never see her or hear of her +again." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he sat nibbling the end of the pencil with which he had +been figuring, trying, as I well understood, to be fairly equitable as +between even-handed justice and his prejudices. There was a sharp +little struggle, but at the end of it he said: "As I remarked +yesterday, I labor under all the disadvantages of the average American +father. I can occupy the position only of a deeply interested +onlooker. But I'll meet you half-way and lift the embargo. You may +resume your visits to the house if you wish to." +</P> + +<P> +"I want more than that," I broke in hastily. "I am going to ask Polly +to be my wife. If she says Yes, I don't want to wait a minute longer +than I'm obliged to." +</P> + +<P> +He demurred at that, intimating that I ought to be willing to wait +until a reasonable lapse of time could prove the sincerity of my +protestations. He was entirely justified in asking for delay, but I +begged like a dog and he finally gave a reluctant consent—contingent, +of course, upon his daughter's wishes in the matter. Half an hour +later I was sitting with Polly Everton before a cheerful grate fire in +the living-room of the cottage on the hill, trying, as best I might, to +tell her how much I loved her. +</P> + +<P> +One of the things a man doesn't find out until after he has been +married quite some little time is that the best of women may not always +wear her heart on her sleeve, nor always open the door of the inner +confidences even to the man whose life has become a part and parcel of +her own. Mary Everton's eyes were deep wells of truth and sincerity as +I talked, but I read in them nothing save the love which matched my own +when she gave me her answer. If I had known all that lay behind, I +think I should have fallen down and worshiped her. +</P> + +<P> +I did not know then how much or how little she had heard of the Agatha +Geddis affair. None the less, I broke faith, if not with her, at least +with myself. I did not tell her that she was about to become the wife +of an escaped convict; that her life must henceforth be lived under a +threatening shadow; that her children, if she should have any, might be +made to share the disgrace of their father. +</P> + +<P> +Once more I make no excuses. A little later, if I had waited, the just +and honorable impulse might have reasserted itself; I might have +realized that the removal of one unscrupulous woman out of my path +merely took the lightning out of the edge of the nearest cloud. But in +the supreme exaltation of the moment I considered none of these things. +In this climaxing of happiness the disaster which had hung over my head +for weeks and months seemed as far removed and remote as it had been +imminent only a few hours before. +</P> + +<P> +We were together through what remained of the afternoon; until it was +nearly time for Phineas Everton to come home. When we parted I had +gained my point and our plans were all made. We were to be married +very quietly the following day. I had no wish to make the wedding the +social function which my position as one of the three partners in the +Little Clean-Up might have justified; and Polly agreed with me in this. +</P> + +<P> +It was not until after I had left the house that I remembered that the +forced financing of Agatha Geddis's elopement had practically drained +my bank account. There had been no mention of money in our talk before +the fire; we were both far and away beyond the reach of any such sordid +topic. But Phineas Everton would have a right to ask questions, and I +must be prepared to answer them. After dinner at the hotel I captured +Barrett, drove him into a quiet corner of the lobby, and made my wail. +</P> + +<P> +"Heavens and earth!" he gasped when I had told him the shameful truth. +"Are you telling me that you let that woman hold you up for all the +ready money you had in the world?" +</P> + +<P> +"It listens that way," I confessed; adding, out of the heart of +sincerity: "It was cheap at the price; I was glad enough to be quit of +her at any price." +</P> + +<P> +"This is pretty serious, Jimmie," he asserted, after he had re-lighted +his cigar. "It isn't the mere fact that you have recklessly chucked a +small fortune at the Geddis person—that is a mere matter of dollars +and cents, and the Little Clean-Up will square you up on that. But +there is another side to it. The dreadful thing is the fact that she +had enough of a grip on you to make you do it. I'll like it better if +you will say that you were blind drunk when you did it." +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't—more's the pity, Bob; on the contrary, I was never soberer +in my life." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, you haven't told Polly." +</P> + +<P> +"No—not yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor Everton?" +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. "I didn't want to commit suicide." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett chuckled softly. +</P> + +<P> +"I happen to know this fellow the Geddis woman is running away with," +he said. "He has gone through his wife's fortune, in addition to +squandering a good little chunk that his father left him. And you've +grub-staked 'em both to this! Well, never mind; it's a back number, +now, and you have given me your word for it. Don't worry about the +money you are going to need for the honeymoon. There is plenty in the +bank—in my account, if there isn't any in yours." +</P> + +<P> +I thanked him with tears in my eyes. Was there ever another such +generous soul in this world, or in any other? He stopped me in mid +career, wishing to know more about the wedding. +</P> + +<P> +"Let the money part of it go hang and tell me more about this hurry +business you've planned for to-morrow. It's scandalous and unheard of, +but I don't blame you a little bit. Dope my part out for me while +you're here—so I'll know where I am to come on and go off." +</P> + +<P> +For a little while longer—as long a while as I could spare from +Polly—we talked of the impromptu wedding and arranged for it. Barrett +was a brother to me in all that the word implies. He took on all of +the "best man's" responsibilities—and more. When I was leaving to +walk up the hill he walked to the corner of the side street with me, +and at the last moment business intruded. +</P> + +<P> +"I forgot to tell you," he cut in abruptly. "After you left yesterday +afternoon a court notice was served upon us. Blackwell's lawyers have +taken the Lawrenceburg suit to the Federal court—on the ground of +alien ownership—and we've got to show cause all over again why we +shouldn't be enjoined for trespass. Benedict seems to be more or less +stirred up about it." +</P> + +<P> +"If that is the case, I oughtn't to be going away," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you ought; Gifford and I can handle it." +</P> + +<P> +Notwithstanding Barrett's assurance I was vaguely disturbed as I +climbed the hill to the Everton cottage. Blackwell had proved to be a +veritable bull-dog in the long-drawn-out fight, and the tenacity with +which he was holding on was ominous. Why the Lawrenceburg people +should make such a determined struggle to wipe us out was beyond my +comprehension. It had been proved in the State courts, past a question +of doubt, that our title to the Little Clean-Up was unassailable, and +still Blackwell hung on. What was the animus? +</P> + +<P> +If I could have had the answer to that question it is conceivable that +my one evening as Polly Everton's affianced lover—an evening spent in +the seventh heaven of ecstasy before the cheerful coal blaze in the +cottage sitting-room—would have been sadly marred. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The End of a Honeymoon +</H3> + + +<P> +Our high-noon wedding was in all respects as quiet and unostentatious +as we had planned it. The little brown box of a church, bare of +decorations because there was neither time nor the group of vicariously +interested young people to trim it, was only a few doors from the +Everton cottage, and we walked to it; Phineas Everton and I on each +side of the plank walk, and Polly between us with an arm for each. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett had told a few of his friends, so there were enough people in +the pews to make it look a little less than clandestine. Barrett acted +as usher in one aisle and Gifford, very much out of his element but +doggedly faithful, did his part in the other. There was even a bit of +music; the Wagner as we went in, and a few bars of the Mendelssohn to +speed us as we went out. The good-byes were said at the church-door, +and the only abnormal thing about the leave-taking was Barrett's gift +to the bride, pressed into her hand as we were getting into the +carriage to go to the railroad station—a silver filigree hand-bag +stuffed heavy with five- and ten-dollar gold pieces, "to be blown in on +the wedding journey," as he phrased it. +</P> + +<P> +We had agreed not to tell anybody where we were going; for that matter, +I didn't even tell Polly until after we had started. Turning southward +from Colorado Springs and stopping overnight in Trinidad, we took a +morning train on the Santa Fe and vanished into the westward void. A +day and a night beyond this we were debarking at Williams, Arizona, and +in due time reached our real hiding-place; a comfortable ranch house +within easy riding distance of that most majestic of immensities, the +Grand Canyon of the Colorado. It was Polly's idea; the choice of a +quiet retreat as against the social attractions of the great hotel on +the canyon's brink. We had each other, and that was sufficient. +</P> + +<P> +Of that heavenly month, spent in a world far removed from all the +turmoil and distractions of modern civilization, there is nothing to be +here written down. For those who have drained a similar cup of +blissful happiness for themselves there is no need; and those who have +not would not understand. What I recall most vividly now is a single +unnerving incident; unnerving, I say, though at the time it was quickly +drowned in the flowing tide of joy. +</P> + +<P> +It chanced upon a day toward the month's end when we had broken the +heavenly sequence of quiet days by riding a pair of our host's +well-broken cow ponies over to El Tovar for dinner. Since it was not +the tourist season there were not many guests in the great inn; but +one, a man who sat by himself in a far corner of the dining-room, gave +me a turn that made me sick and faint at my first sight of him. The +man was big and swarthy of face, and he wore a pair of drooping +mustaches. For one heart-stopping instant I made sure it was William +Cummings, the deputy prison warden who had so miraculously missed +seeing me in the dining-car of my train of escape. But since nothing +happened and he paid no manner of attention to us, I decided gratefully +that it was only a resemblance. There was no such name as Cummings on +the hotel register, which I examined after we left the dining-room, and +I saw no more of the man with the drooping mustaches. +</P> + +<P> +Momentary as the shock had been, I found that Polly had remarked it. +She spoke of it on the ride back to our retreat at Carter's. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you feeling entirely well, Jimmie, dear?" she asked; and before I +could reply: "You had a bad turn of some sort while we were at table. +I saw it in your face and eyes." +</P> + +<P> +I hastened to assure her that there was nothing the matter with me; +that there couldn't be anything the matter with a man who had died and +gone to heaven nearly a month previous to the dinner at El Tovar. +</P> + +<P> +"But the man has got to go back to earth again pretty soon, and take +the woman with him," she retorted, laughing. "Just think, Jimmie; it +has been nearly a month, as you say, and we haven't had a letter or a +telegram in all that time! Not that I'm regretting anything; I'm +happy, dearest—as happy as an angel with wings; but I want to see my +daddy." +</P> + +<P> +The heavenly path was leading back into the old world again, the +fighting world, and I knew it, and presently we were taking all the +steps of the delightful vanishing in reverse; boarding the through +train at Williams, catching glimpses of the stupendous majesty of +mountain and plain as the powerful locomotives towed us up the grades +of the Raton, doing a brisk walk on the platform at Albuquerque while +the train paused, and all the rest of it. +</P> + +<P> +From Trinidad I wired Barrett, telling him that we were on our way +home; that we should go in by way of Colorado Springs instead of +Florence, with a stop-over between trains for dinner at the Antlers. I +half-expected he would run down to the Springs to meet us, and so he +did, bringing Father Phineas with him. Polly's love for her father was +always very sweet and touching, and Barrett and I left them to +themselves at the meeting. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm mighty glad to see you back, Jimmie, old man," Barrett declared, +when we had found a quiet corner in the rotunda. "You are looking like +a new man, and I guess you are one. And you are on your feet again +financially, too. We declared a dividend yesterday, and you've got a +bank account that will warm the cockles of your silly old heart." +</P> + +<P> +"How is Gifford? and how are things at the mine?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Gifford is all right; only he's got too much money—doesn't know what +to do with it now that he has built all the new houses the camp will +stand for. And the Little Clean-Up is all right, too; though we are +digging into a small mystery just now." +</P> + +<P> +"A mystery?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. You remember how the branch vein in the two-hundred-foot level +was bearing off to the east?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, three weeks ago the sloping carried us over into the Mary +Mattock ground, and I tell you what, Jimmie, I was more than glad we +had bought that claim outright while we could. The ore is richer than +anything we have found since we made the big strike at grass-roots, and +we'd be up against it good and hard if we hadn't paid those Nebraska +farmers what they asked and taken a clear title to the ground." +</P> + +<P> +"But the mystery," I reminded him. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a little trick of acoustics, I guess; it has happened in other +mines, so Hicks tells me. Some peculiar geological structure of the +porphyry in particular localities makes it carry sound like a telephone +wire. In that eastern adit of ours you can hear them working in the +Lawrenceburg as plainly as if they were only a few feet away." +</P> + +<P> +"That is odd," I mused; "especially as the Lawrenceburg workings are +all in exactly the opposite direction—down the hill on their side of +the spur." +</P> + +<P> +Barrett thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +</P> + +<P> +"I have often wondered, Jimmie, if they really <I>are</I> downhill. Nobody, +outside of the men on their own pay-roll, knows anything about it +definitely; and Blackwell wouldn't let an outside engineer go down his +shaft for a king's ransom. I know it, because I have tried to send +one. If the downhill story that we've been hearing should happen to be +a fake; if he should be under-cutting us, instead; it would explain a +heap of things." +</P> + +<P> +"The stubborn lawsuit among others," I offered. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; the lawsuit. By the way, we've been up to our necks in that +while you've been hiding out. Blackwell's lawyers succeeded in +persuading the Federal court to grant a temporary injunction, in spite +of everything we could do, and we are operating now under an indemnity +bond big enough to make your head swim. The hearing to determine +whether the injunction shall be dissolved or made permanent is timed +for next Monday." +</P> + +<P> +"Heavens!" I ejaculated. "We can't let them tie us up!" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think they are going to be able to. Benedict is feeling a +little better now and he thinks he has them sewed up in a blanket, only +he won't tell me how, and you never can tell what's going to happen +when the lawyers get at you. There are lots of holes in the legal +skimmer: for example, at the preliminary hearing Blackwell had three +surveyors who went on the stand and swore flat-footed that the lines on +our side of the spur were all wrong; that the Lawrenceburg group of +claims covered not only our original triangle, but the Mary Mattock as +well. Paid-for perjury, of course, but we couldn't prove it; so there +you are." +</P> + +<P> +At my urging Barrett would have gone into this phase of the trouble +more deeply, but just then Polly and her father came across the rotunda +and we all went to the dining-room together. I shall never forget, the +longest day I live, just where our table for four stood, and how a +group of gabbling tourists had the three or four tables nearest to us, +and how the lights, due to some trouble with the electric current, +winked now and then, like the stage lights in a theater ticking off the +cues. +</P> + +<P> +We had got as far as the black coffees, and Barrett was joking Polly +and telling her that she shouldn't take sugar, when I saw, through a +vista of the tourists, a square-shouldered, dark-faced man rising from +his place at a distant table. There was no mistaking him. He was the +man I had seen in the dining-room of the hotel at the Grand Canyon. +</P> + +<P> +As he came toward us between the tables the resemblance, which I had so +confidently assured myself was only a resemblance, transformed itself +slowly into the breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up, wild-eyed +and speechless, into the face of the deputy warden, Cummings, when he +tapped me on the shoulder and said, loud enough for the others to hear: +</P> + +<P> +"You've led us a pretty long chase, Weyburn, but we don't often miss, +and it's ended at last. I guess you'll have to come with me, now." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A Woman's Love +</H3> + + +<P> +It is useless for me to try to picture the consternation which fell +upon the four of us when the deputy warden touched me on the shoulder +and spoke to me. I can't describe it. I only know that Barrett sprang +up, gritting out the first oath I had ever heard him utter; that a look +of shocked and complete recognition leaped into the mild brown eyes of +the old metallurgist; that Polly was standing up with her arms +outstretched across the table as if she were trying to reach me and +drag me out of the crushing wreck of all our hopes. +</P> + +<P> +When he found that I was not going to offer any resistance, Cummings +was very decent—not to say kindly. He let me walk with the others out +of the dining-room; made no show of his authority in the rotunda or at +the elevators to point me out as a prisoner; and in the up-stairs room +to which he took me, pending the departure-time of the earliest +eastbound train, he let me see and talk, first with Barrett, and +afterward with my wife. +</P> + +<P> +In this most trying exigency Barrett proved to be all that my fancy had +ever pictured the truest of friends. His first word assured me that he +meant to stand by me to the last ditch, and I knew it was the word of a +man who never knew when he was beaten. While Cummings smoked a cigar +in the window-seat I told Barrett the whole pitiful story, beginning +with the night when I had promised Agatha Geddis that I would pull her +father out of the hole he had digged for himself and ending with my +appearance in the Cripple Creek construction camp. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett believed the story, and I didn't have to wait for him to tell +me so. I could see it in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Jimmie!" he said, wringing my hand as if he would crush it, "you've +got the two of us behind you—I'm speaking for Gifford because I know +exactly what he will say. We'll spend every dollar that ever comes out +of the Little Clean-Up, if needful, to buy you justice! But I wish you +had told me all this before; and, more than that, I wish you had told +Polly." +</P> + +<P> +"My God, Bob!" I groaned; "don't rub it in!" And then I told him +brokenly how I had known Polly as a little girl in Glendale, and how I +was certain that her father had more than once been on the verge of +recognizing me. Then, in such fashion as I could, I made my will, or +tried to, telling him that Polly must have her freedom, and that he +must help her get it, and that my share in the mine must go to her. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the only return I can make her for the deception I have put upon +her," I said; "and I want you to promise me that——" +</P> + +<P> +In the midst of all this Barrett had turned aside, swearing under his +breath, which was his only way, I took it, of letting me know how it +was rasping him. But now he whirled upon me and broke in savagely: +</P> + +<P> +"Stop it, you damned maniac! If you have lived with Polly Everton a +whole month and don't know her any better than that, you ought to be +shot! She is waiting now to have her chance at you, and I'm not going +to take any more of her time." Then he went soft again: "You keep a +stiff upper lip, and we'll get you out of this if we have to retain +every lawyer this side of New York!" +</P> + +<P> +Polly came so soon after Barrett left that I knew she must have been +waiting in the corridor. Cummings was considerate enough to shift his +smoking-seat to the other window and to turn his back upon us. All the +cynics in the world to the contrary notwithstanding, there is a tender +spot in the heart of every man that was ever born, if one can only be +fortunate enough to touch it. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>My darling</I>!" That is what she said when I took her in my arms; and +for a long minute nothing else was said. Then she drew away and held +me at arm's length, and there was that in her dear eyes to make me feel +like the soldier who faces the guns with a shout in his heart and a +song on his lips, knowing that death itself cannot rob him of the Great +Recompense. +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't say one word—Jimmie—<I>my husband</I>! I have known it all, +every bit of it, from the first—from that Sunday morning when Daddy +took me over to your mine," she whispered. "I—I loved you, dearest, +when I was only a foolish little school-girl, and your sister and I +have exchanged letters ever since Daddy and I left Glendale. So I +knew; knew when they sent you to prison for another man's crime, and +knew, even better than your mother and sister did, why you let them do +it. Oh, Jimmie!"—with a queer little twist of the sweet lips that was +half tears and half smile—"if you could only know how wretchedly +jealous I used to be of Agatha Geddis!" +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't have been!" I burst out. "But you don't know it all. +Last winter—in Denver——" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded sorrowfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear; I knew that, too. I knew that Agatha Geddis was using you +again—against your will; and that this time she had a cruel whip in +her hand. We had all heard of the broken parole; it was in the home +newspapers, and, besides, your sister wrote me about it." +</P> + +<P> +"And in the face of all this, you——" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded again, brightly this time, though her eyes were swimming. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my lover—a thousand times, yes! And I knew this would come, +too,—some time; this dreadful thing that has fallen upon us to-day. I +am heart-broken only for you, dear. What will they do to you?" +</P> + +<P> +I told her briefly. They would make me serve the remaining two years +of the original sentence, doubtless with an added penalty for the +broken regulations. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear God—two years!" she gasped, with a quick little sob; and then +she became my brave little girl again. "They will pass, Jimmie, dear, +and they won't seem so terribly long when we remember what we are +waiting for. I'm going with you, you know—as far as they'll let me; +and when things look their blackest you must remember that I'm only +just a little way off; just a little way—and waiting—and waiting——" +</P> + +<P> +She broke down at the last and cried in my arms, and when she could +find her voice again: +</P> + +<P> +"It mustn't be two years, Jimmie; it would kill you, and me, too. They +<I>must</I> pardon you—you who have done no wrong! I'll go down on my +knees to the Governor, and——" +</P> + +<P> +There was something in this to send the blood tingling to my +finger-tips; to rouse the final reserves of manhood. +</P> + +<P> +"Never!" I forbade. "You must never do that, Polly; and you mustn't +let Barrett stir hand or foot in that direction. I shall come out an +ex-convict, if I have to, but never as a pardoned man with the +presumption of guilt fastened upon me for the remainder of my life. +Promise me that you won't do anything like that!" +</P> + +<P> +I don't know whether she promised or not. Cummings was stirring +uneasily in his window and looking at his watch. I led Polly to the +door, kissed her, and put her out into the corridor. The agony, the +keenest agony of all, was over, and I turned to the deputy warden. +"Whenever you are ready," I said. +</P> + +<P> +Barrett was at the train when we went down, as I was sure he would be, +and he seemed strangely excited. +</P> + +<P> +"Give me just a minute with your prisoner, Mr. Cummings," he begged; +and after the deputy warden had amiably turned his back: "I've just had +a telegram from Gifford. The Lawrenceburg lawyers are offering to +compromise. They say that their owners are tired of dragging the +quarrel through the courts, and they offer to buy us out, lock, stock +and barrel, for five million dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"After they've committed every crime in the calendar to smash us? Not +for a single minute!" I exploded. +</P> + +<P> +"Right you are, Jimmie!—I knew you'd be with me!" he agreed defiantly. +"We'll fight 'em till the last dog's too dead to bury. There's a hole +in the bottom of the sea, somewhere, and we'll find it before we're +through with that piratical outfit. Here's your conductor: you'll have +to go. Polly will follow you in a day or two. I had a handful of it +keeping her from going on this train; but, of course, that wouldn't do. +Put a good, stiff bone in your back, and remember that we shan't let +up, day or night—any of us—until you're free again. Good-by, old +man, and God help you!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Skies of Brass +</H3> + + +<P> +The depressive journey from Colorado to the Middle West records itself +in memory as a dismal dream out of which there were awakenings only for +train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The +deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted +his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the +official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, because he is +dead now. +</P> + +<P> +On the final day of the journey I persuaded him to tell me how I had +been traced, and I was still human enough to find a grain of comfort in +the assurance that Agatha Geddis had not taken my money at the last +only to turn and betray me. +</P> + +<P> +Barton, the Glendale wagon sales manager, was the one who was +innocently responsible. He had talked too much, as I had feared he +would. The clue thus furnished had been lost in St. Louis, but was +picked up again, some months later, by Cummings himself through the +police-record photograph in Denver. +</P> + +<P> +Cummings admitted that he had followed Polly and me on our wedding +journey; that he had known where we were stopping, and had seen us in +the canyon-brink hotel. +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you take me then?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +He explained gruffly that the requisition papers with which he was +provided were good only in Colorado, and that it was simpler to wait +than to go through all the red tape of having them reissued for +Arizona. Knowing that the wires were completely at his service, the +answer did not satisfy me. +</P> + +<P> +"Was that the only reason?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +He turned his sober eyes on me and shook his head sorrowfully, I +thought. +</P> + +<P> +"I was young once, myself, Weyburn—and I had a wife: she died when the +baby came. Maybe you deserve what's coming to you, and maybe you +don't; but that little woman o' yours will never have another +honeymoon." +</P> + +<P> +Disquieting visions of harsh prison punishments were oppressing me when +we reached the penitentiary and I was taken before the eagle-eyed old +Civil War veteran who had given me my parole. But the warden merely +put me through a shrewd questioning, inquiring closely into my +experiences as a paroled man, and making me tell him circumstantially +the story of my indictment, trial and conviction, and also the later +story of the mining experience in Colorado. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't recall that you ever protested your innocence while you were +here serving your time, Weyburn," he commented, at the dose of the +inquisition. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't," I replied, wondering why he should go behind the returns to +remark the omission. Then I added: "They all do that, and it doesn't +change anything. You set it down as a lie—as it usually is." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you are not lying to me +now?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +I met the test soberly. "I can. I was convicted of a crime that I +didn't commit, and I broke my parole solely because that appeared to be +the one remaining alternative to becoming a criminal in fact." +</P> + +<P> +The interview over, I expected to be put into stripes, cropped, and +sent to the workshops. But instead I was taken to one of the detention +cells, and for an interval which slowly lengthened itself into a week +was left a prey to all the devils of solitude. It seemed as if I had +been buried out of sight and forgotten. Three times a day a kitchen +"trusty" brought my meals and put them through the door wicket, but +apart from this I saw no one save the corridor guard, who never so much +as looked my way in his comings and goings. +</P> + +<P> +That week of palsying, unnerving isolation got me. Consider it for a +moment. For a year I had been living at the very heart of life, +working, fighting, scheming, mixing and mingling, and succeeding—not +only in the money-winning, but also—until the Agatha Geddis incident +came along—in the field of good repute. At the last Agatha had set me +free, and Polly's love had opened the ultimate door of supreme +happiness; a joy so ecstatic that at the end of the honeymoon I was +only beginning to realize what it meant to me. +</P> + +<P> +And then, on the very summit of the mountain of joy, had come the touch +of the deputy warden's hand on my shoulder in the Antlers dining-room. +That touch had swept the new-born world ruthlessly aside—all save +Polly's love and loyalty. Success had been blotted out with the loss +of liberty wherewith to profit by it; and for those who had known me in +the great gold camp and elsewhere in the West—my new friends—I was +branded as an escaped convict. For two shameful years I should be shut +away from Polly, from freedom, from participation in the fight my +partners were making to save the mine, and most probably from any +knowledge of how the fight was going, either for or against us. +</P> + +<P> +Is it any matter for wonder that by the end of the solitary week I was +little better than a mad-man? If I might have had speech with the +warden, I should have prayed for work; for any employment, however hard +or menial, that would serve to stop the sapping of the very foundations +of reason. One hope I clung to, as the drowning catch at straws. I +could not doubt that Polly was near at hand. If the regular "visiting +day" should intervene they would surely admit her. But in this, too, I +was unlucky. The date of my reincarceration fell between two of the +regular visiting days. So I waited and looked and longed in vain. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know how many more circlings of the clock-hands were measured +off before the break came. I lost count of the time by days and was no +longer able to think clearly. In perfect physical condition when I was +arrested, I began to go to pieces, both mentally and physically, under +the strain of suspense. Then insomnia came to add its terrors; I could +neither eat nor sleep. I had an ominous foreboding of what the total +loss of appetite meant, and kept telling myself over and over that for +Polly's sake I must fight to save my sanity. +</P> + +<P> +Under such conditions I was beginning to see things where there was +nothing to be seen on the day when I had my first visitor, and the +shock of surprise when the cell door was opened to admit Cyrus +Whitredge, the lawyer whose bungling defense had done so little to +stave off my conviction, was almost like a premonition of further +disaster. Before I could rise from my seat on the cot he was shaking +hands with me and twisting his dry, leathery face into its nearest +approach to a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't bother to get up, Bert," he began effusively. "Just stay right +where you are and take it easy. I've been trying for three solid days +to get up here, but court is in session and I couldn't break away. +You're not looking very well, and they tell me down below that you're +off your feed. That won't do, you know—won't do at all. We are going +to get you right out of this, one way or another, mighty quick. You've +taken your medicine like a man, and we don't propose to let 'em give +you a second dose of it—not by a jugful." +</P> + +<P> +All this was so totally unlike the Whitredge I had known that I fairly +gasped. Then I reflected—while he was drawing up the single +three-legged stool and sitting down—that in all probability the Little +Clean-Up was responsible for the change in him. I was no longer a poor +bank clerk without money or friends. +</P> + +<P> +"'We,' you say?" I put in, meaning to make him define himself. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, of course I'm including myself; I'm your attorney, and as +soon as the news of your arrest came I made preparations to drop +everything else, right away, and get into the fight. You got your +sentence and served it, and we'll scrap 'em awhile on the proposition +of bringing you back for more of it simply because you happened to +forget, one day, and step over the State boundaries. I don't know but +what we could show that the law is unconstitutional, if we had to. But +it won't come to anything like that, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +I looked him straight in the eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Whitredge, who has retained you this time?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you mean by that, Bert." +</P> + +<P> +"I mean that four years and a half ago there were pretty strong reasons +for suspecting that you were Abel Geddis's attorney, rather than mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pshaw!" he returned with large lenience. "Geddis wanted to be +fair with you—he thought a good bit of you in those days, Bert, little +as you may believe it—and he did offer to pay my fee, if you couldn't. +But that has nothing to do with the present aspect of the case. I was +your attorney then, and I'm your attorney now. It's a point of +professional honor, and I couldn't think of holding aloof when you're +needing me. Besides, your Colorado lawyers have been in communication +with me—naturally, since I was attorney for the defense four years and +a half ago." +</P> + +<P> +"They sent you to me here?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"They knew I would come, of course; I was on the ground and had all the +facts. They couldn't come themselves, either of them. They have had +their hands full with the injunction business." +</P> + +<P> +"The injunction business?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; haven't you heard?" +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. +</P> + +<P> +"It was in the newspapers, but I suppose they haven't let you see them +here. Your mine is shut down. You were operating as bonded lessees +under a temporary injunction, or something of that sort, weren't you? +Well, the Federal court has made the injunction permanent and tied you +up. As soon as I got this I smelled trouble for you, and as your +attorney in fact I got busy with the wires. The situation isn't half +as bad as it might be. I understand that the plaintiff company, a +corporation called the Lawrenceburg Mining & Reduction Company, has +offered you people five million dollars for a transfer of all rights +and titles under your holdings, and that, notwithstanding the +injunction, this offer still holds good." +</P> + +<P> +Since it is a proverb that an empty stomach is a mighty poor team-mate +for a befogged brain, I was unable to see what Whitredge was driving +at, and I told him so. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing in particular," he countered, "except to remind you that you +still have a good chance to play safe. We are going to 'wrastle' you +out of here, just as I say, Bert, my boy, at any cost, and it's a piece +of great good luck that you won't have to count the pennies in whatever +it may cost." +</P> + +<P> +"But I shall have to count them if our mine is shut down." +</P> + +<P> +"Not if you and your partners make this sale to the Lawrenceburg +people. Five millions will give each of you a million and two-thirds +apiece. It's up to you right now to persuade your two partners to +close with the offer while it still holds good. It's liable to be +withdrawn any minute, you know. The other two may be able to hang on +and put up a further fight, but you can't afford to." +</P> + +<P> +"Why can't I?" +</P> + +<P> +"For one mighty good reason, if there isn't any other. I met your wife +this morning, Bert. She's stopping across town at the Buckingham—just +to be as near you as she can get. You can't afford to do, or to leave +undone, anything that'll keep that little woman dangling on the ragged +edge. She thinks too much of you." +</P> + +<P> +He had me on the run, and I think he knew it. What he did not know was +that the smash, the solitary cell, and a weakened body were pushing me +harder than any of his specious arguments. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got to get out!" I groaned, with the cold sweat starting out all +over me. "Whitredge, I've had enough in these few days to break an +iron man!" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally; married only a month, and all that. I'm a dried-up old +bachelor, Bert, my boy, but I know exactly how you feel. As you say, +you've got to get out of here, and the quickest way is the right +way—when you stop to think of that poor lonesome little woman waiting +over yonder in the hotel. I've come fixed for you"—he was on his +feet, now, fumbling in his pockets for some papers and a fountain +pen—"I've drawn up a letter to your two partners,—let me see; where +is it? Oh, yes, here you are—a letter from you advising them to close +with that Lawrenceburg offer. If you'll just authorize me to send a +wire in your name, and then read this letter that I've blocked out and +sign it——" +</P> + +<P> +I glanced hastily over the type-written sheet he handed me. It was a +business-like letter addressed to Barrett and Gifford, going fully into +the situation from the point of view of a man needing ready money, and +urging the acceptance of the Lawrenceburg offer, not wholly for the +personal reason upon which Whitredge had been enlarging, but +emphatically as a prudent business measure—an alternative to the +possible loss of everything. +</P> + +<P> +"You see just how the matter stands," he went on while I was reading +the letter. "They've got you stopped, and that is pretty good evidence +that the court is holding you as trespassers on Lawrenceburg property. +The next thing in order, if you fellows hold out, will be a suit for +damages which will gobble up all your former returns from the mine and +leave you without anything—you and both of your partners." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you get out of it if this sale goes through, Whitredge?" I +asked him suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed as if I had perpetrated a new joke. +</P> + +<P> +"What do <I>I</I> get out of it? Why, bless your innocent soul, Bert, ain't +I working for my fee? And I tell you I'm going to charge you a +rattling big one, too, when I can shake hands with you as a millionaire +and better on the sidewalk in front of this State eleemosynary +Institution!" +</P> + +<P> +"You talk as if you had the sidewalk means in your hand," I said, +yielding a little to his enthusiasm in spite of my suspicions of him +and my feeble efforts to stand alone. +</P> + +<P> +"I have!" he announced oracularly. "I have here"—slapping a second +folded paper which he had drawn from his pocket—"I have here a +petition for your free and unconditional pardon, addressed to the +Governor and signed by the trial judge, the prosecuting attorney, and +by ten of the twelve members of the jury. Oh, I tell you, young man, +I've been busy these last three days. You may have been setting me +down as a hard-hearted old lawyer, toughened to all these things, Bert, +but when I read that newspaper story, of how you were kidnapped, as you +may say—torn from the arms of a loving wife and dragged aboard of a +train and railroaded back to prison—every drop of blood in me rose up +in protest, and I swore then and there that if there was any such thing +as executive clemency in this broad land of ours, you should have it!" +</P> + +<P> +If I had been wholly well and out of prison perhaps the cheap bombast +in all this would have been apparent at once. But I was neither well +nor free. And Polly's heart was breaking; I didn't need Whitredge's +word for this—I knew it by all the torments of inward conviction. +</P> + +<P> +I understood well enough what he was asking me to do: to tip the scale +against what might be Barrett's and Gifford's better judgment, and to +sign a paper which would stamp me for all time as a criminal pleading, +not for justice, but for pardon. In spite of this knowledge the +pressure Whitredge had brought to bear was well-nigh irresistible. +Barrett and the Colorado lawyers evidently had their hands too full to +think of me; and, in any event, I could not see what possible chance +they might have of reopening my case and proving my innocence. At the +end of it I was reaching for the pen in Whitredge's hand, but at the +touch of the thing with which I was to sign away my fighting rights for +all time a little flicker of strength came. +</P> + +<P> +"You must give me time, Whitredge; a little time to think this over," I +pleaded. "Four years and a half ago I told you I was innocent—I tell +you so again. You are asking me to confess that I was guilty; if I +sign that petition it will be a confession in fact. I have sworn a +thousand times that I'd rot right here inside of these walls before I'd +ask for a pardon for a crime that wasn't mine. Leave these papers and +let me think about it. Give me a chance to convince myself that there +is no other way!" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at his watch, and if he were disappointed he was too well +schooled in his trade to show it. +</P> + +<P> +"All right; just as you say," he agreed. "Shall we make it this +afternoon—say, some time after three o'clock?" +</P> + +<P> +"Make it to-morrow morning," I begged. +</P> + +<P> +This time he hesitated, again pulling out his watch and consulting its +face as if it were an oracle. I had no means of knowing—what I +learned later—that he was making a swift calculation upon the arriving +and departing hours of certain railroad trains. None the less, he +agreed somewhat reluctantly to the further postponement; but when the +turnkey was unlocking the door he gave me a final shot. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to influence you one way or the other, Bert—that is, not +against your best interests; but while you're making up your mind don't +leave the little woman out. I shall see her at dinner to-night, and +she'll want to know what's what. I'm going to give her your love and +tell her you're trying mighty hard to be reasonable. Is that right?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Restoration +</H3> + + +<P> +At the clanging of the cell door behind the departing lawyer I was to all +intents and purposes a broken reed. The theorists may say what they +please about the fine and courageous quality of resolution which rises +only the higher the harder it is beaten down; but man is human, and there +are limits beyond which the finest resiliency becomes dead and brittle +and there is no rebound. +</P> + +<P> +The temptation to yield was both subtle and compelling. Reason, the kind +of reason which scoffs at ideals, told me that I was foolish to fight for +a principle. On the one hand there were sharp misery, the loss of +freedom, poverty and suffering for Polly: on the other, liberty and a +generous degree of affluence. We could hide ourselves, Polly and I, in +some remote corner of the world where no one knew; and our share of the +five millions, wealth even as wealth is reckoned in the day of wealth, +would put us far enough beyond the reach of want; nay, it would do +more—it would silence the gossiping tongues if there were any to wag. +</P> + +<P> +Up and down the narrow limits of my cell I paced, praying at one moment +for strength to hold out to the end, and at the next cursing myself for +an idiotic splitter of hairs helpless to break away from the manaclings +of an idea. Love, reason, common sense were all ranged on the side of +the compromise with principle; and opposed to them there was only the +stubborn protest against injustice pleading feebly and despairingly for +its final hearing. +</P> + +<P> +In the midst of the struggle the kitchen "trusty" brought the mid-day +meal, and for the first time in forty-eight hours I forced myself to eat. +A sound body, weakened only by anxiety and abstinence, is quick to +respond to a resumption of the normal. Under the food stimulus I felt +better, stronger. But now the strength was all on the side of yielding. +With the quickening pulses came the keen lust of life. To live, to be +free, to enjoy, in the years, few or many, of the little earthly span: +after all, these were the only realities. +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge had left his fountain pen, and the papers—the letter to +Barrett and Gifford and the petition—were lying on the cot where I had +thrown them. For the last time I put the pleading protest under foot. +Freedom, a fortune, and Polly's happiness: the triple bribe was too great +and I uncapped the pen. +</P> + +<P> +It was at this precise moment that footsteps in the corridor warned me +that someone was coming. A bit of the old convict secretiveness made me +hastily thrust the papers out of sight under the cot blankets, and at the +rattling of the key in the lock I stood up to confront—Whitredge. +</P> + +<P> +"You?" I said. "I thought you were going to give me until to-morrow +morning." +</P> + +<P> +He looked strangely perturbed, and the nervousness was also in his voice +when he said: "I meant to, Bert, but I've had a wire, and I've got to go +back to Glendale on this next train"—dragging his watch out of its +pocket and glancing at it hurriedly. "Those papers: you've had time +enough to think things over, and I'm sure you've made up your mind to do +the sensible thing. Let me have them so I can set things in motion +before I leave town." +</P> + +<P> +I wondered why he kept jerking his head around to look over his shoulder +as he talked, and why the turnkey jingled his keys and waited. But the +time for indecision on my part was past and I reached under the blanket +for the two papers. With the three-legged stool for a writing-table I +was kneeling to put my name at the bottom of the letter to my partners +when there were more footsteps in the corridor, hurried ones, this time, +and I looked up to see the squarely built, competent figure of our +Western lawyer, Benedict, standing in the cell doorway, with the deputy +warden, Cummings, backgrounding him. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Whitredge; at your old tricks, are you?" snapped the new-comer +brusquely. And then to me: "What are you signing there, Bertrand?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, now—without your advice," I said, getting up and handing him +the letter. +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge couldn't get out, with Benedict filling the doorway, so he had +to stand a cringing second prisoner, looking this way and that, like a +rat searching for a hole, while the big Westerner read calmly through the +letter which had been written out for me. That moment amply repaid me +for much that I had suffered at the hands of Cyrus Whitredge. +</P> + +<P> +"Humph!" said Benedict, folding the letter and thrusting it into his +pocket. "Now what's that other document?" +</P> + +<P> +I gave him the petition for pardon, and again he took his time with the +reading. +</P> + +<P> +"Nice little scheme you were trying to pull off!" he said to Whitredge, +after the petition, accurately refolded, had gone to join the pocketed +letter. "You are certainly an ornament to an honorable profession." +Then, stepping into the cell and standing aside: "You may go. We'll know +where to find you when you're needed." +</P> + +<P> +Whitredge's vanishing was like a trick of legerdemain; one moment he +stood before us, and at the next he was gone. At his going, Cummings and +the turnkey also disappeared and I was left alone with Benedict. There +was a hearty handgrasp to assure me that I was not dreaming, and then I +said: +</P> + +<P> +"I had given you up, Benedict. I thought they had you tied hand and foot +back yonder in the big hills." +</P> + +<P> +"Myers is handling that end of it," he returned. "I had other irons in +the fire, and they've been getting hot in such rapid succession that I +couldn't leave them. But I did what I could by wire—got the warden's +promise that he would hold your case 'in suspension' until I could show +up in person. Have they been treating you well? I'm afraid they +haven't. You're not looking quite up to the mark." +</P> + +<P> +I was beginning to understand—a little. +</P> + +<P> +"When did you telegraph the warden?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Immediately; from Cripple Creek, and as soon as Barrett had told me your +story. We had our reply at once, and I took the first train for +Glendale, your old home town. What I have been able to dig up in that +little dead-alive burg is a great plenty, Bertrand. Your arrest has +turned out to be just about the most unfortunate thing that could +possibly have happened for certain persons who were most anxious to bring +it to pass—namely, two old rascals who made use of the traveling-man +Barton's story and started the pursuit in the right direction." +</P> + +<P> +"Call me Weyburn," I broke in. "That is my name—James Bertrand +Weyburn—and I'm going to wear it, all of it, from this time on." +</P> + +<P> +"I know," laughed the big attorney, drawing up the stool and seating +himself beside the cot much as Whitredge had done at an earlier hour of +the same day. "They call you 'Bert' and 'Herbert' down yonder in your +home village, and they don't seem to know that your middle name is +Bertrand." +</P> + +<P> +"You say you have been digging: what did you find out?" I questioned +eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"Some things that I was looking for and some that I wasn't. I had the +advantage of being a total stranger to everybody, and all I had to do was +to stroll around and ask questions. Let me ask you one, right now; do +you know who the owners of the Lawrenceburg are?" +</P> + +<P> +"A New York syndicate, I've always understood." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in a thousand years!" retorted the lawyer, laughing again. "It is +owned, pretty nearly in fee simple, by two old friends of yours—Abel +Geddis and Abner Withers. More than that, it is a reorganized and +renamed corporation founded upon a certain gold-brick proposition, called +'The Great Oro Mining and Reduction Company,' promoted and floated down +in your section of the State something like five years ago by two men +named Hempstead and Lesherton. Does that stir up any old memories for +you?" +</P> + +<P> +It did, indeed. "The Great Oro" was the mine for the capitalization of +which Abel Geddis had used the money belonging to his depositors; the +basis of the theft which had cost me three good years of my life. +</P> + +<P> +"But I had understood that the 'Oro' was a fake, pure and simple!" I +protested. +</P> + +<P> +"It was. A claim had been located and a shaft sunk to ninety feet, but +there was no mineral. That shaft is the present main shaft of the +Lawrenceburg. After Geddis and Withers found they had been +'gold-bricked' they went to Colorado and looked the ground over for +themselves. The result of that visit was a determination on their part +to send a little good money after the bad, so they put a force in the +mine and began to drift from the shaft-bottom, and shortly after that the +workings began to pay." +</P> + +<P> +"Which direction did that drift take?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +Benedict did not answer the question directly. "Things began to fit +themselves together pretty rapidly after I got the facts in the history +of 'The Great Oro'," he went on. "By that time the news of your arrest +and return to the penitentiary had reached Glendale and the gossip bees +were buzzing. Whitredge was rattling around like a pea in a dried +bladder, holding midnight conferences in the bank with the two hoary old +villains who had sworn your liberty away, starting a petition for your +pardon, and I don't know what all. I didn't pay much attention to him +because I was at that time more deeply interested in a number of other +things." +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," I begged breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"First, I investigated carefully the records of your trial and it didn't +take very long to discover that Whitredge had doubled-crossed you. He +bribed the two deputies sent to transfer you from the police station in +Glendale to the county seat. They were to bully and browbeat you into +making an attempt to escape—thus affording proof presumptive of your +guilt—and this they proceeded to do. They've admitted it under +oath—after I had shown them what we could do to them if they didn't." +</P> + +<P> +"Whitredge began to plan for that very thing almost at the first," I put +in. "It was he who put the idea of running way into my head." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure he did. But speaking of affidavits, I have another; from a fellow +named Griggs; you remember him, of course,—your understudy in Geddis's +bank at the time when you were bookkeeper and cashier? He swears that +the original stock certificates in 'The Great Oro' were made out in the +name of Abel Geddis—as you know they were—and that on a certain night +just previous to your arrest, when he had been working late and had gone +to the back room for his hat and coat, Geddis and Whitredge came in and +Geddis opened the vault. Are you paying attention?" +</P> + +<P> +I was choking with impatience, as he well knew, but he refused to be +hurried. +</P> + +<P> +"All in good time," he chuckled. "I'm coming to it by littles. Griggs +was curious to know what was going on and he played the spy. He saw +Geddis's name taken out of the stock certificates with an acid and your +name written in its place. You see, they were confidently counting upon +'getting' you through Geddis's daughter and were framing things up to +fit. How much or how little they took the young woman into their +confidence I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"That doesn't matter now," I hastened to say. +</P> + +<P> +"No; Griggs was the man I wanted, and I got him. He will testify in +court, if he is obliged to. He would have done it at the time if Geddis +and Whitredge hadn't discovered him and scared him stiff with a threat to +put him in the prisoner's dock with you, as an accomplice. After I had +secured Griggs's affidavit I wanted one more thing, and I got it—bought +it. That was a map of the Lawrenceburg underground workings, corrected +up to date. I knew Geddis and Withers must have one, and by a piece of +great good luck I found a young surveyor's clerk who had made a tracing +for Geddis from one of Blackwell's blue-prints. He had spoiled his first +attempt by spilling a bottle of ink on it, so he made another. He didn't +see any reason why he shouldn't sell me the spoiled copy." +</P> + +<P> +"I know what you are going to say!" I shouted. +</P> + +<P> +"I imagine you do," he laughed. "The Lawrenceburg workings have never +gone downhill at all. They've been burrowing in the opposite direction +all the time, and according to their own map they never touched pay-ore +until they cut the Little Clean-Up vein below your hundred-and-fifty-foot +level. Now you know why they have been fighting us so desperately, and +why, as a final resort, they are willing to pay us five million dollars +for a quit-claim to the Little Clean-Up. We've got them by the neck, +Jimmie. We can make them pay for every dollar's worth of ore they have +stolen from us." +</P> + +<P> +It was too big to be surrounded at the first attempt. I completely lost +sight of my own involvement in the upflash of joy at the thought that at +the long last the two old scoundrels who had robbed others right and left +were going to get what was coming to them. Benedict went on with his +story quietly and circumstantially. +</P> + +<P> +"I guessed at once what Whitredge was up to when I found that he was +circulating that pardon petition. He was aiming to make you a +self-confessed criminal before we could have time to turn a wheel. At +that, I wired a Cincinnati detective agency, and a young man who knew his +business was put on the job. The detective's reports showed the whole +thing up. Geddis, Withers and Whitredge were hustling like mad to make +capital out of your recapture by the prison authorities. Whitredge was +to advise you to urge the sale of the Little Clean-Up upon Barrett and +Gifford, and your reward was to be a pardon, by the asking for which you +would be virtually confessing your guilt. Thus the past would be buried +beyond any possibility of a resurrection. Nice little scheme, wasn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You have those two papers—the letter and the petition," I said, with an +uncontrollable shudder. "You'll never know how near Whitredge came to +winning out. I was just about to sign when you came." +</P> + +<P> +"Whitredge is a dangerous man," was Benedict's comment. "He took the +train from Glendale last night, and the detective went with him, wiring +me from a station up the line. I caught the next train and got here two +hours ago. I might have headed him off of you, I suppose, but I had a +bit of legal business to attend to first. If you are ready, we'll go. +Your wife is waiting for you in the warden's office, and she'll be +wondering why we are so long about getting the doors unlocked." +</P> + +<P> +"Go?" I stammered. "You—you mean that I'm free?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure you are! My legal business was to press the <I>habeas corpus</I> +proceedings which were begun as soon as I had obtained evidence of the +miscarriage of justice in your trial before Judge Haskins. You are a +free man. I left the order of the court with the warden as I came in." +</P> + +<P> +There is a limit to human endurance, either of sorrow or of joy. I got +up and tried to walk with Benedict to the cell door, which had been left +standing open. I remember catching at the big lawyer's arm, and then the +world went black before my eyes. And that is all I do remember. +</P> + +<P> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 4em">******</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +We held our council of war—the final one in the long series—late in the +evening of the day of climaxes in the sitting-room of a Hotel Buckingham +suite, Benedict, Barrett and I. Barrett had arrived just as we were +sitting down to dinner, having hurried east as soon as he could be spared +at Cripple Creek. +</P> + +<P> +"They are all in, down and out," was Barrett's summing-up of the +situation, after he had heard Benedict's story. And then: "It's up to +you, Jimmy"—looking away from me. "You owe those two old men and their +scamp of a lawyer a pretty long score, and I guess you'll be wanting to +pay it." +</P> + +<P> +"I do!" I gritted. In a flash all the injustice I had suffered at the +hands of Abel Geddis and Abner Withers and Cyrus Whitredge piled in upon +me and there was no room in my heart for anything but retaliation. +</P> + +<P> +Benedict clipped and lighted a cigar, and Barrett sat back in his chair +and stared at the gas-fixture in the center of the ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't blame you much, Jimmie," he offered. "I guess maybe, if the +shoe were on my foot, I'd want to give them the limit. And yet——" +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't any 'and yet'," I cried out. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps not; but I don't know, Jimmie. If I were going to be the father +of Polly's children, as you are, I—well, I don't believe I'd care to +hand down that sort of a legacy to the children; a legacy of hatred—even +a just hatred—gorged and surfeited on the thumb-screwing of two old men. +Whitredge will get what is coming to him; the Bar Association will see to +that. But these two old misers who are already tottering on the edge of +the grave——" +</P> + +<P> +"They have robbed me of my good name, and they have robbed us all of our +good money!" I cut in rancorously. +</P> + +<P> +At this, Benedict, who had been saying little, put in his word. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw Whitredge an hour ago. He has been wiring Geddis and Withers—to +tell them that the game is up. He says he supposes he will have to take +his own medicine, but he asked me to intercede for the two old men. They +have wired their Colorado attorneys to withdraw the Lawrenceburg suit and +to lift the injunction, and they offer to turn in all their property if +they are permitted to leave the country. That's as bad as a prison +sentence for two men as old as they are. Will you let them do it, and +call the account square, Weyburn?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, by God!" If I set down the very words that I uttered, it is only in +the interest of truth. At that moment I was like the soldiers who have +seen their dead; I had seen the look in Polly's eyes, put there by that +horrible week of waiting and suspense. +</P> + +<P> +The room, as I have said, was the sitting-room of our suite—Polly's and +mine—and I had neither seen nor heard the door of communication with the +bed-room open. When I glanced up she was standing in the doorway, and I +knew that she had heard. In the turning of a leaf she had flown across +the room to drop on her knees beside me and bury her face in my lap. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Jimmie—Jimmie, dear!" she sobbed; "you <I>must</I> forgive—forgive and +forget! For my sake—for your own sake—you must!" +</P> + +<P> +That settled it. Benedict flung his freshly lighted cigar into the grate +and turned away, and Barrett got up and crossed to the window. I stood +up and lifted my dear girl to her feet, and with her tear-stained face +between my palms I turned my back upon the past and told her what we were +going to do. +</P> + +<P> +"It shall be as you say, Polly; we'll go back to the tall hills and +forget it—and make other people forget it. And we'll let Mr. Benedict, +here, do just what he pleases, no more and no less, with a pair of old +plotters who haven't so very many years to wait before they will have to +turn in their score to the Great Evener." +</P> + +<P> +At this Barrett jerked out his watch and broke in brusquely; and as at +other times, the brusquerie was only a mask for the things that a man +doesn't wear on his sleeve. +</P> + +<P> +"Cut it short, you two turtle-doves; you've got about forty-five minutes +before the Westbound Limited is due, and you'd better be packing your +grips. Come on downstairs, Benedict, and I'll buy you a drink to go with +that red necktie of yours. Let's go." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Mountain's Top +</H3> + + +<P> +There is little to add; nothing, perhaps, if the literary unities only +were to be considered. The trials and tribulations have all been lived +through; the man and the woman have found each other; the villains have +been given—if not altogether a full measure of their just dues, at +least a sufficient approach to it; and virtue—but no, here the figure +breaks down; virtue hasn't been rewarded. There wasn't any especial +virtue, since there is little credit in merely enduring what cannot be +cured. +</P> + +<P> +Of what happened after our return to Colorado only a few things stand +out as being at all worthy of note. For one, Barrett and I, with +Benedict's help, took up the case of one Dorgan, <I>alias</I> Michael +Murphey, <I>alias</I> No. 3126, whom we found still preserving his incognito +in a dam-building camp in Idaho. Appealing to the Governor and Board +of Pardons of my home State, we made it appear that Dorgan was a +reformed man and no longer a menace to society, and in due time had the +satisfaction of seeing him set legally free. +</P> + +<P> +As another act of pure justice, tempered with a good bit of filial and +fraternal affection—Polly was the prime mover in this—my mother and +sister were brought to Colorado, and a home was built for them in +Colorado Springs, where my sister, ignoring a bank account which would +have enabled her to sit with folded hands for the remainder of her +days, promptly gathered a group of little girls about her and began +teaching them the mysteries of the three "R's." +</P> + +<P> +A third outreaching—and this, also, was Polly's idea—was in the +altruistic field. A fund was set apart out of the lavish yieldings of +the Little Clean-Up, the income from which provides in perpetuity that +at the doors of at least one prison of the many in our land the +outcoming convict shall be met and helped to stand upon his own feet, +if so be he has any feet to stand upon. +</P> + +<P> +Gray granite peaks and valleys fallow-dun under the westering autumn +sun; vistas of inspiring horizons leading the eye to vanishing levels +remote and vaguely deliminating earth and sky, or soaring with it to +shimmering heights dark-green or bald; these infinities were spread +before us in celestial array one afternoon in the first year of peace +and joy when we—my good angel and I—clambered together to the summit +of the mountain behind the Little Clean-Up. +</P> + +<P> +After the little interval of reverent adoration which is claimed by all +true lovers of the mountain infinities at the opening of the +illimitable doors, we fell to talking of the past—my past—as we sat +on a projecting shelf of the summit rock. +</P> + +<P> +"No," I said. "I can't admit that there is anything regenerative in +punishment. If I had been the thief that everybody believed I was, I +should have come out of prison still a thief—with an added grudge +against society. While I was treated well, as a whole, nothing was +done to arouse the better man in me, or even to ascertain if there +might possibly be a better man in me." +</P> + +<P> +There was what I have learned to call the light of all-wisdom in +Polly's eyes when she answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if one must lean altogether upon sheer logic and the pure +materialism of this divided by that and multiplied by something else," +she returned. "But there are two kinds of regeneration, Jimmie, dear; +the kind which involves a radical change in the life-motive, and the +other which is merely a stripping of the husks from a strong soul that +never needed changing." +</P> + +<P> +"Your love would put me where I don't belong," I protested humbly. +</P> + +<P> +"No; not my love: what you are, and what you have done." +</P> + +<P> +"What I am, you have made me; and what I have done you have suggested. +No; the injustice, the prison, the brand of the convict, the dodging +and evading, the knowledge that, if the truth were to be blazoned +abroad, I could never hope to recross the chasm which Judge Haskins's +sentence had opened between me and the world at large; these things +made a shuddering coward of me—which I was not in the beginning. It +was this prison-bred cowardice that made me potentially Kellow's +murderer, willing in heart and mind, and waiting only for the firing +spark of provocation. It was the same cowardice that made me Agatha +Geddis's slave, and very nearly her murderer. Worse still, it sent me +to you with sealed lips when I should have told you all that you had a +right to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Well? If you will have it so, what then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only this: that the brand which the law put upon the man wasn't any +sign of the cross to make a new creature of him, as you have been +trying to make me believe. That's all." +</P> + +<P> +Polly's smile is a thing to make any man tingle to the roots of his +hair. "As if the past, or anything in it, could make any difference to +us now!" she chided. "Haven't we learned to say: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Not heaven itself upon the past has power,<BR> +But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour'?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Beloved man, I'm hungry; and it's miles and miles to dinner. Shall we +go?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Branded, by Francis Lynde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRANDED *** + +***** This file should be named 19472-h.htm or 19472-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/7/19472/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Branded + +Author: Francis Lynde + +Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #19472] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRANDED *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: The resemblance . . . transformed itself slowly into the +breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up . . . into the face of +Cummings.] + + + + + + +BRANDED + + +BY + +FRANCIS LYNDE + + + +AUTHOR OF + +THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, THE CITY OF NUMBERED DAYS, ETC. + + + + +FRONTISPIECE BY + +ARTHUR E. BECHER + + + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS ---------- NEW YORK + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + +Published April, 1918 + +Reprinted April, 1918 + + + + + To the one who, more clearly than + any other, can best understand and + appreciate the motive for its writing, + this book is affectionately inscribed by + + THE AUTHOR + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. THE HEATING OF THE IRON + II. THE SEARING TOUCH + III. IN THE NAME OF THE LAW + IV. SCARS + V. THE DOWNWARD PATH + VI. A GOOD SAMARITAN + VII. THE PLUNGE + VIII. WESTWARD + IX. THE CUP OF TREMBLING + X. THE PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN + XI. NUMBER 3126 + XII. A CAST FOR FORTUNE + XIII. FOR THE SINEWS OF WAR + XIV. PAPER WALLS + XV. THE BROKEN WAGON + XVI. IN THE OPEN + XVII. ALADDIN'S LAMP + XVIII. "THE WOMAN . . . WHOSE HANDS ARE AS BANDS" + XIX. A RECKONING AND A HOLD-UP + XX. BROKEN FAITH + XXI. THE END OF A HONEYMOON + XXII. A WOMAN'S LOVE + XXIII. SKIES OF BRASS + XXIV. RESTORATION + XXV. THE MOUNTAIN'S TOP + + + + +BRANDED + + +I + +The Heating of the Iron + +It was not until the evening when old John Runnels, who had been the +town marshal in my school days, and was now chief of police under the +new city charter, came into the dingy little private banking room to +arrest me that I began to realize, though only in a sort of dumb and +dazed fashion, how much my promise to Agatha Geddis might be going to +cost me. + +But even if the full meaning of the promise had been grasped at the +time when my word was given, it is an open question if the earlier +recognition of the possible consequences would have made any +difference. Before we go any farther, let it be clearly understood +that there was no sentiment involved; at least, no sentimental +sentiment. Years before, I, like most of the other town boys of my +age, had taken my turn as Agatha's fetcher and carrier; but that was +only a passing spasm--a gust of the calf-love which stirs up momentary +whirlwinds in youthful hearts. The real reason for the promise-making +lay deeper. Abel Geddis had been crabbedly kind to me, helping me +through my final year in the High School after my father died, and +taking me into his private bank the week after I was graduated. And +Agatha was Abel Geddis's daughter. + +Over and above the daughterhood, she was by far the prettiest girl in +Glendale, with a beauty of the luscious type; eyes that could toll a +man over the edge of a bluff and lips that had a trick of quivering +like a hurt baby's when she was begging for something she was afraid +she wasn't going to get. All through the school years she had been one +of my classmates, and a majority of the town boys were foolish about +her, partly because she had a way of twisting them around her fingers; +partly, perhaps, because her father was the rich man of the community +and the president of the Farmers' Bank. + +She had sent for me to come up to the big house on the hill the night +before this other night of old John Runnels's call. I went, taking it +as a matter of course that she wished to talk to me about the trouble +at the bank, and saying to myself that I was going to be iron and steel +and adamant; this when I might have known that I should be only putty +in her hands. She met me on the porch, and made me sit with my back to +the window, which was open, while she faced me, sitting in the hammock +where the house lights fell fairly upon her and I could get the full +benefit of the honeying eyes and baby lips as she talked. + +She had begun by saying in catchy little murmurings that I knew better +than any one else what it was going to mean to her--to all of them--if +her father's crookedness (she called it his "mistake") in using the +depositors' money for his own speculations should be published abroad; +and I did. She was engaged to young Wheeland, son of the copper +magnate Wheeland, of New York, and the wedding date was set. Black +ruin was staring them all in the face, she said, and I could save them, +if I only would. What would be shouted from the housetops as a +penitentiary offense in the president of the bank would be condoned as +a mere error in judgment on the part of a hired bookkeeper. + +If I would only consent to let the directors think that I was the one +who had passed upon and accepted the mining-stock collateral--which had +taken the place in the bank's vault of the good, hard money of the +depositors--well, I could see how easily the dreadful crisis would be +tided over; and besides earning the undying gratitude of the family, +her father would stand by me and I would lose nothing in the end. + +For one little minute she almost made me believe what she didn't +believe herself--that the crime wasn't a crime. Her father, "our +eminent and public-spirited fellow-citizen, the Hon. Abel Geddis," to +quote the editor of the Glendale _Daily Courier_, was desperately +involved. For months he had been throwing good money after bad in a +Western gold mine; not only his own money, but the bank's as well. At +the long last the half-dozen sleepy directors, three of them retired +farmers and the other three local merchants, had awakened to the fact +that there was something wrong. They didn't know fully, as yet, just +what they were in for; Geddis's part of the bookkeeping was in a +horrible muddle owing to his efforts to hide the defalcation. But they +knew enough to be certain that somebody had been skating upon thin ice +and had broken through. + +"You can't help seeing just how it is, Herbert," Agatha had pleaded, +with the soulful look in her pretty eyes and the baby lips all in a +tremble. "If the faintest breath of this gets out, VanBruce Wheeland +will have to know, and then everything will come to an end and I shall +want to go and drown myself in the river. You are young and strong and +brave, and you can live down a--an error of judgment"--she kept on +calling it that, as if the words had been put into her mouth; as they +probably had. "Promise me, Herbert, won't you?--for--for the sake of +the old times when you used to carry my books to school, and I--I----" + +What was the use? Every man is privileged to be a fool once in a +while, and a young man sometimes twice in a while. I promised her that +I would shoulder the load, or at least find some way out for her +father; and when she asked me how it could be done, I was besotted +enough to explain how the mining-stock business had really passed +through my hands--as it had in a purely routine way--and telling her in +so many words that everything would be all right for her father when +the investigating committee should come to overhaul the books and the +securities. + +When I got up to go, she went to the front steps with me, and at the +last yearning minute a warm tear had splashed on the back of my hand. +At that I kissed her and told her not to worry another minute. And +this brings me back to that other evening just twenty-four hours later; +I in the bank, with the accusing account books spread out under the +electric light on the high desk, and old John Runnels, looking never a +whit less the good-natured, easy-going town marshal in his +brass-buttoned uniform and gilt-banded cap, stumbling over the +threshold as he let himself in at the side door which had been left on +the latch. + +I had started, half-guiltily, I suppose, when the door opened; and +Runnels, who had known me and my people ever since my father had moved +in from the farm to give us children the advantage of the town school, +shook his grizzled head sorrowfully. + +"I'd ruther take a lickin' than to say it, but I reckon you'll have to +come along with me, Bertie," he began soberly, laying a big-knuckled +hand on my shoulder. "It all came out in the meetin' to-day, and the +d'rectors 're sayin' that you hadn't ort to be allowed to run loose any +longer." + +The high desk stool was where I could grab at it, and it saved me from +tumbling over backward. + +"Go with you?" I gasped. "You mean to--to _jail_?" + +Runnels nodded. "Jest for to-night. I reckon you'll be bailed, come +mornin'--if that blamed security comp'ny that's on your bond don't kick +up too big a fight about it." + +"Hold on--wait a minute," I begged. "There is nothing criminal against +me, Uncle John. Mr. Geddis will tell you that. I----" + +The big hand slipped from my shoulder and became a cautionary signal to +flag me down. + +"You mustn't tell me nothin' about it, Bertie; I don't want to have to +take the stand and testify against your father's boy. Besides, it +ain't no kind o' use. You done it yourself when you was up at Abel +Geddis's house las' night. Two of the d'rectors, Tom Fitch and old man +Withers, was settin' behind the window curtains in the front room +whilst you was talkin' to Miss Agathy on the porch. You know, better'n +I do, what they heard you say." + +For a second the familiar interior of the bank went black for me. I +was young in those days; much too young to know that human nature in +the lump is neither all saint nor all devil; that a man may be a second +father to you for years, and then turn and hold your head under water +until you drown when he is fighting for himself. It had been a trap, +deliberately set and baited with Agatha. I remembered now that she had +not spoken loud enough to be overheard; while I, with my back to the +open window, had talked in ordinary tones. Fitch and Withers had heard +me say that the investigating committee would find nothing against Abel +Geddis, and they had naturally taken it as a confession of my own guilt. + +I remember that I went quite methodically about putting things away +while Runnels waited, though every move was dumbly mechanical. +Something seemed to have died inside of me, and I suppose the +psychologists would say that it was the subconscious Bert Weyburn who +put the books in the vault, locked the iron door, set the high desk in +order, and turned off all the lights save the one we always left turned +on in front of the vault. + +Afterward, when we were in the street together, and Runnels was walking +me around the square to the police station, the dead thing inside of me +came alive. It had gone to sleep a pretty decent young fellow, with a +soft spot in his heart for his fellow men, and a boy's belief in the +ultimate goodness of all women. It awoke a raging devil. It was all I +could do to keep from throttling unsuspecting John Runnels as we +tramped along side by side. I could have done it. I had inherited my +father's well-knit frame and serviceable muscles, and all through my +office experience I had kept myself fit with long walks and a few bits +of home-made gymnastic apparatus in my room at Mrs. Thompson's. And +the new-born devil was ready with the suggestion. + +I have been glad many times since that old John never knew; glad that +the frenzied curses that came boiling up out of that inner hell were +wordless. I contrived to hold in while Runnels was hurrying me through +the station office and past the sleepy sergeant at the desk. But when +the cell door had opened and closed for me, and old John's heavy +footsteps were no longer echoing in the iron-floored corridor, the +newly hatched devil broke loose and I made a pretty bad night of it. + + + + +II + +The Searing Touch + +Out of the first twenty-four hours, when my little raft of +respectability and good report was going to pieces under me, I have +brought one heart-mellowing recollection. In the morning it was old +John Runnels himself who brought me my cell breakfast, and he did it to +spare me the shame of being served by the police-station turnkey. Past +that, he sat on the edge of the iron cot and talked to me while I tried +to eat. + +"They was aimin' to telegraph the sheriff and have you railroaded slap +up to the county seat las' night, but I told 'em nary," he confided. +"I wasn't allowin' to have 'em jerk you out of your home town before +you'd had a chance to pick a lawyer and talk to your friends; no +sir-ee, I wasn't." + +"I guess I haven't any friends any more," I was still bitter enough to +say. And then: "Tell me, if you can, Uncle John, just what the charge +against me is." + +"I reckon you know a heap better'n I do, Bertie," was his sober +rejoinder, "but I can tell you what I heard. They say you've been +takin' the bank's money to put into a gold mine somewheres out yonder +in the Rocky Mountains." + +"Who swore out the warrant for my arrest?" + +"Ab Withers." + +Abner Withers, town miser, note-shaver and skinflint, was the one man +on the board of directors of the bank whom I had always most cordially +detested. Back in my childhood, before my father had got upon his +feet, Withers had planned to foreclose a mortgage on the home farm, +making the hampering of my father so that he could not pay the debt a +part of the plan. More than once I had half suspected that he was in +with Geddis on the mining deal, but I had no proof of this. + +"You say they were getting ready to railroad me out of town last night: +I suppose they will do it to-day, won't they?" + +"Not if I can help it, Bertie. I'm goin' to try to hold you here till +you've had time to kind of straighten yourself around and ketch up with +the procession. I don't know what in Sam Hill you wanted to go and +bu'st yourself up for, this way, but I'm owin' it to Amos Weyburn dead +to help his boy get some sort of a fair show for his white alley. You +ask me anything in reason, and I'll do it." + +I considered the most necessary requirements hastily. My mother and +sister were absent on a visit to a distant relative in the far-away +Saskatchewan wheat country, and I thanked God for that. It was +altogether unlikely that they would see any of the home newspapers, for +some time, at least, and any anxiety on that score might be dismissed, +or at all events postponed. The most pressing need was for a lawyer, +and since lawyers do not serve without fees, I was glad to remember +that my savings, which were still reposing in Abel Geddis's bank vault, +would enable me to pay as I went. + +By this time, in bitter revulsion from gratitude to fierce enmity, I +was determined to defend myself tooth and nail. At one stroke Abel +Geddis had cancelled all my obligations to him. At the very moment +when I was promising his daughter to help cover up his criminality, he +had been deliberately plotting to make me his scapegoat. + +"I need a lawyer, of course," I told Runnels; and then I made the first +and worst of a long series of wretched mistakes. "Send word to Cy +Whitredge and tell him I'd like to see him." + +If anybody had asked me five minutes after Runnels went away why I had +chosen Cyrus Whitredge to be my counsel I doubt if I could have offered +any justifiable reason. Whitredge was known throughout our end of the +State as a criminal lawyer, shrewd, unscrupulous, and with a reputation +built up entirely upon his singular success in defeating the ends of +justice. Before a jury of farmers and small merchants, such as I was +likely to have, I had prejudiced my case at the very outset. + +I was completely and thoroughly convinced of this a little later when +Whitredge came to see me. He was a lean man, leather-faced, and with +an eye like that of a fish. To my consternation and keen +disheartenment he assumed my guilt from the moment the cell door was +locked upon him and he had seated himself upon the iron-framed cot to +nurse a knee in the locked fingers of his bony hands. + +"You've got the wrong idea of things, altogether, Weyburn," he +criticised, after I had tried to tell him that I was being made to hold +the bag for some one else; and his use of the bare surname, when he had +known me from boyhood, cut me like a knife. "You can't expect me to do +anything for you unless you are entirely frank with me. As your +counsel, I've got to know the facts; and you gain absolutely nothing by +insisting to me that you are not guilty." + +There was more of it; a good bit more in which I stubbornly asserted my +innocence while Whitredge used every trick and wile known to his craft +to entrap me into admitting that I was guilty, in the act if not in the +intention. + +"You can't deny--you don't deny--that you knew these mining sharps, +Hempstead and Lesherton, pretty intimately, that you saw them +frequently and talked with them in the way of business, and that you +knew all about the capitalization scheme they were trying to put over," +was Whitredge's summing up of the situation. "You'll have to loosen +up, Weyburn, if you expect to get any help. I'll come around again +this afternoon, and maybe by that time you will have taken a tumble to +yourself." + +He got up, rattled the door for the turnkey, and then wheeled upon me +with a sharp question. + +"I take it you've got a little ready money hid away somewhere, haven't +you?" he demanded. + +I told him I had; but when I added that my savings were all in the bank +he swore impatiently. + +"That will mean an order from the court before you can even pay your +counsel's retainer--always providing your account hasn't already been +attached to apply on the shortage," he snapped; and at that the +corridor officer came to let him out and he went away. + +Having lived in Glendale practically all my life, I had a good right to +expect that at least a few of my friends would rally to my support in +the time of trouble. They came, possibly a half-dozen of them in all, +between Whitredge's visit and old John Runnels's bringing of my dinner +at one o'clock. + +Who they were, and what they said to me, are matters which shall be +burled in the deepest pit of oblivion I can find or dig. For the best +of them, in the turning of a single leaf in the lifebook, I had +apparently become an outcast, a pariah. One and all, they had already +tried and condemned me unheard, and though there were clammy-handed +offers of assistance they were purely perfunctory, as I could see, and +there was never a man of them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, I +don't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these cold +comfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegar +in me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness and +isolation to the very dregs. + +I know now, of course, that I was boyishly hot-hearted and unfair; that +I was too young and inexperienced to make allowances for that deathless +trait in human nature--in all animate nature--which prompts the well to +recoil instinctively from the pest-stricken. Later on--but I needn't +anticipate. + +It was along in the latter part of the afternoon, and before +Whitredge's return, that Agatha came. Her appearance in my cell was a +total surprise. I was standing at the little grated window when I +heard footsteps in the corridor. I thought it was Whitredge coming +back, and was morose enough not to turn or look around until after the +door had opened and clanged shut again. Then I wheeled to find myself +looking straight into the man-melting eyes. + +"Oh, Herbert!" she gasped; and with that she dropped upon the cot and +put her face in her hands. + +If only the women wouldn't weep at us how vastly different this world +would be! All day long I had been praying that I might some time have +the chance to hold a mirror up to Agatha Geddis; a mirror that would +reflect her soul and show her what a mean and shriveled thing it was. +But what I did was to sit beside her and put my arm around her and try +to comfort her as I might have comforted my sister. + +When her sobbing fit had subsided and she began to talk I found out +what she had come for--or I thought I did. It was all a miserable +mistake--so she protested--and Abner Withers was the responsible one. +It was he who had insisted that I should be arrested and prosecuted; +and, thus far, her father had not been able to make him listen to +reason. But it would come out all right in the end, if I would only be +patient and wait. Mr. Whitredge had been up to the house to see her +father, and they had had a long talk. Among other things, she had +heard her father say that he would bear all the expenses, meaning--I +supposed--that he would see to it that Whitredge did not lose his fee. + +I have more than once had professional mesmerists try to hypnotize me, +without success. But there is little doubt that Agatha Geddis turned +the trick for me that afternoon in the steel cell of the Glendale +police station. As she talked, my heart grew putty-soft again. As +before, she dwelt upon the terrible consequences, the awful disgrace, +the wreck of her happiness, and all that; and once more I promised her +that I would stand by her. Even after she had gone I told myself that +since the worst had already happened, it would be cowardly and unmanly +to turn back. + +Later, when the reaction came, it is more than likely that I swung back +to the other extreme, writing Agatha Geddis down in the book of bitter +remembrances as a cold-blooded, plotting fiend in woman's form. She +was not that. It may be said that, at this earlier period, she was +merely a loosely bound fagot of evil potentialities. Doubtless the +threatened cataclysm appeared sufficiently terrifying to her, and she +was willing to use any means that might offer to avert it. But it may +be conceded, in bare justice, that in this stage of her development she +was nothing worse than a self-centered young egoist, immature, and +struggling, quite without malice, to make things come her way. + +It was quite late in the afternoon when Whitredge made his second visit +to my cell, and this time his attitude was entirely different. Also, +he dropped the curt use of my surname. + +"We're going to ignore the question of your culpability for the +present, Bert, and wrestle with the plain facts of the case," was the +way he began on me. "From what you said this morning, I was led to +infer that you had some notion of trying to shift the responsibility to +Mr. Geddis. I won't say that something couldn't be done along that +line; not to do you any good, you understand, but to do other folks a +lot of harm. You could probably roil the water and stir up the mud +pretty badly for all concerned. But in the outcome, and before a jury, +you'd be likely to get the hot end of it. I'll be frank with you. If +I were in your shoes, I'd rather have Geddis for me than against me. +He has money and influence, and you are a young man without either." + +"You are trying to advise me to plead guilty?" I asked. + +"Oh, of course, the formal plea in court would be 'Not guilty.' I'm +merely advising you not to make the fight vindictive. If you don't, +I'm inclined to believe that Geddis will stand by you and you'll get +off easy." + +It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I would fight to the last +gasp before I would suffer myself to be tried and condemned for a crime +of which I was innocent. Then the distorted sense of honor got in its +work again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make me +believe that I owed her something. + +"You'll have to get me out of it in some way," I returned. "I can't +afford to be convicted." + +"Abel Geddis has been a pretty good friend of yours in the past, Bert," +the lawyer suggested. "You don't want to forget that." + +"I'm not forgetting it, and I'm giving him all the credit that is due +him. But you can't blame me for thinking a little of my mother and +sister, and myself. You know what a prison sentence means to a man, +better than I do. I couldn't stand for that." + +Whitredge stroked his long chin and looked past me out of the little +grated window. + +"We'd hope for the best, of course," he returned. "If we can make it +appear as an error in judgment"--there was that cursed phrase +again--"without any real criminal intention, and if we can prove that +you didn't reap any monetary benefit from the transfer of the mining +stock, there is good reason to hope that the court may be lenient. Do +I understand that you are giving me a free hand in the case, Bert?" + +"I don't see that there is anything else for me to do," I said, +half-doubtfully; and as he was going I asked him about the question of +bail. + +"I have waived the preliminary examination for you--merely to save you +the humiliation of appearing in a justice's court in Glendale," was the +evasive reply. + +"But without the examination I shan't have a chance to offer bail, +shall I?" + +Whitredge shook his head. "The guaranty company that is on your bond +beat us to it, I'm sorry to say. They sent their attorney over from +Cincinnati last night, and he is here now, prepared to refuse the +company's consent in the matter of ball. That is another reason why, +acting for you, I have waived the preliminary. Without the guaranty +company's assent to the arrangement it would be useless for us to offer +sureties, though Geddis and two or three others have expressed their +willingness to sign for you." + +"Then what am I to expect?" + +"Nothing worse than a little delay. Court is in session, and you will +be taken to Jefferson. If the grand jury finds a true bill against +you, the cause will probably be tried at the present term of court. +There need be nothing humiliating or embarrassing for you here in +Glendale. Sam Jorkins will take you over to Jefferson on the midnight +train, and you needn't see any of the home-town folks unless you want +to." + +Remembering the clammy handshakings of the forenoon, I thought I should +never again want to see anybody that I knew. And thus I made the +second of the miserable blunders which led to all that followed. + +"Let it be that way," I said. "If Jorkins will go with me up to Mrs. +Thompson's so that I can get a few things and pack a grip----" + +"Oh, of course," said Whitredge, readily enough. "I'll have a carriage +to take you to the train, and it can drive around by your +boarding-house. But you mustn't try to run away. I suppose you +wouldn't do anything like that, would you?--even if you had a good +chance?" + +I turned upon him as quick as a flash. + +"Do you mean that you're trying to give me a hint that I'd better run +away?" I demanded. + +He took a step toward the cell door and I had a fleeting impression +that he was listening to determine whether or not there was any one in +the corridor. When he faced me again he was frowning reprovingly. + +"I am a member of the bar in good standing," he reminded me stiffly. +"If you knew the first letter of the legal alphabet you'd know that I +couldn't advise a client to run away." + +"Damn the legal alphabet!" I broke out hotly. "You're a man, Cy +Whitredge; and I'm another man and in trouble. Can't you drop the +professional cant for half a minute and talk straight?" + +At this he shook his head again. + +"It would prejudice your case mighty badly--that is, if you should try +it and not succeed. On the other hand--but no; I won't say another +word. Your best friend wouldn't advise you to make such a break. +Besides, you have no money, and you couldn't get very far without it. +I shouldn't even think of it, if I were you. Dwelling on a thing like +that sometimes gives it a chance to get hold of you. But this is all +foolishness, of course. You are going to Jefferson, and you'll take +your medicine like a man if you have to. That's all, I believe, for +the present. Keep a stiff upper lip, and if anybody comes to see you, +don't talk too much. I'll be over at the county seat in a day or two, +and we'll thresh it out some more." + +After Runnels had brought me my supper, and I had nothing to do but to +wait for the constable and train-time, I did the very thing that +Whitredge had advised me not to do; I couldn't get it out of my mind +that freedom at any price was now the most desirable thing on earth--in +the universe, for that matter. It was facilely easy to picture a +future in some far distant corner of the country where I might begin +all over again and make good. Other men had done it. Every once in a +while I had read in the newspapers the story of some fellow who had +eluded his fate, deserved or otherwise, years before and had lived and +builded anew and in a fashion to win the applause of all men. + +Because I had lived in a small town the better part of my life, I had +the mistaken notion that the world is very wide and that there must be +no end of safe hiding-places for the man who needs to seek one. From +that to imagining the possible details was only a series of steps, each +one carrying me a little nearer to the brink of decision. As I have +said, I had money of my own in the bank vault; much more than enough to +bribe easy-going Sam Jorkins, the constable who, as Whitredge had said, +was to take me to Jefferson. I weighed and measured all the chances +and hazards, and there were only two for which I could not provide in +advance. There was a possibility that Geddis might be staying late in +the bank; and if he were not, there was the other possibility that he +might have changed the combination on the vault lock since my arrest. + +The more I thought about it, the more fiercely the escape notion +gripped me. Whitredge's talk had made it perfectly plain that the best +I could hope for in a court trial would be a light sentence. As +train-time drew near, the obsession pushed reason and all the scruples +aside. If I could only persuade Jorkins to let me go to the bank on +the drive to the station---- + +The town clock in the tower of the new city hall was striking eleven +when good old John Runnels and the constable came for me. At the final +moment I was telling myself feverishly that it would be of no use for +me to try to bribe honest Sam Jorkins; that this was the fatal weakness +in my plan of escape. Hence, I could have shouted for joy when Runnels +unlocked the cell door and turned me over, not to Jorkins, but to a +stranger; a hard-faced man roughly dressed, and with the scar of a +knife slash across his right cheek. + +"This is Bill Simmons, a deputy from Jefferson, Bertie; come to take +you over to the county ja--to the sheriff's office," said Runnels. +"I've told him he ain't goin' to have no use for them handcuffs he's +brought along." + +"That may be," growled the sheriff's messenger. "All the same, I ain't +takin' no chances--not me!" and with that he whipped the manacles from +his pocket. But Runnels intervened quickly. + +"Nary!--not here in my shop, you don't, Simmons," he said. "For two +cents I'd go along with Bertie, myself, if only to see to it that he +gets a fair show. You treat him right and white, or I'll fire you out, +warrant or no warrant!" + +When we reached the street I said I wanted to go around by way of my +boarding-house for a change of clothing. + +"That's all been 'tended to," said the surly deputy, with a jerk of his +thumb toward a suitcase in the seat beside the driver of the hack +carriage. "You get in and keep quiet; that's all you've got to do." + +After this he said nothing and made no further move until we were +jouncing along on our way to the railroad station. Then, without +warning, he turned upon me suddenly and tried to snap the hand-cuffs on +my wrists. + +It was all I was waiting for; something to pull the trigger. In a +flash the savage, which, in the best of us, lies but skin-deep under +the veneer of habit and the civilized conventions, leaped alive. There +was a fierce grapple in the interior of the darkened carriage--fierce +but silent--and the blood sang in my veins when I found that I was more +than a match for the scar-faced deputy. With fingers to throat I +choked him into submission, and when I had taken his pistol and +hand-cuffed him with his own manacles, the step that made me a criminal +in fact had been overpassed. + +"One yip out of you, and you get a bullet out of your own gun!" I +warned him; and then I got speech with the driver, a squat, thickset +Irishman, whose face and brogue were both strange to me. + +"Drive to the Farmers' Bank--side door--and be quick about it!" I +called to him over the lowered window-sash. + +"I'm hired to go to the train. Who's payin' me for the side-trip?" he +queried impatiently. + +"I am," I snapped; adding: "There's money in it for you if you put the +whip on." + +He obeyed the order with what might have seemed suspicious readiness, +if I had been cool enough to consider it, and a minute or two later the +hack ground its wheels against the curb at the side door of the bank +building. With the pistol at his ribs I pushed the deputy out ahead of +me. My keys were still in my pocket--Runnels hadn't searched me for +anything--and I opened the door and entered, driving Simmons a step in +advance. + +The bank was untenanted, as I knew it would be if Geddis should not be +there, since we had never employed a night watchman. At that time of +night there was nothing stirring in the town, and in the midnight +silence the ticking of the clock on the wall over Abel Geddis's desk +crashed into the stillness like the blows of a hammer. I made the +deputy sit down under the vault light while I worked the combination. +The lock had not been changed, and the door opened at the first trial. + +Again pushing Simmons ahead of me, I entered the vault. It was a +fairly modern structure; Geddis had had it rebuilt within the year; and +it was electric-lighted and large enough to serve the double purpose of +a bank strong-room and a safety deposit. Shoving the deputy into a +corner I opened the cash-box and took out the exact amount of my +savings, neither more nor less. Simmons stretched his neck and leered +at me with an evil grin. + +"You're the fine little crook, all right enough," he remarked. "They +was sayin' over at Jefferson that you was a Sunday-school +sup'rintendent, or somethin' o' that sort. Them kind is always the +flyest." + +It struck me suddenly that he was taking his defeat pretty easily, but +there was no time for a nice weighing of other men's motives. + +"I'm fly enough to give you what's coming to you," I said; and with +that I snapped off the electric light, darted out, slammed the vault +door and shot the bolts. For a few hours at least, during the latter +part of which he might have to breathe rather bad air, the deputy was +an obstruction removed. + +My hurriedly formed plan of escape would probably have made a +professional criminal weep; but it was the only one I could think of on +the spur of the moment. In the next county, at a distance of +thirty-odd miles, there was another railroad. If I could succeed in +bribing the Irish hack-driver, I might be far on my way before the bank +vault would be opened and the alarm given. + +The Irishman took my money readily enough and offered no objections +when I told him what I wished to do. Also, he claimed to be familiar +with the cross-country road to Vilasville, saying that he could set me +down in the village before daylight. Oddly enough, he made no comment +on the absence of the deputy, and seemed quite as willing to haul one +passenger as two. With my liberal bribe for a stimulant he whipped up +his horses, and in a few minutes we were out of town and rolling +smoothly along the intercounty pike. + +For a time the sudden break with all the well-behaved traditions kept +me awake and in a fever heat of excitement. But along in the small +hours the monotonous _clack-clack_ of the horses' hoofs on the +limestone pike and the steady rumbling of the wheels quieted me. +Reflecting that I had had little sleep the night before, and that the +way ahead would be perilous enough to ask for sharpened faculties and a +well-rested body, I braced myself in a corner of the carriage and +closed my eyes. + +When I awakened, after what seemed like only the shortest hand-space of +dreamless oblivion, a misty dawn was breaking and the carriage was +stopped in a town street and in front of a brick building with barred +windows. While I was blinking and rubbing my eyes in astoundment, a +big, bearded man whose face was strangely familiar opened the door and +whipped the captured pistol from the seat. + +"This was one time when the longest way 'round was the shortest way +home," chuckled the big pistol-snatcher quizzically. And then: "Old Ab +Withers seems to know you better than most of us do, Bert. He told me +I'd better not risk you on the train with just one Glendale constable; +that I'd better send a rig and two deputies after you, if I wanted to +make sure o' seein' you. What have you done with Simmons?" + +I told him briefly. + +"All right," he said. "Climb down out o' that and come on in. The +jig's up." + +It was not until I was standing on the sidewalk beside the gigantic +sheriff, with the Irishman grinning at me from his seat in the hack, +that I realized fully what had happened. Instead of taking me to +Vilasville, the driver, who was Simmons's partner and fellow deputy, +had changed his route while I was asleep and brought me to the county +seat. + + + + +III + +In the Name of the Law + +Of course, I didn't have to wait until Whitredge came over to the +county seat to learn that I had hopelessly cooked my goose by the +clumsy attempt at an escape. What I did not suspect then, nor, indeed, +for a long time afterward, was the possibility that Withers or Geddis, +or both of them, had forestalled me in the matter of bribing the two +deputies; that my foolish attempt had been anticipated, and that +Whitredge, himself, was not wholly above suspicion as an accessory +before the fact. For it was his thinly veiled suggestion that put the +thing into my head. + +However, that is neither here nor there. With the charge before it, +the grand jury quickly brought in a true bill against me; and on the +plea of the county prosecuting attorney my case was advanced on the +docket and set for trial within the week, the argument for haste being +the critical state of affairs in the business of the Farmers' Bank of +Glendale; a state of affairs which demanded that the responsibility for +certain shortages in the bank's assets be fixed immediately as between +the accused bookkeeper and cashier and his superiors. Whitredge +brought me word of this hurry-up proposal, and either was, or pretended +to be, properly indignant over the unseemly haste. + +"You just say the word, Bert, and I'll have the case postponed until +the next term of court, or else I'll know the reason why!" he blustered +stoutly. + +"Why should I wish to have it postponed, when the delay would merely +mean six months more of jail for me?" I objected. + +"It might give us some chance to frame up some sort of a defense; and, +besides, it would give public opinion a little time to die down," he +suggested. "I say it isn't fair to try you while everybody's hot and +excited and wrathy about the money loss. Still, if you think you're +all ready, and want to take the chance----" + +He knew I did, and was only egging me on. What he and all the rest of +them were working for was to get me out of the way as swiftly as +possible. I knew this afterward, after I had time to think it out and +piece it together; and God knows, they gave me all the time I needed to +do the thinking. + +So, with the prisoner's counsel making no motion to the contrary, the +trial date stood, and shortly I found myself in the dock, with good old +Judge Haskins peering down at me over the top of his spectacles. Like +many of the older people in the county, the judge had known my father +well, and I am willing to believe that it was not easy for him to sit +in judgment upon that father's son. + +The trial was fair enough, as such things go. In the selection of the +jury, Whitredge made free use of his challenging privilege; but it +seemed to me that he always objected to the intelligent man and chose +the other kind. When our Anglo-Saxon ancestors fought for the right of +trial by jury, and got it, they passed down to us a sword with two +edges. Their idea, which was embodied in the common law, was that a +man should be tried by a jury of his peers. But the way things have +worked out, the man of average intelligence is apt to have to face a +dozen jurors who are chosen partly for their lack of intelligence, and +partly because their earning ability is so low that they are willing to +serve for the paltry wage of a juror, whatever it may be. + +So far as the presentation of the case went, the county attorney had it +all his own way. Certain of the bank's moneys were missing, and they +had been replaced by worthless mining stock. Specifically, the charge +was that I had been borrowing the bank's money and investing it in the +mining stock--all without authority from anybody higher up--and that at +the last I had grown panic-stricken, or something, and had turned the +stock in as part of the bank's assets. + +Chandler, the prosecuting attorney, called only two witnesses, Withers +and Fitch. They both testified that they had heard me admit that I was +guilty. There were no details given which could involve Agatha Geddis. +It was merely stated that my admission of guilt was made at Abel +Geddis's house, and both witnesses asserted that Geddis himself was not +present. + +Whitredge leaned over and whispered to me while this evidence was being +taken. + +"Chandler knows, and we all know, that this acknowledgment of yours was +made in a talk with Miss Geddis. We are all willing to spare her the +humiliation of being brought into court. But it is your perfect right +to have her called if you wish it." + +Knowing well enough by this time what I was in for, I was still foolish +enough, or besotted enough, to shake my head. "I don't wish it," I +said; and since this was practically telling Whitredge not to do so, he +did not cross-examine the two witnesses. + +When the prosecution rested, Whitredge took up his line of defense. He +tried to show, rather lamely, I thought, that I had always lived within +my means, hadn't been dissipated, and had never been known to bet, +either on horse races or on the stock market; that whatever I had done +had been done without criminal intent. In this part of the trial I had +a heart-warming surprise. The afternoon train from Glendale brought a +big bunch of young people, and a good sprinkling of older ones, all +eager to testify to my former good character. I saw then how unfair I +had been in the bitterness of that first day. The shock of my arrest +had simply dammed up the sympathy stream like a sudden frost; but now +the reaction had come and I was not without friends. That little +demonstration went with me though many a long and weary day afterward. + +Naturally, the greater part of this "character evidence" was thrown out +as irrelevant. The trial wasn't held for the purpose of ascertaining +what sort of a young man I had been in the past. It was supposed to be +an attempt to get at the facts in a particular case; and according to +the testimony of two uncontradicted witnesses, I had admitted these +facts. + +Chandler said nothing about my attempt to escape until he came to +address the jury. But then he drove the nail in good and hard. The +deputy sheriff, Simmons, bruised and beaten, was shown to the jurors, +and the prosecuting attorney made much of the fact that I had not +stopped at a possible murder in shutting Simmons up in the bank vault. +There was nothing said about the bribe to the other deputy who had +figured as the hack driver; from which I inferred that the Irishman had +pocketed my money and held his peace. + +Whitredge's summing-up was as lame in effect as it was rantingly +emotional. He liked to hear himself talk, and his stock in trade as a +criminal lawyer consisted mainly of perfervid appeals to the sympathies +of his juries. Here, he pleaded, with the tremolo stop pulled all the +way out, was a young man whose entire future would be blasted--and all +that sort of thing. It hadn't the slightest effect upon the group of +stolid hill farmers and laborers in the box who sat and yawned through +it, and I fancy it wasn't intended to have any. + +Good old Judge Haskins's charge to the jury was all that a fair and +upright judge could make it. He was no party to the agreement between +the attorneys to keep Agatha Geddis out of it, or even to any knowledge +of it, as he proved by pointing out to the jury the lack of detail in +Fitch's and Withers's testimony. Also, he cautioned the twelve not to +make too much of the attempted escape. He said--what most judges +wouldn't have said--that the attempt was entirely extraneous to the +charge upon which I had been arraigned; that it was not to be taken as +a presumption of guilt; that it proved nothing either way. He added +that an innocent man badly involved might be as easily terrified into +taking flight as a guilty one. If the jury, upon due deliberation, +should be convinced that I had misappropriated the bank's funds, the +verdict should be "Guilty"; but not otherwise. + +It was merely in conformity with time-honored custom that the jurymen +rose and left the box and filed out of the court-room, I am sure, for +they were back again in almost no time. Though I had every reason to +expect it, the low-voiced verdict of "Guilty as charged" struck me like +the blow of a fist. + +"Brace up and be a man!" Whitredge leaned over to whisper in my ear; +and then the good old judge, with his voice shaking a little, +pronounced my sentence. Five years was the minimum for the offense +with which I stood charged. But a law recently passed gave the judges +a new power. Within the nominal period of five years my sentence was +made indeterminate. The law was vindicated and I became a convict. + + + + +IV + +Scars + +I was twenty-five years old, almost to a day, when Judge Haskins +pronounced the words which were to make me for the next five years or +less--the period to be determined upon my good behavior--an inmate of the +State penitentiary. Lacking the needful good behavior, five long years +would be taken out of the best part of life for me, and what was worse (I +realized this even in the tumultuous storm of first-moment impressions +and emotions), my entire point of view was certain to be hopelessly +twisted and distorted for all the years that I might live beyond my +release. + +Surely little blame can attach to the confession that out of the tumult +came a hot-hearted and vindictive determination to live for a single +purpose; to work and strive and endure so that I might be the sooner free +to square my account with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. I need make no +secret now of the depth of this hatred. At times, when the obsession was +strongest upon me, the fear that one or both of them might die before my +chance should come was almost maddening. They were both old men, and in +the nature of things there was always a possibility that death might +forestall me. + +So it was this motive at first that made me jealous of my good-conduct +marks; made me study the prison regulations and live up to them with a +rigidity that knew no lapses. I am not defending the motive; I +cheerfully admit that it was unworthy. None the less, I owe it +something: it sustained me and kept me sane and cool-headed at a time +when, without some such stimulus, I might have lost my reason. + +Of the three succeeding years and what they brought or failed to bring +the least said will be, perhaps, the soonest mended. I am glad to be +able to write it down that my native State had, and still has, a fairly +enlightened prison system; or at least it is less brutalizing than many +others. During my period of incarceration the warden-in-office was an +upright and impartial man, just to his charges and even kindly and +fatherly when the circumstances would warrant. After my steady +determination to earn an early release became apparent, I was made a +"trusty," and for two of the three years I was the prison bookkeeper. + +Study as I might, I could never determine how the prison life affected my +associates; but for me it held few real hardships beyond the confinement, +the disgrace, and the fear that before I could outlive it I should become +a criminal in fact. Fight the idea as we may, environment, association, +and suggestion have a great deal to say to the human atom. I was treated +as a criminal, was believed to be a criminal, and mingled daily with +criminals. Put yourself in my place and try to imagine what it would +make of you in three changes of the calendar. + +During the three years I received but one letter from home, and wrote but +one. Almost as soon as my sentence period began I had a heart-broken +letter from my sister. She and my mother had returned from Canada, only +to find me dead and buried to the world. I answered the letter, begging +her not to write again, or to expect me to write. It seemed a refinement +of humiliation to have the home letters come addressed to me in a prison; +and besides, I was like the sick man who turns his face to the wall, +wishing neither to see nor to hear until the paroxysm has passed. I may +say here that both of these good women respected my wishes and my foolish +scruples. They wrote no more; and, what was still harder for my mother, +I think, they made no journeys half across the State on the prison +visiting days. + +It will be seen that I have cut the time down from the five-year limit +imposed by my sentence; and so it was cut down in reality. After I had +been promoted to the work in the prison offices my life settled into a +monotonous routine, with nothing eventful or disturbing to mark the +passing weeks and months; and by living strictly within the prison +requirements, working faithfully, and never once earning even a reprimand +from the kindly warden or his deputy, I was given the full benefit of my +"good time," and at the end of the third year, with a prison-provided +suit on my back and five dollars of the State's money in my pocket, I was +paroled. + +Though I have been its beneficiary and victim, and have been made to +suffer cruelly under its restrictions, I make here no arraignment of the +law which provides in some States--my own among the number--for the +indeterminate prison sentence. The reform was doubtless conceived in +mercy and a true spirit of sociological lenity toward the offender. But +in practice it may be so surrounded with safeguards and limitations, so +wrapped up in provisos and conditions, as to completely defeat its own +end and reverse its intent. + +Under the law as it stood--and still stands, I believe--in my own +commonwealth, I was required to remain in the State; to report, at least +once a month, by letter to the prison authorities, and in person to the +chief of police in any city in which I might be living; to retain my own +name; and to bind myself to tell a straightforward story of my conviction +and imprisonment at any time and to any one who should require it. The +omission to comply with any of these restrictions and requirements would +automatically cancel my parole and subject me to arrest and +re-imprisonment for the unexpired period of the original sentence. + +Again I ask you to put yourself in the place of a man paroled under such +conditions. With such handicaps, what possible chance can a released man +have to secure honest employment? Fortunately for me, I was still only +twenty-eight--young and hopeful; and I started out to do my best, saying +only that nothing should tempt me to go back to Glendale where, I was +told, my mother and sister were still living in retirement and under the +shadow of the family disgrace. + +Knowing that the released convict usually heads for the largest city he +can reach, thus obeying the common-sense instinct which prompts him to +lose himself quickly in a crowd, I planned to do the opposite thing. I +told myself that I was not a criminal, and therefore would not follow the +criminal's example. I would board an interurban trolley and expend a +portion of my five dollars in reaching some obscure town in a distant +part of the State, where I would begin the new life honestly and openly +in any employment that might offer. + +There was nobody to meet me as I forthfared from the prison gates, but I +was not expecting any one and so was not disappointed. None the less, on +my way to the central trolley station I had a half-confirmed conviction +that I was followed; that the follower had been behind me all the way +from the prison street. + +After making several fruitless attempts I finally succeeded in fixing +upon the particular person in the scattering sidewalk procession who made +all the turns that I made, keeping always a few paces in the rear. He +was a man of about my own age, round-faced and rather fleshy. In my +Glendale days I should have set him down at once as a traveling salesman. +He looked the part and dressed it. + +Farther along, upon reaching the interurban station, I was able to +breathe freer and to smile at the qualms of my new-liberty nervousness. +Just as I was parting with two of my five dollars for a ticket to the +chosen destination my man came up to the ticket window, followed by a +hotel porter carrying a grip and a sample case. I saw then how facilely +easy it was going to be to take fright at shadows. Evidently the young +man was a salesman, and his apparent pursuit of me had been merely a +coincidence in corner turnings. And in the recoil from the apprehensive +extreme I refused to attach any significance to the fact that he was +purchasing a ticket to the same distant town to which I had but now paid +my own passage. + +During the leisurely five-hour run across the State the object of my +suspicions--my foolish suspicions, I was now calling them--paid no +attention to me, so far as I could determine. Save for the few minutes +at noon when the interurban car stopped to permit its passengers to +snatch a hasty luncheon at a farm-town restaurant, he did not once leave +his place, which was two seats behind mine and on the opposite side of +the car. On the contrary, like a seasoned traveler, he made himself +comfortable behind the barricade of hand-baggage and wore out the entire +time with sundry newspapers and magazines. Moreover, at our common +destination he did not follow me to the one old-fashioned hotel; instead, +he led the way to it, and was buying a cigar at the little counter +show-case when I came up to bargain, with another of my precious dollars, +for the supper, lodging and breakfast which were to launch me upon the +new career. + +After this, I saw the fat-faced traveling man but twice, and both times +casually. At supper he had a small table to himself in one corner of the +room; and the following morning, when I went out to lay siege to my new +world, he was smoking in the hotel office and again buried in a +newspaper. Two hours later I had found employment driving a grocer's +delivery wagon, and in the triumph of having so soon found even this +humblest of footholds in a workaday world, I had completely forgotten him. + +Having thus made my cast for fortune and secured the foothold, it took me +less than a week to learn that I had made a capital mistake in choosing a +small town. Under that condition of my parole which required me to +report in my true character to the town marshal I assured myself that I +might as well have published my story in the county newspaper. Before +the end of the week half of my customers on the delivery route were +beginning to look askance at me, and when the Saturday night came I was +discharged. I knew perfectly well what was coming when the boss, a +big-bodied, good-natured man who had made his money as a farmer and was +now losing it as the town grocer, called me into his little box of an +office at the back of the shop. + +"Say, Weyburn; when I asked you where you had been working before you +came here, you didn't tell me the truth," was the way he began on me. + +"I told you I had worked in a bank in Glendale," I protested; "which was +and is the truth." + +"I know; but you didn't tell me that you'd put in the last three years in +the pen, and were out on parole." + +"No, I didn't tell you that. But I would have told you if you had asked +me." + +"I can't stand for it," he grumbled, chewing at the unlighted cigar which +was his Saturday night indulgence. "And if I could, the customers +wouldn't. I suppose as many as a dozen women have been to me in the last +few days. They say they can't afford to be watchin' the back door every +time you come 'round with the groceries. You see how it is." + +I saw; but I was still foolish enough to try to stem the pitiless tide. + +"Would it make any difference if I were to say that I was as innocent of +the crime for which I was convicted as any of these frightened women?" I +suggested. + +"They all say that," was the colorless retort. "The point is, Weyburn, +that you was convicted. There ain't no gettin' 'round that. You've worn +the stripes, and you'll just have to make up your mind to live it down +before you can expect people to forget it." + +If I hadn't been the wretched victim of this paradox it might have +provoked a smile. + +"How am I ever going to live it down, Mr. Bucks, if nobody will give me a +chance?" I asked. + +"I know," he agreed readily enough. "But I'm losin' money here, every +day, as it is, and I can't afford to make experiments. I'm sorry for +you, honestly, Weyburn; but you see how it is." + +"Yes, I see," I returned. "You think I ought to be given a chance, but +you prefer to have somebody else give it to me. I don't blame you. +Perhaps under similar conditions I'd do the same thing myself. Pay me +and I'll disappear." + +He did pay me, and tried to give me two dollars more than the agreed +weekly wage, generously putting it upon the ground of the lack of notice. +I shall always be glad that I still had pride enough left to refuse the +charity. Even at this early twisting of the thumb-screws I was beginning +to realize that self-respect would be the first thing to go by the board, +and the fight to save it was almost instinctive. + +Before leaving Bucks I tried to find out how he had learned my story; +this though I was definitely charging the exposure to the town marshal as +being the only person who could have spread it abroad. To my surprise, +the grocer defended the marshal promptly and warmly. + +"That shows how little you know Cal Giddings," he retorted. "He's the +last man on top of earth to go 'round givin' you a black eye of that +sort." + +"May I ask what reason you have for thinking so?" I inquired. + +"Sure you may. I've known Cal ever since we was little kids together. +I've seen him every day this week, and he knew you was workin' for me. +If he'd 'a' told anybody, it would 'a' been me; you can bet your hat on +that." + +"Then where did you hear the story?" I persisted. + +"Why, I dunno just where I did hear it first. Everybody in town seems to +know it," he asserted; and with this unsatisfying answer I was obliged to +be contented. + +The next attempt was made in a small industrial city on the opposite side +of the State. This time I went to the chief of police as soon as I +arrived, and after making the required report, I had it out with him in +plain speech. + +"I am going to try to get work here in your city," I said, "and I'd like +to know beforehand how much leeway you are going to give me." + +The portly thief-taker leaned back in his chair and regarded me with a +coldly appraisive eye. He was a coarse-featured man with a face that +would have fitted admirably in any rogues' gallery in the land. + +"You're in bad, young fellow," he growled. "We've got plenty and more +than enough of your kind in this town, without takin' on any more." + +"But I am keeping my parole," I pleaded. "I have come to you like a man +the first thing, and have made my report according to the conditions. +Somebody has got to give me a chance." + +"You'll earn it, damn' good and plenty, if you stay here to get it," was +the gruff response. "What kind of a job are you lookin' for?" + +It was hard to confide in such a man, even casually, but I had no choice. + +"I am willing to take anything I can get, but my experience has been +mostly in office work," I told him; adding: "I suppose I might call +myself a fairly expert bookkeeper." + +"Umph!" he grunted, shifting his cigar from one corner of the hard-bitted +mouth to the other. "That means that you want to try for a job where you +can work the till-tapping game again." + +Not having as yet learned my lesson line by line, I was incautious enough +to say: "I have yet to work it the first time." + +"Like hell you have! See here, young fellow--you needn't spring that +kind of talk on me. I know you and your kind up one side and down the +other. You say you've put three years in 'stir' and that settles it." +At this point he broke off short, righted his chair with a snap and +reached for a bill-spindle on his desk. After a glance at one of the +impaled memoranda he sat back again, chewing his cigar and staring into +vacancy. A full minute elapsed before he deigned to become once more +aware of my presence. Then he whirled upon me to rap out an explosive +question. + +"What did you say your name was?" and when I told him: "Aw right; you +come back here this afternoon and we'll see whether you stay or move on. +That's all. Now get out. I'm busy." + +I went away and killed time as I could until the middle of the afternoon. +Upon returning to police headquarters I found the hard-faced chief tilted +in his chair with his feet on his desk, looking as if he hadn't moved +since my visit of the forenoon. When he saw who it was cutting off the +afternoon sunlight he straightened up with a growl, rummaged in a file of +papers and jerked out a typewritten sheet which he glanced over as one +who reads only the headings. + +"James Bertrand Weyburn, eh?" he rasped. "I know all about you now, and +you may as well can all that didn't-do-it stuff. Forget it and come down +to business. You say you want to hit the straight-and-narrow: how would +a job in a coal yard fit you?--keepin' books and weighin'-in the coal +cars?" + +I told him, humbly enough, that I was too nearly a beggar to be a +chooser; that I'd be only too glad to get a chance at anything at which I +might earn a living. + +"Aw right," was the curt rejoinder. "You hike over to the Consolidated +Coal Company's yard on the West Side, and tell Mullins, the head +book-keeper, that I sent you, see? Tell him to call me on the 'phone if +he wants to know anything more about you. That's all. Pull your freight +out of here and get busy--if you don't want to get the 'move on' out of +this burg." + +Notwithstanding this crabbed speech, matching all the other things this +man had said to me, I left police headquarters with a warm spot in my +heart, thinking that I had lighted upon a diamond in the rough and hadn't +had discernment enough to recognize it. + +Yet there was a small mystery thrusting itself into this second interview +with the chief. What was the content of the typewritten sheet he had +consulted, and who had written it? If it had been a telegram I might +have concluded that he had wired the warden of the penitentiary for a +corroboration of my story. But it was not a telegram. + +I was still puzzling over the mystery half an hour later when I found the +coal yard and the bookkeeper, Mullins, a red-faced Irishman who winked +solemnly when I told him that Chief Callahan had sent me. + +"Know anything at all about the railroad end of the coal business?" was +the first inquiry shot at me; but it was not made until after the +book-keeper had shut himself into the telephone booth, presumably for a +wire talk with Callahan. + +I shook my head. "None of the details. But I can learn." + +"Maybe you can, and maybe you can't. We'll try you out on the railroad +desk, and Peters 'll show you what you don't know. Peel your coat and +jump in. Hours eight to six; pay, sixty dollars a month: more bimeby if +you're worth it." + +Robert Louis Stevenson's cheerful little opening verse: + + "Light foot and tight foot, + And green grass spread; + Early in the morning, + And hope is on ahead," + +was ringing in my ears when I squared myself at the railroad desk and +attacked the first big bunch of "flimsies," as the tissue copies of the +waybills are called. It was almost unbelievable that my luck had turned +so soon, and yet the fact seemed undeniable. I had a job to which I had +been recommended by the one man in the city who knew my record. No +questions had been asked, and the inference seemed to be that none were +going to be asked. + +I was all of a busy week getting a firm working hold upon the routine of +my desk, and during that time I didn't exchange a dozen words with +Mullins, who appeared to be the head and front of Consolidated Coal, +locally, at least, and whose word, in the office and about the yards, was +law. None the less, the little mystery connected with this easy finding +of a job in a strange city persisted, and it kept me from dwelling too +pointedly upon the object for which I meant to live and work; namely, the +squaring of accounts with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. + +Singularly enough, it took me, trained accountant as I was, a full month +to find out what I had been let in for, and why the job I was holding +down had been given to an ex-convict. It was my duty to check the +railroad waybills on consignments of coal, to correct the weights, and to +make claims for overcharges and shortages. I made these claims as I had +been told to make them, taking the figures of the weights from Peters, +who, in turn, took them from the scale men in the yard. It was Peters +who gave the snap away one night when we two were working overtime in the +otherwise deserted offices. + +"Say, Weyburn; you've got about the coldest nerve of any fellow I've ever +run up against," he said, looking up from his place across the +flat-topped desk. + +"What makes you say that, Tommy?" I asked. + +"Because it's so. I've been watching you. You've been sitting on the +lid for an even month, now, and never batting an eye when these railroad +fellows come at you and make their little roar about the overcharges. +Believe me, it takes nerve to do that--and carry it off as if you were +reading 'em a verse out o' the Bible. Blaisdell, the lad who was here +before you, went batty and talked in his sleep. Told me once he couldn't +see anything but stripes, any way he looked." + +"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, with a sudden sinking +of the heart. "Why should it take nerve to tell a railroad agent he's +been overcharging us?" + +Peters's laugh was a cackle. "You're the traffic man of this outfit: do +you know the rates on coal from the mines to Western Central common +points?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Got 'em all down in the printed tariff, so you can't help knowing 'em, +eh? Consolidated Coal pays these rates, doesn't it?--all according to +Hoyle and the Interstate Commerce laws?" + +"I suppose we pay them. I check the bills as they are presented." + +"Exactly. But every little so-while you have to make a whaling big claim +on the railroad company for overcharges, and maybe you've noticed that +these claims are always paid--or maybe you haven't?" + +I was beginning to see the hole in the millstone. + +"I make the claims on the weights as you give them to me, Peters. Do you +mean to tell me that you've been giving me false figures?" + +The yard clerk stuck his tongue in his cheek. "I'm not telling you +anything. You know as well as I do that it's against the law to give or +receive rebates. But if you're not a heap greener than you look, you +know that we're getting our cut rates, just the same. All we need is a +man right here at your desk who has the nerve to make out the claims, and +is fly enough to do a little bluffing and ask no questions. You're all +right, Bertie." + +"But the figures of the weights," I insisted. "You are the man who gives +them to me, and you are responsible if they are wrong." + +"Not in a thousand years!" was the prompt retort. "I never put anything +on paper--you're the man that does that--and if the Interstate Commerce +people should break in, I'd have the best little forgettery of any +clock-watcher in the works. Nix for me, Weyburn; you are the chap with +the figures, and the only man in the shop who has them down in black on +white. When the roar comes, it'll be up to you, and Mullins will throw +up his hands and accuse you of having a private graft of some sort with +the railroad clerks in the claim office. That's about what he'll do." + +My overtime companion had finished his job and was putting on his coat. +I let him go without further talk, but after he had gone, I stayed long +enough to check over the files of the yard-master's blotter. When the +checking was completed I knew perfectly well why I had been hired so +promptly, and why Mullins had been willing to take on an ex-convict. My +basing figures, which Peters had been giving me verbally, were all wrong. +The majority of the claims I had been making from day to day were +fraudulent, and in paying them the railroad company was merely rebating +the coal rates for Consolidated Coal. + +It was easy to see where I stood. A scapegoat was necessary, and with a +prison record behind me I had about as much show as a rat in a trap. If +there should be an investigation, Mullins would swear that I had entire +charge of the claim department. And having no written data to fall back +upon, I should be helpless. + +The date of this disheartening discovery chanced to be the 25th of the +month--our regular pay-day, and I had my month's salary in my pocket when +I left the office about eleven o'clock to go to my boarding-house. At +the nearest street corner I met the patrolman on the beat. + +"Hello, cully!" he growled as I was passing him; and then with a hand on +my arm he stopped me. "You're forgettin' somethin', ain't you?" + +"I guess not," I answered. + +"I guess yes," he retorted. "It's pay-day at the works, and you gotta +come across." + +Here was the remainder of the conspiracy made plain as day. The crooked +chief of police had turned me over to the crooked coal company to do +crooked work, and I was to be held up for a graft on my salary. With a +swift return of the blood-boiling which had once helped me to manhandle +the deputy, Simmons, I faced the patrolman. + +"And if I don't come across--what then?" + +The policeman grinned good-naturedly. "You're goin' to 'produce' all +right. You're a paroled man, and you can't afford to have the chief get +it in for you." + +It was just here that the three nerve-breaking years got in their work. +I couldn't face the grafter down, and--I confess it with shame--I was +horribly afraid. + +"How much?" I asked, and my tongue was dry in my mouth. + +"This is the first mont', and we'll let you down easy. You fork over a +ten-spot for the campaign fund and we'll call it square. Next mont' +it'll be more." + +I paid the blackmail with trembling hands, and when the patrolman was out +of sight around the corner I ran to reach my boarding place, intent only +upon flight, instant and secret, from this moral cesspool of a city. I +remembered that there was a westbound train passing through at midnight, +and by hurrying I hoped to be able to catch it. + + + + +V + +The Downward Path + +I had left the board money and a note for my landlady on the mantel in +the darkened dining-room, had reached the railroad station, and was +about to buy a ticket to the farthest corner of the State, when I +suddenly remembered that I was running away with an additional handicap +to be added to all the others. Leaving the coal company and the city +without notice or explanation, I was making it impossible to keep my +record clear in the monthly report to the prison authorities. + +With a sinking heart I realized that I must wait and fight it out with +Mullins to some sort of a conclusion which would give me a clean slate. +There must be nothing that I could not explain clearly to any one who +might ask. I had a job, and I must be able to give my reason for +quitting it. With this new entanglement to put leaden shoes on my +feet, I retraced my steps through the eight weary blocks to the +boarding-house, dodging through back streets and walking because I +hadn't the nerve to face the cheerful throng of theater-goers at that +hour crowding the street-cars. + +I think Mullins knew or suspected what was coming when I went to him +the next morning and told him I wished to have a talk with him. +Without a word he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the little +private office which was used at odd times by the district manager. + +"I'm quitting this morning, Mr. Mullins," I began, when the door was +shut. "If my work has been satisfactory, I should like to have a +letter of recommendation." + +The bookkeeper smoked a corn-cob pipe, and he stopped to refill and +light it before he opened on me. + +"What's wrong?" he demanded. For an Irishman he was always exceedingly +sparing of his words. + +"Suppose we say that the climate doesn't agree with me here." + +"You're no sick man!" he shot back; and then: "Want more pay?" + +"No; I want a letter of recommendation." + +"We never give 'em." + +"So I have heard. But this time, Mr. Mullins, you are going to make an +exception and break your rule." + +"Not for you, we won't." + +"Why not for me?" + +"Because we're knowing your record. You're fixing to go back to the +pen, where you came from." + +"You knew my record when you hired me. Chief Callahan gave it to you, +and I knew that he did. But that is neither here nor there; I want my +letter, and I want you to say in it that I am leaving to look for a +more favorable climate." + +"And if I don't give it to you?--if I tell you to go straight plumb to +hell?" + +"In that case I shall take all the chances--_all_ of them, mind +you---and write a letter to the Interstate Commerce Commission." + +If the man had had a gun in his hands I believe he would have killed +me. There was manslaughter in his little gray, pig-like eyes. But he +recovered himself quickly. + +"If you're that kind of a gink, I'm damned glad to get rid of you at +any price," he rasped; and then went to the district manager's desk and +wrote me the letter, "To Whom it may Concern," practically as I +dictated it. + +That ended it, and when the letter was signed and flung across the desk +at me I lost no time in getting out of the noxious atmosphere of the +place. But before I was well out of the yard it occurred to me that I +had still left a loaded weapon in Mullins's hands. Though the threat +of exposure might tie him and his grafting coal company up, he could +still appeal to Callahan, who would doubtless find an excuse for +arresting me before I could leave town. And once in the hands of the +chief crook I should be lost. + +Under the spur of this new menace I returned quickly to the coal +office, with some inchoate idea of trying to bully the scoundrelly +chief of police through the hold I had acquired upon the coal company. +The office was empty when I reached it, and at first I thought Mullins +had gone out. But at a second glance I saw that he was in the +telephone closet, the door of which he had left ajar. Overhearing my +own name barked into the transmitter, I listened without scruple. + +"----Yes, Weyburn; that's what I'm telling you. He's flew the +coop. . . . Yes, he knows something--too damned much. . . . No, I +wouldn't snag him here; he might talk too loud and get somebody to +believe him--some fool in a Federal grand jury, for instance. Let him +go--with a plain-clothes man to find out where he heads for--and then +wire that outfit that piped him off when he came here. That'll settle +him." + +There may have been more of it, but I did not wait to hear. Speed was +my best chance now, and I slipped out noiselessly and ran for the +railroad station. If I should be lucky enough to find a train ready to +leave, I might yet hope to escape whatever trap it might be that the +bookkeeper and his official accomplice were going to set for me. + +Reaching the station I found that the first train through would be a +westbound, and that it was not due for half an hour. The wait was +painfully trying. I did not dare to buy a ticket for fear Callahan +might have telephoned the ticket office. As the passengers for the +expected train straggled in I sought vainly to identify the spy who was +undoubtedly among them; and when the train thundered up to the platform +I made haste to board it and to lose myself quickly in the crowded +smoking-car. Later, when the conductor made his round, I paid a cash +fare to the end of the division, forbearing to draw a full breath of +relief until the cesspool city had faded to a smoky blur on the horizon. + +With time to think, I began to puzzle anxiously over the new +development of mystery opened up by the overheard telephone talk. Who +or what was the "outfit" that had been meddling in my sorry +affair?--that was to be wired when my new destination should be +ascertained? One by one the suspicious circumstances remarshaled +themselves; the feeling that I had been spied upon, the speedy +publicity which my story had attained in the town where I had made my +earliest attempt at wage-earning, the memorandum which Chief Callahan +had consulted before sending me to the crooked coal company. It seemed +singular to me afterward that the one answer to all of these small +mysteries should not have suggested itself at once. But it did not. + +The end of the conductor's run--the point which I had paid fare--came +at midday at the capital of the State, where there was a stop long +enough to enable the train's people--or those who chose to evade the +dining-car--to seek a lunch counter. I went with the others and had a +frugal sandwich and a cup of coffee, hastening afterward to the station +ticket office to buy a ticket to a town well over toward the western +boundary of my prison State, and chosen haphazard from its location on +the wall-map beside the ticket window. A little later, upon resuming +my seat in the train, I had a small shock. Sitting just across the +aisle, and once more barricaded behind his hand-baggage and buried in a +newspaper, was the round-faced salesman who had been my traveling +companion on the day of my release from prison. + +Naturally, all the suspicions I had been harboring for the past few +hours leaped alive again at the sight of this man. But at the second +train stop in the westward flight they were promptly disconnected from +my _vis-a-vis_ across the aisle when the salesman gathered his +belongings and disappeared; left the train--as I made sure by looking +out of the window and seeing him cross the station platform. In the +short run from the capital he had not so much as looked in my +direction, emerging from his newspaper only once for a word with the +conductor at the moment of ticket-collecting. + +After he was gone I was able to smile grimly and call it a coincidence, +wondering meanwhile, if one of the consequences of my hideously +disarranged life was to be a lapse into chittering cowardice; an +endless starting aside at shadows. + +The new field of endeavor, chosen blindly at the ticket window in the +capital, proved to be a small manufacturing city. Here the chief of +police, to whom I reported on the evening of my arrival, was of a type +exactly opposite to the grafting brute from whose jurisdiction I had +fled; a promoted town-marshal, like John Runnels of Glendale; a +shrewd-eyed, kindly old man who heard my story patiently and gave me a +word of encouragement that was like a draft of cold water in the desert. + +"You're goin' to get a square deal in this town, my boy," he said, +after I had enlarged upon my story sufficiently to make it include my +late experience with Callahan and Mullins. "It ain't any part of my +job to bruise the broken reed n'r quench the smokin' flax. You don't +look like a thief, and, anyways, if you're tryin' to make an honest +livin', that settles all the old scores--or it ort to. Go find you a +job, if you can. What you've told me stays right in here"--tapping his +broad chest--"leastwise, it won't be used against you as long as you +walk straight." + +Under such kindly auspices it did seem as if I ought to be able to dig +a quiet little rifle-pit in the field of respectability and good repute +and to hold it against all comers. But, oddly enough, I couldn't do +it--not to save my life. My experience had all been in office work, +and since business was good in the small city, I had little difficulty +in finding employment. Yet in each case--and there were five of them, +one after another--I secured work only to lose it almost immediately. +By some means my story had got out, and it spread through the town like +an epidemic. After the fifth failure I went back to the fatherly old +chief of police to confess defeat and to notify him that I was leaving +town. + +In this interview he made me tell him more about my trial and +conviction, and when I finished he was shaking his head. "There's +something sort o' queer about this pull-down of yours, Weyburn," he +commented. "I gave you my word not to talk unless you went back on me, +and I've kept it. You hain't told anybody else?" + +"Not a soul." + +"Still, it's been told--not once, but a heap o' times. Have you tried +chasin' it back to its startin' point?" + +"Yes; but it is no good. It seems to be in the air." + +"Well, it's a dum shame. It looks as if you had somebody houndin' you +out o' sheer spite. Is there anybody back behind that would do that?" + +I suppose I was bat-blind; but the suggestion, even when it was added +to the mysterious entanglements that were tripping me at every step, +failed to open my eyes. Truly, Abel Geddis and Abner Withers had used +me ruthlessly as their criminal stop-gap, but since I had paid the +penalty and still bore the criminal odium, I could postulate no +possible reason why they should reach out across the three-year +interval to add cruel persecution to injury. + +"No," I said, after a reflective pause. "There are only the two old +men I have named. And now that it is all over, I can see that they +were only shoving me into the breach to save themselves." + +He nodded, half-doubtfully, I thought; and then: "You're goin' to try +again somewheres else?" + +I replied that there was nothing else to do; whereupon this +white-haired old angel, who seemed so vastly out of place as the head +of even a small city's police department, made an astounding proposal. + +"Get your bit of dunnage--I s'pose you hain't got very much, have +you?--and come around here about dark this evenin'. I'll have my buggy +ready and we'll drive over to Altamont, so you can take the train there +instead of here. If there's anybody follerin' you up and blacklistin' +you, maybe that'll throw 'em off the track." + +It was a splendid bit of kindness; and when I could swallow the lump it +brought into my throat I accepted joyfully. And as the disappearance +was planned, so it was carried out. In the dusk of the evening the +good old man drove me the ten miles across to the neighboring village, +and after thanking him out of a full heart I boarded a train and began +my wanderings afresh. + + + + +VI + +A Good Samaritan + +After such a disheartening experience in a community where I had had +the help and countenance of a just and charitable head of the police +department, I went back to the smaller places. Merely because it +seemed foolish to take the time to learn a new trade when I already had +one, I still sought office work. There was little difficulty in +finding such employment--at humble wages; the unattainable thing was +the keeping of it. Though I could never succeed in running it down and +bringing it to bay, a pitiless Nemesis seemed to dog me from town to +town. Gossiping marshals there may have been, now and then, to spread +my story; but I had twice been given proof that another agency must be +at work--a mysterious persecution that I could neither fight nor +outwit, nor account for upon any reasonable hypothesis. + +So the hopeless and one-sided battle went on as I fled from post to +pillar up and down and back and forth in the "permitted" area, doing a +bit of extra bookkeeping here and another there. The result was always +the same. Work of that kind necessarily carried more or less +responsibility, and in consequence I was never retained more than a few +days at a time. + +It was borne in upon me more and more that I must sink lower, into some +walk in life in which no questions were asked. This conviction +impressed itself upon me with greater emphasis at each succeeding +failure, and the decision to drop into the ranks of the unidentified +was finally reached in a small city in the agricultural section of the +State where I had been employed for a few days in a hardware and +implement store as shipping clerk. Once more I was discharged, +peremptorily, and with a reproachful reprimand for having thrust +myself, unplacarded, upon well-behaved people. + +"I don't admit your right to say such things to me, Mr. Haddon," I +protested, after the reproach had been well rubbed in. "I have given +you good service for small pay, and there was no reason why I should +have furnished you with an autobiography when you didn't ask it. In +the circumstances it seems that I am the one to be aggrieved, but I'll +waive the right to defend myself if you'll tell me where you got your +information." + +The implement dealer was a thin, ascetic person, with cold gray eyes +and two distinct sets of manners; one for his customers and another for +his employees; and the look he gave me was meant to be withering. + +"I don't recognize your right to question me, at all," he objected, +with the air of one who brushes an annoying insect from his +coat-sleeve. "It is enough to say that my source of information is +entirely reliable. By your own act you have placed yourself outside of +the pale. If you break a natural law, Nature exacts the just penalty. +It is the same in the moral field." + +"But if any penalty were due from me I have paid it," I retorted. + +"No; you have paid only a part of it--the law's part. Society still +has its claims and they must be met; recognized and satisfied to the +final jot and tittle." + +Though this man was a church member, and a rather prominent one in +Springville--we may call the small city Springville because that isn't +its real name--I did not accuse him, even mentally, of conscious +hypocrisy. What I said, upon leaving him, was that I hoped he'd never +have to pay any of the penalties himself. I did not know then--what I +learned later--that he was a very whited sepulchre; a man who was +growing rich by a systematic process of robbing his farmer customers on +time sales. + +Turned out once again upon an unsympathetic world, I was minded to do +what I had done so many times before--take the first train and vanish. +But a small incident delayed the vanishing--for the moment, at least. +On the way to the railroad station I saw a sight, commoner at that time +in my native State than it is now, I am glad to be able to say; a +young, farmer-looking fellow overcome by liquor, reeling and stumbling +and finding the sidewalk far too narrow. He was coming toward me, and +I yielded to the impulse which prompts most of us at such times; the +disposition to give the inebriate all the room he wants--to pass by, +like the priest and the Levite, on the other side. + +Just as I was stepping into the roadway, the drunken man collided +heavily with a telephone pole, caught clumsily at it to save himself, +and fell, striking his head on the curbstone and rolling into the +gutter. It was a case for the Good Samaritan, and, as it happened, +that time-honored personage was at hand. Before I could edge away, as +I confess I was trying to do, a clean-cut young man in the fatigue +uniform of the Church militant came striding across the street. + +"Here, you!" he snapped briskly to me. "Don't turn your back that way +on a man needing help! That fellow's hurt!" + +We got the pole-bombarder up, between us, and truly he was hurt. There +was a cut over one eye where he had butted into one of the +climbing-steps on the pole, and either that, or the knock on the +curbstone, had made him take the count. Since Springville wasn't +citified enough to have a hospital or an ambulance, I supposed we would +carry the wounded man to the nearest drug store. But my Good Samaritan +wasn't built that way. Hastily commandeering a passing dray, he made +me help him load the unconscious man into it, and the three of us were +trundled swiftly through a couple of cross streets to a--to a church, I +was going to say, but it was to a small house beside the church. + +Here, with the help of the driver, we got the John Barleycorn victim +into the house and spread him out on a clean white bed, muddy boots, +sodden clothes, bloody head and all. I asked if I should go for a +doctor, but the Samaritan shook his head. "No," he said; "you and I +can do all that is necessary." Then he paid the dray driver and we +fell to work. + +It was worth something to see that handsome, well-built young +theologue--it didn't seem as if he could have been more than a boy +freshly out of the seminary--strip off his coat and roll up his sleeves +and go to it like a veteran surgeon. In a few minutes, with such help +as I could render, he had the cut cleaned and bandaged, the red face +sponged off, and the worst of the street dirt brushed from the man's +clothing. + +"That is about all we can do--until he gets over the double effects of +the hurt and the whiskey," he said, when the job was finished; and +then, with a sort of search-warrant look at me: "Are you very busy?" + +I told him I was not. + +"All right; you stay here with him and keep an eye on him while I go +and find out who he is and where he belongs." And with that he put on +his coat and left the house. + +He was gone for over an hour, and during that time I sat by the bed, +keeping watch over the patient and letting my thoughts wander as they +would. Here was a little exhibition of a spirit which had been +conspicuously absent in my later experiences of the world and its +peopling. Apparently the milk of human kindness had not become +entirely a figure of speech. One man, at least, was trying to live up +to the requirements of a nominally Christian civilization, and if this +bit of rescue work were a fair sample, he was making a success of it. + +I took it for granted that he was the minister of the next-door church, +and that the house was its parsonage or rectory. It was a simple +story-and-a-half cottage, plainly furnished but exquisitely neat and +home-like. There were books everywhere, and an atmosphere about as +much of the place as I could see to make me decide that it was a man's +house--I mean that the young minister wasn't as yet sharing it with a +woman. You can tell pretty well. A woman's touch about a house +interior is as easily distinguishable as the stars on a clear night. + +From my place at the bedside I could look through an open door into the +sitting-room. There were easy-chairs and a writing-table and a general +air of man-comfort. Among the pictures on the walls was one of a +stately group of college buildings; another was a class picture taken +with a church, or perhaps it was the college chapel, for a background. + +When the hour was about up, the man on the bed began to stir and show +signs that he was coming out of the unconscious fit. Pretty soon he +opened his eyes and asked, in a liquor-thickened voice, where he was. +I told him he had had an accident and was in the hands of his friends; +and at that he dropped off to sleep, and was still sleeping when a farm +wagon stopped at the cottage gate and the Good Samaritan came in. His +search had been successful. Our broken-winged bird was a young farmer +living a few miles out of town. The young minister had found his team, +and a friend to drive it, and both friend and team were at the gate +ready to take the battered one home. + +With the help of the volunteer driver we got the young farmer up and +out and into the wagon; and there the Samaritan outreaching ended--or I +supposed it was ended. But as a matter of fact, it was merely +transferring itself to me. As I was moving off to resume my +interrupted dash for the railroad station, Whitley--I read his name on +the notice board of the near-by church--stopped me. + +"What's your hurry?" he asked; adding: "I haven't had time to get +acquainted with you yet." + +I answered briefly that I was leaving town, and this brought the +questioner's watch out of his pocket. + +"There is no train in either direction before nine o'clock this +evening," he demurred. And then: "It is nearly six now: if you haven't +anything better to do, why not stay and take dinner with me? I'm a +lone bachelor-man, and I'd be mighty glad of your company." + +The wagon had driven off and the street was empty. I looked my +potential host squarely in the eyes and said the first thing that came +uppermost. + +"I have just been discharged from Mr. Haddon's store--for what Mr. +Haddon considers to be good and sufficient cause. I don't believe you +want me at your dinner-table." + +His smile was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot summer day. + +"I don't care what Mr. Haddon has said or done to you. If you can't +give any better reason than that----" + +"But I can," I interposed. "I am a paroled convict." + +Without another word he opened the gate and drew me inside with an arm +linked in mine. And he didn't speak again until he had planted me in +the easiest of the big chairs before the grate fire in the cozy +sitting-room, and had found a couple of pipes, filling one for me and +the other for himself. + +"Now, then, tell me all about it," he commanded, "You are having plenty +of trouble; your face says that much. Begin back a bit and let it lead +up to Mr. Zadoc Haddon as a climax, if you wish." + +It had been so long since I had had a chance really to confide in +anybody that I unloaded it all; the whole bitter burden of it. Whitley +heard me through patiently, and when I was done, put his finger on the +single omission in the story. + +"You haven't told me whether you did or did not use the bank's money +for your own account in the mining speculation," he said. + +I shook my head. "I have learned by hard experience not to say much +about that part of it." + +"Why?" he asked. + +"If you knew convicts you wouldn't ask. They will all tell you that +they were innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced." + +He smoked in silence for a minute or two and then said: "You are not a +criminal, Weyburn." + +"I am not far from it at the present time--whatever I was in the +beginning." + +Another silence, and then: "It seems incredible to me that you, or any +man in your situation, should find the world so hard-hearted. It isn't +hard-hearted as a whole, you know; on the contrary, it is kind and +helpful and charitable to a degree that you'd never suspect until you +appeal to it. I know, because I am appealing to it every day." + +Again I shook my head. + +"It draws a line in its charity; and the ex-convict is on the wrong +side of that line." I was going on to say more, but at that moment a +white-haired old negro in a spotless serving jacket came to the door to +say that dinner was ready, and we went together to the tiny dining-room +in the rear. + +At dinner, which was the most appetizing meal I had sat down to in many +a long day, Whitley told me more about himself, sparing me, as I made +sure, the necessity of further talk about my own wretched experiences. +He was Southern born and bred--which accounted for the old negro +serving man--and Springville was his first parish north of the Ohio +River. He was enthusiastic over his work, and he seemed to forget +completely who and what I was as he talked of it. + +Later, when we had come again to the sitting-room with its cheerful +fire, we talked of books, finding common ground in the field of +autobiography and travel. Whitley's reading in this field had been +much wider than mine, and his knowledge of far countries and the men +who wrote about them was a revelation to such a dabbler as I had been. +Book after book was taken from the shelves and dipped into, and before +I realized it the evening--so different from any I had enjoyed for +months and years--had slipped away and the little clock on the mantel +was chiming the half-hour after eight. It was time for me to efface +myself, and I said so--a bit unsteadily, perhaps, for the pleasant +evening had been as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. + +"No," said Whitley, quite definitely. "You are not going to-night. I +have a spare bed upstairs and I want you to stay--as my guest. Beyond +that, you are not going to leave Springville merely because Mr. Haddon +has seen fit to deny you your little meed of justice and a fair show." + +"It's no use," I said. "The story is out, and it will follow me +wherever I go--doubtless with Mr. Haddon's help. You'd best let me go +while the going is easy." + +"No," he Insisted. "You are a part of my work--one of my reasons for +existence. Christianity means something, Weyburn, and I am here to +define its meaning in specific cases. There is a little legacy of +common justice due you, and I shall take it upon myself to see that you +get it. As for Zadoc Haddon, you needn't worry about him. I am +ashamed to say that he is a member of my own church, but that doesn't +prevent him from being a wolf in sheep's clothing. I have told him so +to his face, and he has tried to get me ousted--without success, so +far." + +I saw difficulties and more difficulties for this generous young fellow +who was so ready to champion my cause, and it seemed only decent to +spare him if I could. But at the end of my protest he summed the +situation up in a single sentence: + +"What you say about me is all beside the mark; somebody has got to give +you the chance you are needing, and the fight may just as well be made +here in Springville as anywhere. Sit down again and let's dig a little +deeper into that Mexican book of Enock's. I do like his blunt English +way of describing things; don't you?" + +Though the next three days were full of hopes and despairings for me I +shall pass over them lightly. Each day, though he did not tell me in +detail what he was doing, I knew that Whitley was trying his best to +find a place for me; and I knew, too, that he was meeting with no +success. He was such a fine, upstanding fellow, and so full of holy +zeal and enthusiasm, that it was hard for him to acknowledge defeat. +But on the third evening, after a dinner at which he had tried vainly +to bridge the gaps that were continually opening out in the talk, he +threw up his hands. + +"Weyburn," he began, when the pipes were lighted and he had poked the +grate fire into a roaring blaze, "don't you know, these last three days +have come mighty near to making me lose faith in my kind. It's simply +wretched--miserable!" + +"I would have saved you if you had been willing to let me," I reminded +him. + +"The question is much bigger than Bert Weyburn or John Whitley, or both +of them put together," he asserted soberly. "It involves the entire +fabric of Christianity, and our so-called Christian civilization. The +Church is here to shadow forth the spirit and teachings of Christ, or +it isn't--one of the two. If it falls in its mission it is a hollow +mockery; a thing beneath contempt. I go to my fellow Christians with a +simple plea for justice for a man who needs it, and what do I get? I +am told, with all the sickening variations, that it won't do; that the +thing I am proposing is one of the things that 'isn't done'; that +society must be protected, and all that!" + +"The mills of the gods," I suggested. + +"Nothing of the sort! It's a radical defect in the existing scheme of +things. Heavens and earth, Weyburn, you are not a pariah! Assuming +that you really did the thing for which you were punished--and I don't +believe you did--is that any reason why we should stultify ourselves +absolutely and deny the very first principles of the religion we +profess? But I mustn't be unfair. Perhaps the fault is partly mine, +after all. Perhaps I haven't done my duty by these people." + +"No; the fault is not yours," I hastened to say. + +"I'm hoping it is; some of it, at least. Just the same, the wretched +fact remains. You might be the biggest villain unhung--if only you +hadn't passed through the courts and the penitentiary. As you thought +probably was the case, your story is known all over town; though how it +has got such a wide publication in so short a time is more than I can +fathom. Men whom I would bank on; men to whom I have felt that I could +go in any conceivable extremity, have turned me down as soon as I +mentioned your name. The prison story is like a big, brutal, inanimate +mountain standing squarely in the way; and I--I haven't the faith +needful for its removal!" + +Being under the deepest obligation to this dear young fellow who was +bruising himself for me, I said what I could to lighten his burden. +But in the midst of it he got up and reached for his hat and overcoat. + +"I have just thought of something," he explained hastily; "something +that may throw a good bit of light on this thing. You sit right here +and toast your shins. I'm going out for a little while." + +He was gone for the better part of an hour, during which interval I +obeyed his injunction literally, sitting before the fire and basking in +its home-like warmth; making the most of the comfort of it all before I +should again go forth to face an inclement world. When Whitley came in +and flung himself into a chair on the opposite side of the hearth his +dark eyes were blazing. + +"Weyburn," he began abruptly, "what I have to tell you will stir every +evil passion you've ever harbored; and yet, in decent justice to you, +it must be told. Have you ever suspected that your fight for +reinstatement has been deliberately handicapped, right from the +beginning?" + +"I have suspected it at times; yes," I returned. "But there is no +proof." + +"There _is_ proof," he shot back. "By the merest chance I stumbled +upon it a few minutes ago. I went out with the intention of going to +Zadoc Haddon and making him tell me where he got the information that +you are the desperate criminal he professes to believe you to be. +While we were sitting here it struck me all at once that this thing was +being helped along by some one who had an object in view. At Haddon's +house the doorman told me that Haddon had an appointment with an +out-of-town customer and had gone to the hotel to keep it; and rather +than wait, I went over to the Hamilton House to try to find my man. I +didn't find him; but in the lobby of the hotel somebody found me. As I +was turning away from the desk after asking for Haddon, a heavy-set +young man, neatly dressed, stepped up and asked if my name was Whitley. +I admitted it. Then he asked if I would give him a few minutes, and we +went aside to sit facing each other in a couple of the lobby chairs. +Weyburn, that young man is in the employ of a private detective agency, +and what he wished to do, and did do, was to warn me that I was +sheltering a dangerous criminal in my house!" + +In a flash all the small mysteries that had been befogging me for +months made themselves transparently clear: the man I had called a +traveling salesman who had followed me from the prison gates to the +scene of my first humble effort; the memorandum Chief Callahan had +consulted; the "outfit" that was to be notified when my next +destination was known; the second appearance of the "salesman" on the +train at the capital, and his disappearance when he had learned from +the conductor the name of my next stopping-place; and after this the +long series of hitherto unaccountable blacklistings. My mouth was dry, +but I contrived to tell Whitley to go on. + +"I will," he conceded; "but you must promise me to control yourself. +Naturally, my first impulse, when this scamp began on me, was to cut +him off short and tell him what I thought of the despicable business to +which he was lending himself. But the second thought was craftier, and +I hope I may be forgiven for yielding to it. By leading him on I got +the entire brutal story. It seems that the two old men upon whose +complaint you were indicted knew when you were to be paroled. They +profess to believe that you are a menace to society; that the prison +authorities were at fault in releasing you short of the limit of your +sentence. Hence, through his employers, they have set this man upon +your track to see to it--I use his own words--that you do not have an +opportunity to rob some one else." + +I suppose I should have been driven mad with vindictive fury at this +plain revelation of the true cause of most of my misfortunes, but there +is a point beyond which the beaten man cannot rise to renew the fight, +and I had reached and passed it. Wherefore I found myself saying, +quite calmly: + +"Neither Abel Geddis nor Abner Withers would spend one copper penny for +any such altruistic reason as this man has given you, Whitley. Their +motive is strictly selfish and personal. They are either afraid that I +may go back to Glendale and try to expose them; or that I may take the +shorter and surer way of balancing the account by killing them--as, at +one time, I meant to." + +"Oh, but my dear fellow!" Whitley protested. "In that case they would +hardly take a course which was calculated to drive you to desperation!" + +"You don't understand it all," I rejoined. "Everything has been done +secretly, and it is only by the merest chance that I have now learned +the truth. This man you have been talking to has been following me, or +keeping track of me, ever since I left the penitentiary. I have seen +him twice, and I took him to be a traveling salesman--as he doubtless +intended I should. You can see how it was designed to work out. With +a sufficient amount of discouragement it was reasonable to assume that +the prison bird would finally yield to the inevitable; become a +criminal in fact and get himself locked up again out of harm's way." + +"You think that was the motive?" + +"I am as certain of it as I should be if I could read the minds of +those two old plotters in my home town. You see, I've summered and +wintered them. The only thing I can't understand is why I have been so +blind; why I didn't assume all this long ago and act accordingly." + +"But why, _why_ should they be so utterly lost to every sense of right +and justice; to all the promptings of common humanity? It's hideously +incredible!" + +"I have given you two reasons, and you may take your choice. It is +either the fear of death--the fear of the vengeance of a man whose life +they have ruined, or else the transaction in which they involved me, +and in which they made me their scapegoat, was more far-reaching than +I, or anybody in Glendale, supposed it was." + +Whitley sat for a full minute staring absently into the fire. Then he +said, very gently: "Now that you know the truth, what will you do?" + +"I know well enough what I ought to do. We may pass over the fellow at +the Hamilton House; he is only a poor tool in the hands of the master +workmen. I bear him no malice of the blood-letting sort. But really, +Whitley, I ought to go back to Glendale and rid the earth of those two +old villains who have earned their blotting-out." + +Again there was a pause, and then: "Well, why don't you do it?" + +I laughed rather bitterly. + +"Because all the fight has been taken out of me, Whitley. That is the +reason and the only reason." + +His smile was beatific. "No, it isn't," he denied. "You know you +couldn't do it; you couldn't bring yourself to do it. Maybe, in the +heat of passion . . . but to go deliberately: no, Weyburn; if you think +you could do such a thing as that, I can tell you that I know you +better than you know yourself." + +"I merely said that that was what I ought to do. I know well enough +that I shan't do it, but the reason is far beneath that which you are +good enough to hint at. I'm a broken man, Whitley; what I have gone +through in the past few months has smashed my nerve. You can't +understand that--I don't expect you to. But if I should meet those two +old men when I leave this house, I should probably run away from them +and try to hide." + +"But what _will_ you do?" he queried. + +"What can I do, more than I've been doing?" + +Again a silence intervened. + +"I wish I knew how to advise you," Whitley said at length. "If there +were only some way in which you might shake off this wretched hired +spy!" + +"I can't. If I dodge him, he has only to wait until I report myself +again to the prison authorities. The one thing I can do is to relieve +you of my threatening presence, and I'll do that now--to-night, while +the going is good." + +He was at the end of his resources, as I knew he must be, and he made +no objections. But at train-time he got up and put on his overcoat to +accompany me as far as the station. It was a rough night outside, and +I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn't have it that way. "No," he +said; "it's my privilege to speed the parting guest, if I can do no +more than that," and so we breasted the spitting snow-storm which was +sweeping the empty streets, tramping in silence until we reached the +shelter of the train-shed. + +It was after the train had whistled for the crossing below the town +that Whitley asked me again what I intended doing. I answered him +frankly because it was his due. + +"It has come down to one of two things: day-labor, in a field where a +man is merely a number on the pay-roll--or that other road which is +always open to the prison-bird." + +He put his hand on my shoulder. "You are not going to take the other +road, Weyburn," he said gravely. + +"I hope not--I hope I shan't be driven to." + +"You mustn't make it conditional. I know you are not a criminal; you +were not a criminal when you were convicted. You can't afford to begin +to be one now." + +"Neither can I afford to starve," I interposed. "Other men live by +their wits, and so can I, if I'm driven to it. But I'll play fair with +you, Whitley. So long as I can keep body and soul together, with a +pick and shovel, or any other implement that comes to hand, I'll stick. +I owe you that much, if only for the reason that you are--with the +single exception of an old police chief who lives at the other edge of +the State--the one really human being I've met since I shook hands with +the warden." + +The train was in and the conductor was waving his lantern. Whitley +grasped my hand and wrung it. "Be a man, and God bless you!" he said +in low tones. "And when the pinch comes again and you are tempted to +the limit, just remember that there is a fellow back here in +Springville who believes in you, and who will limp a little all the +rest of his days if you stumble and fall and refuse to get up. +Good-night and good-by!" + + + + +VII + +The Plunge + +By the train which bore me away from Springville I went only far enough +to put me safely beyond the possibility of stumbling upon any of the +places where I had hitherto sought work; though as to that, I had +little hope of escaping the relentless blacklister who had been set +upon me. + +About midnight I had a talk with the flagman in the smoking-car, +calling myself a laborer looking for a job and asking about the +prospects in the region through which we were passing. I was told that +there were swamp lands in the next county, and that the contractors who +were installing systems of under-draining had been advertising for men. + +Accordingly, the next morning found me in the new field, with one set +of difficulties outpaced for the moment only to make room for another. +The first man I tackled was the foreman of a ditching crew, and he +looked me over with a cold and contemptuous eye. + +"Show yer hands!" he rasped, and when I held them out, palms upward: +"On yer way, Misther Counter-hopper; 'tis wor-rkin'min we're hirin' +here this day--not anny lily-fingered dudes!" + +So it was, in a disheartening number of instances; on a railroad +grading force in an adjoining county, on city buildings where I asked +to be taken as an unskilled helper, with a sewer contractor in another +city, as a shoveler in a village brick-yard. Finally I landed a job as +a stacker in a lumberyard; and now I found another of the day-laborer +difficulties lying in wait for me. At the time of my commitment for +trial I was in good physical condition. But the three years in prison +had made me soft and flabby, a handicap which liberty--with a string +tied to it--had done little to remove; and four hard days of the +stacking, in which two of us were handling two-by-ten eighteen-foot +joists to the top of a pile twelve feet high, finished me. + +The boss grinned understandingly when he gave me my time-check for the +four days. + +"I thought you wouldn't last very long at the stacking," he commented; +"that's a man's job." Then: "Got any head for figures?" + +I faced him fairly. "I can't take a job of that kind." + +"Why can't you?" + +He got the reason in a single sentence. + +"Paroled man, hey? What was you in for?" + +I named the charge, and did not add that it was an unjust one. I had +pleaded the miscarriage of justice so many times, only to be called a +liar, that it seemed useless to try to explain. + +"Robbed a bank, did you? Well, I don't know as I think any worse of +you for spittin' it right out. Tryin' to brace up?" + +"I'm trying to earn an honest living." + +"And havin' a mighty hard time of it, I reckon--'r you wouldn't be +makin' a push at stackin' lumber with them blistered hands. Say, boy; +I sort o' like your looks, and I'm goin' to give you a boost. They're +needin' a log-scaler in the sawmill. If you know figures, you can +catch on in half a day. Chase your feet down to the mill foreman and +tell him I sent you." + +I went gladly enough, secured the new job, learned how to do it +acceptably, and was temerariously happy and light-hearted for two whole +weeks. Then my Nemesis found me again. In the third week I chanced to +get a glimpse of a short, heavy-set man talking to a bunch of my fellow +laborers. Before I could cross the mill yard to identify the stranger +he turned and walked quickly away; but the sixth sense of apprehension +which develops so surely and quickly in the ex-convict told me that the +heavy-set man was Abel Geddis's hired blacklister, and that I was once +more on the toboggan slide. + +Pay-day came at the end of the week, and when the envelopes had been +given out the mill foreman took me aside. + +"I'm sorry, Weyburn," he began curtly, "but I'm afraid you'll have to +be moving on. Personally, I don't care, one way or the other, what +you've been or where you hall from. You do your work well, and that's +all I ask of any man. But your story has got out among the hands, and +that settles it. They won't work with a convict." + +When I took the long road again after this latest rebuff I knew that +the fine resolution with which I had left the prison five months +earlier was breaking down. The relentless pressure was doing its work, +and I began to ask myself how long I could hold out as a law-abiding +citizen and a victim of injustice against the belief of the world that +I was neither. + +The five months' wanderings had carried me the length and breadth of +the State, and I had avoided only the large cities and my home +neighborhood. But with the lumber company's money in my pocket I +boarded a train for the State metropolis. At the end of the experiment +I was doing what the released criminal usually does at the +outset--seeking an opportunity to lose myself in the crowd. + +Jobs were notably harder to find in the great city, though police +headquarters, where I reported myself, placed no obstacles in my way so +far as I know; took no note of me in any fashion, as I was afterward +led to believe. That the hired traducer would follow and find me I +made no doubt; but by this time I was becoming so inured to this +peculiar hardship that I refused to cross bridges until I came to them, +and was at times even able to forget, in the discouragements of other +hardships, that I was a marked man. + +In the search for means to keep body and soul together it was easy to +forget. Day labor offered only now and then, and in my increasing +physical unfitness I could not hold my own against the trained muscles +of seasoned roustabouts, porters and freight-handlers. Worse still, +the physical deterrent grew by what it fed upon--or by the lack of +feeding. Part of the time I couldn't get enough to eat; and there were +cold and blustering nights when I had not the few cents which would +have given me a bed in a cheap lodging-house. + +It was in this deepest abyss in the valley of disheartenment that I met +a former prison-mate named Kellow; a forger whose time of release from +the penitentiary coincided nearly with my own. The meeting was wholly +by chance. I was crossing one of the city bridges at night, pointing +for one of the river warehouses where I hoped to find a tramp's lodging +and shelter from the bitter wind, when I walked blindly into a man +coming in the opposite direction. The recognition was instant and +mutual. + +Like myself, Kellow had been a "trusty," and under certain relaxations +of the rule of silence in the prison we had talked and an acquaintance +of a sort had slowly grown and ripened. In this intimacy, which I had +striven to hold at arm's length, I had come to know the forger as a +criminal of the most dangerous breed; a man of parts and of some +education, but wholly lacking in the moral sense; a rule-keeper in +prison only because he was shrewd enough to appreciate the fact that he +was bringing the day of release nearer by piling up "good-conduct" time. + +"Well, pinch me! Look who's here!" was his greeting when we met on the +bridge. + +For a silent moment it was I who did the looking. Kellow had grown a +pair of curling black mustaches since his release; he was well-dressed, +erect and alert, and was smoking a cigar the fragrance of which made me +sick and faint with an attack of the long-denied tobacco hunger. + +"You're out, too, are you?" I managed to say at last, shivering in the +cold blast which came sweeping up the river. + +"Three months, and then some," he returned jauntily. "I'm collecting a +little on the old debt now, and doing fairly well at it, thank you." + +"The old debt?" I queried. + +"Yep; the one that the little old round world owes every man: three +squares, a tailor, a bed and a pocket-roll." + +"You look as if you had acquired all four," I agreed, setting my jaw to +keep my teeth from chattering. + +"Sure I have; and you look as if you hadn't," he countered. And then: +"What's the matter? Just plain hard luck? Or is it the parole scare?" + +"Both," I admitted. + +He shot me a quick look. + +"I can put you onto a dead sure thing, if you're game for it. Let's +hunt us a warm place and chew it over." + +The place was the back room of an all-night saloon in the slum quarter +beyond the bridge. It was warm, stiflingly warm and close, after the +outdoor blast and chill, and it reeked like a sty. Kellow kicked out a +chair for me and drew up one for himself on the opposite side of the +small round card-table over which a single gas-jet hissed and sizzled, +lighting the tiny box of a place with a sickly yellow glare. + +"What'll it be?" he asked, when the waiter came in. + +"A piece of bread and meat from the lunch counter, if you don't mind," +I said; and then, in an apology for which I instantly despised myself: +"Liquor doesn't agree with me lately; it--it would gag me." + +Kellow ordered whiskey for himself, and after the waiter was gone he +stared at me contemptuously. + +"So it's come to that, has it?" he derided. "You're so damned hungry +you're afraid to put a drop of bug-juice under your belt. You're a +fool, Weyburn. I know what you've been doing, just as well as if you'd +told me the whole story. Also, I'll believe now what I didn't believe +while we were in 'stir'; you were pinched for something you didn't do." + +"Well?" I said, neither affirming nor denying. The free lunch had come +and I was falling upon it like a famished wolf. I hadn't a penny in my +pockets, and the bread and meat stood for breakfast, dinner and supper +combined. + +Kellow swallowed his whiskey at a gulp and stood the empty glass bottom +upward on the table. + +"Been trying the honest lay, I suppose--handing in your name and number +wherever you went?" he suggested. + +I nodded, adding that there was nothing else to be done, as I saw it. + +He laughed scornfully. "A minute ago I said you were a fool, but +you're worse than that--you're an infant! Why, good hell, Weyburn, +there are a dozen ways to beat the parole game! Look at me: I'm here, +ain't I? And the warden knows all about it, does he? Not on your +life! Every four weeks he gets a letter from me telling him what a +fine time I'm having on Dad's farm down in Wayne, and how I'm all to +the good and thanking him every day for all he did for me. What?" + +"Somebody mails those letters for you in Wayne?" I asked. + +"Sure! And a little split for the marshal in the nearest town does the +rest. Bimeby, when I've collected enough of the debt I spoke of, I'll +shake the dust and disappear." + +"They'll find you and bring you back." + +"Not without a fine-tooth comb, they won't. This old world is plenty +good and wide when you learn how to use it." + +"I suppose I haven't learned yet; and I don't want to learn--in your +way, Kellow." + +Again he gave me the sneering laugh. + +"You may as well begin, and have it over with. It's all the same to +you, now, whether you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you +can live square and live the prison-smell down, but you can't. It'll +stick to you like your skin. Wherever you go, you'll be a marked man." + +Though I had devoured the bar hand-out to the final crumb, I was still +half-famished; and hunger is but a poor ally in any battle. What he +was saying was truth of the truth, so far as the blunt facts were +concerned. Every failure I had made in the six weary months confirmed +it. There was little room in the world of the well-behaved for the man +who was honest enough--or foolish enough--to confess himself an +ex-convict; less still for a man who had been made the object of a +persecuting conspiracy. None the less, I had resolution, or obstinacy, +enough to say: + +"I don't believe it." + +"That's what makes me say you're a fool!" he snapped back. "You've got +the name, and you may as well have the game. The world is dead easy, +if you take it on its blind side; easy living, easy money. Listen, +Weyburn, and I'll show you how you can climb into the bandwagon." + +I listened because I could not well help it, being the man's wretched +beneficiary, in a sense. As he talked I felt the ground of good +resolutions slipping from beneath my feet. He was staging the old and +time-honored swindle--the gold-brick game--and he needed a confederate. +The fish was almost as good as landed, and with a little coaching I +could step in and clinch the robbery. Kellow proposed to stake me for +the clothes and the needful stage properties; and my knowledge of +banking and finance, limited as it was, would do the rest. It was a +cinch, he averred, and when it was pulled off we could divide the +spoils and vanish. + +It was hardly a temptation. That word calls up a mental picture of +stern virtues assailed on every side and standing like a rock in a +storm. But, stripped of their poetic glamor, the virtues--and the +vices, for that matter,--are purely human; they can rise no higher or +sink no lower than the flesh-and-blood medium through which they find +their expression. The six months of hardship and humiliation which had +brought me to a pass at which I could eat a saloon luncheon at the +expense of a thief were pushing me over the brink. Kellow sat back in +his chair, smoking quietly, but I could feel his black eyes boring into +my brain. When he judged that the time was fully ripe, he drew a fat +roll of bank-notes from his pocket, stripped ten ten-dollar bills from +it and tossed them across the table to me. + +"There's the stake, and here's the lay," said he, tersely. "Your +name's Smollett; you've struck it rich, and you're on your way home to +New York, we'll say, from your mine in Colorado. You're stopping at +the Marlborough, and we'll run across you accidentally--I and the +come-on--to-morrow forenoon in the hotel lobby. Get that?" + +"I hear what you are saying." + +"All right. Now for the preliminaries. Any all-night pawnbroker can +fit you out with a couple of grips and some clothes that will let you +dress the part--or at least let you into the hotel. Then, to-morrow +morning bright and early you can hit the ready-made tailors and blossom +out right as the honest miner spending some of his money for the glad +rags. I'm at the Marlborough myself--J. T. Jewett, Room 706--but, of +course, I won't know you; you'll just butt in as a stranger to both of +us. When we get together I'll give you the cues as we go along." + +During all this talk the hundred dollars had lain on the table between +us. It didn't look like money to me; it stood for food and decent +clothing and a bath--but chiefly for food. Slowly I took it up and +fingered it, almost reverently, straightening out the crumpled corners +of the bills and smoothing them down. . . . + +I scarcely know how I got away from Kellow, nor do I know why he chose +to stay on there in the back room of that miserable doggery, drinking +whiskey sours alone and smoking his high-priced cigars. But I do know +that I was up against the fight of my life when I went out to face the +bitter night wind in the streets. + +It was a singular thing that helped me to win the fight, temporarily, +at least. By all accounts it ought to have been those three +heart-warming days spent with Whitley a month earlier, and his farewell +words of helpfulness and cheer spoken as I was boarding the outgoing +train at the Springville station. But though Whitley's sturdy faith in +me came to do its part, it was another and much longer leap of memory +that made me hesitate and draw back; a flash carrying me back to my +school-days in Glendale . . . to a certain afternoon when a plain-faced +little girl, the daughter of our physics and chemistry teacher, had +told me, with her brown eyes ablaze, what she thought of dishonesty in +general, and in particular of the dishonesty of a boy in her class who +was lying and stealing his way past his examinations. + +I don't know to this day why I should have recalled Polly Everton and +her flaming little diatribe against thievery and hypocrisy at that +desperate moment. She, and her quiet college-professor father who had +seemed so out of place teaching in a Glendale school, had dropped out +of my life years before. But the fact remained, and at the memory, +Kellow's bribe, gripped pocket-deep in my hand, burnt me like a coal of +fire. With a gasp I realized that I was over the brink at last, +stumbling and falling into the pit which has no bottom. With a single +dollar of the thief's money spent and gone beyond recall, I should be +lost. + +With that memory of little Polly Everton to drive me, I went doggedly +back to the riverside slum and sought for Kellow where I had left him. +He was gone, but the newly aroused resolution, the outworn swimmer's +stubborn steeling of the nerves and muscles to make one more stroke +before he drowns, persisted. Footsore and half-frozen, I tramped the +dozen squares to the great hotel in the business district. The night +clerk sized me up for precisely what I was, listening with only half an +ear to my stammering question. But he deigned to answer it, +nevertheless. Yes; Mr. Jewett was the gentleman who had Number 706, +but he was not in. His key was still in the box. + +There were writing-desks in the lobby, a number of them, and I went to +the first that offered. Some guest had left a few sheets of the hotel +paper and an envelope. Without a written word to go with it, I slipped +the unbroken bribe into the envelope, sealed the flap hurriedly and +went back to the clerk. + +"Put this in Mr. Jewett's key-box, if you please," I requested; and +when I had seen the thing done, and had verified the number of the box +with my own eyes, I headed once more for the inhospitable streets. + +It was on the icy sidewalk, directly in front of the revolving doors of +the big hotel, that my miracle was wrought. While I hesitated, not +knowing which way to turn for shelter for the remainder of the night, a +cab drove up and a man, muffled to the ears in a fur-lined overcoat, +got out. He was apparently an arrival from one of the night trains; +while he was slamming the cab door a bell-hop from the Marlborough +skated across the sidewalk, snatched a couple of grips from the front +seat of the cab and disappeared with them. + +Humped and shivering, I was almost at the traveler's elbow when he +turned and felt in his pockets for the money to pay the cab driver. I +was so busy envying him the possession of that warm, fur-lined coat +that I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing, but it was +evident that he had forgotten in which pocket he carried his change, +since he was feeling first in one and then in another. + +Suddenly my heart skipped a beat and then fell to hammering a fierce +tattoo as a gust of the highwayman's madness swept over me. The man +had taken out a huge pocket roll of bank-notes and was running the +bills over to see if there were one small enough to serve the +cab-paying purpose. Obviously there was not, and with a grunt of +impatience he searched again, this time unearthing a handful of silver. +Dropping the proper coin into the cabman's outstretched hand, he turned +and disappeared through the revolving doors, and at the same instant +the cabby whipped up his horse and drove away. Then I saw it lying +almost at my feet; a small black pocketbook which the traveler had let +fall in his fumbling search for change. + +Judged by any code of ethics--my own, for that matter--what followed +was entirely indefensible. The grab for the treasure, its swift +hiding, the breathless dash into the shadows of the nearest cross +street; all these named me for what I was at the moment--a +half-starved, half-frozen, despair-hounded thief. When I had made sure +that there was no policeman in sight I examined my prize by the light +of a crossing electric. The black pocketbook contained sixty-three +dollars in bills and a single half-dollar in silver. And a hasty +search revealed nothing by which the loser could be identified; there +were no papers, no cards, nothing but the money. + +Though a desperate disregard for anything like property rights had +prompted the sudden snatch and the thief-like dash for cover, I am glad +to be able to say that common honesty, or some shadowy simulacrum of +it, revived presently and sent me back to the hotel, though not without +terrible foot-draggings, you may be sure. And as I went, many-tongued +temptation clamored riotously for a hearing: the man had so much--he +would never miss this carelessly spilt driblet; I had no means of +identifying him, and with the fur-lined coat removed I should probably +fail to recognize him; if I should try to describe him, the hotel +clerk, he of the detached and superior manner, would doubtless take the +pocketbook in charge and that would be the last I should ever hear of +it. + +Giving these arguments their just weight, I hope I may take some small +credit for the perseverance which finally drove me through the swinging +doors and up to the clerk's counter. For the second time that night I +sought speech with the bediamonded chief lackey, and got it grudgingly. +No; no one had registered within the past few minutes, and no man +answering my exceedingly incomplete description had presented himself +at the counter. Conscious that I must do, there and then, all that +ever could be done, I persisted. + +"The gentleman I speak of came in a cab and he had two hand-bags; they +were brought in by one of the bell-boys," I said, thinking that this +might afford the clue. + +The clerk looked afar over my head. "Some guest who already has his +room and had gone to fetch his grips." Then, with the contemptuous +lip-curl that I had encountered too often not to recognize it at sight: +"Who are you, anyway?--a plain-clothes man looking for crooks? You'll +not find them in the Marlborough. We don't keep that kind of a house." + +I turned away, gripping the precious treasure-trove in my pocket. For +a full half-year I had kept faith with the prison authorities and the +law, living the life of a hunted animal and coming at last to the +choice between starvation and a deliberate plunge into the underworld. +Through it all I had obeyed the requirements of my parole in letter and +in spirit. But now---- + +The black pocketbook was warm in my hand. It was mine, if not by the +finder's right, at least by the right of possession, and it contained +the price of freedom. Before I had reached the corner, of the first +street my determination was taken, and there had been but one instant +of hesitation. This had come in a frenzied burst of red rage when I +remembered that, when all was said, I owed this last downward step, as +well as all that had gone before, to two old men who . . . I stopped +short in my shuffling race to the railroad station. I had money; +enough to take me to Glendale--and far beyond when the deed should be +done. Years before I had sworn to kill them, and since that time they +had doubly earned their blotting-out. + +I don't know to this day whether it was some remaining shreds of the +conventional conscience, or a broken man's inability to screw +retaliatory determination to the murder point, that sent me onward to +the westbound station and framed my reply to the ticket agent's curt +question, "Where to?" when I thrust my money through his wicket. Be +that as it may, a short half-hour later I had boarded a through +westbound train and was crouching in the corner of a seat in the +overheated smoking-car with a ticket to Denver in my pocket. Though I +was not on my way to commit a double murder, I was none the less an +outlaw. I had broken my parole. + + + + +VIII + +Westward + +A sleety rain was retarding the March dawn and obscuring the Middle +Western farmstead landscape when the lights were turned off in the +through-train smoking-car. A glance at the railroad time-table which +had been given me with my ticket proved that the train was well past +the boundaries of my home State, and suddenly the vile atmosphere of +the crowded, night-fouled car seemed shot through with the life-giving +ozone of freedom. + +Before long, however, the reaction set in. True, I was free at last, +but it was the freedom only of the escaped convict--of the fugitive. +To be recaptured now would mean a return to prison and the serving out +of the remainder of the full five-year term, with an added penalty for +the broken parole. I knew well the critical watchfulness with which +the workings of the new law were regarded. The indeterminate sentence +itself was on trial, and the prison authorities and others interested +were resolved that the trial should be fair and impartial. Therefore I +might count confidently upon pursuit. + +At first there seemed little likelihood that my midnight flight could +be traced. In the great city I had left behind I had been only an +uncounted unit in a submerged minority. It was doubtful if any one +besides Kellow and the keeper of the police records would know or +remember my name. There had been many travelers to board the through +train with me, and surely one might consider himself safely lost in +such a throng, if only by reason of the unit inconsequence. + +But now I was to be brought face to face with a peril which constantly +besets the fugitive of any sort in an age of rapid and easy travel. +Under such conditions the smallness of the modern world has passed into +a hackneyed proverb. I had scarcely rubbed the sleep out of my eyes +and straightened up in the car seat which had served for a bed when +some one came down the aisle, a hand was clapped on my shoulder, and a +cheery voice said: + +"Well, I'll be dog-daddled! Bert Weyburn--of all the people in the +world!" + +There was murder in my heart when I looked up and recognized a Glendale +man whom I had known practically all my life; a rattle-brained young +fellow named Barton, who had tried a dozen different occupations after +leaving school, and had, at my last account of him, become a traveling +salesman for our single large factory--a wagon-making company. + +Under the existing conditions Barton was easily the last man on earth +whom I should have chosen out of a worldful of men for a traveling +companion; but before I could do more than nod a surly response to his +greeting he had slipped into the empty half of the seat and was +offering me a cigar. + +At first our talk was awkwardly constrained, as it was bound to be with +one party to it wishing fervently that the other were at the bottom of +the sea. But Horace Barton was much too good-natured, and too +loquacious, to let the constraint remain as a barrier. Working around +by degrees to the _status quo_--my _status quo_--he finally broke the +ice in the pond of the intimate personalities--as I knew he would. + +"I'm mighty glad to see you out, and alive and well, Bert," was the way +in which he brushed aside the awkwardnesses. "You've had pretty tough +lines, I know; but that's no reason why you should be grouchy with me. +I'm not letting it make any difference, am I?" + +"Not here on the train," I conceded, sourly. + +"No; and, by George, I wouldn't let it at home, either! I'll bet +you've got a few friends left in Glendale, right now, and you've had +'em all along. Been back there since you--since--er----" + +I shook my head, and he went on as if he were afraid that a stop might +prove fatal to another start. + +"It sure isn't any of my butt-in, but I don't believe you ought to +dodge the home town, Bert. There are a lot of good people there, and +if I were in your fix, I believe I'd want to go and bully it out right +where it happened. You've bought your little chunk of experience and +paid for it, and now you're a free man just like the rest of us. You +want to buck up, and tell them that don't like it to go straight plumb +to the dickens." + +There was ample reason why he should take this tone with me if he felt +like it. I looked like a derelict and was acting like one. Moreover, +I was tormented to the verge of madness by the fear that the conductor +might come along on a ticket-punching tour, and that by this means +Barton would learn my ultimate destination--which would be equivalent, +I fancied, to publishing it in the Glendale _Daily Courier_. + +"Cut it out!" I said gruffly. "If Glendale were the last place in the +universe, I wouldn't go back there." + +He dropped the argument with perfect good-humor, and even made apology. +"I take it all back; it's none of my business. Of course, you know +best what you want to do. You're a free man, as I say, and can go +where you please." + +His repetition of this "free man" phrase suddenly opened my eyes. He +had forgotten, as doubtless a good many others had, all about the +indeterminate sentence and its terms, if, indeed, he--and the +others--had ever known anything about its conditions. It was not to be +wondered at. Three years and a half will ordinarily blot the best of +us out of remembrance--at least as to details. + +It was at this point that I twisted the talk by thrusting in a question +of my own. + +"No; I haven't been in Glendale right lately--been out on the road for +a couple of weeks," was Barton's answer to the question. "We've +widened the old wagon-shop out some few lines since you knew us, and +I've been making a round of the agencies. I was in the big city last +night and got a wire to go to St. Louis. The wire got balled up +somewhere, and I didn't get it until late at night. Made me hustle, +too. I'd been out of the city for the day and didn't get back to the +Marlborough until nearly midnight." + +This bit of detail made no impression upon me at the moment because I +was too busy with the thoughts suggested by the fact that I might have +Barton with me all day. Returning to Glendale at the end of his round, +he would be sure to talk, and in due time the prison authorities would +learn that I had been last seen in St. Louis. This accidental meeting +with Barton figured as a crude misfortune, but I saw no way to mitigate +it. + +About this time came the first call for breakfast in the dining-car, +and I hoped this would relieve me of Barton's presence, for a while, at +any rate. But I was reckoning altogether without my host. + +"Breakfast, eh?--that fits me all the way down to the ground," was his +welcoming of the waiter's sing-song call. "Come along, old man, and +we'll go eat a few things. This is on me." + +I tried to refuse. Apart from a frantic desire to be quit of him, I +was in no condition to present myself in the dining-car. I showed him +my grimy hands, and at that he made me forgive him in advance for all +the harm he might eventually do me. + +"That's perfectly all right," he laughed. "Fellow can't help getting +that way on the road. My sleeper is the first one back, and the +dining-car's coupled on behind. You come along into the Pullman with +me and wash up. I've got a bunch of clean collars and a shirt, if you +want them; and if the Pullman man makes a roar I'll tell him you're my +long-lost brother and give him the best ten-cent cigar he ever +smoked--I get 'em at a discount from a fellow who makes a little on the +side by selling his samples." And when I still hung back--"Don't be an +ass, Bertie. This old world isn't half as mean as you'd like to think +it is." + +I yielded, weakly, I was going to say; yet perhaps it wasn't altogether +weakness. For the first time since leaving the penitentiary I was +meeting a man from home; a man who knew, and apparently didn't care. I +went to the Pullman with Barton and was lucky enough to meet the +ticket-punching train conductor on the way. Barton was a step or two +ahead of me and he did not see my ticket. In consequence, the Colorado +destination was still my own secret. + +In the Pullman wash-room Barton stood by me like a man, fetching his +own clean linen and tipping the porter to make him turn his back while +I had a wash and a shave and a change. One who has always marched in +the ranks of the well-groomed may never realize the importance of soap +and water in a civilized world. As a moral stimulus, the combination +yields nothing to all the Uplift Foundations the multi-millionaires +have ever laid. When I took my place at the table for two opposite +Barton in the diner, I was able to look the world in the eye, and to +forget, momentarily at least, in the luxury of clean hands and clean +linen, that I was practically an outlaw with a price upon my head. + +Yearning like a shipwrecked mariner for home news, I led Barton on to +talk of Glendale and the various happenings in the little town during +my long absence. Though I had quartered the home State in all +directions for half a year he was, as I have said, the first Glendale +man I had met. + +He told me many things that I was eager to know; how my mother and +sister were living quietly at the town place, which the income from the +farm enabled them to retain. For several years after her majority my +sister, older than I, had taught in the public school; she was now, so +Barton said, conducting a small private school for backward little ones +at home. + +There were other news items, many of them. Old John Runnels was still +chief of police; Tom Fitch, the hardware man, was the new mayor; Buck +Severance, my one-time chum in the High School, was now chief of the +fire department, having won his spurs--or rather, I should say, his red +helmet and silver trumpet--at the fire which had destroyed the +Blickerman Department Store. + +"And the bank?" I asked. + +"Which one? We've got three of them now, if you please, and one's a +National." + +"I meant the Farmers'," I said. + +"Something right funny about that, Bert," Barton commented. "The old +bank is rocking along and doing a little business in farm mortgages and +note-shaving at the old stand, same as usual, but it's got a hoodoo. +The other banks do most of the commercial business--all of it, you +might say; still, they say Geddis and old Abner Withers are getting +richer and richer every day." + +"Agatha is married?" I asked. + +"No; and that's another of the funny things. Her engagement with young +Copper-Money was broken off--nobody knew just how or why--shortly after +your--er--shortly after the trouble at the bank three years and a half +ago. Agatha's out West somewhere now--in a sanitorium, I believe. Her +health has been rather poor for the last year or so." + +This was news indeed. As I had known her as girl and woman, Agatha +Geddis had always been the picture of health. I put up a fervent +little prayer that her particular sanitorium might not prove to be in +the vicinity of Denver. If it should be it meant another move for me. + +"I didn't see the finish of the bank trouble before they buried me, did +I, Barton?" I queried. + +"You bet your life you didn't! There was the dickens to pay all +around. Under the State law, as you probably know, the depositors' +losses had to be made up, to the extent of twice the amount of the +stockholdings, by the stockholders in the bank. When they came to +count noses they found that Geddis and Withers hadn't done a thing but +to quietly unload their bank stock here and there and everywhere, until +they held only enough to give them their votes. There was a yell to +raise the roof, but the stockholders of record had to come across. It +teetotally smashed a round dozen of the best farmers in the county; and +I heard, on the quiet, that it caught a good many outsiders who had +been buying Farmers' stock at a bargain, among them this young Mr. +Copper-Money who was going to marry Agatha--and didn't. Geddis and +Withers played it mighty fine--and mighty low-down." + +All this was a revelation to me. In my time Geddis and Withers +together had held a majority of the stock in the close little +corporation known as the Farmers' Bank. The despicable trick by means +of which Geddis, or both of them, had shifted the defalcation loss to +other shoulders proved two things conclusively: that the scheme had +been well planned for in advance, and that the two old men had worked +in collusion. I remembered my suspicion--the one I couldn't +prove--that Withers had been as deep in the mud as Geddis was in the +mire. + +"What became of the mining stock?" I inquired. + +"Geddis put it into the assets, 'to help out against the loss,' as he +said. Nobody wanted it, of course; and then, to be right large-hearted +and generous, Geddis bought it in, personally--at ten cents on the +dollar." + +"And you say Geddis is still running the bank?" + +"Oh, yes; he and Withers run it and own it. As you'd imagine, Farmers' +Bank stock was mighty nearly a drug in the market, after all the bills +had been paid, and, just to help their neighbors out of a hole, as they +put it, the two old skinflints went around buying it back. I don't +know what they paid; different prices, I suppose. But Hawkins, our +manager, told me that he sold his for twenty-five cents on the dollar, +flat, and was blamed good and glad to get that much out of it." + +It was just here that my breakfast threatened to choke me. If I had +been as guilty as everybody believed I was, I should still have been a +white-robed angel with wings compared with these two old Pharisees who +had deliberately robbed their friends and neighbors, catching them both +coming and going. And yet I was a hunted outlaw, and they were honored +and respected--or at least they were out of jail and able to live and +flourish among their deluded victims. + +The choking was only momentary. Barton was in a reminiscent mood, and +he went rambling on about people in whom I was most deeply interested. +It was like a breath of the good old home air in my nostrils just to +sit and listen to him. + +But it seems as though there has to be a fly in everybody's pot of +sweetened jam. In the midst of things, at a moment when I was +gratefully rejoicing in the ability to push my wretched +life-catastrophe a little way into the background, I had a glimpse of a +new face at the farther end of the dining-car. A large-framed man with +drooping mustaches had just come in from the Pullman, and the +dining-car steward was looking his car over to find a place for the +newcomer at the well-filled tables. + +I did not have to look twice to identify the man with the drooping +mustaches. For three long and weary years I had seen him dally in the +office of the State penitentiary. His name was William Cummings, and +he was the deputy warden. + + + + +IX + +The Cup of Trembling + +Why I should have chosen, haphazard, and solely because it chanced to +be the first that offered, a train which numbered among its passengers +not only a man from my home town of Glendale, but also the deputy +warden of the penitentiary, is one of those mysteries of coincidence +which we discredit impatiently when we run across them in fiction, but +which, nevertheless, are constantly recurring in every-day life. + +For the moment I was desperately panic-stricken. It seemed blankly +impossible that Cummings should not see and recognize me at once. I +could have sworn that he was looking straight at me while the steward +kept him waiting. My terror must have shown itself in my face, since +Barton spoke up quickly. + +"Why, say--what's struck you, Bert?--are you sick?" he demanded; and +then he supplied an answer to his own query: "I ought to be kicked +around the block for loading you up with a big dining-car breakfast +when you had just told me that you were off your feed. Cut it short +and we'll trot up ahead and smoke a cigar. That'll help you get away +with it." + +The steward had found Cummings a seat at the forward end of the car, +and how to pass him without detection was a problem that made me dizzy +with the nausea of fear. Barton, with the lordly manner of the +American salesman away from home, made it possible. Snapping his +fingers for a waiter he paid for the breakfasts before we left our +seats, and then quickly led the way forward. At the pause in the +vestibule, while Barton was answering the steward's query as to how we +had been served, I could have reached out and touched Cummings's +shoulder. But the deputy warden was running an investigative finger +down the menu card and he did not see me. + +It may say itself that I was in no condition to enjoy the +after-breakfast cigar burned in the smoking-room of Barton's Pullman, +where the wagon salesman's tips, or his good-natured insistence, again +made me welcome. Every moment I expected to see the door curtain flung +aside to admit the burly figure of William Cummings. True, there were +a number of Pullmans in the train, and it was possible that I might not +be in the smoking-room of his car. But it was enough, and more than +enough, to know that we were fellow-travelers on the same train. + +There is little use piling on the agony by trying to tell what I +suffered during this forenoon of nerve-racking torture and suspense. +Let it be sufficient to say that the torments ended for me at Decatur, +Illinois, when, at the train stop, I saw Cummings cross the platform to +a street-car followed by a station porter carrying his grip. Barton +marked the change in me at once. + +"By George, Bert, what did you see in that platform jumble to make you +look as if you had suddenly taken on a new lease of life?" he inquired +jestingly. Then he passed the ever-ready cigarcase. "Smoke up, and +after a bit we'll go and try it on the dog--see if a second meal in the +diner will come as near to upsetting you as the first one did. Say, +don't you know, I'm bully glad we met up in the smoker this morning? I +was rawhiding myself to beat the everlasting band at the prospect of +having to make this long, tiresome day jump alone, and it's done me a +heap of good to talk you to frazzles. And that reminds me: you haven't +told me yet where you are heading for." + +I had not; and what was more, I did not mean to. There were distant +relatives on my mother's side of the family living somewhere in central +Missouri, and I spoke of them. + +"Sedalla, you say?" he commented. "Well, if that's the how of it, I +may see you again in a day or so, and here's hoping. I have a horrible +suspicion that our St. Louis general agent wants me to chase out with +him and dig up some of his dead-alive country dealers. We sell a raft +of wagons in Missouri." + +It was just here that it occurred to me that Barton was carrying it off +pretty toppingly for a mere traveling salesman; also that he dressed +better, smoked better cigars, and seemed a good bit freer with his +money than such a job warranted. + +"You were selling Whiteley Wagons by yourself, when I dropped out," I +said. "Have I been doing you an injustice by not allowing for a +promotion in the three years and a half?" + +"You sure have!" he laughed. "In the reorganization a year ago they +made me sales manager. Oh, yes, Bert; I've blossomed out some since +you knew me. I've actually got a little chunk of stock in the concern. +You never would have thought it of old Hod Barton, would you? Look at +this." + +He reached into a pocket and pulled out a money roll, riffling the ends +of the bills between thumb and forefinger to let me see that the +denominations were all comfortably large. There was something +instantly suggestive in the bit of braggadocio; a feeling that I had +seen somebody do that same thing in exactly that same way once before. +But before I could follow up the impression he was making me an offer +which put everything but his free-hearted generosity out of my mind. + +"You haven't said a word, Bert, and if it's none of my business, you +can tell me so--but if a couple of these yellow-backs would come in +handy to you just now, they're yours and you can toss 'em back to me +any old time when you're good and ready." + +I shook my head and thanked him out of a full heart. The purchase of +the Denver ticket hadn't left me much of a balance out of the black +pocketbook's holdings, but I couldn't borrow of Barton; that was out of +the question. + +Shortly after this we had another meal together in the dining-car, and +this time there were no sudden alarms to make me turn sick and panicky. +Afterward, I made another attempt to return to my place in the forward +end of the train, but since Barton would not hear of it, we spent the +remainder of the short afternoon in the Pullman smoker. + +During this interval, Barton did most of the talking, growing +confidential along toward the last and telling me a lot about the girl +he was going to marry--the youngest daughter of good old Judge Haskins, +of Jefferson--the man who had sentenced me. If all the world loves a +lover, certainly no considerable part of it cares to pay strict +attention while he descants at length upon the singular and altogether +transcendent charms of the loved one; and when Barton got fairly +started I had time to consider another matter which was of far greater +importance to me. + +Earlier in the day Barton had assured me that he would not fail to go +and see my mother and sister when he returned to Glendale. I could +scarcely urge him not to do so, though I knew very well that he would +not stop with telling the home-folks; that he would doubtless tell +every Tom, Dick and Harry in town how he had met me, and where. What I +was asking myself as he burbled on about Peggy Haskins was whether I +might dare give him the one cautionary word which would reveal the true +state of affairs. In the end I decided that it would be most +imprudent, not to say disastrous. He would have sympathized with me +instantly and heartily, but the knowledge would have been as fire to +tow when he got back where he could talk. I could foresee just how it +would bubble out of him as he button-holed each fresh listener: "Say! +you must keep it midnight dark, old man, but I met Bert Weyburn on the +train: he's jumped his parole and, skipped--lit out--vanished! Not a +word to any living soul, mind you; this is a dead secret. We mustn't +give him away, you know,"--and a lot more of the same sort. + +The arrival of the through train in the great echoing Terminal at St. +Louis was timed accurately with the coming of a gloomy twilight fitly +climaxing the bleak and stormy day. Having no hand-baggage I was the +first to leave the Pullman, and on the platform I waited for Barton who +had gone back into the body of the car to get his coat and hat and +bags. As he ran down the steps and gave his two suit cases to the +nearest red-cap, the links in a vague chain of recognition snapped +themselves suddenly into a complete whole, and I knew instantly why the +thumbing of the pocket-roll in my friend's generous offer to lend me +money had struck the chord of familiarity. The two hand-bags turned +over to the platform porter were the same two that I had seen snatched +out of a cab in front of the Marlborough entrance while their owner was +digging in his pockets for the cab fare, and the coat and hat Barton +had donned for the debarking were the fur-lined luxury and the soft +felt worn by the man who had dropped the black pocket-book. + +"Well, old boy," he said, gripping my hand in leave-taking, "the best +of friends must part. I suppose you'll wait here to take your Sedalla +train. Maybe we'll get together again in a day or so. If we +shouldn't, here's hoping that the world uses you well from this on--to +sort of make up for what has gone, you know." + +"Wait a minute," I gasped, as he was turning to follow the red-cap. +"You said you were at the Marlborough last night. I was there--on +an--on an errand. Did you come in late?--in a cab?" + +"I did; and I had a funny experience--or have I told you about it?" + +"No, you didn't tell me," I contrived to say. + +"I didn't know but I had; I've talked so much about everything to-day. +It was this way: when I got out of the cab I saw a sort of hobo-ish +looking fellow standing at the curb with his hands in his pockets and +all doubled over as if he were cold. It never occurred to me for a +minute that he was anything but what he looked to be." + +The porter, with Barton's suit-cases, was disappearing in the direction +of the cab stand, and I suggested that we walk along. I had learned +all I needed to know. But Horace Barton never left a story unfinished +if he could help it. + +"Yes, sir; that fellow fooled me good and proper," he went on, as we +hurried to overtake the suit-cases. "He wasn't any hobo at all; he was +a pickpocket, and one of the finest. I was hunting for a half-dollar +to pay the cabby, and I could have sworn that that 'dip' never got +within six feet of me. And yet he 'frisked' me before I could get +across the sidewalk and into the hotel. Luckily, all he got was a +little pocketbook with some sixty or so dollars in it." + +"You reported your loss to the police?" I asked. + +"Not for one little minute!" was the laughing rejoinder. "I didn't +discover the loss until after I got up to my room and found the St. +Louis wire waiting for me; and then there wasn't time. But I shouldn't +have done it anyway. Any fellow fly enough to do me that way when I'm +wide awake and 'at' myself is welcome to all he gets. . . . Well, +here's our jumping-off place, I guess. My man 'll be waiting for me at +the Southern, and I must go. Take care of yourself, and so long!" + +I let him go; saw him climb into a cab and disappear. There was +nothing to be done about the money, of course: I had spent more than +half of it for my Denver ticket. But, since honesty, like all other +human attributes, dies hard in any soil where it has once taken root, I +turned away with a great thankfulness in my heart. The owner of the +black pocketbook was found, and some day he should have his own +again--with interest. + +Nothing of any consequence happened after Barton left me. Finding upon +inquiry that the westbound connecting train would not leave until eight +o'clock, I ventured out in search of a slop-shop where I could purchase +a cheap suit to go with the clean shirt and collar given me by the +free-handed sales manager. The purchase left me with less than ten +dollars in my pocket, but it made a new man of me otherwise. In the +old life at home I had never dreamed that a few rags and wisps of +cloth, properly sewed together, make all the difference in a moralizing +world between the man and the vagrant. + +There was a wreck on the Missouri road some time during the night, and +our train was caught behind it and delayed. For this reason another +rainy afternoon was drawing to its close when I had my first glimpse of +Kansas City, high-perched on its hills from my glimpsing view-point on +the opposite bank of the Missouri River, but low-lying and crowded to +suffocation with railroad yards in that part of it where the train came +to a stand. + +As a matter of course, I had missed my proper Denver connection, owing +to the wreck delay. But, a passenger agent directing me, I found the +evening Union Pacific train waiting at another platform. A short +half-hour later the tangle of railroad yards in the river "bottoms" was +left behind and the overland train was boring westward into a cloudy +night through Kansas. + +With the welcoming West lying fair and free before me, the memory of +the prison years and of the parole purgatory to which they had led was +already beginning to fade into a limbo of things past and irrevocable, +and therefore to be quickly and decently forgotten. There should be a +new life in the new world, and the humiliation and disgrace of the past +should be so deeply burled that it could never be resurrected. I was +still under twenty-nine, it must be remembered, and at that age Hope, +the one human quality which seems to have in it the precious germ of +immortality, will flap its wings over the most wretched ash-heap that +was ever blown together by the bleak winds of misfortune. + + + + +X + +The Plain-Clothes Man + +Upon landing in Denver in the middle of a day that seemed too bright +and exhilaratingly bracing to be true, I had an adventure which, while +it had no immediate bearing upon my escape, is worthy of record because +it led to a second hasty flight, and so became in a manner responsible +for much that happened afterward. + +As I left the train a squarely built man, sharp-eyed under the brim of +his modish soft hat, was standing aside on the track platform and +evidently scrutinizing each of the debarking passengers in turn. Some +acute inner sense instantly warned me, telling me that this silent +watcher was a plain-clothes man from police headquarters; and his first +word when he stepped out to confront and stop me confirmed the +foreboding. + +"You're wanted," he announced curtly, twitching his coat lapel aside to +show his badge. + +This was another of the crises in which I was made to feel the murder +madness leaping alive in blood and brain; but the publicity of the +place and the blank hopelessness of escape in a strange city made any +thought of resistance the sheerest folly. + +"What am I wanted for?" I asked. + +"You'll find that out later. Will you go quietly, or do you want the +nippers?" + +The cooler second thought reassured me. It seemed entirely incredible +that the news of the broken parole had already been put on the wires. +In the natural order of things I should hardly be missed until after my +failure to report to the prison authorities at the month end should +raise the hue and cry. + +"I'll go quietly, of course," I conceded; and then I added the lie of +sham bravado: "I don't know of any reason why I shouldn't. You are the +man who is taking all the chances." + +With no further talk I was marched through the station building, out +the long approach walkway to the foot of Seventeenth Street, and so on +up-town, the plain-clothes man keeping even step with me and indicating +the course at the corner-turnings by a push or a wordless jerk of his +head. + +As we went I was striving anxiously to invent a plausible story to be +told at headquarters. It was an entirely new experience. Hitherto I +had always told the plain truth, as the law required, and now I found +the inventive machinery singularly rusty. But the wheels were made to +turn in some fashion. By the time we were mounting the steps of the +antiquated City Hall at the crossing of Cherry Creek, I knew pretty +well what I was going to say, and how it must be said. + +At first they gave me little chance to say anything. In the +inspector's office my captor and two others got busy over a book of +newspaper clippings, pictures and descriptions of "wanted" criminals. +With wits sharpened now to a razor-edge, I came quickly to the +conclusion that I had been mistaken for some one else. The conclusion +was confirmed when they took an ink-pad impression of the ball of my +right thumb and fell to comparing it with one of the record prints. + +After a time the inspector put me on the rack, beginning by demanding +my name. + +Meaning to lie only when there should be no alternative, I told him a +half-truth. Though every one at home called me "Herbert" and "Bert," +and it was as "James Herbert Weyburn" that I had been arraigned and +convicted, that was not, strictly speaking, my right name. I had been +christened "James Bertrand," after my father. My mother had always +called me "Jimmie," but for others the "Bertrand" was soon shortened +into "Bert" and from that a few home-town formalists had soon evolved +the "Herbert," a change which my own boyish and unreasoning dislike for +"Bertrand" was ready enough to confirm. So, when the inspector asked +me my name I answered promptly, "James Bertrand." + +"Write it," was the curt command, and a pad and a pencil were shoved at +me across the desk. + +Since the name was two-thirds of my own, I was able to write it without +any of the hesitation which might otherwise have betrayed me if I had +chosen a combination that was unfamiliar. + +"Where are you from?" was the next question. + +Here, as I saw it, was one of the holes in which a lie might be +profitably planted--profitably and safely. So I said, glibly enough: +"Cincinnati." + +"Street and number?" + +I had given Cincinnati merely because I chanced to be somewhat familiar +with that city, and now I gave the location of a boarding-house near +the river front where I had once stayed over-night. + +"Where were you born?" + +"In the country, about forty miles from Cincinnati." + +"Traveling for your health, I suppose? Where's your baggage?" + +I saw that I should have to call a halt somewhere, and this seemed as +good a point as any. + +"See here," I broke out; "you've got the wrong man, and you know it, +and I know it! You have no shadow of right to arrest me without a +warrant. Neither have you any right to try to tangle me in my +statements so that I shall fall down and give you an excuse for locking +me up!" + +"Say, young fellow--you cut all that out and quiet down!" advised the +plain-clothes man who had nipped me at the railroad terminal. + +"That's the one thing I shan't do!" I retorted boldly. "You have +arrested me without authority, and now you are trying to give me the +third degree. You've got me here, and you may make the most of +it--until I can find a lawyer. Lock me up if you feel like it; and are +willing to stand for the consequences." + +At this the three of them put their heads together and once more +compared the thumb-prints. Suddenly the inspector whirled upon me with +his lips drawn back and his hand balled into a fist as if he were going +to strike me. + +"How about that little job you pulled off with a forged check in +Chicago last week?" he rapped out. + +He was evidently counting upon the effect of a shock and a surprise, +but, naturally, the ruse fell flat. + +"I don't know anything about a forged check; and I was never in Chicago +in my life," I replied; and since both statements were strictly true I +could make them calmly and without hesitation. + +For the third time they put their heads together. I think the +inspector was for letting me go without further ado. But the man who +had arrested me was apparently still suspicious and unsatisfied. As a +compromise they did the thing which determined my second flight. They +took me into a room at the rear of the building; a barn-like place bare +of everything save a screen and a tripoded photographer's camera; and +within the next five minutes I had been posed and "mugged." + +"Now you may go," said the harsh-voiced inspector; and I left the +building knowing that the Colorado capital had been effectually crossed +off in the list of possible refuges for me. With my photograph in the +police blotter, discovery and recapture would be only a question of +time, if I should stay where I could be identified by the local +authorities. Once during my prison term I had seen an escaped man +brought back from far-away Alaska. + +Since there was no immediate danger, however, there was time to plan +thoughtfully and prudently for a second disappearance. After a +lunch-counter meal, eaten in a cheap restaurant within a block or so of +the City Hall, I made a round of the employment offices. In front of +one of them there was a bulletin-board demand for railroad grade +laborers on the Cripple Creek branch of the Colorado Midland. + +At that time I knew next to nothing about the geography of the Rocky +Mountain States, and the great mining-camp at the back of Pike's Peak +was merely a name to me; though the name was familiar, in a way, +because the mine in which Abel Geddis had sunk his depositors' money +was said to be in the Cripple Creek district. What chiefly attracted +me in the bulletin-board notice was the announcement that free +transportation would be given to the work. With only a few dollars in +my pocket, the free ride became an object, and I entered the office. + +The arrangement was easily made. I gave the agent his fee of two +dollars, and let him put a name--not my own or any part of my own, you +may be sure--on his list for the evening shipment. It appeared to cut +no figure with this employment shark that I bore none of the marks of a +successful pick-and-shovel man. All he wanted or cared for was his two +dollars and something on two legs and in the shape of a man to put into +his gang against the collected fee. I was told to show up at the Union +Station at six o'clock, sharp; and after spending the remainder of the +afternoon wandering about the city, I reported as instructed, was +passed through the gates with some twenty-five or thirty other +"pick-ups," and so turned my back upon the Queen City of the +Plains--for a time. + + + + +XI + +Number 3126 + +In due deference to the "mugging" at police headquarters, I had +registered in the Denver employment office as "William Smith." But on +the work, which proved to be the construction of a branch feeder for +the Midland in the heart of the gold district, I took my own name--or +rather that part of it which had been given to the Denver police +inspector--arguing that the only way in which I could be traced would +be by means of the photograph. Against the photographic possibility, +my beard, which had been scraped off by the station barber during the +waiting interval between trains in St. Louis, was suffered to grow +again. + +The railroad labor was strenuous, as it was bound to be; and for the +first few days the thin, crisp air of the altitudes cut my already +indifferent physical efficiency almost to the vanishing point. +Nevertheless, there were two pieces of good fortune. My +fellow-laborers in the grading gang were principally Italians from the +southern provinces and their efficiency was also low. This helped, but +a better bit of luck lay in the fact that the contractors on the job +were humane and liberal employers; both of them with a shrewd and +watchful eye for latent capabilities in the rank and file. Within a +week I was made a gang time-keeper, and a fortnight later I became +commissary clerk. + +Before I forget it, let me say that my first month's pay, or the +greater part of it, went to replace the sixty-three dollars and a half +in the little black pocketbook which I had stolen--I guess that is the +honest word---from Horace Barton. I debated for some time over the +safest method of returning the pocketbook and its restored contents to +the wagon salesman. I realized that it wouldn't do to let him know +where I was; and it seemed a needless humiliation to confess to him +that I was the "hobo" who had posed, in his imagination, as the skilful +sidewalk pickpocket. + +In casting about for a means of communication I thought of Whitley, the +Springville minister. So I wrote him a letter, enclosing the +pocketbook, with a truthful explanation of the circumstances in which +it had come into my possession, and telling him what to do with it. I +laid no commands upon his conscience, but begged him, if he could +consistently do so, to suppress my name and whereabouts. And since I +could not be quite sure as to what the ministerial conscience might +demand, I added, rather disingenuously, I fear, that he needn't reply +to my letter, as I had no permanent address. + +It was some little time after my promotion to the commissary that +Dorgan came on the job as a track-laying foreman. He was a heavy-set, +black-browed fellow with a sinister face and deeply caverned, brooding +eyes looking out furtively under their bushy coverts, and his chief +characteristic was a crabbed reticence which not even the exigencies of +handling a crew of steel-layers seemed able to break. His face was one +not to be easily forgotten; from the first sight I had of it, it was +vaguely familiar, and a thoughtful ransacking of the cubby-holes of +memory very shortly recalled it for me. Dorgan was an escaped convict. + +His jail-break dated back to my second year in the penitentiary, to a +period just after I had been slated for the prison office work. +Dorgan--his name on the prison books was Michael Murphey, but we knew +him only as "Number 3126"--had "brought" ten years for safe-blowing, +and he was known in the prison yard and shops as a dangerous man. +Twice within my recollection of him he had been put in solitary +confinement for fighting; and he was one of the few to whom the warden +denied the small privileges accorded the "good conducts." + +One day a hue and cry was raised and word was quickly passed that +Number 3126 was missing. He had planned his escape craftily. A new +shop building was at that time in process of erection, and each day a +gang of "trusties" went outside to haul stone. Of course, the +safe-blower was not included in this outside gang, but one dark and +rainy morning he included himself by the simple process of hog-tying +and gagging one of the trusties detailed for the job, exchanging +numbered jackets with him, and taking the man's place in the ranks of +the stone-loaders, where he contrived to pass unnoticed by the guards. + +The escape was entirely successful. At the critical moment Dorgan had +overpowered the single wagon guard, leaving the man a candidate for +admission to the hospital, and had made his break for liberty. We, of +the inside, never knew, of course, the various steps taken in the +attempt to recapture him. But they all appeared to be fruitless since +Number 3126 was never brought back. + +I failed utterly in an endeavor to analyze my own feelings when I +recognized Dorgan and realized that an escaped man from my own prison +was at work for my employers; an escaped criminal and a desperate one, +at that. What was my duty in the premises? Should I bind myself, once +for all, to the brotherhood of law-breakers--the submerged minority--by +shielding this man and conniving at his escape? Or should I turn +informer, telling the contractor-partners of the risk they ran by +keeping Dorgan in the force--the risk that some night, after the money +for the monthly pay-roll had been brought out from town, they would +find the camp safe smashed and its contents gone? + +While I was debating this question, inclined first in one direction by +some new generosity on the part of one or the other of my employers, +and again leaning the other way when I remembered that, in the eye of +the law, I, myself, was in precisely the same category with Number +3126, I had another promotion. One evening, just after I had closed +the commissary, one of the water-boys came to tell me that I was wanted +in the contractors' office, a little shack at the far side of the +end-of-track cantonments. Hadley, the senior member of the firm, was +alone when I showed myself at the door. + +"Come in, Bertrand," he invited, gruffly genial; "come in and wait a +minute until I go over this estimate again. You'll find cigars in that +box on the bunk." + +Having nothing to do while I waited, I sat on a stool in a corner of +the shack, smoking the gift cigar and silently regarding the man who +had sent for me. He was a good example of the better type of Western +contractor and out-door man; big-bodied, burly, whiskered like a miner, +a keen driver on the work, but withal as kindly as a father when +kindness was called for. + +In due time he pushed the figuring pad aside and turned to me. "Drag +up your stool, Jim; I want to talk to you," he began. And then: "How +much experience have you had in keeping accounts?" + +I told him briefly. + +"In a bank, eh?" he queried, and I knew precisely what he was thinking. +He was wondering what I had done to break myself. In spite of all that +had happened or might happen, I believe I was ready to tell him; but to +my astonishment the curt questioning which all my previous experience +had taught me to expect at this stage of the game did not come. + +"This is a free country, Bertrand," he said, looking me squarely in the +eye. "I'm not going to ask you why you quit bank bookkeeping to come +out here and swing a pick in a construction camp. Here in the tall +hills we don't think much of digging up graves--the graves of any man's +past. You've done well in every job we've tried you at, and that's all +to the good for you." + +I said I had tried to fill the bill as well as I knew how, and he took +me up promptly. + +"We know you have; and that brings on more talk. Kenniston is leaving +us to go prospecting. We've talked it over--Shelton and I--and you're +to have the paymaster's job. Think you can hold it down?" + +"I am sure I can--so far as the routine duties are concerned. But----" + +Never, in all the soul-killing experiences of the parole period, had I +been confronted with a test so gripping. Would this large-hearted man +turn the keys of his money chest over to me if he knew I were an +ex-convict, liable at any moment to be re-arrested for having broken my +parole? I was silent so long that he began again. + +"Looking around for a spade to begin the grave-digging?" he asked, with +a sober smile. Then, with a note of unwonted gentleness in his voice: +"I shouldn't do that if I were you, Jimmie. The man doesn't live who +hasn't, at one time or another, had to dig a hole and bury something +decently out of sight. Whatever you may have done in the past, you're +not going to play marbles with the Hadley-and-Shelton pay-money. +That's about all there is to it. You may take hold to-morrow morning. +Kenniston will stay long enough to show you the ropes." + +It was not until after I had left the office shack and was crossing to +the bunk house set apart for the office squad that I remembered Dorgan. +Now, if never before, my duty in his case was plain. It was tempting +Providence to allow the presence in camp of a burglar who was probably +only waiting for his chance to "clean up"; doubly perilous now, indeed, +since in any case of loss my record would be shown up, and Dorgan, if +he had already recognized me as I had him, would not be slow to take +advantage of my vulnerability. + +My first impulse was to go straight back to Hadley and tell him, +without the loss of another moment. But there were difficulties in the +way; obstacles which I had not before stopped to consider. If I should +accuse Dorgan, he might retaliate by telling what he knew of me. This +difficulty was brushed aside at once: I judged there was little to fear +from this, in view of what Hadley had just said to me. But there was +another obstacle; the one which had kept me silent from the day I had +first seen Dorgan driving his track-layers. With a crushing sense of +degradation I realized the full force of the motive for silence, as I +had not up to this time. With every fiber of me protesting that I must +be loyal to my employers at any and all costs, that other loyalty, the +tie that binds the branded, proved the stronger. I could not bring +myself to the point of sending Dorgan, guilty as he doubtless was, back +to the living death of the "long-termer." I make no excuses. One +cannot touch pitch and escape defilement in some sort. For three years +I had lived among criminals; and the bond . . . but I have said all +this before. + +It may be imagined with what inward tremblings I took on the duties of +the new job the next day. Kenniston, eager to be gone on his +prospecting tour, gave me only a short forenoon over the pay-rolls; but +as to this, the routine was simple enough. It was what he said at +parting that gave me the greatest concern. + +"You have to go to the bank at the Creek and get the money, you know," +he said. "I usually go on the afternoon train. That will make you +late for banking hours, but if you wire ahead they'll have the money +counted out and ready for you. Then you can catch the evening train to +the junction and come up on one of the construction engines. Better +take one of the commissary .45's along, just for safety's sake--though +in all the trips I've made I've never needed a gun." + +The week following Kenniston's drop-out was a busy one, with time-books +to check and enter, commissary deductions to be made, and the payrolls +to be gotten out. My office was a small room or space partitioned off +from the commissary, the partition being of matched boards, +breast-high, and above that a rough slat grille like those in country +railroad stations. As I worked at the bracketed shelf which served as +a high desk, I could see the interior of the commissary, and those who +came and went. It may have been only a fancy, but it seemed to me that +Dorgan came in oftener than usual; and more than once I caught him +peering at me through the slatted grille, with the convict's trick of +looking aside without turning his head. It was for this reason, more +than for any other, that I recalled Kenniston's advice and armed myself +when I went to Cripple Creek on the day before pay-day to get the money +from the bank. + +The short journey to town was uneventful. A construction locomotive +took me down to the main line junction, where I caught the regular +train from Denver. But on the way from the railroad station to the +bank in Cripple Creek I had a shock, followed instantly by the +conviction that I was in for trouble. On the opposite side of the +street, and keeping even pace with me, I saw Dorgan. + +Barrett (for obvious reasons I cannot use real names) was the man I had +been told to ask for at the bank, and it was he who admitted me at the +side door, the hour being well past the close of business. He was a +clean-cut, alert young fellow; a Westerner, I judged, only by recent +adoption. + +"You are Bertrand, from the Hadley and Shelton camps?" he asked; and +then, as I produced my check and letter of authority; "You don't need +the letter. Kenniston told me what you'd look like. Your money is +ready." + +In one of the private rooms of the bank the currency was counted out, +the count verified, the money receipted for, and I was ready to start +back. Barrett walked to the railroad station with me, helping with the +valise money bag, which was heavy with a good bit of coin for making +change. We got better acquainted on the walk, and I warmed immediately +to the frank, open-mannered young bank teller, little dreaming what +this acquaintance, begun in pure business routine, was destined to lead +to in the near future. + +Barrett saw me safely aboard of my return train, and stood on the +platform at the open window of the car talking to me until the train +started. On my part this leave-taking talk was more or less +perfunctory; I was scanning the platform throng anxiously in search of +a certain heavy-shouldered man with a sinister face; and when, just as +the train began to move, I saw Dorgan swing himself up to the step of +the car ahead, I knew what was before me--or thought I did--and +surreptitiously drew the .45 from the inside coat-pocket where I had +carried it, twirling the cylinder to make sure that it was loaded and +in serviceable condition. + +There was an excellent chance for a hold-up at the junction. It was +coming on to dusk as the through train made the stop, and there was no +town, not even a station; nothing but a water tank and the littered +jumble of a construction yard. My engine was making up a train of +material cars to be taken to our end-of-track camp, and I had to wait +for it to come within hailing distance. + +Dorgan got off the through train at the same time that I did. I stood +with the money valise between my feet and folded my arms with a hand +inside of my coat and grasping the butt of the big revolver, shaking a +bit because all this was so foreign to anything I had ever experienced, +but determined to do what seemed needful at the pinch. Oddly enough, +as I thought, the track foreman made no move to approach me. Instead, +he kept his distance, busying himself with the filling and lighting of +a stubby black pipe. After a little time, and before it was quite +dark, my engine backed down to where I was standing and I climbed +aboard with my money bag, still with an eye on Dorgan. The last I saw +of him he was sitting on the end of a cross-tie, pulling away at his +pipe and apparently oblivious to me and to everything else. But I made +sure that when the material train should pull out he would be aboard of +it; and the event proved that he was. + +Obsessed with the idea that Dorgan had chosen the time to make his +"clean-up," I took no chances after the end-of-track camp was reached. +The money valise went with me to the mess tent, and I ate supper with +my feet on it, and with the big revolver lying across my knees. After +supper I lugged my responsibility over to the commissary pay-office, +and by the flickering light of a miner's candle stowed the money in the +ramshackle old safe which was the only security the camp afforded. + +Past this I lighted the lamps and busied myself with the account books. +There was little doing in the commissary--it was too near pay-day for +the men to be buying much--and the clerk who had taken over my former +job shut up shop quite early. At nine o'clock I was alone in the +store-room building; and at a little before ten I put out the lights +and lay down on the office cot with a sawed-off Winchester--a part of +the pay-office armament--lying on the mattress beside me. + +A foolish thing to do, you say?--when at a word I might have had all +the help I needed in guarding the pay-money? No; it wasn't altogether +foolhardiness; it was partly weakness. For, twist and turn it as I +might, there was always the unforgivable thing at the end: the fact +that by calling in help and betraying Dorgan to others, I, once his +prison-mate, and even now, like him--though in a lesser degree--a +law-breaker, would become a "snitch," an informer, a traitor to my +kind. A wretchedly distorted point of view? Doubtless it was. But +the three years of unmerited punishment and criminal associations must +account for it as they may. + +I don't know how long the silent watch was maintained. One by one the +night noises of the camp died down and the stillness of the solitudes +enveloped the commissary. The responsibility I was carrying should +have kept me awake, but it didn't. If the coming of sleep had been +gradual I might have fought it off, but the healthy life of the camp +had given me leave to eat like a workingman and to fall asleep like one +when the day was ended. So after the stillness had fairly laid hold of +me I was gone before I knew it. + +When I opened my eyes it was with a startled conviction that I was no +longer alone in the little boxed-in office. In the murky indoor +darkness of a moonless night I could barely distinguish the +surroundings, the shelf-desk, the black bulk of the old safe, the +three-legged stool, and at the end of the room the gray patch which +placed the single window. Then, with a cold sweat starting from every +pore, I saw the humped figure of a man beside the safe. As nearly as I +could make out, he was sitting with his back to the wall and his knees +drawn up, and by listening intently I could hear his measured breathing. + +It required a greater amount of brute courage than I had thought it +would to spring to a sitting posture on the cot and cover the squatting +figure with the rifle slewed into position across my knees. The man +made no move to obey when I ordered him to hold up his hands. Then I +spoke again. + +"I've got the drop on you, Dorgan--or Murphey; whichever your name is," +I said. "If you move I shall kill you. You see, I know who you are +and what you are here for." + +A voice, harsh but neither threatening nor pleading, came out of the +shadows beside the safe. + +"You ain't tellin' me nothin' new, pally. I spotted you a good while +back, and I knowed you'd lamped me. You was lookin' f'r me to bust in +here to-night?" + +"I was. After you followed me to Cripple Creek and back I knew about +what to expect." + +"And you was layin' f'r me alone?--when you could 'a' had Collins and +Nixon and half a dozen more if yous 'd squealed f'r 'em?" + +"I didn't need any better help than this," I answered, patting the +stock of the Winchester. "The jig's up, Dorgan. You can't crack this +safe while I'm here and alive. I suppose you got in by the window: you +can go out the same way." + +"You're aimin' to turn me loose?" said the voice, and now I fancied +there was a curious trembly hoarseness in it. + +"You heard what I said." + +"Listen a minute, pally: if you'll hold that gun right stiddy where it +is and let out a yell 'r two, you can earn five hundred doughboys. Ye +didn't know that, did you?" + +"I know you broke jail and skipped for it, but I didn't know how much +the warden was willing to pay to get you back." + +"It's five hundred bones, all right. Study a minute: don't you want +the five hundred?" + +"No; not bad enough to send you back to 'stir' for it." + +There was a dead silence for the space of a long minute, and while it +endured the man sat motionless, with his back against the wall and his +hands locked over his knees. Then: "They'd all pat you on the back if +yous was to let out that yell. I brought ten years with me when the +warden give me my number, and I'm thinkin' they was comin' to me--all +o' them." + +"But you don't want to go back?" + +"Not me; if it was to come to that, I'd a damned sight rather you'd +squeeze a little harder on that trigger you've got under your finger; +see?" + +"Then why did you take this long chance?" I demanded. "You say you +knew I had spotted you; you might have known that I'd be ready for you." + +"I kind o' hoped you would," he said, drawling the words. "Yes; I sure +did hope ye would--not but what I'm thinkin' I could 'a' done it alone." + +"Done what alone? What are you driv----" + +The interruption was imperative; a fierce "Hist!" from the corner +beside the safe, and at the same instant a blurring of the gray patch +of the window, a sash rising almost noiselessly, and two men, following +each other like substance and shadow, legging themselves into the +office over the window-sill. At first I thought Dorgan had set a trap +for me; but before that unworthy suspicion could draw its second +breath, the track foreman had hurled himself upon the two intruders, +calling to me to come on and help him. + +The battle, such as it was, was short, sharp and decisive, as the +darkness and the contracted fighting space constrained it to be. +Though I dared not shoot, I contrived to use the rifle as a club on the +man who was trying to choke Dorgan from behind, and after a +hard-breathing minute or two we had them both down, one of them half +stunned by the blow on his head from the gun-barrel, and the other with +an arm twisted and temporarily useless. Under Dorgan's directions I +cut a couple of lengths from a rope coil in the commissary with which +we tied the pair hand and foot, dragging them afterward to the freer +floor space beyond the pay-office partition. + +"They'll be stayin' put till mornin', I'm thinkin'," was Dorgan's +comment as we retreated to the scene of the battle. Then, as he edged +toward the open window: "Ye won't be needin' me any more to-night . . . +I'll duck whilst the duckin's good." + +"Not just yet," I interposed, and pulled him to a seat on the cot +beside me. "I want to know a few things first. You knew about the +raid these fellows were planning?" + +"Sure, I did." + +"Tell me about it." + +"I piped 'em off about a week ago--when Kenniston 'd gone. They talked +too much, and too loud, d'ye see? The lay was f'r to chase in to the +Creek wit' you--an' they did--an' get you on the road, if they could; +if that didn't work, they was to crack the safe"--this with the +contempt of the real craftsman for a pair of amateurs. "D'ye see, the +boss 'd been dippy enough to write the combination on a piece o' paper +when Kenniston ducked out--f'r fear he'd be forgettin' it, maybe, and +these dubs o' the world nipped the paper." + +"See here, Dorgan; was that why you followed me to town this +afternoon?" I shot at him. + +"Ye've guessed it." + +"And it was for the same reason that you sneaked in here while I was +asleep?" + +"Ye've guessed it ag'in." + +"You didn't want the bosses to be robbed?" + +The escaped convict had his face propped between his hands with his +elbows resting on his knees. + +"I'm thinkin' maybe it's six o' one and a half-dozen o' tother," he +said soberly. "I wasn't carin' so damned much about the bosses, square +as they've been to me. But I puts it up like this: here's you, and +you'd spotted me, and you hadn't snitched; you'd been in 'stir' +yourself, and knowed what it was: d'ye see?" + +I smiled in the darkness. It was the brotherhood of the underworld. + +"And you lined up square at the finish, too, as I knowed yous would," +he went on. "You sees me pipin' yous off in town, and you was thinkin' +maybe I'd drop in here to-night and crack this old box f'r the swag +there'd be in it. You laid f'r me alone, because yit you wouldn't be +willin' to give me up. Ain't that the size of it, pally?" + +"You've guessed it," I said, handing his own words back to him. "And +now one more question, Dorgan: have you quit the crooked business for +keeps?" + +He was up and moving toward the open window when he replied. + +"Who the hell would know that? I was a railroad man, pally, before I +took to the road. These days I'm eatin' my t'ree squares and sleepin' +good. But some fine mornin' a little man that I could break in halves +wit' my two hands 'll come dancin' along wit' a paper in his pocket and +a gun in his fist; and then it'll be all over but the shoutin'--or the +fun'ral. There's on'y the one sure thing about it, pally: I'll not be +goin' back to 'stir'--not alive; d'ye see? So long . . . don't let +them ducks get loose on yous and come at yous fr'm behind, whilst maybe +you'd be dozin' off." + +And with this parting injunction he was gone. + + + + +XII + +A Cast for Fortune + +The incident of the frustrated safe robbery was an incident closed, so +far as any difference in Dorgan's attitude toward me was concerned, at +the moment when he disappeared through the open window of the +pay-office. For the next two or three weeks I saw him only as he +chanced to drop into the commissary of an evening; and upon such +occasions he ignored me absolutely. + +Only once more while the work of branch-line building continued did we +have speech together. It was in the evening of a day when the new +line, then nearly completed, had been honored with visitors; a car-load +of them up from Denver in some railway official's private +hotel-on-wheels. It so happened that my duties had taken me up to the +actual end-of-track--by this time some miles beyond our headquarters +camp at Flume Gulch--and I was there when the special, with its +observation platform crowded with sightseers, came surging and +staggering up over the uneven track of the new line. + +I paid little attention to the one-car train as it passed me, save to +note that there were women among the railroad official's guests. The +sightseers were quite outside of my purview--or within it only as +temporary hindrances to a job we were all pushing at top speed. A +short distance beyond me the train came to a stand in the midst of +Dorgan's crew and I saw some of the people getting off the car. Just +then a construction engine came along on the siding, and, my errand to +the front being accomplished, I flagged it and went back to +headquarters. + +As I have said, Dorgan dropped into the commissary that evening. His +ostensible errand was to buy some tobacco, but after he had filled his +pipe he lingered until the sleepy commissary clerk began to turn the +loiterers out preparatory to closing the place for the night. It was +then that Dorgan gave me a sign which I rightly interpreted; when I +released the catch of the pay-office door he slipped in and sat down on +the cot where he would be out of sight of those in front. Here he +smoked in sober silence until Crawford, the commissary man, had gone +out and locked the door on the empty storeroom. + +"I was wantin' to tip yez off," was the way he began, after we had the +needful privacy. "You'd be after seein' that kid-glove gang up at the +front this mornin'?" + +I nodded. + +"Know anybody in that bunch?" + +"I didn't notice them particularly," I replied. "I understood they +were Denver people--friends of somebody in the railroad management." + +"There was women," he said significantly. + +"I know; I saw some of them." + +"Yes; and be the same token, there was one of them lamped yous off. I +listened at her askin' one o' the men who you was; d'ye see?" + +Instantly I began to ransack my brain for the possibilities, and almost +at once the talk on the train with Horace Barton, the wagon sales +manager, flashed into the field of recollection. + +"Could you describe the woman for me?" I asked. + +Dorgan made hard work of this, though it was evident that he was trying +his best. His description would have fitted any one of a round million +of American women, I suppose; yet out of it I thought I could draw some +faint touches of familiarity. The stumbling description, coupled with +Barton's assertion that Agatha Geddis was living in Colorado, fitted +together only too well. + +"Did you hear what she said to the man?" I inquired, and my mouth was +dry. + +"On'y a bit of it. She says, says she: 'Who is that man wit' a French +beard--the young man in his shirt-sleeves?' The felly she t'rowed this +into was one o' the kid-gloves, and he didn't know. So he went to +Shelton, who was showin' the crowd around on the job. When he comes +back, he tells her your name is Jim Bertrand, and that you makes a +noise like the camp paymaster." + +"Well?" I prompted. "Go on." + +"She laughs when he says that. 'Jim Bertrand, is it?' says she. 'Will +you do me a favor, Mister Jullybird'--'r some such name. 'Go and ask +that young man how did he leave all the folks in Glendale. I want to +see him jump,' says she. He didn't do it because at that same minute +yous was walkin' down the track to flag Benson's ingine." + +The bolt had fallen. The woman could have been no other than Agatha +Geddis. Once more I stood in critical danger of losing all that I had +gained. There was only one faint hope, and that was that she had not +heard of the broken parole. I had to go to the water jug in the +Commissary and get a drink before I could thank Dorgan for telling me. + +"'Tis nothin'," he said shortly. Then, after a protracted pause: "What +can she do to yous, pally?" + +"She can send me up for two years; and then some--for the penalties." + +Again a silence intervened. + +"'Twas in the back part o' my head to take a chance and ditch that +damn' special when she was comin' back down the gulch," said Dorgan, at +length, as coolly as if he were merely telling me that his pipe had +gone out. "But if I'd done it, it would have been just my crooked luck +to 'a' killed everybody on it but that woman. What'll ye be doin'?" + +"Nothing at present. We shall finish here in a week or so more, and +then I'll see." + +That ended it. After Dorgan had got another match for his pipe, I let +him out at the side door of the commissary, and he went his way across +to the sleeping shacks on the other side of the tracks. + +Two weeks later it was this story of the inquisitive young woman, +weighing in the balance with some other things, that determined my +immediate future course. The work on the branch line was completed, +and my employers had taken a dam-building contract in Idaho. I was +offered the job of bookkeeper and paymaster, combined, on the new work, +with a substantial raise in salary, and the temptation to accept was +very strong. But I argued, foolishly, perhaps, that so long as I +remained in the same service as that in which she had discovered me, +Agatha Geddis would always be able to trace me; that my best chance was +to lose myself again as speedily as possible. + +The "losing" opportunity had already offered itself. By this time I +had made a few acquaintances in town and was beginning to be bitten by +the mining bug. Though I was a late comer in the district, and Cripple +Creek had fully caught its stride as one of the greatest gold-producing +camps in the world some time before my advent, "strikes" were still +occurring frequently enough to keep the gold seekers' excitement from +dying out. With the greater part of my Hadley-and-Shelton earnings in +my pocket, and with muscles camp-hardened sufficiently to enable me to +hold my own as a workingman, I decided to take a chance and become a +prospector. + +We went at it judiciously and with well-considered plans, three of us: +the bank teller, Barrett, a young carpenter named Gifford, and myself. +Altogether we could pool less than a thousand dollars of capital, but +we determined to make the modest stake suffice. By this time the +entire district had been plotted and replotted into mining claims; +hence we did our preliminary prospecting in the records of the land +office. A careful search revealed a number of infinitesimally small +areas as yet uncovered by the many criss-crossing claims; and among +these we chose a triangular-shaped bit of mountain side on the farther +slope of Bull Mountain, with a mine called the "Lawrenceburg," a fairly +large producer, for our nearest neighbor. + +There was a good bit of discussion precedent to the making of this +decision. Barrett thought that we stood but a slight chance of finding +mineral in the over-prospected area. The Lawrenceburg was a full +quarter of a mile distant from our triangle, and its "pay-streak" was +said to dip southward, while our gulch slope lay on the other side of a +spur and due northeast. It was a further examination of the +land-office records that turned the scale. Among the numerous unworked +claims lying higher up the gulch, beyond and adjoining our proposed +location, we found three whose ownership we traced, through a number of +transfers apparently designed to hide something, to the Lawrenceburg. + +Barrett, a fine, keen-witted young fellow whose real name, if I might +give it, would be familiar to everybody in the West, was the first to +draw the probable inference. + +"Jimmie, you've got the longest head in the bunch," was his comment; +this because I had chanced to be the one to make the discovery of the +well-concealed ownership. "At some period in the history of the +Lawrenceburg, which is one of the oldest mines on Bull Mountain, its +owners have had reason to believe that their pay streak was going to +run the other way--to the northeast. They undertook to cover the +chance by making these locations quietly, and through 'dummy' locators, +on the other side of the spur." + +"But how did they come to overlook this patch we're figuring on?" asked +Gifford, the carpenter. + +"That was somebody's blunder," Barrett offered. "These section plats +we have been studying may have been made after the locations were +staked out; in all probability that was the case. That sort of thing +happens easily in a new country like this. It was an oversight; you +can bet to win on that. If those Lawrenceburg people had any good +business reason for locating these claims beyond us, they had precisely +the same reason for covering this intervening bit of ground that we are +going to grab." + +Gifford took fire at once; and if I didn't it was only because we were +not yet in possession, and I thought there might be many chances for a +slip between the cup and the lip. This talk took place at night in +Barrett's room in town, and before we separated our plans were fully +made. Gifford and I were to start at once--that night, mind you--for +Bull Mountain to locate a claim which should cover as completely as +possible the entire area of the irregular triangle. The location made, +the carpenter and I were to work the claim as a two-man proposition. +Barrett was to retain his place in the bank, so that the savings from +his salary might add more capital. We even went so far as to christen +our as yet unborn mine. Since we were picking up--or were going to +pick up--one of the unconsidered fragments after the big fellows had +taken their fill of the loaves and fishes, we proposed to call our +venture "The Little Clean-Up." + +I shall always remember Barrett's good-natured grin when the meeting +was adjourned. + +"You two will have the hot end of it," he remarked. "You're going to +do the hard work, and all you've left me is a chance to do the starving +act. Right here is where I see myself giving up this palatial +apartment and going into a boarding-house. For heaven's sake, eat +light, you two. We may have to sink a hundred feet in solid rock +before we find anything." + +We went in light marching order, Gifford and I; and the early dawn of +the following morning found us driving our location stakes and pacing +off the boundaries of the new claim. I like to remember that we were +neither too new to the business, nor too much excited, to be careful +and methodical. The triangular patch of unclaimed ground lay along the +slope, with the apex of the triangle pointing toward the hill-hidden +Lawrenceburg. Ignoring any vein directions which might develop later +on, we laid off our location to fit the ground, taking in all the space +we could legally hold; which would be, of course, only the triangle, +though our staking necessarily overlapped this area on all sides. If +we should be lucky enough to make a strike, ground space for our +operations was going to be at a premium, and at the very best there +wasn't an inch of room to spare. + +I don't know just why we should have been afraid that anybody would +have been foolish enough to try to "jump" an unworked claim; but we +were, and we decided at once that we would not leave the ground +unwatched now that our stakes were driven and our notice duly posted. +Accordingly, Gifford went back to town to make the needful land-office +entry and to bring out the supplies, tools, and a wagon-load of lumber +for a shack, leaving me to stand guard with an old horse-pistol of +Gifford's for a weapon. It was after dark when I heard the wagon +trailing up the gulch, and I had had nothing to eat since morning. But +I was free and hopeful--and happy; with the nightmare past becoming +more and more a thing to be pushed aside and comfortably ignored. + +Looking back at it now, I can see that our venture was haphazard to the +tenderfoot degree. Having built a sleeping shack out of the lumber, we +picked a place for the prospect shaft solely with reference to its +convenience on the hillside. But for this we had plenty of precedents. +What the miners of any other district would have called sheer miracles +of luck were the usual thing in the Cripple Creek region. From the +earliest of the discoveries the region had been upsetting all the +well-established mining traditions, and the tenderfoot was quite as +likely to find mineral as was the most experienced prospector; more +likely, in fact, since the man with everything to learn would not be +hampered by the traditions. + +The top layer of fine gravel which answers for soil in the district +carries gold "float"--"color," a Californian would say,--in numberless +localities over an area of many square miles; a fact which was well +known long before any one knew of the underlying treasures which have +since been taken out of the deep workings. But there are no vein +outcroppings on the surface, and the prospector's first task is to +uncover the bed-rock by sinking one or more test pits through the +gravel. In some one of these shallow shafts he may--or may not--make +his discovery. If successful, he will find, on some well-cleaned +surface of the bed-rock, a fine broken line; a minute vein in many +instances so narrow as to be discoverable only by the use of a +magnifying-glass; and that discolored line will be his invitation to +dig deeper. + +By the morning of the second day Gifford had built our rude windlass, +and the work of shaft sinking was begun. The gravel layer varies in +thickness in different parts of the district, ranging from a few inches +in some places to many feet in others. In our case we were less than +waist-deep in the hole, and had not yet set up the windlass, when we +reached the upper surface of the bed-rock. + +Generally speaking, the Cripple Creek district is a dry region as to +its surface, but we were lucky enough to have a trickling rivulet in +our gulch. It was dark before we had carried water in sufficient +quantity to wash off the uncovered bed-rock bottom in our hole, so we +turned in without knowing what we had found, or whether or not we had +found anything. + +I was cooking the bacon and pan-bread the next morning when Gifford, +who had gone early into the hole with a bucket of water and a +scrubbing-brush, came running up to the shack with his eyes bulging. + +"We--we've got it!" he gasped. "Where's that magnifying-glass?" + +I left the bacon to burn if it wanted to and ran with him to the +shallow shaft. He had scrubbed the solid rock of the pit bottom until +it was as bare as the back of a hand, and across the cleaned stone, +running from southwest to northeast, there was a thin line of +discoloration showing plainly enough as a fissure vein. Gifford dug a +little of the crack-filling out with the blade of his pocket-knife and +we examined it under the magnifier. We were both ready to swear that +we could see flecks and dust grains of free gold in the bluish-brown +gangue-matter; but that was purely imagination. + +I think neither of us knew or cared that the bacon was burned to a +blackened crisp when we got back to it. The breakfast was bolted like +a tramp's hand-out, and before the sun was fairly over the shoulder of +the eastern mountain we were back in the hole with hammer and drills. +The frantic haste was entirely excusable. While it was true that a +greater number of the Cripple Creek discoveries had widened +satisfactorily from the surface down, becoming more and more profitable +at increasing depths, it was also true that some of them had begun as +"knife-blades" and had so continued. What Gifford and I did not know +about drilling and shooting rock would have filled a library of +volumes; none the less, by noon we had succeeded in worrying a couple +of holes in the solid shaft bottom, had loaded them, and were ready for +the blast. + +If any real miner should chance to read this true and unvarnished tale +of our beginnings he will smile when I confess that we cut the fuses +four feet long and retreated a good quarter of a mile up the gulch +after they were lighted. In our breathless eagerness it seemed as if +we waited a full half-hour before the shallow hole vomited a mouthful +of broken rock and dust, and a dull double rumble told us that both +shots had gone off. Gifford was a fairly good sprinter, but I beat him +on the home run. The hole was half full of shattered rock and loosened +gravel and we went at it with our bare hands. After a few minutes of +this senseless dog-scratching, Gifford sat down on the edge of the pit +and burst out laughing. + +"I guess there ain't any manner o' need for us to go plumb locoed," he +said. "We've got all the time there is, and a shovel will last a heap +longer than our fingers." + +I may say, in passing, that this attitude was characteristic of our +carpenter partner. He was a country boy from Southern Indiana; a +natural-born mechanic, with only a common school education. But he had +initiative and a good gift of horse sense and balance, and in the +troublous times that followed he was always our level-headed stand-by. + +Acting upon his most sensible suggestion, we took our time, spelling +each other in shoveling out the debris. The two shots driven in +opposite corners had deepened the shaft over two feet. When the new +bottom of the hole was uncovered we nearly had a return of the +frenzies. The discolored line of the vein had widened to four inches +or more, and the last of the broken rock shoveled out was freely mixed +with fragments of the bluish-brown gangue-matter. + +A hasty estimate assured us that we had a sufficient quantity of the +lode matter for a trial assay, and we spent the better part of the +afternoon picking out pieces of the ore on the small dump and in +chipping more of them from the exposed face of the seam. It was +arranged that one of us should take the samples to town after dark, for +the sake of secrecy, and we put in what daylight there was left after +our sample was prepared drilling another set of holes--though we did +not fire them. + +Leaving Gifford to stand guard over what now might be something well +worth guarding, I made my way down the mountain after supper with the +two small sacks of selected samples. True to his promise, I found +Barrett already established in a rather cheap boarding-house. He was +surprised to see me so soon, and more than surprised when I showed him +the specimens of bluish rock. + +"Say--by George!" he exclaimed; "that sure does look like the real +stuff, Jimmie; though of course you can't tell. Have you roasted any +of it?" + +I was so green a miner at that time that I did not know what "roasting" +meant. Barrett had a tiny coal-stove in his room with a bit of fire in +it. Even the June nights are sometimes chilly at the Cripple Creek +altitude. Selecting a bit of the stone he put it upon the fire-shovel +among the coals and while it was heating listened to my recounting of +the short and exciting story of the "find." + +When the piece of bluish stone had been roasted and cooled we did not +need the magnifying-glass. It was covered with a dew of fine pin-point +yellow globules. Barrett went up in the air as if his chair had +exploded under him. "My God, Jimmie!" he choked, "it's--it's a +_bonanza_!" + +The next step was to have authoritative assays made, and together we +took the two small sacks of ore to the sampling works, which, at that +time, were running day and night. We waited in the office while the +tests were being made. The result, which came to us well past +midnight, was enough to upset the equanimity of a wooden Indian. Some +of the selected samples carried values as high as twenty-five dollars +in gold--not to the ton; oh, no; nothing like that: _to the pound_! + +Barrett had the situation firmly by the neck when we left the sampling +works. + +"I have a sort of provisional arrangement with Mr. Conaughy, our +president, and I can quit the bank without notice and explain +afterward," he said. "I'm going right back with you to-night. Three +of us will be none too many to handle this thing when the news gets +out." + +We went to his room first and loaded up with blankets, working clothes, +a shot-gun and a generous supply of fixed ammunition. On the long +tramp up the mountain, Barrett, who was older in the district than +either Gifford or myself, told me what we might expect. + +"You needn't think we are going to be allowed to dig that hole without +the toughest kind of a fight, Jimmie," he predicted. "The minute the +news gets loose, we shall be swamped with 'interferences,' relocations, +law-suits, process servers and constables, to say nothing of the +strong-hands and claim-jumpers. The Lawrenceburg people will doubtless +claim that mistakes were made in their surveys, as perhaps there were. +They've got a first-class fighting man for a superintendent; as I +happen to know: a man who won't stick at anything to carry his end." + +"But it's our strike," I urged. + +"It's ours if we can hold it," was the sober reply. "Our best play is +to keep the thing absolutely dark until we can dig out enough money to +give us a fighting fund. That's where we're lame. Our bit of capital +won't go anywhere when they drag us into the courts." + +Our shortest way to the new claim led us in sight of the Lawrenceburg +workings. They were running night shifts, and though it was now well +along in the small hours, the plant was in full swing. Like most of +the mines within trolley distance of the towns, it had no miners' +village, the men going back and forth at the shift-changing hours. But +the superintendent lived at the plant, and there were a few bunk houses +and one other detached cottage. + +There was a light in one room of this cottage as we passed, and Barrett +called my attention to it. + +"There's a man in that shack that I hope we may be able to get, if we +ever grow big enough to hire him," he said. Then he added, quite +irrelevantly: "He has a daughter, and I'm telling you right now, +Jimmie, she's a peach." + +I let the reference to the daughter go by default. + +"Who is this gentleman that we ought to be able to hire?" I asked. + +"He is the best, or at least one of the best, metallurgical chemists in +the district, and it goes without saying that an honest assayer counts +for everything in this mining game. Without one, the smelters will +skin you alive." + +I laughed. "I didn't ask what he was; I asked who he was--or is." + +"He is a school-teacher, or college professor, and I'm told he has +taught in High Schools and freshwater colleges all over the Middle +West," said Barrett, as we topped the hill to our side of the mountain +shoulder. And then I got my bucketing of cold water. "His name is +Phineas Everton, and his daughter's name is Mary--though everybody +calls her Polly." + + + + +XIII + +For the Sinews of War + +Gifford, sitting in the darkness with his back to the windlass and the +big old-fashioned holster revolver across his knees, held us up promptly +and peremptorily when we came over the spur. Seeing Barrett with me, he +knew pretty well what the results of the assay were before we told him. +At the edge of the shallow pit we held a council of war--the first of +many. Gifford fully agreed with Barrett that the most profound secrecy +was the first requisite. Though he was new to the business of +gold-mining--as new as either the bank teller or myself--he could +prefigure pretty accurately what was before us. + +"Here's where we'll have to ride and tie on the snoozing act," was his +drawling comment. "We mustn't leave her alone for a single minute, after +this; and it's got to be one of us, at that. We couldn't afford to hire +a watchman if we had a million dollars." + +Under the ride-and-tie proposal I volunteered to stand watch for the +remainder of the night; and after the other two had turned in I took +Gifford's place, with the windlass for a back rest and Barrett's shot-gun +for a weapon. + +I was not sorry to have a little time to think; to try in some fashion to +readjust the point of view so suddenly snatched from its anchorings in +the commonplace and shot high into the empyrean. It was the night of the +ninth of June. Three months earlier, to a day, I had been an outcast; a +miserable tramp roaming the streets of a great city; broken in mind, body +and heart; bitter, discouraged, and so nearly ready to fall in with +Kellow's criminal suggestion as actually to let him give me the money +which, if I had kept it or spent it as he directed, would have committed +me irretrievably to a life of crime. + +Looking back upon it from the vantage point gained by a few hours' toil +on a bare Colorado mountain-side, that ninth of March seemed to have +withdrawn into a fathomless past. I was no longer a hunted vagabond; I +was breathing the free clean air of a new environment, and in the narrow +pit beside me a fortune was waiting to be dug out; a fortune for the +ex-convict no less than for the two who had never by hint or innuendo +sought to inquire into their partner's past. It was too good to be true; +and yet it was true, contingent, as I saw it, only upon our fortitude, +discretion and manful courage. + +Nevertheless, there was still one small disturbing note in the music of +the spheres. Barrett's mention of Phineas Everton as one of our nearest +neighbors disquieted me vaguely. It was quite in vain that I reasoned +that in all human probability Everton would fail to identify the bearded +man of twenty-eight with the schoolboy he had known ten or twelve years +earlier. He had taught only one year in the Glendale High School, and I +was not in any of his classes. Polly had known me much better. She had +been in one of the grammar grades, and was just at an age to make a +big-brother confidant of her teacher's brother--my sister being at that +time a teacher in the grammar school. + +Upon this I fell to wondering curiously how Polly, a plain-faced, +eager-eyed little girl in short dresses, could have grown into anything +meriting Barrett's enthusiastic description of her as a "peach." Also, I +wondered how her bookish, studious father had ever contrived to break +with the scholastic traditions sufficiently to become an assayer for a +Western mine. But I might have saved myself this latter speculation. +Cripple Creek, like other great mining-camps, served as a melting-pot for +many strange and diverse elements. + +At the earliest graying of dawn I roused my partners and took my turn +with the blankets, too tired and drowsy to stay awake while Gifford +cooked breakfast. I was sound asleep long before they fired the two +holes Gifford and I had drilled the previous afternoon, and they let me +alone until the noonday meal was ready on the rough plank table. Over +the coffee and canned things Barrett brought our bonanza story up to date. + +"It's no joke, Jimmie," he said soberly. "We've got the world by the +ears, if we can only manage to hold on and go on digging. The lead has +widened to over six inches, and we have two more sacks of the stuff +picked out and ready to take to town." + +"Any visitors?" I asked. + +"Not a soul, as yet. But we'll have them soon enough; there's no doubt +about that. If our guess is right--that the Lawrenceburg people meant to +cover this hillside in their later locations--we'll hear from Bart +Blackwell before we are many hours older." + +"Blackwell is the superintendent you spoke of when we were coming up last +night?" + +"The same. I don't know why he hasn't been here before this time. They +must surely hear the blasting." + +We had our visitor that afternoon, while Barrett and I were working in +the hole and Gifford was sleeping. Luckily for us, Barrett never for a +single moment lost sight of the need for secrecy. We were drilling when +Blackwell's shadow fell across the mouth of the pit, but we had taken the +precaution to cover the gold-bearing vein with spalls and chippings of +the porphyry, and to see to it that none of the gold-bearing material +showed in the small dump at the pit mouth. + +Blackwell was a short man but heavy-set, with a curly black beard and +eyes that were curiously heavy-lidded. As he leaned over the windlass +and looked down upon us he reminded me of one of the fairy-tale ogres. + +"Hello, Bob," he said, speaking to Barrett, whom he knew. "Quit the +banking business, have you?" + +"Taking a bit of a lay-off," Barrett returned easily. "We all have to +get out and dig in the ground, sooner or later." + +Blackwell laughed good-naturedly. + +"You'll get enough of it up here before you've gone very far," he +predicted. "Just the same, you might have come by the office and asked +permission before you began to work off your digging fit on Lawrenceburg +property." + +"We're not on Lawrenceburg," said Barrett cheerfully. + +"Oh, yes, you are," was the equally cheerful rejoinder. "Our ground runs +pretty well up to the head of the gulch. I'm not trying to run you off, +you know. If you feel like digging a well, it's all right: it amuses +you, and it doesn't hurt us any." + +Barrett pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the hole. + +"Let's get this thing straight, Blackwell," he argued. "You've got three +claims in this gulch, but we are not on any one of them. Look at your +maps when you go back to the office." + +"I know the maps well enough. We cover everything up to the head of the +gulch, just as I say, joining with the original Lawrenceburg locations on +the other side of the spur." Then, suddenly: "Who's your friend?" + +Barrett introduced me briefly as Jim Bertrand, late of the Colorado +Midland construction force. Blackwell nodded and looked toward the shack. + +"Any more of you?" he asked. + +"One more; a fellow named Gifford. He's asleep just now." + +Blackwell straightened up. + +"It's all right, as I say, Bob. If you three tenderfoots want to come up +here and play at digging a hole, it's no skin off of us. When you get +tired we'll buy the lumber in your shack and what dynamite you happen to +have left, just to save your hauling it away." + +"Thanks," said Barrett; "we'll remember that. We haven't much money now, +but we'll probably have more--or less--when we quit." + +"Less it is," chuckled the square-shouldered boss of the Lawrenceburg. +"Go to it and work off your little mining fever. But if you should +happen to find anything--which you won't, up here--just remember that +I've given you legal notice, with your partner here as a witness, that +you're on Lawrenceburg ground." + +Barrett's grin was a good match for Blackwell's chuckle. + +"We're going to sink fifty feet; that's about as far as our present +capital will carry us. As to the ownership of the ground, we needn't +quarrel about that at this stage of the game. You've given us notice; +and you've also given us permission to amuse ourselves if we want to. +We'll call it a stand-off." + +After the superintendent had gone I ventured to point out to my +drill-mate that the matter of ownership had been left rather indefinite, +after all. + +"Diplomacy, Jimmie," was the quick reply. "The one thing we can't stand +for is to be tied up in litigation before we have contrived to dig a few +of the sinews of war out of this hole. Blackwell's little pop-call warns +us to use about a thousand times as much care and caution as we have been +using. I saw him scraping the dump around with his foot as he talked. +He is one of the shrewdest miners in Colorado, and if he had got his +sleepy eye on a piece of the vein matter as big as a marble, it would +have been all over but the shouting. You can see where all this is +pointing?" + +"It means that we've got to make this hole look like a barren hole, and +keep it looking that way--if we have to handle every piece of rock that +comes out of it in our fingers," I said. + +"Just that," Barrett asserted, and then we went on with the drilling. + +We arranged our routine that evening over a supper of Gifford's +preparing. We planned to take out each day as much ore as the watch on +duty could dig, to sort it carefully, sacking the best of it and hiding +the remainder under the shack. Then, during the night, one of us would +carry what he could of the sacked ore down the mountain to the sampling +works to be assayed and sold on the spot. + +The sheer labor involved in this method of procedure was something +appalling, but we could devise no alternative. To have a wagon haul the +ore to town would, we were all agreed, be instantly fatal to secrecy; and +at whatever cost we must have more money before we could dare face a +legal fight with the Lawrenceburg people. Looking back upon it now, our +plan seems almost childish; but the enthusiasm born of the miraculous +discovery was accountable for the cheerful readiness with which we +adopted it. + +Gifford took the first turn at the ore-carrying while Barrett and I +shared the night watch, two hours at a time for each of us. The +carpenter came back just before daybreak, haggard and hollow-eyed, but +profanely triumphant. There had been no questions asked at the sampling +works, and his back-load of ore had been purchased on the strength of the +assay--doubtless with a good, round profit to the buyers. He had limited +his carry to seventy-five pounds, and he brought back the sampling +company's check for $1355 as the result of the day's work! + +Speaking for myself, I can say truly that I lived in the heart of a dream +for the next few days--the dream of a galley-slave. We worked like dogs. +Added to the drilling and shooting and digging, there was the all-night +job of ore-carrying--at which we took turn and turn about--for one of us. +Though I am not, and never have been, save in the parole starvation time, +what one would call a weakling, my first trip to town with eighty-five +pounds of ore on my back nearly killed me. A thousand times, it seemed +to me, I had to stop and rest; and when I got down it was always an open +question whether or not I could ever get up again with the back load in +position. + +As it came about, in the regular routine, mine was the third turn at the +carrying, and by this time the superintendent of the sampling works was +beginning to have his curiosity aroused. + +"So there are three of you, are there?" he commented, when he had +examined and recognized the sacked samples. "Any more?" + +I shook my head. I was too nearly exhausted to talk. + +"At first I thought you fellows were raiding somebody," he went on. +"There is a mine not a thousand miles from where you're sitting that puts +out exactly this same kind of ore, only it's not anywhere near as rich as +these picked samples of yours." + +"What made you change your mind?" I queried, willing to see how far he +would go. "How do you know we are not raiding somebody's ore shed?" + +"Because I know Bob Barrett," was the crisp reply. Then: "Why are you +boys making this night play? Why don't you come out in the open like +other folks--honest folks, I mean?" + +"There are reasons," I asserted. + +"Afraid somebody will catch on and swamp you with a rush of claim +stakers?" + +"Call it that, if you like." + +"You're plumb foolish, and I told Bob Barrett so last night. You're +carrying this stuff miles; I know by the way you come in here with your +tongues hanging out. It's like trying to dip the ocean dry with a pint +cup. One good wagon-load of your ore--if you've got that much--would +count for more than you three could lug in a month of Sundays." + +I knew this as well as he did, but I was not there to argue. + +"I guess we'll have to handle it our own way," I answered evasively; and +while he was sending my sack out to the testing room I fell sound asleep. + +At the end of a week, after we had made two trips apiece, we had nearly +$7,000 in bank. Figured as a return for our labor, killing as that was, +it was magnificent. But as a war chest it was merely a drop in the +bucket. Given plenty of time, we might have won out eventually by the +sacked-sample route; but we knew we were not going to be given time. +Blackwell had been up twice; and the second time, Gifford, who was acting +as hammerman, had to sit in the bottom of the shaft, pretending to load +the half-drilled hole. Otherwise, the heavy-lidded eyes, peering down +over the barrel of the windlass would assuredly have seen the steadily +widening ore body. + +On the sixth day Everton came across the spur. I think I should have +known him anywhere, but he did not recognize me, though I stood and +talked with him at the shaft mouth. His visit, as I took it, was not a +spying one. On the contrary it appeared to be merely neighborly. After +beating about the bush for a little time, he came down to particulars. +We must surely know, he said, that we were on Lawrenceburg ground, and it +was too bad we were throwing away our hard work. To this he added a +vague warning. Blackwell had been taking our amateur effort as a good +joke on Barrett, whom he had known only as a bank clerk. But the edge of +the joke was wearing off, and the superintendent, who, as it seemed, had +been watching us more closely than we had supposed, was beginning to +wonder why we kept at it so faithfully; and why our camp was always +guarded at night. + +The following day was Sunday, and Everton came again, this time +accompanied by his daughter. Gifford was windlass winder at the moment, +and he let himself down into the shaft, swearing, when he saw them coming +over the shoulder of the spur. + +I left our carpenter-man busily covering up the lode while I scrambled +out to meet and divert the visitors. My first sight of Mary Everton, +grown, made me gasp. There had been no promise of her womanly +winsomeness and pulse-quickening beauty in the plain-faced little girl +with large brown eyes--the little girl who used to thrust her hand into +mine on the way home from school and tell me about the unforgivable +meanness of the boy who "cribbed" for his examinations. + +Everton introduced me as "Mr. Bertrand," and for a flitting instant I saw +something at the back of the brown eyes that made cold chills run up and +down my spine. And her first words increased rather than diminished the +burden of sudden misgiving. + +"I knew a Bertrand once," she said, shaking hands frankly after the +manner of the West. "It was when I was a little girl in school. Only +Bertrand was his Christian name." + +Without knowing that he was doing it, her father came to my rescue. "We +haven't any near neighbors, Mr. Bertrand, and Polly wanted to see your +mine," he said. And then: "Do you realize that it is Sunday?" + +I led the glorified Polly Everton of my school days to the mouth of the +shallow shaft. "Our 'mine,' as your father is polite enough to call it, +isn't very extensive, as yet," I pointed out. "You can see it at a +glance." + +She took my word for it and gave the windlass-straddled pit only a +glance. Barrett had had his nap out and was showing himself at the door +of the shack. My companion nodded brightly at him and he joined us at +once. "We are quite old friends, Mr. Barrett and I," she hastened to +say, when I would have introduced him; and this left me free to attach +myself to her father. + +Phineas Everton had changed very little with the passing years. I +remembered him as a sort of cut-and-dried school-man, bookworm and +scientist, and, as I afterward learned, he was still all three of these. +Partly because I was telling myself that it was safer for me to keep my +distance from the girl who remembered the boy Bertrand, and partly +because I wished to draw the assayer away from our dump, I took Everton +over to the shack and we sat together on the door-step. For some little +time I couldn't make out what he was driving at in his talk, but finally +it came out, by inference, at least. Somebody--Blackwell, perhaps--had +started the story that we were planning a raid on the Lawrenceburg. + +"How could that be?" I asked, remembering that, only the day before, +Everton had asserted that we were already trespassers on Lawrenceburg +property. + +"It is an old trick," he commented, rather sorrowfully, I fancied. "In +all the older locations there have been bits of ground missed in the +criss-crossing of the claims. Some one of you three has been sharp +enough to find one of those bits just here." + +"Well; supposing we have--what then?" I asked. + +He was silent for a half-minute or so. Barrett had led Mary Everton to +the shoulder of the spur where the view of the distant town was +unobstructed, and Gifford was still in the shaft. + +"I don't know you, Mr. Bertrand," my seatmate began slowly, "and I +shouldn't venture to set up any standard of right and wrong in your +behalf. But that young man out yonder with my daughter: I've known him a +long time, and I knew his people. It is a thousand pities to drag him +into your undertaking." + +"There has been no especial 'dragging' that I am aware of; and I don't +know why you should be sorry for Barrett," I returned rather tartly. + +"I am sorry because Robert Barrett has hitherto lived an upright and +honest life. He had excellent prospects in the bank, and it seems a +great pity that he has seen fit to throw them away." + +By this time I was entirely at sea. "You will have to make it +plainer--much plainer," I told him. + +"I have been hoping you wouldn't force me to call it by its ugly name," +was the sober rejoinder. "It is blackmail, Mr. Bertrand; criminal +blackmail, as I think you must know." + +"That is a pretty serious charge for you to make, isn't it?" + +"Not more serious than the occasion warrants. You three have discovered +this little scrap of unclaimed ground in the middle of the Lawrenceburg +property. You are digging; and presently, when you are down far enough +so that your operations cannot be observed from the shaft mouth, you will +announce that you have struck the Lawrenceburg ore body. In that event, +as you have doubtless foreseen, our company will have no recourse but to +buy you off at your own figure." + +"Well?" I challenged. + +"Your announcement, when you make it, will be a lie," was the cold-voiced +reply. "You are 'salting' the crevices as you go down--and with +Lawrenceburg ore." + +I sighed my relief. His guess was so far from the truth that I was more +than willing to help it along. If the Lawrenceburg people could only be +persuaded that our imaginary coup was to be postponed until the bottom of +our shaft should be out of sight from the surface, we were measurably +safe. + +"We may ask you to prove your charge when the proper time comes, Mr. +Everton," I suggested. + +He took a small fragment of bluish-gray ore from his pocket and showed it +to me, saying, quietly, "I can prove it now; this is Lawrenceburg ore: I +handle and test it every day, and I am perfectly familiar with it. I +picked this piece up a few minutes ago on your dump." + +It is always the impact of the unexpected that sends a man scurrying into +the armory of his past in search of the readiest weapon for the +emergency. Recall, once again, if you will, the three years of +association with criminals, and the fact that I was at that moment under +the ban of the law as an escaped convict. I could think of nothing save +the gaining of time, precious time, at whatever cost. + +I shall always be thankful that the temptation did not reach the length +of making me offer to buy Everton's silence. That, indeed, would have +been suicidal. Yet the prompting suggestion came to me, in company with +others still more ruthless. I was telling myself that the situation was +sufficiently alarming to warrant almost any expedient. Though he was not +yet aware of it, Everton had discovered our real secret; he knew we had +ore, which--as yet--he thought we were stealing from the Lawrenceburg +bins. If he should take one additional step. . . . + +The thought-loom shuttled pretty rapidly for a few short-lived seconds. +If Everton should show the bit of ore to Blackwell the superintendent +might believe the charge that we were stealing the Lawrenceburg values +for the "salting" purpose; in which case he would doubtless swear out +warrants for us. Or he might see farther than Everton had seen and jump +to the conclusion that we had actually made a strike of our own in the +shallow pit. Either way there was sharp trouble ahead. + +"You have us down pretty fine, haven't you?" I said, at the end of the +reflective pause. "May I ask what use you are going to make of your +discovery?" + +"I purpose giving you three young men a chance to talk it over seriously +among yourselves before I take any further steps. I suppose I should +have gone direct to Barrett. I know him, and I know there is plenty of +good in him to appeal to. But candidly, Mr. Bertrand, I didn't have the +heart to--well, to let him know that I knew." + +A bitter thought swept across me like a hot wind from the desert. Was +there never to be any let-up? Were people always going to take it for +granted that _I_ was the criminal? I have known physical hunger and +hunger intellectual, but they were as nothing compared with the moral +famine that gripped me just then. I would have pawned my soul for a bare +modicum of the commonplace, every-day respectability which is able to +look the world squarely in the face without fear or favor--without asking +any odds of it. + +Everton was evidently waiting for his reply, and I gave it to him. + +"Criminality is largely relative--like everything else in the world, +don't you think?" I said, letting him feel the raw edge of the bitterness +that was rasping at me. "In coming to me, as you have, you, yourself, +are compounding a felony." + +He shrugged his thin shoulders and looked away at the two on the bluff's +edge. + +"Properly speaking, Mr. Bertrand, I am only an interested onlooker; and I +am interested chiefly on Barrett's account. What I may feel it my duty +to do if you three remain obdurate will be purely without reference to +your rather sophistical definition of criminality. In any event, +Blackwell is the man you will have to reckon with. As I say, I am +concerned only so far as the outcome may involve Robert Barrett." + +"I'll tell the others what you have said," I agreed; and with this the +matter rested. + + + + +XIV + +Paper Walls + +We held our second war council shortly after Phineas Everton and his +daughter had disappeared over the shoulder of the spur on their way +back to the Lawrenceburg. I gave my two partners the gist of the +conversation with the assayer, briefly and without comment. Gifford +oozed profanity; but Barrett laughed and said: + +"Every little new thing we run up against merely urges us to let out +one more notch in the speed of the hurry hoist. Everton's suspicion is +an entirely natural one, and for my part, I only hope he and Blackwell +will hang on to it. If they should, there is an even chance that they +will watch their ore sheds a little closer and leave it to us to make +the first move in the imagined blackmailing scheme--all of which will +give us more time." + +"That's all right; but we can't bet on the 'hang on,'" was Gifford's +demurrer. "They may think they've got the straight of it now, but +there's no law against their changing their minds mighty suddenly. +Suppose Everton shows up his bit of a sample, and they both take a +second whirl at the thing and pull down a guess that it isn't stolen +Lawrenceburg ore, after all? We've got to improve upon this +pick-a-back ore shipment of ours, some way, and do it mighty quick." + +This was the biting fact; we all accepted it as our most pressing need +and fell to discussing ways and means. There was already a full +wagon-load of the sacked ore hidden under the sleeping-shack, and at +the rate the lode was widening we could confidently figure on getting +out as much more every second day, or oftener. There was a good wagon +road to town from the Lawrenceburg plant, but of course we dared not +use it so long as we were making any attempt to maintain secrecy. The +alternative was a long haul down our own gulch, around the end of the +spur, and across the slope of the mountain-side below. Even this, the +only other practicable route, would be in plain sight from the +Lawrenceburg workings, once the team should pass out upon the bare +lower hillside. + +Moreover, we were obliged to consider the risk involved in taking at +least one other man--the driver of the team--into our confidence. +Since the hauling would have to be done in the night, an honest man +would suspect crookedness, and the other kind would blackmail us to a +finish. Gifford spoke of this, saying that it was a choice between the +devil and the deep blue sea. + +None the less, we were all agreed that the wagon-hiring hazard would +have to be taken, and at the close of the talk Barrett went to town to +make the arrangement. It was after dark when he returned. His mission +had been miraculously successful: he had not only found a trustworthy +teamster who was willing, for a good, round sum, to risk his horses on +the mountain at night; he had also interviewed the superintendent of +the sampling works and concluded a deal by the terms of which the +company--as a personal favor to Barrett--agreed to treat a limited +quantity of our highest-grade ore in wagon-load lots, making cash +settlements therefor. + +It lacked only an hour of midnight when the team, making a wide detour +to avoid being heard from the Lawrenceburg, reached our location on the +slope of the spur. We all helped with the loading; and when all was +ready, Gifford, whose turn it was to go to town, borrowed Barrett's +shot-gun and climbed to a seat beside the driver. + +With every precaution taken--a dragging pine-tree coupled on behind the +load to serve instead of the squealing brakes, and many injunctions to +the driver to take it easy and to do his swearing internally--the +outfit made more noise than a threshing-machine bumping down the gulch. +We kept pace with it, Barrett and I, following along the crest of the +spur with an apprehensive eye on the Lawrenceburg. But there was no +unusual stir at the big plant on the other side of the ridge; merely +the never-ceasing clank and grind of the hoist and the pouring thunder +of the ore as the skip dumped its load into the bins. + +Having nothing to detain him in town, Gifford made a quick trip and was +with us again a little after four o'clock in the morning. At the crack +of dawn Barrett and I were in the shaft under a new division of time. +Now that we had the team hauling for us, we chopped up the shifts so +that there would be two of us in the hole continuously, day and night. + +Again I have the memory of a week of grinding toil, broken--for me, at +least--only by the nights when it came my turn to ride to town on the +load of ore. On both occasions I recall that I went fast asleep on the +high seat before the wagon had gone twenty rods down the gulch; slept +sitting bolt upright, with the shot-gun across my knees, and waking +only when the driver was gee-ing into the yard of the sampling works in +town; lapses that I may confess here, though I was ashamed to confess +them to my two partners. + +During this second week we heard nothing from Blackwell or from any of +the Lawrenceburg contingent. But several strangers had drifted along, +stopping to peer down our shaft and to ask multitudinous questions. +Knowing well enough that we could not keep up the killing toil +indefinitely, and that the discovery crisis was only postponed from day +to day, we yet took heart of grace. The purchase money for the ore was +pouring in a steady stream into Barrett's bank to our credit; and with +the accounting for the third wagon-load we had upward of $80,000 in the +fighting fund. + +Gifford went in as wagon guard on the Monday night load, and getting an +early start from the mountain, he had a little time to spend on the +streets in town. On his return he brought news; the news we had all +been expecting and waiting for. + +"The big trouble's on the way," he reported. "Bennett Avenue's all lit +up with the news that there's been a new strike on Bull Mountain. I +heard about it mighty near everywhere I went. Up to date nobody seems +to know just where it is, or who has made it; but they've got hold of +the main guy, all right. One fellow told me he had it straight from +the sampling works. Some cuss on the inside, I reckon, who doesn't +know enough to keep his blame' mouth shut, has gone and leaked." + +"I'd like mighty well to see another eighty thousand in the bank before +we have to shut our eyes and begin handing it out to the lawyers," said +Barrett. "Besides, when we get ready to build a shaft-house and put in +machinery, we'll have to have more ground room. After the news gets +out, we'll just about have to blanket what land we buy with +twenty-dollar gold-pieces." + +"With the Lawrenceburg hemming us in the way it does, we won't be able +to buy elbow room at any kind of a price, will we?" asked Gifford, who +had not gone into the topographies as minutely as Barrett and I had. + +"There are the three corners of the original triangle which we weren't +able to cover in our claim," Barrett explained. "And down yonder on +that gulch flat that we are using for a wagon road there is a claim +called the 'Mary Mattock' which was taken up and worked and dropped a +year or so ago by a Nebraska syndicate. When I was in town last week I +gave Benedict, of Benedict & Myers, the job of running down the owners, +with the idea that we might possibly wish to buy the ground a little +later on. + +"Good work!" Gifford applauded. "I wouldn't have thought of anything +as foxy as that." + +"I told Benedict we'd buy the Mary Mattock if we could get it at a +reasonable figure, or lease it if we couldn't buy it," Barrett went on. +"It is probably worthless to its present owners as it stands; its three +shafts are full of water, and I'm told the Nebraskans spent fifty +thousand dollars trying to pump them. But the minute the 'Little +Clean-Up' gets into the newspapers, the Mary Mattock, being next door +to us, will figure in the market as a bonanza, whether it is or isn't." + +Gifford cut himself a chew of tobacco from his pocket-plug. + +"I wish to gracious we had that other eighty thousand you're honing +for, right now," he protested. "This tin-basin trot's sure getting on +my nerves, as the fella said. We'd ought to have the shaft-house and +machinery set up and going, this minute, and a good, husky bunch of men +at work in that hole, digging out dollars where we're scratching for +pennies." + +"I don't want to be the shy man of this outfit," Barrett put it +quickly. "We can have the machinery if you fellows think we dare use +the money to buy it." + +Gifford and I both said No, deferring to Barrett's better judgment. +And since this talk was getting us nowhere and was wasting time which +was worth ten dollars a minute, we broke it off and went to work. + +It was in the latter part of this third week, on a night when my turn +at the wagon guarding had come in regular course, that I was made to +understand that no leaf in the book of a man's life can be so firmly +pasted down that a mere chance thumbing of the pages by an alien hand +may not flip it back again. + +By imperceptible inchings we had been starting the wagon earlier and +earlier on each successive trip; and on the evening in question it was +no later than ten o'clock when I turned the consignment of ore over to +the foreman at the reduction works. Ordinarily, I should have taken +the road back to the hills at once, intent only upon getting to camp +and between the blankets as speedily as possible. But on this night a +spirit of restlessness got hold of me, and, leaving Barrett's shotgun +in the sampling works office, I strolled up-town. + +Inasmuch as a three-months' residence in a mining-camp is the full +equivalent of as many years spent in a region where introductions +precede acquaintance, I was practically certain to meet somebody I +knew. The somebody in this instance proved to be one Patrick Carmody, +formerly a hard-rock boss on the Midland branch construction, and now +the working superintendent of a company which was driving a huge +drainage tunnel under a group of the big mines of the district. + +The meeting-place was the lobby of the hotel, and at the Irishman's +invitation I sat with him to smoke a comradely cigar. Carmody was not +pointedly inquisitive as to my doings; was content to be told that I +had been "prospecting around." Beyond that he was good-naturedly +willing to talk of the stupendous undertaking over which he was +presiding, expatiating enthusiastically upon air-drill performance, +porphyry shooting, the merits of various kinds of high explosives, +deep-mine ventilation, and the like. + +While he talked, I smoked on, luxuriating like a cat before a fire in +the comfortable lounging-chair, the cheerful surroundings, the stir and +bustle of the human ebb and flow, and the first half-hour of real +idleness I had enjoyed in many days. + +It was after Carmody had been dragged away by some fellow hard-rock +enthusiast that I had my paralyzing shock. Sitting in a chair less +than a dozen feet distant, smoking quietly and reading a newspaper, was +a man whose face would have been familiar if I had seen it in the +golden streets of the New Jerusalem or in the deepest fire-chamber of +the other place; a face with boring black eyes, and with a cruel mouth +partly hidden by freshly crimped black mustaches: the face, namely, of +my sometime prison-mate, Kellow. + +My shocked recognition of this man who tied me to my past annihilated +time and distance as if they had never been. In a flash I was back +again in a great stone building in the home State, working over the +prison books and glancing up now and then to the cracked mirror on the +opposite wall of the prison office which showed me the haggard features +and cropped hair of the convict Weyburn. + +The memory shutter flicked, and I saw myself walking out through the +prison gates with the State's cheap suit of clothes on my back and the +State's five dollars in my pocket, a paroled man. Another click, and I +had dragged through the six months of degradation and misery, and saw +myself sitting opposite Kellow in the back room of a slum saloon in a +great city, shivering with the cold, wretched and hungry. Once again I +saw his sneer and heard him say, "It's all the same to you now, whether +you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you can live the prison +smell down, but you can't; it'll stick to you like your skin. Wherever +you go, you'll be a marked man." + +It is a well-worn saying that life is full of paper walls. A look, a +turn of the head, the recognition which would follow, and once more I +should be facing a fate worse than death. Kellow knew that I had +broken my parole. He would trade upon the knowledge, and if he could +not use me he would betray me. I knew the man. + +Five minutes earlier I had been facing the world a free man; free to go +and come as I pleased, free to sit and smoke with a friend in the most +public place in the camp. But now I slid from my chair with my hat +pulled over my eyes and crept to the door, watching Kellow every step +of the way, ready to bolt and run, or to turn and fight to kill, at the +slightest rustling of the upheld newspaper. Once safely outside in the +cool, clean night air of the streets I despised myself with a loathing +too bitter to be set in words. But the fact remained. + +It was like the strugglings of a man striving to throw off the +benumbing effects of an opium debauch--the effort to be at one again +with the present. The effort was no more than half successful when I +stepped into a late-closing hardware store and bought a weapon--a +repeating rifle with its appropriate ammunition. Barrett had said +something about the lack of weapons at the claim--we had only the +shot-gun and Gifford's out-of-date revolver--and I made the purchase +automatically in obedience to an underlying suggestion which was +scarcely more than half conscious. + +But once more in the street, and with the means in my hands, a sudden +and fierce impulse prompted me to go back to the hotel lobby and kill +the man who held my fate between his finger and thumb. Take it as a +virtue or a confession of weakness, as you will, but it was only the +thought of what I owed Barrett and Gifford that kept me from doing it. + +So it was a potential murderer, at least in willing intention, who took +the long trail back under the summer stars to the hills, with the rifle +and Barrett's shot-gun--the latter picked up in passing the sampling +works--nestling in the hollow of his arm. God or the devil could have +given me no greater boon that night than the hap to meet Kellow on the +lonesome climb. I am sure I should have shot him without the faintest +stirring of irresolution. By the time I reached our gulch I was fuming +over my foolishness in buying the rifle--a clumsy weapon that would +everywhere advertise my purpose. What I needed, I told myself, was a +pocket weapon, to be carried day and night; and the next time I should +go to town the lack should be supplied. + +For by now all scruples were dead and I was assuring myself grittingly +that the entire Cripple Creek district was too narrow to hold the man +who knew, and the man who was afraid. + + + + +XV + +The Broken Wagon + +The day following the Kellow incident being Sunday, the three of us +snatched an hour or so in the early forenoon for a breathing space. +Sitting around the plank table in the bunk shack we took account of +stock, as a shopkeeper would say. It was apparent to all of us that +the blazoning abroad of our secret could not now be long delayed. A +new gold strike yielding ore worth anywhere from one to twenty-five +dollars a pound was startling enough to make a stir even in the one and +only Cripple Creek, and it seemed nothing short of a miracle that we +had not already been traced and our location identified. + +It was Barrett's gift to take the long look ahead. At his suggestion, +Gifford, who was something of a rough-and-ready draftsman, sketched a +plan for the necessary shaft-house and out-buildings, fitting the +structures to our limited space. When the fight to retain possession +should begin we meant to strike fast and hard; Barrett had already gone +the length of bargaining, through a friend in town, for building +material and machinery, which were to be rushed out to us in a hurry at +the firing of the first gun in what we all knew would be a battle for +existence. + +During this Sunday morning talk I was little more than an abstracted +listener. I could think of nothing but the raw hazard of the previous +night and of the frightful moral abyss into which it had precipitated +me. In addition there were ominous forebodings for the future. So +long as Kellow remained in Cripple Creek, danger would lurk for me in +every shadow. Since the calamity which was threatening me would also +involve my partners, at least to the extent of handicapping them by the +loss of a third of our fighting force, it seemed no less than a duty to +warn them. But I doubt if I should have had the courage if Barrett had +not opened the way. + +"You're not saying much, Jimmie. Did the trip to town last night knock +you out?" he asked. + +It was my opportunity, and I mustered sufficient resolution to seize it. + +"No; it didn't knock me out, but it showed me where I've been making a +mistake. I never ought to have gone into this thing with you two +fellows; but now that I am in, I ought to get out." + +"What's that!" Gifford exploded; but Barrett merely caught my eye and +said, very gently, "On your own account, or on ours, Jimmie?" + +"On yours. There is no need of going into the particulars; it's a long +story and a pretty dismal one; but when I tell you that last night I +was on the point of killing a man in cold blood--that it's altogether +probable that I shall yet have to kill him--you can see what I'm +letting you in for if I stay with you." + +Gifford leaned back against the shack wall and laughed. "Oh, if +_that's_ all," he said. But again it was Barrett who took the soberer +view. + +"You are one of us, Jimmie," he declared. "If you've got a blood +quarrel with somebody, it's our quarrel, too: we're partners. Isn't +that right, Gifford?" + +"Right it is," nodded the carpenter. + +"We are not partners to that extent," I objected. "If I should tell +you all the circumstances, you might both agree with me that I may be +obliged to kill this man; but on the other hand, you--or a jury--would +call it first-degree murder; as it will be." + +Barrett looked horrified, as he had a perfect right to. + +"You couldn't do a thing like that!" he protested. + +"Yesterday I should have been just as certain as you are that it was +beyond the possibilities; but now, since last night, it's different. +And that is why I say you ought to fire me. You can't afford to carry +any handicaps; you need assets, not liabilities." + +Gifford got up and went to sit on the doorstep, where he occupied +himself in whittling thin shavings of tobacco from a bit of black plug +and cramming them into his pipe. Barrett accepted this tacit +implication that he was to speak for both. + +"If you pull out, Jimmie, it will be because you want to; not because +anything you have said cuts any figure with us. And whether you go or +stay, there will be two of us here who will back you to the limit. +That's about all there is to say, I guess; only, if I were you, I +shouldn't be too sudden. Take a day to think it over. To-morrow +morning, if you still think it's the wise thing to do--the only thing +to do--we'll write you a check, Gifford and I, for your share in the +bank account; and after we get going we'll make such a settlement with +you for your third as will be fair and just all around." + +This put an entirely new face upon the matter. I hadn't dreamed of +such a thing as standing upon my rights in the partnership. + +"Like the mischief, you will!" I retorted. "Do you think I'm that kind +of a quitter?--that I'd take a single dollar out of the Little +Clean-up's war chest? Why, man alive! my only object in getting out +would be to relieve you two of a possible burden!" + +Barrett's smile was altogether brotherly. "It's the only way you can +escape us," he averred; and with that the dissolution proposal was +suffered to go by default. + +There were half a dozen stragglers to come lounging over the spur or up +the gulch that Sunday afternoon, sharp-set, eager-eyed prospectors, +every man of them, and each one, we guessed, searching meticulously for +the mysterious bonanza about which everybody in town was gossiping. It +was only the fact that the hills were fairly dotted with embryotic +mines like our own--this and the other fact that our dump showed no +signs of ore--that saved us. + +Two of these prying visitors hung around for an hour or more, and one +of the pair wanted to go down in the shaft, which was now deep enough +to be quite safe from prying eyes at the surface. I was acting as +windlass-man at the time, and I bluffed him, telling him that with two +men working in the hole there wasn't room for a third--which was true +enough. But beyond this fact there were by this time the best of +reasons for keeping strangers out of our shaft. To name the biggest of +them, our marvelous Golconda vein had widened steadily with the +increasing depth until now we were sinking in solid ore. + +It was Gifford's turn to guard the ore load that night, and after the +team got away I persuaded Barrett to go to bed. He was showing the +effects of the terrible toil worse than either the carpenter or myself, +and I was afraid he might break when the fighting strain came. I had +yet to learn what magnificent reserves there were in this clean-cut, +high-strung young fellow who, when we began, looked as if he had never +done a day's real labor in his life. + +Since we had never yet left the shaft unguarded for a single hour of +the day or night, I took my place at the pit mouth as soon as Barrett's +candle went out. It was a fine night, warm for the altitude and +brightly starlit, though there was no moon. In the stillness the +subdued clamor of the Lawrenceburg's hoists floated up over the spur +shoulder; and by listening intently I fancied I could hear the distant +rumble of our ore wagon making its way down the mountain. + +In the isolation and loneliness of the night watch it was inevitable +that my thoughts should hark back to the near-meeting with Kellow, and +to the moral lapse which it had provoked. Doubtless every man +rediscovers himself many times in the course of a lifetime. In prison +I had been sustained by a vindictive determination to win out and +square accounts with Abel Geddis and Abner Withers. After my release +another motive had displaced the vengeful prompting: the losing fight +for reinstatement in the good opinion of the world seemed to be the +only thing worth living for. + +But now I was finding that there was a well-spring of action deeper +than either of these, and the name of it was a degrading fear of +consequences--of punishment. With a most hearty loathing for the lower +depths of baseness uncovered by craven fear, one may be none the less a +helpless victim of a certain ruthless and malign ferocity to which it +is likely to give birth. Sitting with my back propped against the +windlass and the newly purchased rifle across my knees, I found that +cowardice, like other base passions, may suddenly develop an infection. +With nerves twittering and muscles tensely set, I was ready to become a +homicidal maniac at the snapping of a twig or the rolling of a pebble +down the hillside. + +In such crises the twig is predestined to snap, or the pebble to roll. +Some slight movement on my part set a little cataract of broken stone +tumbling into the shaft. Before I could recover from the prickling +shock of alarm, I heard footsteps and a shadowy figure appeared in the +path leading over the spur from the Lawrenceburg. Automatically the +rifle flew to my shoulder, and a crooking forefinger was actually +pressing the trigger when reason returned and I saw that the +approaching intruder was a woman. + +I was deeply grateful that it was too dark for Mary Everton to see with +what teeth-chatterings and reactionary tremblings I was letting down +the hammer of the rifle when she came up. For that matter, I think she +did not see me at all until I laid the gun aside and stood up to speak +to her. She had stopped as if irresolute; was evidently disconcerted +at finding the claim shack dark and apparently deserted. + +"Oh!" she gasped, with a little backward start, as I rose from the +empty dynamite box upon which I had been sitting. Then she recognized +me and explained. "I--I thought you would be working--you have been +working nights, haven't you?--and I came over to--to speak to Mr. +Barrett." + +Under other conditions I might have been conventionally critical. My +traditions were still somewhat hidebound. In Glendale a young woman +would scarcely go alone at night in search of a man, even though the +man might be her lover. + +"Barrett has gone to bed: I'll call him," I said, limiting the +rejoinder to the bare necessities. + +"No; please don't do that," she interposed. "I am sure he must be +needing his rest. I can come again--at some other time." + +I was beginning to get a little better hold upon my nerves by this time +and I laughed. + +"Bob is needing the rest, all right, but he will murder me when he +finds out that you've been here and I didn't call him. If you want to +save my life, you'd better reconsider." + +"No; don't call him," she insisted. "It isn't at all necessary, +and--and perhaps you can tell me what I want to know--what I ought to +know before I----" the sentence trailed off into nothing and she began +again rather breathlessly: "Mr. Bertrand, can you--can you satisfy me +in any way that you and your two friends have a legal right to this +claim you are working? It's a perfect--impertinence in me, to ask, I +know, but----" + +"It is a fair question," I hastened to assure her; "one that any one +might ask. With the proper means at hand--maps and records--I could +very easily answer it." + +"But--but there may have been mistakes made," she suggested. + +"Doubtless there were; but we haven't made them. The Lawrenceburg +Company owns the ground on two sides of us, and for some considerable +distance beyond us toward the head of the gulch; but I can assure you +that our title to the Little Clean-Up is perfectly good and legal in +every way." + +"It is going to be disputed," she broke in hurriedly. "Mr. Blackwell +has talked about it--before me, just as if I didn't count. Telegrams +have been passing back and forth, and the Lawrenceburg owners in the +East have given Mr. Blackwell full authority to take such steps as he +may think best. I--that is, Daddy and I--have known Mr. Barrett for a +long time, and I couldn't let this thing happen without giving him just +a little warning. Some kind of legal proceedings have already been +begun, and you are to be driven off--to-morrow." + +"Oh, I guess not; not so suddenly as all that," I ventured to say. +There were many questions to come crowding in, but I could scarcely +expect the assayer's daughter to answer them. Her father had plainly +declared his belief that we were stealing Lawrenceburg ore and planning +a blackmailing scheme: had he told Blackwell? The query practically +answered itself. If Blackwell had been told that we were salting our +claim with ore stolen from the Lawrenceburg sheds, the "legal +proceedings" would have been a simple arrest-warrant and a search for +stolen property. Had Everton told his daughter? This was blankly +incredible. If he had told her that we were thieves, she would never +have gone so far aside from her childhood hatred of duplicity and +wrong-doing as to come and warn us. + +"I was afraid you might not believe me," she said, with a little catch +in her voice; and then: "I can't blame you; after what you have +suf--after all that has happened." + +If I hadn't been completely lost in admiration for her keen sense of +justice, and more or less bewildered by her beauty and her nearness, I +might have caught the significance of what she was trying to say. But +I didn't. + +"No; I didn't mean that," I denied warmly. "I do believe every word +you have said. No one who knows you could disbelieve you for a moment." + +"But you don't know me," she put in quickly. + +I saw how near I had come to self-betrayal and tried to fend my little +life-raft off the rocks. + +"You will say that we have met only once before to-night, and then only +casually. Will you permit a comparative stranger to say that that was +enough? Your soul looks out through your eyes, Miss Everton, and it is +an exceedingly honest soul. I know you must have strong reasons for +coming to tell us what Blackwell is doing; and if I didn't quite +understand the motive at first--with you your father's daughter, you +know, and your father in the service of the----" + +"I know," she interrupted. "But you lose sight of the larger things. +If you have been telling me the truth about your ownership of this +claim, a great wrong is going to be done. I couldn't stand aside and +let it be done, could I?" + +Something in her manner of saying this recalled most vividly the little +girl of the long ago, hot-hearted in her indignation against injustice +of every sort. + +"No, I am sure you couldn't: I don't believe you know how to compromise +with wrong of any kind. But you ought not to take my unsupported word +about the matter of ownership. Let me call Barrett." + +"It isn't necessary. If you say that you three have an honest right to +be here, I believe you implicitly. And what I have done is nothing. +My father would have done it if he hadn't--if he didn't----" + +"You needn't say it," I helped out. "Your father thinks we are trying +to hold the Lawrenceburg people up, and I don't blame him. When he was +up here the other day--the day you were both here--he thought he caught +us red-handed. It wasn't so; he was quite mistaken; but for reasons +which I can't explain just now I couldn't very well take the only +course which would have undeceived him." + +"I--I think I understand," she returned, guardedly. "You--you haven't +been stealing ore from the Lawrenceburg sheds?" + +I laughed and said a thing that I wouldn't have said to any other +living human being on earth at that stage of the game. + +"If we can manage to hold our own for just a little while longer, +Robert Barrett will be a very rich man, Miss Everton. May I venture to +hand you a lot of good wishes before the fact? I know this is only a +very old friend's privilege, but----" + +Her embarrassment was very charming, and, as I saw it, most natural. + +"I--indeed, I wasn't thinking any more of Mr. Barrett than I was of--of +you and--and Mr. Gifford," she faltered. "I simply couldn't bear to +think of this terrible thing dropping upon you out of a clear sky +if--if you hadn't been doing anything to deserve it. Can you defend +yourselves in any way?" + +"We can try mighty hard," I asserted. "That is what I meant when I +said that we were not going to be driven off to-morrow. Possession is +nine points of the law. We have our little foothold here, and we shall +try to keep it. I'll tell Barrett when he wakes, and we'll be ready +for them when they come. Now you must let me take you back home. You +really oughtn't to be here alone, you know." + +She made no objection to the bit of elder-brother-ism, but half-way up +to the summit of the spur she had her small fling at the conventions. + +"I don't admit that I ought not to have come alone; neither that, nor +your right to question it," she said definitively. "You protest +because you are conventional: so am I conventional--but only so far as +the conventions subserve some good end. There are situations in which +the phrase, 'it isn't done,' becomes a mere impertinence. This is life +in the making, up here in these desolate hills, and we who are taking +part in the process are just plain men and women." + +"That is true enough," I rejoined; and other than this there was little +said, or little chance for saying it, since the distance over the spur +was short and she would not let me show myself under the Lawrenceburg +masthead electrics. + +I did not know, at the time, of any reason why I should have returned +to resume my lonesome watch at the shaft's mouth like a man walking +upon air, but so it was. There are women who keep the fair promise of +their childhood, and we admire them; there are others who prodigiously +and richly exceed that promise, and they own us, body and soul, from +the moment of re-discovery. + +Throughout the long night hours following Mary Everton's visit I was +far enough, I hope, from envying Barrett; far enough, too, from the +thought that I might ever venture to ask any good and innocent young +woman to step down with me into the abyss of unearned infamy into which +I had been flung, largely through the efforts of another woman who was +neither good nor innocent. None the less, the delight which was half +intoxication remained and the night was full of waking dreams. + +The dark shaft beside me sent up its dank breath of stale powder fumes, +and the acrid odor was as the fragrance of a fertile field ripe for the +sickle. In this reeking pit at my elbow, gold, the subtle, the potent, +the arbiter of all destinies, stood ready to fight for me. The liberty +which I had stolen, but which had first been stolen from me, would +shortly find a defender too strong to be overthrown by all the +prejudice and injustice which are so ready to fly at the throat of +helplessness. The reinstatement, which I had been unable to win as a +mendicant ex-convict, I could buy with gold in the open market; and +when it should be bought and paid for, all the world would clap and +cry, Well done! + +Barrett had gone to bed exacting a promise that I should call him at +two o'clock. But I let the hour go by, and another, and yet another, +until the stars were paling in the east when I got up, stiff in every +joint, to meet Gifford as he came up the gulch. He was haggard and +weary, trembling like an overworked draft horse, and he had to lick his +lips before he could frame the words which were to be our alarm signal. + +"It's all over," he croaked hoarsely. "The wagon's broke down a couple +of miles below, right out on the open mountain-side. We've been +working like hell all night trying to drag the load down to some place +where we could hide it, but it was no good. Dixon's gone on to town to +get another wagon, but the mischief is done. Come daylight, everybody +on this side of Bull Mountain will know what's in that wagon, and where +it comes from." + +The carpenter was practically dead on his feet from the night of fierce +toil, and in addition to his weariness was half-famished. He had come +in while it was yet dark to get something to eat, and was planning to +go back at once. I aroused Barrett promptly, and together we tramped +out to the crest of the spur overlooking the Lawrenceburg workings and +the mountain-side below. In the breaking dawn, with the help of +Barrett's field-glass, we could make out the shape of the disabled +wagon on the bare slope hundreds of feet below. Early as it was, there +was already a number of moving figures encircling it; a group which +presently strung itself out in Indian file on a diagonal course up to +our gulch. The early-morning investigators were taking the plainly +marked wagon trail in reverse, and Barrett turned to me with a brittle +laugh. + +"That settles it, Jimmie. The secret is out, and in another half hour +we'll be fighting like the devil to keep those fellows from relocating +every foot of ground we've got. Let's go back and get ready for them." + + + + +XVI + +In the Open + +Though there was between twenty and thirty thousand dollars' worth of +high-grade ore lying unguarded in the broken-down wagon two miles +below, we promptly forgot it. Losing no minute of the precious time, +we hastened to restake our claim, marking the boundaries plainly and +putting up "No Trespass" notices to let the coming invaders know that +we were alive and on the job. We knew very well that our boundary +lines would be disregarded; that in striving to cover every foot of the +unclaimed fragments of the original triangle, the excited gold-seekers +would overlap us in all directions. But we meant to have the law on +our side. + +Our next move was a hurried covering of the shaft mouth with planks +provided for just such an emergency; this and a barricading of the +shack against a possible rush to loot it. By working fast we were +ready by the time the vanguard of the rush appeared as a line of +toiling climbers at the foot of the gulch. Barrett glanced at his +watch. + +"The early trolley will be just about leaving Bennett Avenue with the +day-shift for the Ohio," he announced. "One of us must catch that car +back to town to start a string of freight teams up here with men and +material. Minutes now are worth days next week. I'm the freshest one +of the bunch, and I'll go, if you two fellows think you can hold your +own against this mob that is coming. You won't have to do any +fighting, unless it's to keep them out of our shaft. Let them drive +their stakes wherever they like, only, if they get on our ground, make +your legal protest--the two of you together, so you can swear straight +when it comes into the courts." + +We both said we would do or die, and Barrett struggled into his coat +and fled for the trolley terminal a mile away. He was scarcely out of +sight over the crest of the spur when the advance guard of the mob came +boiling up out of the gulch. A squad of three outran the others, and +its spokesman made scant show of ceremony. + +"We want to see what you got in that shaft," he panted. "Yank them +boards off and show us." + +"I guess not," said Gifford, fingering the lock of Barrett's shot-gun. +Then, suddenly taking the aggressive: "You fellers looking for a mine? +Well, by cripes, you get off of our ground and stay off, or you'll find +one startin' up inside of you in a holy minute! We mean business!" + +The three men cursed us like pickpockets, but they backed away until +they stood on the other side of our boundary, where they were presently +joined by half a dozen others. We had one point in our favor. In such +a rush it is every man for himself, with a broad invitation to the +devil to take the hindmost. Somebody called the fellow who wanted to +break into our shaft for the needful evidence a much-emphasized +jackass, and pointed to the wagon-tracks leading straight to our shack. + +"What more do you want than them tracks?" bellowed this caller of hard +names. And then: "Anybody in this crowd got a map?" + +Nobody had, as it seemed; whereupon the bellower turned upon us. + +"You fellers 've got one, it stands to reason. If you've got any +sportin' blood in you at all, you'll be sort o' half-way human and give +us a squint at it." + +Again Gifford took the words out of my mouth. "Not to-day," he refused +coolly. "If you want to know right bad, I'll tell you straight that +there isn't anything like a whole claim left in this gulch. Now go +ahead and do your stakin' if you want to, but keep off of us. You can +see all our lines; they're as plain as the nose on your ugly face. +I've got only one thing to say, and that is, the man that stakes inside +of 'em is goin' to stop a handful of blue whistlers." + +Following this there was a jangling confab which was almost a riot. +Two or three, and among them the man who wanted us to show our map, +openly counseled violence. We were but two, and there were by this +time a dozen against us, with more coming up the gulch. They could +have rushed us easily--at some little cost of life, maybe--but again +the every-man-for-himself idea broke the charm. Already a number of +stragglers were dropping out to skirt our boundaries, and in another +minute they were fighting among themselves, each man striving to be the +first to get his stakes down parallel with ours. + +In such a struggle there was necessarily much reckless crisscrossing +and overlapping. Claims were stepped off on all sides of us and in +every conceivable direction. The law requires only the driving of +corner stakes and the posting of a notice prior to the preliminary +entry; and as soon as a man got his stakes driven and his notice +displayed, he became a vanishing point on the horizon, joining a mad +race for town and the land office. + +The assault upon the harmless mountain-side did not last as long as we +both feared it might, and there was no occasion for gun-play. Gifford +and I patrolled the boundaries of our claim and made due protest when +it became evident that anybody was overlapping us. Before the sun was +an hour high the last of the locators had tailed off in the town +foot-race; and though there were more coming, the most of these +laggards turned back at once at sight of the forest of new stakes. + +It was not until after our guard duties had ceased to press upon us +that we remembered the wagon-load of precious stuff left at the mercy +of a robber world on the bare hillside two miles away. Gifford ran to +the shoulder of the over-looking spur with Barrett's field-glass, and I +could tell by his actions that the strain was off. + +"Dixon is back with another wagon, and he and a helper are transferring +the ore sacks," he reported when he came in. "I told him when he left +that he might get help wherever he could; that it was no use trying to +keep it dark any longer." + +There being nothing to prevent it now, we cooked breakfast on the camp +stove, sitting afterward to eat it on the shack door-step, with the +weapons handy. I think Gifford had quite forgotten that he had raided +the shack chuck-box at daybreak. Anyway, his appetite appeared +undiminished. He seemed to think that the worst of our troubles were +over, and I did not undeceive him. The later stragglers were still +tramping over the ground and reading the lately posted notices. A few +of them came up to ask questions, and one, a grizzled old fellow who +might have posed as "One-eyed Ike" in Western melodramas, stopped to +talk a while. + +"You boys shore have struck it big," he commented. "How come?" + +We explained briefly the finding of the unoccupied ground and the +taking of the average Cripple Creek prospector's chance, and he nodded +sagely. + +"Jest lit down 'twixt two days and dug a hole and struck hit right +there at grass-roots, did ye? That's tenderfoots' luck, ever' time. +Vein runnin' bigger?" + +Gifford admitted that it was, and the one-eyed man begged a bit of +tobacco for the filling of his blackened corn-cob pipe. + +"Here's hopin'," he said, with true Western magnanimity; then, with a +jerk of his head toward the thin column of stack smoke rising on the +still morning air from the Lawrenceburg: "I know this here ground, up +one side and down the other. Them fellers down yander 'll be grabbin' +fer ye, pronto, soon as they know you've struck pay." + +"Why should they?" I asked, scenting a possible source of information. + +"They own the ground on t' other side of ye, and ever'body allowed they +owned this." + +"But their vein runs the other way--southeast and northwest," Gifford +interposed. + +The old man winked his single eye. + +"Ever been in their workin's?" + +Gifford shook his head. + +"N'r nobody else that could 'r would talk," said our ancient. "You +can't tell nothin' about which-a-way a vein runs in this here hell's +half-acre. Bart Blackwell's the whole show on the Lawrenceburg, and +he's a hawg. He's the one that ran them Nebraska farmers off'm the +Mary Mattock down yander: give 'em notice that he was goin' to sink on +them upper claims o' his'n at the gulch head, and that his sump water'd +have to be turned loose to go where it had a mind to--which'd be +straight down the gulch, o' course. The farmers they allowed that'd +swamp 'em worse'n they was already swamped--ez it would--so they up and +quit. Blackwell, he's a cuss, with a snoot like a hawg. He don't want +no neighbors." + +I had been observing the old man's face as he talked. It was +villainous only in its featurings. + +"Which are you; a prospector or a miner?" I asked. + +"A little b'ilin' o' both, I reckon," was his rejoinder. "I driv' the +first tunnel in the Buckeye, and they made me boss on the +two-hundred-foot level. I kin shoot rock with any of 'em's long as I +kin make out to let the bug-juice alone." + +"Are you out of work?" + +"Sure thing." + +I caught Gifford's eye and the carpenter nodded. We were going to need +men and more men, and here was a chance to begin on a man who knew the +Lawrenceburg, or at least some of the history of it. + +"You're hired," I told him; and it was thus that we secured the most +faithful and efficient henchman that ever drew pay; a man who knew +nothing but loyalty, and who was, besides, a practical miner and a +skilful master of men. + +Hicks--we carried him thus on the pay-roll, though he himself spelled +it "Hix," for short, as he said--left us to go back to town for his +dunnage, and Gifford, knowing that I had been on watch all night, urged +me to turn in. But that was a game that two could play at. + +"I'm no shorter on sleep than you are," I told him. "You were up all +night with the wagon." + +We wrangled over it a bit and I finally yielded. But first I told +Gifford about the Lawrenceburg threat for the day, omitting nothing but +the source of my information. + +"So they're going to jump us, are they?" he said. "All right; the +quicker the sooner. Does Barrett know?" + +"Not yet. I thought we'd all get together on it this morning. Tell +him when he comes back; and if anything develops before he gets here, +sing out for me." And with that I made a dive for the blankets. + +Between the two of them, Gifford and Barrett let me sleep until the +middle of the afternoon. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my +senses when I turned out and saw the miracles that had been wrought in +a few short hours. While I slept, the transformation of the Little +Clean-Up from a three-man prospect hole to a full-fledged mine had +taken giant strides. Machinery and material were arriving in a +procession of teams laboring up the gulch; a score of carpenters were +raising the frame of the shaft-house; masons were setting the +foundations for the engine and hoist. I had slumbered peacefully +through all the din and hammering and the coming and going of the +teams; would doubtless have slept longer if the workmen had not put +skids and rollers under the shack to move it out of their way. + +Gifford, now thirty-odd hours beyond his latest sleep, was too busy to +talk; but Barrett took time to bridge the progress gap for me. + +"There was nothing you could do," he explained, at my protest for being +left for so many hours out of the activities. "Gifford will have to +knock off pretty soon, but the work will go on just the same. Take a +look around, Jimmie, and pat yourself on the back. You are no longer a +miner; you are a mine owner." + +"Tell me," I said shortly. + +"There isn't much to tell. I caught that first car to town this +morning and got busy. You're seeing some of the results, and the ready +money in bank is what produced them. But we've got to dig some more of +it, and dig it quick. Blackwell has begun suit against us for +trespassing upon Lawrenceburg property, and as you know, every foot of +ground all around us was relocated by the early-morning mob that +trailed up from our broken-down wagon." + +"I ought to have told you about the Blackwell move this morning before +you got away, but there was so much excitement that I lost sight of +it," I cut in. "I knew about it last night." + +"How was that?" + +"Somebody who knew about it before I did came here and told me." + +"In the night?" + +"In the early part of the night; yes." + +"Was it Everton?" + +"Not on your life. It was some one who thinks a heap more of you than +Phineas Everton does." + +"You don't mean----" + +"Yes; that's just who I do mean. She came over expecting to find you. +She wanted to ask you if we had a sure-enough, fire-proof, legal right +to be here. She asked me, when she found you were in bed and asleep. +I told her we had, and succeeded in making her believe it. Then she +told me what was coming to us--what Blackwell had up his sleeve." + +"That explains what Gifford was trying to tell me, but he didn't tell +me where it came from," said Barrett. + +"He couldn't, because I didn't tell him. It's between you and Polly +Everton, and it'll never go any farther. I shall forget it--I've +already forgotten it." + +In his own way Barrett was as scrupulous as an honest man ought to be. +"I wish she hadn't done it, Jimmie. It doesn't ring just right, you +know; while her father is still on the Lawrenceburg pay-rolls." + +Right there and then is when I came the nearest to having a quarrel +with Robert Barrett. + +"You blind beetle!" I exploded. "Don't you see that she did it for +you? But beyond that, she was perfectly right. She saw that an unjust +thing was about to be done, and she tried to chock the wheels. The man +doesn't live who can stand up and tell me that her motives are not +always exactly what they ought to be. I know they are!" + +Barrett was smiling good-naturedly before I got through. "I like your +loyalty," said he; adding: "and I shan't quarrel with you over Miss +Everton's motives; she is as good as she is pretty; and that is putting +it as strong as even you could put it." + +It was time to call a halt on this bandying of words about Mary Everton +and her motives. I had already said enough to warrant a cross-fire of +questions as to how I came to know so much about her. + +"We're off the track," I threw in, by way of making a needed diversion. +"You began to tell me about the Blackwell demonstration. I see we're +still here." + +"You bet we're here; and we're going to stay. It may take all the +money we can dig out of that hole in the next six months to pay court +costs, but just the same, we'll stay. Blackwell tried the bullying +game first; came over here this forenoon with a bunch of his men and +tried to scare Gifford out. Gifford stood the outfit off with the +shotgun; was still standing it off when I came up with the first gang +of workmen. I had bought a few Winchesters against just such an +emergency, and I passed them out to the boys and told them to stand by. +That settled it and Blackwell backed down, threatening us with the +law--which he had already invoked." + +"Can he get an injunction and hang us up?" + +"It's a cinch that he'll try. But we have the best lawyers in Cripple +Creek, and they're right on the job. There will be litigation a mile +deep and two miles high, but we'll get delay--which is all we are +playing for, right now. If the lawyers can stand things off until we +have had one month's digging, we'll have money enough to fight a dozen +Lawrenceburgs." + +"We are going to be terribly crowded in this little space," I lamented, +with a glance at the building chaos which was already overflowing our +narrow limits. + +Barrett slapped me on the back. "There was one time when your Uncle +Bob had the right hunch," he bragged exultantly. "Our attorneys, +Benedict & Myers, have succeeded in buying the Mary Mattock for us, +which gives us room for the dump. It cost us twenty thousand dollars +yesterday, when the deal was closed, and to-day it would cost a hundred +thousand--or as much more as you like. To-morrow morning there will be +a syndicate of farmers back in Nebraska reading their newspapers and +kicking themselves all over the barnyard." + +"Even the Mattock ground won't give us any too much room," I suggested. + +"No; but we can acquire the outer corners of our triangle, sooner or +later. We can buy of these new stakers after they find that they +haven't room enough to swing a cat on their little garden patches. The +big fight is going to be with the Lawrenceburg. Benedict has been +digging into that, and he says we are up against a bunch that will +fight to the last ditch. The mine is backed by Eastern capital, and +the claim the owners will make is that their upper ground here in the +gulch joins the original location, and that we are trespassers." + +"Give me something to do," I begged. "I can't stand around here, +looking on." + +"Your job is waiting for you," Barrett rejoined tersely. "You have +never told me much about yourself, Jimmie, but I know you are a +business man, with a good bit of experience. Isn't that so?" + +"It was, once," I admitted. + +"All right. You're going to handle the money end of this job in town. +When you're ready, pull your freight for the camp, open an office, +organize your force, and get busy with the machinery people, the banks, +and the smelters. We'll be shipping in car-load lots within a week." + +Two hours later I boarded a car on the nearest trolley line. On the +long, sweeping rush down the hills I put in the time trying, as any +bewildered son of Adam might, to find myself and to rise in some +measure to the stupendous demands of the new task which lay before me. + +But at the car-stopping in Bennett Avenue it was the escaped convict, +rather than the newly created business manager of the Little Clean-Up, +who slipped into the nearest hardware shop and purchased a revolver. + + + + +XVII + +Aladdin's Lamp + +It is no part of my purpose to burden this narrative with the story of +the development of our mine. Let it be sufficient to say that it +speedily proved to be one of the most phenomenal "producers" among the +later discoveries in the Cripple Creek district. The stories of such +spectacular successes have been made commonplace by the newspapers, and +that of the "Little Clean-Up" would--if I should give the real name of +our bonanza--be remembered and recognized by many who saw it grow by +leaps and bounds from a mere prospect hole to a second "Gold Coin." + +To summarize briefly. Within a month we had settled down to business +and were incorporated, with Barrett as president, and Gifford, who +chose his own job, resident manager and superintendent. The +secretary-treasurership, combined under one office head, fell to me. +With a modern mining plant in operation, the sinking and driving paused +only at the hours of shift-changing; and after we began shipping in +quantity our bank balances grew like so many juggler's roses--this +though we had to spend money like water in the various lawsuits which +sprang up from day to day. + +Many of these suits were based upon cross-claims--contentions that we +were overlapping other properties--and most of these we were able to +compromise by buying off the litigants. By this means we acquired the +entire area of the original triangle. When the news of our strike +reached Nebraska, the owners of the Mary Mattock sought to break their +sale to us on the ground that we had stacked the cards against them. +But our lawyers were too shrewd to be caught in such a flimsy net as +this. At Benedict's suggestion we drove a drainage tunnel on the +purchased property and unwatered the three shafts which the Nebraskans +had sunk; an expedient which enabled us to prove to the satisfaction of +the courts that the Mary Mattock, at the time of its abandonment by its +original owners, was nothing more than a series of prospect holes, and +that the property was valueless save for a dumping ground. + +Through all these bickerings and compromisings the Lawrenceburg fight +held on, giving us the most trouble and costing the most money. +Blackwell proved himself to be a scrapper of sorts, leaving no +expedient untried in his attempts to tie us up and put us out of +business. Shortly after we began developing in earnest, he put a +shaft-sinking force on the nearest of the Lawrenceburg upper claims on +the hillside above us, hoping, as we supposed, to flood us out by +tapping one of the numerous underground water bodies with which the +region abounds and turning it loose on us. At least, we could imagine +no other reason for the move, since the growing dump at this upper +working was entirely barren of ore, and remained so. + +On our own part we were able to get back at Blackwell only in small +ways. When he tried to shut us out of our wagon road right-of-way in +the gulch, we beat him in the courts and made him pay damages for +obstructing us. Later, when his upper dump began to encroach upon our +ground, we sued him again and got more damages, with a peremptory order +from the court to vacate. + +Still later we took Phineas Everton away from him. The assayer had had +some disagreement with Blackwell, the nature of which was not +explained, but which I, for one, could easily understand, and Everton, +apologetic now for his early suspicion of us, had told Barrett that he +was open to a proposal. The proposal was promptly made and we +installed Everton as our assayer and expert in the town offices, +fitting up a laboratory for him which lacked nothing that money could +buy in the way of furnishings and equipment. + +Consequent upon this change, Barrett and I both saw more of the +Evertons. They took a small house in town and Polly welcomed us both, +making no distinction, so far as I could determine, between the +president and the secretary-treasurer. Barrett's attitude toward Polly +puzzled me not a little. He was a frequent visitor in the cottage on +the hill, but he rarely went without asking me to go along. If he were +really Mary Everton's lover, he was certainly going about his +love-making most moderately, I concluded. + +I like to remember that I was loyal to him at this time in spite of the +puzzlement. It is perhaps needless to say that these cottage visits +had done their worst for me and I was hopelessly in love with the +sweet-faced, honest-hearted young woman who had grown out of the +brown-eyed little girl of the Glendale school-days. Nevertheless, I +was still able to recognize the barrier which my conviction, +imprisonment and escape, together with the ever-present peril of +recapture, interposed; also I was able to recognize Barrett's prior +claim, and the fact that he could leave wife and children the priceless +heritage of a good name and a clean record--as I could not. + +Touching this matter of peril, the period of our beginnings as a +corporation was not without its alarms. Twice I had seen Kellow at a +distance, and once I had stood beside him at the hotel counter where he +had been examining the registered list of names at a moment when I, all +unconscious of his presence until I was elbowing him, had stopped in +passing to ask a question of the clerk. That near-encounter showed me +that I was neither better nor worse than the man who had stood, loaded +weapon in hand, on the sidewalk in the heart of a June night, coldly +deliberating upon the advisability of committing a murder. I was +conscious of a decent hope that Kellow wouldn't look up and recognize +me--as he did not--but coincident with the hope the homicidal devil was +whispering me to be ready with the pistol, without which I never went +abroad any more, even to cross the street from my rooms to the office. +And I was ready. + +This mania, which seemed fated to seize me at any moment when my +liberty was threatened, added another stone to the barrier of good +resolutions which I had builded in behalf of my loyalty to Barrett and +a more or less chivalrous consideration for Mary Everton and her future +peace of mind. If the ex-convict might not venture, the potential +man-slayer was at a still greater disadvantage. + +I recall, as vividly as if it were yesterday, how the first small +breach was made in this barrier of good resolutions. Barrett and I +were in Denver together, joining forces in our regular monthly fight +with the smelter pirates. We had been to the theater and were smoking +bedtime cigars in the mezzanine lounge of the Brown Palace. I have +forgotten the name of the play we had seen, and even the plot of it; +all that I recollect is that it turned upon the well-worn theme of +loyalty in love. + +Barrett seldom talked of himself or his past, even to me; and I was +closer to him, I think, than anyone else in the West. But the play +seemed to have touched some hidden spring. Almost before I knew it he +was telling me of his college days, and of his assured future at that +time as the only son of a well-to-do New England manufacturer. + +"Those were the days when I didn't have a care in the world," he said. +"My father was the typical American business man, intent upon piling up +a fortune for my mother and sister and me. I couldn't see that he was +wearing himself out in the effort to get ahead, and at the same time to +give us all the luxuries as we went along; none of us could see it. +His notion was to put me through the university, give me a year or so +abroad, and then to take me into the business with him. . . . Don't +let me bore you." + +"You are not boring me," I said. + +"Then there was the girl: that had been arranged for both of us, too, +though we were carefully kept from suspecting it. I can't tell you +what she was to me, Jimmie, but in a worldful of women she was the only +one. She was in college, too, but we had our vacations together--at a +little place on the Maine coast where her people and mine had cottages +less than a stone's throw apart." + +Barrett's cigar had gone out, but he seemed not to know it. His eyes +were half-closed, and for the moment his strong clean-cut young face +looked almost haggard. I let him take his own time. In such +confidences it is only the sympathetic ear that is welcome; speech in +any sort can scarcely be less than impertinent. + +"I shall never forget our last summer together," he went on, after a +bit. "It seemed as if everything conspired to make it memorable. We +were both fond of canoeing and sailing and swimming; she could do all +three better than most men. Then there were the moonlit nights on the +beach when we sat together on the white sands and planned for the +future, the future of clear skies, of ambitions working out their +fulfilment in the passing years, the blessed after-while in which there +were to be an ideal home and little children, and always and evermore +the love that makes all things beautiful, all things possible. + +"We planned it all out in those August days and moonlit nights. I had +one more year in the university, and after that we were to be married +and go to Europe together. No young fellow in this world ever had +brighter prospects than I had on the day when I went back to college to +begin my senior year, Jimmie." He paused for a moment and then went on +with a deeper note in his voice. "The lights all went out, blink, +between two days, as you might say. The treasurer of the company of +which my father was the president became an embezzler, and the crash +ruined us financially and practically killed my father--though the +doctors called it heart failure. And I had been at home less than a +month, trying to save something out of the wreck for my mother and +sister, when I lost the girl." + +"She couldn't stand the change in circumstances?" I offered. + +"She was drowned in a yachting accident, and they never found her body." + +"Oh, good heavens!" I exclaimed, suddenly and acutely distressed and +remorseful for the cynical suggestion I had thrust in. + +He shook his head slowly. "It came near smashing me, Jimmie. It +seemed so unnecessary; so hideously out of tune with everything. I +thought at the time that I should never get over it and be myself +again, and I still think so, though the passing years have dulled the +sharp edges of the hurt. There never was another girl like her, and +there never will be another--for me." + +"But you will marry, some day, Bob," I ventured. + +"Possibly--quite probably. Sentiment, of the sort our fathers and +mothers knew, has gone out of fashion, and the money chase has made new +men and women of the present generation. But some of the old longings +persist for a few of us. I want a home, Jimmie, and at least a few of +the things that the word stands for. Some day I hope to be able to +find a woman who will take what there is left of me and give me what +she can in return. I shan't ask much because I can't give much." + +"I guess you have already found her," I said, with a dull pain at my +heart. + +"Not Polly," he denied quickly. "I couldn't get my own consent to +cheat a woman like Polly Everton. She has a right to demand the best +that a man can give, and all of it. Besides, it doesn't lie altogether +with me or my possible leanings, in Polly's case--as no man knows +better than yourself." + +"Oh, you are wrong there, entirely wrong!" I hastened to say. "Polly +and I are the best of good friends--nothing more." + +His smile was a deal more than half sad. + +"If there is 'nothing more,' Jimmie, it is very pointedly your own +fault," he returned. "I've been wondering what you are waiting for. +You have been poking your head into the sand like a silly old ostrich, +but you haven't fooled me--or Polly, either, I think--for a single +minute. What's the obstacle?" + +I was silent. Not even to so close a friend as Robert Barrett could I +give the real reason why my lips were sealed and must remain so. He +went on, after a time, good-naturedly ignoring my hesitancy. + +"It was all right at first, of course; while we couldn't tell whether +we had a mine or only a costly muddle of litigation. But it's +different now. We are going to beat the Lawrenceburg people in the +end, and apart from that, if we should split up right here and now, +we've got an undivided surplus of--how much was it yesterday?--you've +got the records." + +"A little under a million." + +"Call it nine hundred thousand to divide among the three of us. Your +share of that would at least enable you and Polly to begin light +house-keeping in a five-room flat, don't you think?" + +What could I say? How could I tell him that he was opening a door for +me that I could never enter; that by all the canons of decency and +honor I should never seek to enter? In the mingled emotions of the +moment there was a blind anger at the thought that he had unconsciously +made my hard case infinitely harder by showing me that my loyalty to +him was entirely needless. + +"There are good reasons why I can't think of such a thing," I began; +but when I would have gone on the words froze in my throat. Since the +hour was nearly midnight, the mezzanine lounge was practically +deserted. But as I choked up and stopped, a couple, a man and a woman +who had come around from the other side of the gallery parlors, passed +us on their way to the elevator alcove. + +I hardly saw the man of the pair. A second after they had passed I +could not have told whether he was black or white. That was because +the woman, fair, richly gowned, statuesquely handsome and apparently in +perfect health, was Agatha Geddis. + + + + +XVIII + +"The Woman . . . Whose Hands are as Bands" + +If I looked as stricken as I felt--and I doubtless did--Barrett had +ample reason for assuming that I had been suddenly taken sick. + +"Why, Jimmie, old man!" he exclaimed in instant concern; and then he +took the half-burned cigar from between my fingers and threw it away, +at the same time sending the floor boy scurrying after a drink for me. + +I couldn't touch the whiskey when it came; and I was still trying to +persuade Barrett that I wasn't sick when he walked me to the elevator. +Wanting only to be free, I still had to let him go all the way with me +to the door of my room. But the moment he was gone I hurried out again +and descended to the lobby. + +The night clerk knew me; or if he didn't, he knew the Little Clean-Up; +and he was quite willing to talk. Miss Geddis was only temporarily a +guest of the house, he told me. She was with a party of friends from +the East, but her Denver home was with Mrs. Altberg, a widow and a +prominent society woman. Yes, Miss Geddis was quite well known in +social circles; she was reputed to be wealthy, and the clerk understood +that she had originally come to Colorado for her health. + +Under the stimulus of a particularly good gift cigar the man behind the +register grew more confidential. Miss Geddis had always impressed him +as being a woman with a history. It was not generally known, he said, +but there was a whisper that she had come perilously near getting +herself dragged into the lime-light as co-respondent in a certain +high-life divorce case. The clerk did not vouch for this, but he did +know that she had been seen often and openly in public with the man in +the case, since the granting of the divorce. + +I didn't sleep very well that night, as may be imagined; and the +following day I should certainly have taken the first train for Cripple +Creek if business had permitted. But business would not permit. There +was an accumulated difference of some fifteen thousand dollars in ore +values between us and the smelter people, and I was obliged to stay on +with Barrett and help wrangle for our side in the discrepancy dispute. + +At dinner time that evening I managed to elude Barrett, and upon going +to the lobby desk for my mail, found a violet-scented envelope +addressed to "Mr. James Bertrand" in a handwriting that I remembered +only too well. + +To anyone looking over my shoulder the enclosed note might have read as +a casual and friendly greeting from an old acquaintance. But for me it +spelled out death and destruction. + + +"Dear 'Bert," it ran. "I am not going to scold you for not speaking to +me last night in the mezzanine parlor; nor for changing your name; nor +for growing a beard. But if you should call this evening between eight +and nine at Mrs. Altberg's house on the Boulevard, you will find me at +home and more than willing to listen to your apologies and explanations. + +"AGATHA." + + +My appetite for dinner had gone glimmering when I sat at the most +secluded table the cafe afforded and went through the motions of +eating. Not for a single instant did I mistake the purport of Agatha +Geddis's note. It was not a friendly invitation; it was a veiled +command. If it should be disobeyed, I made sure that not all the money +in the Little Clean-Up's treasury could save me from going back to the +home State as a recaptured felon. + +Eight o'clock found me descending from a cab at the door of a rather +dissipated looking mansion in the northern suburb. A servant admitted +me, but I had to wait alone for a quarter of an hour or more in the +stuffy and rather tawdry luxury of a great drawing-room. After a time +I realized that Agatha was making me wait purposely in a refinement of +cruelty, knowing well what torments I must be enduring. + +When the suspense ended and she came into the room I saw at a glance +that she was the same woman as of old; beautiful, alluring, but +infinitely more sophisticated. Her charm now, as in girlhood, was +chiefly the charm of physical perfection; but it was not entirely +without its appeal when she made me sit beside her on the heavily +carved mock-antique sofa. + +"I didn't know certainly whether you would come or not," was the way +she began on me, and if the tone was conventional I knew well enough +what lay beneath it. "Old times are old times, but----" + +She was merely playing with me as a cat plays with a mouse, but I could +neither fight nor run until she gave me an opening. + +"Of course you knew I would come; why shouldn't I?" I asked, striving +for some outward appearance of self-possession. + +"I'm sure I don't think of any reason, if you don't," she countered. +"Did you know I was in Denver?" + +"Not in Denver, no. But I heard, some time ago, that you had come to +Colorado for your health." + +"It seems absolutely ridiculous, doesn't it?--to look at me now. But +really, I was very ill three years ago; and even now I can't go back +home and stay for any length of time. You haven't been back, have you, +since your--since you----" + +"No; I haven't been back." + +She was rolling her filmy little lace handkerchief into a shapeless +ball, and if I hadn't known her so well I might have fancied she was +embarrassed. + +"I can't endure to think of that dreadful time four years ago--it is +four years, isn't it?" she sighed; then with a swift glance of the +man-melting eyes: "You hate me savagely, don't you, Bert?--you've been +hating me all these years." + +"No," I said, and it was the truth, up to that time. I knew that the +feeling I had been entertaining for her had nothing in it so robust as +hatred. There was no especial need for palliating her offense--far +less, indeed, than I knew at that moment; yet I did it, saying, "You +did what you thought you had to do; possibly it was what your father +made you do--I don't know." + +She was silent for a moment before she began again by asking me what +made me change my name. + +"My name isn't Herbert," I explained; "it never was. I think you must +know that I was christened 'James Bertrand,' after my father." + +"I didn't know it," she denied, adding: "but you have dropped the +Weyburn?" + +"Naturally." + +Again there was a little interval of silence, and as before, she was +the first to break it. + +"So you are one of the owners of the famous Little Clean-Up? Are you +very rich, Bertie?--you see, I can't give up the old name, all at once." + +"No; I am not rich--as riches are counted nowadays." + +"But you are going to be in just a little while," she put in, following +the confident assertion with a query that came as suddenly as a +stiletto stab: "Who is the girl, Bertie?" + +"What girl?"' + +"The girl you are going to marry. I saw her with you at the Broadway +one night three weeks ago; I sat right behind you. She doesn't +'pretty' very much, to my way of thinking." + +Once again I felt the murder nerve twittering. This woman with a +mocking voice and a heart of stone knew everything; I was as certain of +it as if I could have seen into the plotting brain behind the +long-lashed eyes. I knew now why she hadn't glanced aside at me as she +passed on the way to the elevators in the Brown Palace the previous +evening. She had discovered me long before. At whatever cost, I must +know how long before. + +"You saw me last night, and three weeks ago at the theater," I said. +"How long have you known that I was in Colorado?" + +"Ever since you came, I think," she returned quietly. "I was a member +of a private-car party up at Cripple Creek about that time--with some +of the Midland officials and their friends, you know. Our car was +taken out over a new branch line they were building at that time, and I +saw you standing beside the track. Perhaps I shouldn't have recognized +you if I hadn't been thinking so pointedly of you. The home newspapers +had told of your es--of your leaving the State; and I was +naturally--er--well, I was thinking about you, as I say." + +I saw that I was completely in her power. She knew, better than anyone +else on earth, save and excepting only her father, that I was an +innocent man. But she also knew that I had broken my parole. + +"What do you want of me, Agatha?" I asked; and I had to wet my lips +before I could say it. + +"Supposing we say that I am asking only a little, common, ordinary +friendliness, Bertie--just for the sake of the old days, and to show +that you don't bear malice. I'm like other women; I get horribly bored +and lonesome sometimes for somebody to talk to--somebody who knows, and +for whom I don't have to wear a mask. The other girl doesn't live +here, does she?" + +"No." + +"That's better. When you come to Denver, you must let me see you now +and then; just for old sake's sake. You come up quite often, don't +you? But I know you do; I see your name in the arrivals quite +frequently." + +I formed a swift resolve not to come as often in the future as I had in +the past, but I did not tell her so. + +"You'll come to see me when you're in town," she went on. "I'll try to +learn to call you 'Jimmie,' and when we meet people, I'll promise to +introduce you as the Mr. Bertrand, of Cripple Creek and the Little +Clean-Up. Does that make you feel better?" + +It made me feel as if I should like to lock my fingers around her fair +pillar-like throat. I have said that I did not hate her. But one may +kill without hatred in self-defense. Short of cold-blooded murder, +however, there was nothing I could do--nothing anyone could do. Beyond +this, she went on chatting easily and lightly of the old times in +Glendale and the people we had both known, rallying me now and then +upon my unresponsiveness. At my leave-taking, which was a full hour +later, she went with me to the hall, helped me into my overcoat, and +gave me another of the breath-taking shocks. + +"There was a time, once, when you really thought you were in love with +me, wasn't there, Bertie?" she asked sweetly. + +Again I told her the simple truth. "There was a time; yes. It was +when I was still young enough to carry your books back and forth on the +way to and from the old school." + +"But you got bravely over it, after awhile?" + +"Yes; I got over it after I grew up." + +She laughed softly. + +"Don't you know that is a frightfully dangerous thing to say to a +woman--to any woman, Bertie?" + +"It is the honest thing to say to you." + +"I suppose it is. Yet there are some things a woman likes better than +honesty. Perhaps you haven't been making love to the Cripple Creek +girl long enough to find that out. But it is so, and it always will be +so." + +It was at the outer door opening that she gave me the final stab. + +"I am taking your business excuse at its face value to-night and +letting you go. But the next time you come you mustn't have any +business; at least, nothing more important than entertaining me--and +that is important. Just jot that down in your little vest-pocket +memorandum, and don't allow yourself to forget it for a single moment; +not even while you are making love to Little Brown-Eyes. Good-night." + +The old-fashioned preachers used to describe a terrifying hell in which +fire and brimstone and all manner of physical torments awaited the +impenitent. I was brought up to believe implicitly in such a hell, but +the puerility of it as compared with the refined tortures which I +endured that winter can never be set forth in any words of mine. + +With a desire keener than the hunger of the famishing for +respectability and the privilege of living open-eyed and honestly +before all men, I was forced, from the night of that first visit to +Agatha Geddis, to lead a wretched, fear-frozen, double existence. On +my return to Cripple Creek after the interview which I have just +detailed, I swore roundly that I would stop going to the Everton's; +that, come what might, Polly should never be dragged into the horrible +morass of degradation which I saw clearly, even at that bare beginning, +was waiting to engulf me. + +But at best, a man is only a man, human in his desires, human in his +powers of resistance; and a man in love can rarely be a complete master +of circumstances. Though I had been holding back, both for Barrett's +sake and because of my own wretched handicap, it soon became apparent +that I had gone too far to be able to retreat with honor; that Polly +Everton's name had already been coupled with mine in the gossip of the +great gold camp; and that--if what Barrett had said were true--Polly +herself had to be considered. + +So the double life began and continued. In Cripple Creek I was Mary +Everton's lover; in Denver I was Agatha Geddis's bondman and slave. +Oftener and oftener, as the winter progressed, the business of the mine +took me to the capital; and Agatha never let me escape. One time it +would be a theater party, at which I would be obliged to meet her +friends; people who, as I soon learned, were of the ultra fast set. At +another it would be a driving party to some out-of-town resort with the +same, or a worse, crowd; midnight banquetings, with champagne in the +finger-bowls, cocktails to go before and after, and quite likely some +daring young woman to show us a new dance, with the cleared +dinner-table for a stage. Many times I tried to dodge; to slip into +Denver on the necessary business errand and out again before the +newspapers could publish my arrival. It was no use. That woman's +ingenuity, prescience, intuition--whatever it may be called, was simply +devilish. Before I could turn around, my summons would find me, and I +had to obey or take the consequences. + +Now and again I rebelled, even as the poorest worm will turn if it be +sufficiently trodden upon; but that, too, was useless. My tormentor +held me in a grip of steel. Worse than all, the dog's life she was +leading me caused me to lose all sense of proportion. As a choice +between two evils, a return to prison would have been far more +endurable than this indefinite sentence of degradation Agatha Geddis +was making me serve. But I could not see this: all I could see was +that this woman had the power to make a total wreck of all that I had +builded. The larger fact that I was myself the principal contributor +to the wreck, helping it on by the time-serving course I was pursuing, +did not lay hold of me. + +One night, or rather early one morning, when I had taken her home from +a road-house revel so shameful that the keeper of the place had +practically turned us out, I asked her where all this was to end. + +"Perhaps it will end when I have taught you how to make love to me +again," she returned flippantly. + +"And if I refuse to learn?" + +Her smile was no longer alluring; it was mockingly triumphant. + +"You can't keep it up indefinitely--with the Cripple Creek girl, I +mean, Bertie"--she still called me "Bertie" or "Herbert" when we were +alone together. "Sooner or later, she is going to find out what you +are doing to her; and after that, the fireworks." + +I shook my head. "It is hard to decide, sometimes, Agatha, whether you +are a woman or merely a she-devil in woman's shape." + +"Oh, I'm a woman--all woman." + +"But the motive," I gritted. "If I had done you the greatest injury a +woman could suffer--if you had a lifelong grudge to satisfy--you could +hardly be more vindictively merciless." + +Her smile at this was not pleasant to look upon. + +"Somebody has said that the keenest pleasure in life is the pleasure of +absolute possession. I own you, Bertie Weyburn, body and soul, and you +know it. If you were a big enough man, you'd kill me: if you were big +enough in another way, you'd defy me and take what is coming to you." + +"And since I am not yet ready to become either a murderer or a martyr?" + +"You will probably do the other remaining thing--marry me some day and +give me a chance to teach you how to spend the money which, thus far, +you don't seem to know what to do with." + +"You have money enough of your own--or your father's," I retorted. + +"I'd rather spend yours," she said coolly. + +It was the old _impasse_ at which we had arrived a dozen times before, +only the wretched involvement seemed to be adding coil upon coil with +the passing of time. I have often wondered if she really meant the +marriage threat. At this distance in time it appears extremely +doubtful. She may have had moments in which the steadily augmenting +output of the Little Clean-Up tempted her, but this is only a surmise. +And a little later I was to learn that during this very winter when she +was dragging me bound and helpless at the end of her trail-rope, she +was--but I need not anticipate. + +"You have me bluffed to a standstill, but sometimes I wonder if it +isn't only a bluff," I said, in reply to her remark that she'd rather +spend my money than her father's. "What if I should tell you here and +now that this is the end of It?--that you can't make a plaything of me +any longer? What would you do?" + +"There are a number of things I might do--to one who is so temptingly +vulnerable as you are, Bertie. For one, I might send a wire to the +sheriff of the home county, or to the warden of the penitentiary. +Really, when I come to think of it, I'm not sure that I oughtn't to do +it, anyway, on the score of public morals. Nobody would blame me; and +some few would applaud." + +"Morals!" I exploded. "You don't know the meaning of the word!" + +"Maybe not," she rejoined lightly. "Not many women do. But sending +the wire would be a rather crude way of bringing you to terms; +especially since I know of at least one better way. I'm going to +hazard a guess. You haven't told the Cripple Creek girl anything about +your past?" + +I was silent. + +"I thought not," she went on smoothly. "With some women, perhaps with +most women, it wouldn't make any great difference, one way or the +other. So far as anybody out here knows to the contrary, you are a +free man--and a rich one; and so long as you haven't committed bigamy +or something of that sort, the average girl wouldn't care the snap of +her finger. Up to a few days ago I thought the brown-eyed little thing +you brought up here one night last fall to the theater was the average +girl. But now I know better." + +It had always seemed a sheer sacrilege to even mention Mary Everton in +Agatha Geddis's presence. But this time I broke over. + +"You know who she is?" I queried. + +"I do now. And I know her _metier_ even better than you do, Bertie, +dear. She might go to her grave loving you to distraction, but she +would never have an ex-convict for the father of her children--not if +she knew it. It's in the Everton blood. Anybody who knew Phineas +Everton as you and I did in the old school-days, ought to know exactly +what to expect of his daughter." + +I sat up quickly, and the lights in the high-swung drawing-room +chandelier began to turn red for me. + +"You devil! Do you mean to say that you would tell Polly Everton?" I +burst out savagely. + +"I'm not going to tell her because you are not going to drive me to +it,"--this with a half-stifled yawn behind a faultless white hand that +was just beginning to show the blue veining of bad hours and +dissipation. Then: "Go back to your hotel and go to bed, Bertie. +You'll wake up in a better frame of mind a few hours later, perhaps. +Kiss me, and say good-night." + +As I have confessed, I carried a gun in those days; had carried one +ever since that memorable afternoon when I had dropped from the +trolley-car in Cripple Creek to preface the opening of our business +office by going first to a hardware shop for the purchase of a weapon. +After leaving the Altberg house I dismissed the night-owl cab on the +north bank of the river and crossed the Platte on the viaduct afoot. + +Half-way over I stopped to look down into the winter-dry bed of the +stream. There was one way out of the wretched labyrinth of shame and +double-dealing into which my weakness and cowardice had led me. The +weapon sagged heavily in my pocket as if it were a sentient thing +trying in some dumb fashion to make its presence felt. + +It was but a gripping of the pistol and a quick pull at the trigger, +and I should be out of the labyrinth for good and all. I don't know +why I didn't do it; why I hadn't done it long before--or rather, I do +know. It was because, when the deciding moment came, I was always +confronted by a vivid and soul-harrowing flash-light picture of Polly +Everton's face as it would look when they should tell her. + + + + +XIX + +A Reckoning and a Hold-Up + +I imagine it is only in fiction that a man is able to live a double +life successfully to the grand climax. I failed because the mounting +fortunes of the Little Clean-Up, my share of which was as yet merely +giving me money to squander on the extravagant whims and caprices of +Agatha Geddis, were making all three of us, Gifford, Barrett and +myself, marked men. + +One incident of the marking timed itself in one of my trips to Denver. +I had breakfasted at the Brown and was leaving my room-key with the +clerk when I ran up against the plain-clothes man who had arrested me +on the day of my arrival as a runaway. I should have passed him +without recognition, as a matter of course, but he stopped and accosted +me. + +"Carson's my name," he said, offering me his hand and showing his +concealed badge in one and the same motion. Then: "You'll excuse me +for butting in, Mr. Bertrand, but there is something you ought to know. +You've got a double kicking around here somewhere; a fellow who has +swiped your name and looks just a little like you. He's a crook, all +right, and we've got his thumb-print and his 'mug' in the headquarters +records. I ran across his dope the other day in the blotter, and +thought the next time I saw you I'd give you a tip. You never can tell +what these slick 'aliases' 'll do. He might be following you up to get +a graft out of you. That's done, every day, you know." + +Naturally, there was nothing to do but to thank the purblind city +detective, to press a bank-note into his hand, and to beg him to be on +the lookout for this dangerous "double" of mine. But the incident +served to show what the bonanza-fed publicity campaign was doing for us. + +Gifford, grubbing in the various levels of the mine, had the most +immunity; the newspaper reporters let him measurably alone. But +neither Barrett nor I could dodge the spotlight. Every move we made +was blazoned in type, and I lived in daily fear of the moment when some +enterprising newspaper man would begin to make copy of the theater +parties and road-house rides and midnight champagne suppers. + +I knew that the blow had fallen one morning when Phineas Everton came +unannounced into my private office and asked me to send the +stenographer away. The _debacle_ had arrived, and I was no more ready +to meet it than any other spendthrift of good repute caught red-handed +would have been. + +"I think you can guess pretty well what I have come to say, Bertrand," +Everton said, after the door had closed behind the outgoing shorthand +man. "I have been putting it off in the hope that your own sense of +the fitness of things would come to the rescue. I may be old-fashioned +and out of touch with the times and the manners of the new generation, +but I can't forget that I am a father, or that common decency still has +its demands." + +Out of the depths of my humiliation there emerged, full-grown, a huge +respect for this quiet-eyed ex-schoolmaster who, for the few of us who +knew him, lived the life of a studious recluse among his technical +mechanisms in the laboratory. He was a salaried man, and I was one of +his three employers. That he was able to ignore completely the +business relation was a mark of the man. + +He waited for his reply but I had none to make. After a time he went +on, without heat, but equally without regard for anything but the +despicable fact. + +"For quite a long time, if I am informed correctly, you have been +associating in Denver with a set of people who, whatever else may be +said about them, are not people with whom my daughter would care to +associate. More than this, you have allowed your name to become +coupled with that of a woman whose reputation, past and present, is not +altogether of the best. Tell me if I am accusing you wrongfully." + +"You are not," I admitted. + +"I have been waiting and postponing this talk in the hope that you +would realize that you are not doing Polly fair justice. Like most +American fathers, I am not supposed to know how matters stand between +you, and I deal only with the facts as they appear to an onlooker. The +home has been open to you, and you have made such use of your welcome +as to lead others to believe that you are Polly's lover." + +"I am," I asserted. + +"Ah," he said; "that clears the ground admirably. I like you, +Bertrand, and I shall be glad to hear your defense, if you have any." + +What could I say? Driven thus into a corner, I could only protest, +rather incoherently, that I loved Polly, and that, in other +circumstances, I should long since have asked her to be my wife. + +"The 'circumstances' are connected with Miss Geddis?" he asked +pointedly. + +"Only incidentally. Considered for herself, Miss Geddis is a woman for +whom any self-respecting man could have little regard." + +For the first time in the interview the ex-schoolmaster's mild eyes +grew hard. + +"Then I am to infer that she has a hold of some sort upon you?" + +"She has," I rejoined shortly. + +"That simplifies matters still more," he averred, with as near an +approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compass. "I +don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have +heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you +should be man enough to stay away from the house and let Polly alone. +Am I unreasonable?" + +"Not in the least. You might go much farther and still be blameless. +I have no valid excuse to offer, but if I should say that there are +extenuating circumstances----" + +He raised a thin hand in protest. + +"Let us leave it at the point at which there will be the least +ill-feeling," he cut in; and from that he switched without preface to a +discussion of the varying ore values in a newly opened adit of the mine. + +When he was gone I went into Barrett's room. As I have intimated, one +of the troubles of mine-owning--if the mine be a producer--is to hold +the smelter people in line. Like other Cripple Creek property owners, +we had been up against the high costs of reduction almost from the +first, and we were constantly sending test consignments of our ore to +various smelters throughout the country, and even to Europe, in order +to obtain checking data. + +"About that car-load of Number Three ore we are sending to Falkenheim +in California," I said to Barrett. "I'm going to break away and go +with it if you have no objections." + +Barrett looked up quickly. + +"I think that is a wise move, Jimmie; a very wise move," he said +gravely; and this meant that he, too, had been reading the Denver +newspapers. Then he added: "We can get along all right without you, +for awhile, and you may stay as long as you like. When will you go?" + +"To-day; on the afternoon train." + +"Straight west?--or by way of Denver?" + +"Straight west, over the Midland, I guess." + +This is what I said, and it is what I meant to do when I went back to +my own office to set things in order for the long absence--for I fully +meant it to be long. My office duties were not complicated, and the +few things to be attended to were soon out of the way. One of the +letters to be written was one that I did not dictate to the +stenographer. It was to the Reverend John Whitley, enclosing a draft +to be forwarded to my sister in Glendale. Ever since he had served me +in the matter of returning Horace Barton's pocketbook, I had used him +as an intermediary for communicating, money-wise, with my people. He +had kept my secret, and was still keeping it. + +The business affairs despatched, I crossed to the hotel to pack a +couple of suit-cases. All these preliminary preparations included no +word or line to Polly. I promised myself that I should write her when +it was all over. The thing to be done now and first was to drop out as +unostentatiously as possible. So ran the well-considered intention. +But when I went down to an early luncheon there was a telegram awaiting +me. It was from Agatha Geddis, and its wording was a curt mandate. +"Expect you on afternoon train. Don't fail." + +During the half-hour which remained before train-time I fought the +wretched battle all over again, back and forth and up and down until my +brain reeled. At the end there was a shifty compromise. I was still +fully determined to drop out and go to California; at one stroke to +break with Polly Everton, and to put myself beyond the reach of the +woman with claws; but I weakly decided to go by way of Denver, taking +the night train west from the capital city over the Union Pacific. It +was a cowardly expedient, prompted wholly by the old, sharp-toothed +fear of consequences if I should fall to obey the wire summons, and I +knew it. I offer nothing in extenuation. + +Agatha met me at the Denver Union Station, and at her suggestion we +went together to dinner at the Brown Palace. I did not know until +later why she had sent for me, or why she chose a particular table in +the dining-room, or why she went to pieces--figuratively +speaking--when, at the serving of the dessert, a note was handed her. + +After that, I should have said that she had been drinking too much +champagne, if I had not known better. + +"I want you to go with me up to my suite, Bertie; I've moved to the +hotel," she said hurriedly as we were leaving the dining-room. + +If I went reluctantly it was not owing to any new-born squeamishness. +Heaven knows, I had been compromised with her too many times to care +greatly for anything that could be added now. In the sitting-room of +her private suite she punched the light switch and came to sit on the +arm of my chair. If she had put an arm around my neck, as she did now +and then when the wine was in and what few scruples she had were pushed +aside, I think I should have strangled her. + +"You are going to be awfully sweet to me to-night, Bertie," she began, +with honey on her tongue. "You are going to be my good angel. I need +a lot of money, and I want you to be nice and get it for me." + +"No," I refused briefly. "You've bled me enough." + +"Just this one more time, Boy," she coaxed. "I've simply _got_ to have +it, you know." + +"Why don't you get it from your father?" + +"He has quit," she said, with a toss of the shapely head. "Besides, +you are so much easier." + +"How much do you want, this time?" + +She named a sum which was a fair measure of my entire checking account +in the Cripple Creek bank; no small amount, this, though by agreement +Gifford, Barrett and I had set aside a liberal portion of the mine +earnings as undivided profits. When I hesitated, fairly staggered by +the enormity of her demand, she added: "Don't tell me you haven't got +it; I know you have. You don't spend anything except the little you +dole out for me." + +"If I have that much, I am not carrying it around with me." + +"I didn't suppose you carried it in your pocket. But you are well +known here in Denver, and you can get your checks cashed at any hour of +the day or night, if you go to the right places. You've done it +before." + +I was desperate enough to be half crazed. Not content with making me +lose the love of the one woman in the world, she was preparing to rob +me like a merciless highwayman. + +"Nothing for nothing, the world over," I said, between set teeth. "I +mean to have the worth of my money, this time." + +With a quick twist on the arm of the chair she leaned over and put her +cheek against mine. "There are others," she laughed softly, "but there +has never been a day or an hour when you couldn't make them wait, +Bertie, dear." And then: "No; I haven't been drinking." + +"You will give me what I want, if I will pay the price?" I demanded. + +"You heard what I said," she whispered. + +I made her sit up and tried to face her. + +"This is what I want. Four years ago you and your father sent me to +prison for a crime that I didn't commit. Go over to that table and +write and sign me my clearance--tell the bald truth and sign your name +to it--and you shall have your money." + +In a flash she slipped from her place on the arm of the chair and stood +before me transformed into a flaming incarnation of vindictive rage. +In spite of the pace she had been keeping she was still very beautiful, +and her anger served to heighten that physical charm which was the +keynote of her power over men. + +"_Oh_!" she panted; "so _that_ was what you were willing to pay for! +You want a bill of health so you can go back to that little hussy in +Cripple Creek! Listen to me, Bert Weyburn: you've broken the last +thread. I could kill you if you couldn't serve my turn better alive +than dead! _I want that money_. If you don't bring it here to me by +ten o'clock, the Denver police are going to find out that you, the +wealthy third partner in the Little Clean-Up, are the man they +photographed nearly a year ago, the man whose thumb-print they took, +the man who is wanted as an escaped convict who has broken his +parole--No, don't speak; let me finish. For the money you are going to +bring me, I'll keep still--to the police. But for the slap you've just +given me. . . . Did you ever read that line of Congreve's about a +woman scorned? You've had your last little love-scene with Polly +Everton!" + +I'll tell it all. This time the murder demon proved too strong for me. +It was a sheer madman who sprang at her out of the depths of the +arm-chair and bent her back over the little oak writing-table with his +hands at her throat. She was not womanly enough to scream; instead, +she fought silently and with the strength and cunning of mortal fear. +Even as my fingers clutched at her for the strangling hold she twisted +herself free and put the breadth of the table between us; then I found +myself looking into the muzzle of a small silver-mounted revolver. + +"You fool!" she gasped. "Do you think I would take any chances with +you? If you should kill me, the axe would fall and find your neck, +just the same! I put it in a letter to the chief of police. Get me +that money before ten o'clock if you want me to stop the letter!" + +I was beaten, this time not by fear of her or what she could do, but by +the crushing loss I had suffered in those few mad moments. I had done +the thing that no man may do and still claim that he has a single drop +of gentle blood in his veins; I had laid my hands in violence upon a +woman, and with murder in my heart. + +Convinced now that there was no deeper depth of degradation to which I +could sink, I set about the task she had given me, laboring through it +like a man in a dream. To gather up such a huge sum of money after +banking hours was well nigh impossible; but I compassed the end by +chartering a cab and going to anybody and everybody who could by any +possibility cash my checks, leaving a disgraceful trail of the bank +paper in dives and gambling dens and night resorts without +number--driven to this because all respectable sources were closed at +that time in the evening. + +Returning to the hotel only a few minutes before the critical hour, I +went directly to her rooms, carrying the money in a small hand-bag that +I had bought for the purpose. I found her waiting for me, gowned and +hatted as if for a journey. She was standing before a mirror, dabbing +her neck with a powder-puff--histronic to the last; she was showing me +how she had to resort to this to cover up the marks of my assault. I +have failed in my picture of her if I have not portrayed her as a woman +of moods and lightning changes. There was no trace of the late +volcanic outburst in her manner when she greeted me and handed me a +sealed and stamped envelope addressed to the Denver chief of police. + +"You got the money?" she said quietly. "I knew you would." And then +with a sudden passion: "Oh, Bertie! if you weren't such a cold-blooded +fish of a man!--but never mind; it's too late now." + +I placed the small hand-bag on the table, pocketed the fateful letter, +and backed toward the door. "If there is nothing else," I said. + +"Oh, but there is!" she put in quickly. "I want you to get a cab and +take me to the station. I'm leaving for California. Don't you want to +go with me?" + +"God forbid!" I exclaimed, and it came out of a full heart. Then I +went down to order the cab. + +She was curiously silent on the short drive down Seventeenth Street to +the Union Station, sitting with the little hand-bag on her knees and +breathing as they say the Australian pearl fishers breathe before +taking the deep-sea dive. In the station she stood at a window in the +women's room and waited while I purchased her ticket for San Francisco +and paid for the sleeper section which had evidently been reserved some +time in advance. + +It is perhaps needless to say that I did not buy my own California +ticket at the same time, though the train she was taking was the one I +had planned to take. My journey could be postponed; and in the light +of what had happened, and what was now happening, I was beginning to +understand that my runaway trip to the Pacific Coast was no longer +necessary, on one account, at least. But in any event, wild horses +couldn't have dragged me aboard of the same train with Agatha Geddis. + +She seemed strangely perturbed when I went to her with the tickets, and +she made no move to leave the window. + +"Your train is ready," I told her, as she thrust the ticket envelope +into the bosom of her gown. + +"Wait!" she commanded; then she turned back to the window which looked +out upon the cab rank. + +There were cabs coming and going constantly, and I didn't know until +afterward what she saw that made her eyes light up and the blood surge +into her cheeks. + +"Now I'm ready," she announced quickly. "Put me on the sleeper." + +I took her through the gates and at the gate-man's halting of us I saw +that we were followed. + +Our shadow was an alert, dapper young man who wore glasses, and I +remembered having seen him, both at the ticket window and in the +women's room. Outside of the gates he confirmed my suspicion by +trailing us to the steps of the sleeping-car. + +Even then I didn't suspect what was going on. While the sleeping-car +conductor was examining the tickets and taking the section number I saw +the young man with the spectacles making a hurried reconnaissance of +the car by walking back and forth beside it and peering curiously in +through the lighted windows. Then I missed him for a minute or two +until he came running from the gates with a railroad ticket in his hand. + +"I'm going to Cheyenne, and I want a berth in this car," he told the +Pullman conductor, "They said they couldn't sell me one at the +office--that you had the diagram." + +The conductor looked over his list. "Nothing doing," he returned. +"All sold out." + +"That's all right," snapped the young man; "I'll take my chance sitting +up." With that, he climbed aboard and disappeared in the car. + +All this time we had been waiting for the conductor to return my +companion's tickets. When he did so, I helped her up the steps. The +air-brakes were sighing the starting signal, and she turned in the +lighted vestibule and blew me a kiss. + +"Good-by, Bertie, dear," I heard her say. "Be a good boy, and give my +love to Little Brown-Eyes." Then, as if to prove the immortal saying +that there is no such thing as ultimate total depravity in the human +atom, she leaned over to whisper the parting word: "Make good with her +if you can, and want to, Bertie: I didn't mean it when I said I'd spoil +your chances. Good-night and good-by." And with that the train moved +off and she was gone. + +I slept late in my room at the hotel the next morning, waking with a +vague sense of inexpressible relief, which was quickly followed by the +emotions which may come to a man regaining consciousness after he has +been sandbagged and robbed. At table in the breakfast-room the boy +brought me a morning paper. On the first page, in screaming headlines, +I saw the complete explanation of the mysteries of the previous +evening. Agatha Geddis had eloped with a married man notably prominent +in social and business circles. The newspaper had two reliable sources +of information. The deserted wife had been interviewed, and the guilty +pair had been followed on the train by a reporter. + +I laid the paper aside and stared out of the breakfast-room window like +a man awakening from a horrid dream. Once again the submerging wave of +realization and relief rushed over me. Truly, I had been held up and +robbed; had in fact innocently financed this city-shaking elopement. +But, so far as Agatha Geddis's banishment from Denver and Colorado +could accomplish it, I was once more a free man. + + + + +XX + +Broken Faith + +"Sweet are the uses of adversity," sang the great bard who is supposed +to have known human nature in all its mutations; and humanity has +echoed the aphorism until it has come to believe in some sort that +bufferings are benedictions, and hard knocks merely the compacting +blows that harden virtues, as the blacksmith's hammer beats a finer +temper into the steel upon the anvil. + +With all due respect for the shades of the mighty, and for the tacit +approval of the many, I beg leave to offer the _argumentum ad hominem_ +in rebuttal. Fight the conclusion as I may, I cannot resist the +convincement that ill winds have never blown me any good; that, on the +contrary, the steady pressure of hardship and misfortune, during a +period when my life was still in a great measure in the formative +state, exerted an influence which was altogether evil, weakening the +impulses which should have been growing stronger, and giving free rein +to those which, under more favoring conditions, might never have been +quickened. + +When I forsook the breakfast-table and the hotel, after having read the +newspaper story telling how effectively Agatha Geddis had removed +herself from my path, it was to make a joyous dash for the first train +leaving the capital for Cripple Creek. With shame I record it, I had +already forgotten my own culpable weakness in permitting a dastardly +fear of consequences to make me Agatha's puppet and a sharer in her +more than questionable dissipations; had forgotten that by every step I +had taken with Agatha Geddis I had increased the distance separating me +from Mary Everton. + +Perhaps it is only a characteristic of human nature to minimize evils +past, and evils to come, at the miraculous removal of a great and +pressing evil present; even so, one may suffer loss. I was hastening +back to take up the dropped thread of my relations with Phineas Everton +and his daughter, and I should have gone softly, as one who, knowing +himself the chief of sinners yet ventures to tread upon holy ground. +But by the time the train was slowing into the great gold camp at the +back of Pike's Peak, these, and all other chastening thoughts, were +crowded aside to make room for the one jubilant fact: I was free and I +was going back to Polly. + +Barrett was the first man I met upon reaching our offices. If he were +surprised at seeing me in Cripple Creek when I should have been well on +my way to the Pacific Coast, he was quite as evidently disappointed. + +"I thought you had started for California," he said in his evenest +tones. + +"I thought so, too; but it was only a false start." Then I had it out +with him. "You and I both know, Barrett, why you thought I ought to +go, and the reason wasn't even remotely connected with the shipping of +the car-load of test-ore. If you have seen the morning papers, you +probably know why it is no longer necessary for me to leave Colorado." + +He turned to stare absently out of the office window. When he faced +about again there was a frown of friendly concern wrinkling between his +straight-browed level eyes. + +"How the devil did you ever come to get mixed up with the Geddis woman, +Jimmie?" he demanded. + +I evaded the direct question. "It is a long story, and some day I may +be able to tell you all of it. But I can't do it now. You must take +my word for it, Bob, that I haven't done a single thing that I didn't +believe, at the time, I was compelled to do. That sounds idiotic, I +know; but it is the simple truth." + +Again he turned to the window and was silent for a full minute. I knew +that I had in no uncertain measure forfeited his good opinion--that, I +had earned the forfeiture: also, I knew perfectly well what he was +doing; he was leaving me entirely out of the question and was weighing +the hazards for Polly. When he turned it was to put a hand upon my +shoulder. + +"I'm taking you 'sight unseen,' old man," he said, with the brotherly +affection which came so easily to the front in all his dealings with +me. "If you tell me it's done and over with, and won't be resurrected, +that's the end of it, so far as I am concerned. What comes next?" + +"A little heart-to-heart talk with Polly's father," I said, and began +to move toward the door. But he stopped me before I could get away. + +"Just one other word, Jimmie: wouldn't it be better to let things rock +along for awhile until the dust has time to settle and the smoke to +blow away? You've come back red-handed from this thing--whatever it +is--and----" + +"No," I returned obstinately. "It is now or never for me, Bob. I'm +sinking deeper into the mire every day, and Polly has the only rope +that will pull me out. You'll say that I am much more likely to drag +her in; maybe that is true, but just now I'm like a drowning man. +Possibly it would be better for all concerned if I should drown, but +you can't expect me to take that view of it." And with that I crossed +the corridor to the laboratory. + +I can say for Phineas Everton that he was at all times and in all +things a fair man, generous to a fault, and always ready to give the +other fellow the benefit of the doubt. I sought him that afternoon +with an explanation which was very far from explaining, but he listened +patiently and with an evident desire to draw favorable inferences where +he could from my somewhat vague story of my entanglement with Agatha +Geddis. + +It was perfectly apparent to me that I was not making the story very +clear to him; I couldn't, because any complete explanation would have +reached back too far into my past. The half-confidence was +inexcusable, and I was aware of this. I owed this man, whose daughter +I wished to marry, the fullest and frankest statement of all the facts. +But I didn't give it to him. + +"You are trying to tell me that the affair with this woman had its +origin in a former foolish infatuation?" he said at length. + +"It might be called that; but it dates back to my--to a time long +before I came to Cripple Creek." + +"You gave me to understand yesterday that she had a hold of some sort +upon you. Were you under promise to marry her?" + +"No, indeed; never in this world!" + +He was sitting back in his chair and regarding me gravely. + +"I am an old-fashioned man, Bertrand, as I told you yesterday. I have +always entertained an idea--which may seem archaic to the present +generation--that a young man intending to marry ought to be able to +give as much as he asks. You haven't made a very good beginning." + +I admitted it; admitted everything save the imputation that my +relations with Agatha Geddis had been in any sense wilfully immoral. + +He gave a wry smile at this, as if the distinction were finely drawn +and the credit small. + +"Because it fell to my lot to be a schoolmaster in her native town, I +had an opportunity of observing Miss Geddis while she was yet only a +young girl, Bertrand," he remarked. "She gave promise, even then, of +becoming a disturbing element in the affairs of men. As a school-girl +she had a following of silly boys who were ready to take her at her own +valuation of herself. There are times when you remind me very strongly +of one of them, though the resemblance is only a suggestion: the boy I +speak of was a bright young fellow named Weyburn, who afterward became +a clerk in Mr. Geddis's bank." + +There are moments when the promptings of the panic-stricken ostrich lay +hold upon the best of us. Since I could not thrust my head into the +sand, I wheeled quickly to stare at a framed photograph of Bull +Mountain and the buildings of the Little Clean-Up hanging on the +laboratory wall. + +"He was one of the fools, too, was he?" I said, without taking my eyes +from the photograph. + +"He turned out badly, I am sorry to say, and I have often wondered if +the young woman was not in some way responsible. There was a +defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to +the penitentiary." + +Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have +punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete +recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the +rending touch. But Everton's return to the question at issue turned +the danger of recognition aside. + +"To get back to the present time, and your plea for a rehearing," he +went on. "I wish to be entirely fair to you, Bertrand; as fair as I +can be without being unfair to Polly. Barrett told me yesterday +afternoon that you had gone, or were going, to the Pacific Coast. I am +taking it for granted that you had no intention of accompanying this +woman?" + +"I certainly had not. Nothing was further from my intentions. On the +other hand, her flight last night with another woman's husband is the +one thing that makes it possible for me to be here to-day." + +"You can assure me that your connection with her is an incident closed; +and for all time?" + +"It is, unquestionably. I hope I shall never see her or hear of her +again." + +For a moment he sat nibbling the end of the pencil with which he had +been figuring, trying, as I well understood, to be fairly equitable as +between even-handed justice and his prejudices. There was a sharp +little struggle, but at the end of it he said: "As I remarked +yesterday, I labor under all the disadvantages of the average American +father. I can occupy the position only of a deeply interested +onlooker. But I'll meet you half-way and lift the embargo. You may +resume your visits to the house if you wish to." + +"I want more than that," I broke in hastily. "I am going to ask Polly +to be my wife. If she says Yes, I don't want to wait a minute longer +than I'm obliged to." + +He demurred at that, intimating that I ought to be willing to wait +until a reasonable lapse of time could prove the sincerity of my +protestations. He was entirely justified in asking for delay, but I +begged like a dog and he finally gave a reluctant consent--contingent, +of course, upon his daughter's wishes in the matter. Half an hour +later I was sitting with Polly Everton before a cheerful grate fire in +the living-room of the cottage on the hill, trying, as best I might, to +tell her how much I loved her. + +One of the things a man doesn't find out until after he has been +married quite some little time is that the best of women may not always +wear her heart on her sleeve, nor always open the door of the inner +confidences even to the man whose life has become a part and parcel of +her own. Mary Everton's eyes were deep wells of truth and sincerity as +I talked, but I read in them nothing save the love which matched my own +when she gave me her answer. If I had known all that lay behind, I +think I should have fallen down and worshiped her. + +I did not know then how much or how little she had heard of the Agatha +Geddis affair. None the less, I broke faith, if not with her, at least +with myself. I did not tell her that she was about to become the wife +of an escaped convict; that her life must henceforth be lived under a +threatening shadow; that her children, if she should have any, might be +made to share the disgrace of their father. + +Once more I make no excuses. A little later, if I had waited, the just +and honorable impulse might have reasserted itself; I might have +realized that the removal of one unscrupulous woman out of my path +merely took the lightning out of the edge of the nearest cloud. But in +the supreme exaltation of the moment I considered none of these things. +In this climaxing of happiness the disaster which had hung over my head +for weeks and months seemed as far removed and remote as it had been +imminent only a few hours before. + +We were together through what remained of the afternoon; until it was +nearly time for Phineas Everton to come home. When we parted I had +gained my point and our plans were all made. We were to be married +very quietly the following day. I had no wish to make the wedding the +social function which my position as one of the three partners in the +Little Clean-Up might have justified; and Polly agreed with me in this. + +It was not until after I had left the house that I remembered that the +forced financing of Agatha Geddis's elopement had practically drained +my bank account. There had been no mention of money in our talk before +the fire; we were both far and away beyond the reach of any such sordid +topic. But Phineas Everton would have a right to ask questions, and I +must be prepared to answer them. After dinner at the hotel I captured +Barrett, drove him into a quiet corner of the lobby, and made my wail. + +"Heavens and earth!" he gasped when I had told him the shameful truth. +"Are you telling me that you let that woman hold you up for all the +ready money you had in the world?" + +"It listens that way," I confessed; adding, out of the heart of +sincerity: "It was cheap at the price; I was glad enough to be quit of +her at any price." + +"This is pretty serious, Jimmie," he asserted, after he had re-lighted +his cigar. "It isn't the mere fact that you have recklessly chucked a +small fortune at the Geddis person--that is a mere matter of dollars +and cents, and the Little Clean-Up will square you up on that. But +there is another side to it. The dreadful thing is the fact that she +had enough of a grip on you to make you do it. I'll like it better if +you will say that you were blind drunk when you did it." + +"I wasn't--more's the pity, Bob; on the contrary, I was never soberer +in my life." + +"Of course, you haven't told Polly." + +"No--not yet." + +"Nor Everton?" + +I shook my head. "I didn't want to commit suicide." + +Barrett chuckled softly. + +"I happen to know this fellow the Geddis woman is running away with," +he said. "He has gone through his wife's fortune, in addition to +squandering a good little chunk that his father left him. And you've +grub-staked 'em both to this! Well, never mind; it's a back number, +now, and you have given me your word for it. Don't worry about the +money you are going to need for the honeymoon. There is plenty in the +bank--in my account, if there isn't any in yours." + +I thanked him with tears in my eyes. Was there ever another such +generous soul in this world, or in any other? He stopped me in mid +career, wishing to know more about the wedding. + +"Let the money part of it go hang and tell me more about this hurry +business you've planned for to-morrow. It's scandalous and unheard of, +but I don't blame you a little bit. Dope my part out for me while +you're here--so I'll know where I am to come on and go off." + +For a little while longer--as long a while as I could spare from +Polly--we talked of the impromptu wedding and arranged for it. Barrett +was a brother to me in all that the word implies. He took on all of +the "best man's" responsibilities--and more. When I was leaving to +walk up the hill he walked to the corner of the side street with me, +and at the last moment business intruded. + +"I forgot to tell you," he cut in abruptly. "After you left yesterday +afternoon a court notice was served upon us. Blackwell's lawyers have +taken the Lawrenceburg suit to the Federal court--on the ground of +alien ownership--and we've got to show cause all over again why we +shouldn't be enjoined for trespass. Benedict seems to be more or less +stirred up about it." + +"If that is the case, I oughtn't to be going away," I said. + +"Yes, you ought; Gifford and I can handle it." + +Notwithstanding Barrett's assurance I was vaguely disturbed as I +climbed the hill to the Everton cottage. Blackwell had proved to be a +veritable bull-dog in the long-drawn-out fight, and the tenacity with +which he was holding on was ominous. Why the Lawrenceburg people +should make such a determined struggle to wipe us out was beyond my +comprehension. It had been proved in the State courts, past a question +of doubt, that our title to the Little Clean-Up was unassailable, and +still Blackwell hung on. What was the animus? + +If I could have had the answer to that question it is conceivable that +my one evening as Polly Everton's affianced lover--an evening spent in +the seventh heaven of ecstasy before the cheerful coal blaze in the +cottage sitting-room--would have been sadly marred. + + + + +XXI + +The End of a Honeymoon + +Our high-noon wedding was in all respects as quiet and unostentatious +as we had planned it. The little brown box of a church, bare of +decorations because there was neither time nor the group of vicariously +interested young people to trim it, was only a few doors from the +Everton cottage, and we walked to it; Phineas Everton and I on each +side of the plank walk, and Polly between us with an arm for each. + +Barrett had told a few of his friends, so there were enough people in +the pews to make it look a little less than clandestine. Barrett acted +as usher in one aisle and Gifford, very much out of his element but +doggedly faithful, did his part in the other. There was even a bit of +music; the Wagner as we went in, and a few bars of the Mendelssohn to +speed us as we went out. The good-byes were said at the church-door, +and the only abnormal thing about the leave-taking was Barrett's gift +to the bride, pressed into her hand as we were getting into the +carriage to go to the railroad station--a silver filigree hand-bag +stuffed heavy with five- and ten-dollar gold pieces, "to be blown in on +the wedding journey," as he phrased it. + +We had agreed not to tell anybody where we were going; for that matter, +I didn't even tell Polly until after we had started. Turning southward +from Colorado Springs and stopping overnight in Trinidad, we took a +morning train on the Santa Fe and vanished into the westward void. A +day and a night beyond this we were debarking at Williams, Arizona, and +in due time reached our real hiding-place; a comfortable ranch house +within easy riding distance of that most majestic of immensities, the +Grand Canyon of the Colorado. It was Polly's idea; the choice of a +quiet retreat as against the social attractions of the great hotel on +the canyon's brink. We had each other, and that was sufficient. + +Of that heavenly month, spent in a world far removed from all the +turmoil and distractions of modern civilization, there is nothing to be +here written down. For those who have drained a similar cup of +blissful happiness for themselves there is no need; and those who have +not would not understand. What I recall most vividly now is a single +unnerving incident; unnerving, I say, though at the time it was quickly +drowned in the flowing tide of joy. + +It chanced upon a day toward the month's end when we had broken the +heavenly sequence of quiet days by riding a pair of our host's +well-broken cow ponies over to El Tovar for dinner. Since it was not +the tourist season there were not many guests in the great inn; but +one, a man who sat by himself in a far corner of the dining-room, gave +me a turn that made me sick and faint at my first sight of him. The +man was big and swarthy of face, and he wore a pair of drooping +mustaches. For one heart-stopping instant I made sure it was William +Cummings, the deputy prison warden who had so miraculously missed +seeing me in the dining-car of my train of escape. But since nothing +happened and he paid no manner of attention to us, I decided gratefully +that it was only a resemblance. There was no such name as Cummings on +the hotel register, which I examined after we left the dining-room, and +I saw no more of the man with the drooping mustaches. + +Momentary as the shock had been, I found that Polly had remarked it. +She spoke of it on the ride back to our retreat at Carter's. + +"Are you feeling entirely well, Jimmie, dear?" she asked; and before I +could reply: "You had a bad turn of some sort while we were at table. +I saw it in your face and eyes." + +I hastened to assure her that there was nothing the matter with me; +that there couldn't be anything the matter with a man who had died and +gone to heaven nearly a month previous to the dinner at El Tovar. + +"But the man has got to go back to earth again pretty soon, and take +the woman with him," she retorted, laughing. "Just think, Jimmie; it +has been nearly a month, as you say, and we haven't had a letter or a +telegram in all that time! Not that I'm regretting anything; I'm +happy, dearest--as happy as an angel with wings; but I want to see my +daddy." + +The heavenly path was leading back into the old world again, the +fighting world, and I knew it, and presently we were taking all the +steps of the delightful vanishing in reverse; boarding the through +train at Williams, catching glimpses of the stupendous majesty of +mountain and plain as the powerful locomotives towed us up the grades +of the Raton, doing a brisk walk on the platform at Albuquerque while +the train paused, and all the rest of it. + +From Trinidad I wired Barrett, telling him that we were on our way +home; that we should go in by way of Colorado Springs instead of +Florence, with a stop-over between trains for dinner at the Antlers. I +half-expected he would run down to the Springs to meet us, and so he +did, bringing Father Phineas with him. Polly's love for her father was +always very sweet and touching, and Barrett and I left them to +themselves at the meeting. + +"I'm mighty glad to see you back, Jimmie, old man," Barrett declared, +when we had found a quiet corner in the rotunda. "You are looking like +a new man, and I guess you are one. And you are on your feet again +financially, too. We declared a dividend yesterday, and you've got a +bank account that will warm the cockles of your silly old heart." + +"How is Gifford? and how are things at the mine?" I asked. + +"Gifford is all right; only he's got too much money--doesn't know what +to do with it now that he has built all the new houses the camp will +stand for. And the Little Clean-Up is all right, too; though we are +digging into a small mystery just now." + +"A mystery?" I queried. + +"Yes. You remember how the branch vein in the two-hundred-foot level +was bearing off to the east?" + +"I do." + +"Well, three weeks ago the sloping carried us over into the Mary +Mattock ground, and I tell you what, Jimmie, I was more than glad we +had bought that claim outright while we could. The ore is richer than +anything we have found since we made the big strike at grass-roots, and +we'd be up against it good and hard if we hadn't paid those Nebraska +farmers what they asked and taken a clear title to the ground." + +"But the mystery," I reminded him. + +"It is a little trick of acoustics, I guess; it has happened in other +mines, so Hicks tells me. Some peculiar geological structure of the +porphyry in particular localities makes it carry sound like a telephone +wire. In that eastern adit of ours you can hear them working in the +Lawrenceburg as plainly as if they were only a few feet away." + +"That is odd," I mused; "especially as the Lawrenceburg workings are +all in exactly the opposite direction--down the hill on their side of +the spur." + +Barrett thrust his hands deep into his pockets. + +"I have often wondered, Jimmie, if they really _are_ downhill. Nobody, +outside of the men on their own pay-roll, knows anything about it +definitely; and Blackwell wouldn't let an outside engineer go down his +shaft for a king's ransom. I know it, because I have tried to send +one. If the downhill story that we've been hearing should happen to be +a fake; if he should be under-cutting us, instead; it would explain a +heap of things." + +"The stubborn lawsuit among others," I offered. + +"Yes; the lawsuit. By the way, we've been up to our necks in that +while you've been hiding out. Blackwell's lawyers succeeded in +persuading the Federal court to grant a temporary injunction, in spite +of everything we could do, and we are operating now under an indemnity +bond big enough to make your head swim. The hearing to determine +whether the injunction shall be dissolved or made permanent is timed +for next Monday." + +"Heavens!" I ejaculated. "We can't let them tie us up!" + +"I don't think they are going to be able to. Benedict is feeling a +little better now and he thinks he has them sewed up in a blanket, only +he won't tell me how, and you never can tell what's going to happen +when the lawyers get at you. There are lots of holes in the legal +skimmer: for example, at the preliminary hearing Blackwell had three +surveyors who went on the stand and swore flat-footed that the lines on +our side of the spur were all wrong; that the Lawrenceburg group of +claims covered not only our original triangle, but the Mary Mattock as +well. Paid-for perjury, of course, but we couldn't prove it; so there +you are." + +At my urging Barrett would have gone into this phase of the trouble +more deeply, but just then Polly and her father came across the rotunda +and we all went to the dining-room together. I shall never forget, the +longest day I live, just where our table for four stood, and how a +group of gabbling tourists had the three or four tables nearest to us, +and how the lights, due to some trouble with the electric current, +winked now and then, like the stage lights in a theater ticking off the +cues. + +We had got as far as the black coffees, and Barrett was joking Polly +and telling her that she shouldn't take sugar, when I saw, through a +vista of the tourists, a square-shouldered, dark-faced man rising from +his place at a distant table. There was no mistaking him. He was the +man I had seen in the dining-room of the hotel at the Grand Canyon. + +As he came toward us between the tables the resemblance, which I had so +confidently assured myself was only a resemblance, transformed itself +slowly into the breath-cutting reality, and I was staring up, wild-eyed +and speechless, into the face of the deputy warden, Cummings, when he +tapped me on the shoulder and said, loud enough for the others to hear: + +"You've led us a pretty long chase, Weyburn, but we don't often miss, +and it's ended at last. I guess you'll have to come with me, now." + + + + +XXII + +A Woman's Love + +It is useless for me to try to picture the consternation which fell +upon the four of us when the deputy warden touched me on the shoulder +and spoke to me. I can't describe it. I only know that Barrett sprang +up, gritting out the first oath I had ever heard him utter; that a look +of shocked and complete recognition leaped into the mild brown eyes of +the old metallurgist; that Polly was standing up with her arms +outstretched across the table as if she were trying to reach me and +drag me out of the crushing wreck of all our hopes. + +When he found that I was not going to offer any resistance, Cummings +was very decent--not to say kindly. He let me walk with the others out +of the dining-room; made no show of his authority in the rotunda or at +the elevators to point me out as a prisoner; and in the up-stairs room +to which he took me, pending the departure-time of the earliest +eastbound train, he let me see and talk, first with Barrett, and +afterward with my wife. + +In this most trying exigency Barrett proved to be all that my fancy had +ever pictured the truest of friends. His first word assured me that he +meant to stand by me to the last ditch, and I knew it was the word of a +man who never knew when he was beaten. While Cummings smoked a cigar +in the window-seat I told Barrett the whole pitiful story, beginning +with the night when I had promised Agatha Geddis that I would pull her +father out of the hole he had digged for himself and ending with my +appearance in the Cripple Creek construction camp. + +Barrett believed the story, and I didn't have to wait for him to tell +me so. I could see it in his eyes. + +"Jimmie!" he said, wringing my hand as if he would crush it, "you've +got the two of us behind you--I'm speaking for Gifford because I know +exactly what he will say. We'll spend every dollar that ever comes out +of the Little Clean-Up, if needful, to buy you justice! But I wish you +had told me all this before; and, more than that, I wish you had told +Polly." + +"My God, Bob!" I groaned; "don't rub it in!" And then I told him +brokenly how I had known Polly as a little girl in Glendale, and how I +was certain that her father had more than once been on the verge of +recognizing me. Then, in such fashion as I could, I made my will, or +tried to, telling him that Polly must have her freedom, and that he +must help her get it, and that my share in the mine must go to her. + +"It is the only return I can make her for the deception I have put upon +her," I said; "and I want you to promise me that----" + +In the midst of all this Barrett had turned aside, swearing under his +breath, which was his only way, I took it, of letting me know how it +was rasping him. But now he whirled upon me and broke in savagely: + +"Stop it, you damned maniac! If you have lived with Polly Everton a +whole month and don't know her any better than that, you ought to be +shot! She is waiting now to have her chance at you, and I'm not going +to take any more of her time." Then he went soft again: "You keep a +stiff upper lip, and we'll get you out of this if we have to retain +every lawyer this side of New York!" + +Polly came so soon after Barrett left that I knew she must have been +waiting in the corridor. Cummings was considerate enough to shift his +smoking-seat to the other window and to turn his back upon us. All the +cynics in the world to the contrary notwithstanding, there is a tender +spot in the heart of every man that was ever born, if one can only be +fortunate enough to touch it. + +"_My darling_!" That is what she said when I took her in my arms; and +for a long minute nothing else was said. Then she drew away and held +me at arm's length, and there was that in her dear eyes to make me feel +like the soldier who faces the guns with a shout in his heart and a +song on his lips, knowing that death itself cannot rob him of the Great +Recompense. + +"You needn't say one word--Jimmie--_my husband_! I have known it all, +every bit of it, from the first--from that Sunday morning when Daddy +took me over to your mine," she whispered. "I--I loved you, dearest, +when I was only a foolish little school-girl, and your sister and I +have exchanged letters ever since Daddy and I left Glendale. So I +knew; knew when they sent you to prison for another man's crime, and +knew, even better than your mother and sister did, why you let them do +it. Oh, Jimmie!"--with a queer little twist of the sweet lips that was +half tears and half smile--"if you could only know how wretchedly +jealous I used to be of Agatha Geddis!" + +"You needn't have been!" I burst out. "But you don't know it all. +Last winter--in Denver----" + +She nodded sorrowfully. + +"Yes, dear; I knew that, too. I knew that Agatha Geddis was using you +again--against your will; and that this time she had a cruel whip in +her hand. We had all heard of the broken parole; it was in the home +newspapers, and, besides, your sister wrote me about it." + +"And in the face of all this, you----" + +She nodded again, brightly this time, though her eyes were swimming. + +"Yes, my lover--a thousand times, yes! And I knew this would come, +too,--some time; this dreadful thing that has fallen upon us to-day. I +am heart-broken only for you, dear. What will they do to you?" + +I told her briefly. They would make me serve the remaining two years +of the original sentence, doubtless with an added penalty for the +broken regulations. + +"Dear God--two years!" she gasped, with a quick little sob; and then +she became my brave little girl again. "They will pass, Jimmie, dear, +and they won't seem so terribly long when we remember what we are +waiting for. I'm going with you, you know--as far as they'll let me; +and when things look their blackest you must remember that I'm only +just a little way off; just a little way--and waiting--and waiting----" + +She broke down at the last and cried in my arms, and when she could +find her voice again: + +"It mustn't be two years, Jimmie; it would kill you, and me, too. They +_must_ pardon you--you who have done no wrong! I'll go down on my +knees to the Governor, and----" + +There was something in this to send the blood tingling to my +finger-tips; to rouse the final reserves of manhood. + +"Never!" I forbade. "You must never do that, Polly; and you mustn't +let Barrett stir hand or foot in that direction. I shall come out an +ex-convict, if I have to, but never as a pardoned man with the +presumption of guilt fastened upon me for the remainder of my life. +Promise me that you won't do anything like that!" + +I don't know whether she promised or not. Cummings was stirring +uneasily in his window and looking at his watch. I led Polly to the +door, kissed her, and put her out into the corridor. The agony, the +keenest agony of all, was over, and I turned to the deputy warden. +"Whenever you are ready," I said. + +Barrett was at the train when we went down, as I was sure he would be, +and he seemed strangely excited. + +"Give me just a minute with your prisoner, Mr. Cummings," he begged; +and after the deputy warden had amiably turned his back: "I've just had +a telegram from Gifford. The Lawrenceburg lawyers are offering to +compromise. They say that their owners are tired of dragging the +quarrel through the courts, and they offer to buy us out, lock, stock +and barrel, for five million dollars." + +"After they've committed every crime in the calendar to smash us? Not +for a single minute!" I exploded. + +"Right you are, Jimmie!--I knew you'd be with me!" he agreed defiantly. +"We'll fight 'em till the last dog's too dead to bury. There's a hole +in the bottom of the sea, somewhere, and we'll find it before we're +through with that piratical outfit. Here's your conductor: you'll have +to go. Polly will follow you in a day or two. I had a handful of it +keeping her from going on this train; but, of course, that wouldn't do. +Put a good, stiff bone in your back, and remember that we shan't let +up, day or night--any of us--until you're free again. Good-by, old +man, and God help you!" + + + + +XXIII + +Skies of Brass + +The depressive journey from Colorado to the Middle West records itself +in memory as a dismal dream out of which there were awakenings only for +train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The +deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted +his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the +official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, because he is +dead now. + +On the final day of the journey I persuaded him to tell me how I had +been traced, and I was still human enough to find a grain of comfort in +the assurance that Agatha Geddis had not taken my money at the last +only to turn and betray me. + +Barton, the Glendale wagon sales manager, was the one who was +innocently responsible. He had talked too much, as I had feared he +would. The clue thus furnished had been lost in St. Louis, but was +picked up again, some months later, by Cummings himself through the +police-record photograph in Denver. + +Cummings admitted that he had followed Polly and me on our wedding +journey; that he had known where we were stopping, and had seen us in +the canyon-brink hotel. + +"Why didn't you take me then?" I asked. + +He explained gruffly that the requisition papers with which he was +provided were good only in Colorado, and that it was simpler to wait +than to go through all the red tape of having them reissued for +Arizona. Knowing that the wires were completely at his service, the +answer did not satisfy me. + +"Was that the only reason?" I queried. + +He turned his sober eyes on me and shook his head sorrowfully, I +thought. + +"I was young once, myself, Weyburn--and I had a wife: she died when the +baby came. Maybe you deserve what's coming to you, and maybe you +don't; but that little woman o' yours will never have another +honeymoon." + +Disquieting visions of harsh prison punishments were oppressing me when +we reached the penitentiary and I was taken before the eagle-eyed old +Civil War veteran who had given me my parole. But the warden merely +put me through a shrewd questioning, inquiring closely into my +experiences as a paroled man, and making me tell him circumstantially +the story of my indictment, trial and conviction, and also the later +story of the mining experience in Colorado. + +"I don't recall that you ever protested your innocence while you were +here serving your time, Weyburn," he commented, at the dose of the +inquisition. + +"I didn't," I replied, wondering why he should go behind the returns to +remark the omission. Then I added: "They all do that, and it doesn't +change anything. You set it down as a lie--as it usually is." + +"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you are not lying to me +now?" he demanded. + +I met the test soberly. "I can. I was convicted of a crime that I +didn't commit, and I broke my parole solely because that appeared to be +the one remaining alternative to becoming a criminal in fact." + +The interview over, I expected to be put into stripes, cropped, and +sent to the workshops. But instead I was taken to one of the detention +cells, and for an interval which slowly lengthened itself into a week +was left a prey to all the devils of solitude. It seemed as if I had +been buried out of sight and forgotten. Three times a day a kitchen +"trusty" brought my meals and put them through the door wicket, but +apart from this I saw no one save the corridor guard, who never so much +as looked my way in his comings and goings. + +That week of palsying, unnerving isolation got me. Consider it for a +moment. For a year I had been living at the very heart of life, +working, fighting, scheming, mixing and mingling, and succeeding--not +only in the money-winning, but also--until the Agatha Geddis incident +came along--in the field of good repute. At the last Agatha had set me +free, and Polly's love had opened the ultimate door of supreme +happiness; a joy so ecstatic that at the end of the honeymoon I was +only beginning to realize what it meant to me. + +And then, on the very summit of the mountain of joy, had come the touch +of the deputy warden's hand on my shoulder in the Antlers dining-room. +That touch had swept the new-born world ruthlessly aside--all save +Polly's love and loyalty. Success had been blotted out with the loss +of liberty wherewith to profit by it; and for those who had known me in +the great gold camp and elsewhere in the West--my new friends--I was +branded as an escaped convict. For two shameful years I should be shut +away from Polly, from freedom, from participation in the fight my +partners were making to save the mine, and most probably from any +knowledge of how the fight was going, either for or against us. + +Is it any matter for wonder that by the end of the solitary week I was +little better than a mad-man? If I might have had speech with the +warden, I should have prayed for work; for any employment, however hard +or menial, that would serve to stop the sapping of the very foundations +of reason. One hope I clung to, as the drowning catch at straws. I +could not doubt that Polly was near at hand. If the regular "visiting +day" should intervene they would surely admit her. But in this, too, I +was unlucky. The date of my reincarceration fell between two of the +regular visiting days. So I waited and looked and longed in vain. + +I don't know how many more circlings of the clock-hands were measured +off before the break came. I lost count of the time by days and was no +longer able to think clearly. In perfect physical condition when I was +arrested, I began to go to pieces, both mentally and physically, under +the strain of suspense. Then insomnia came to add its terrors; I could +neither eat nor sleep. I had an ominous foreboding of what the total +loss of appetite meant, and kept telling myself over and over that for +Polly's sake I must fight to save my sanity. + +Under such conditions I was beginning to see things where there was +nothing to be seen on the day when I had my first visitor, and the +shock of surprise when the cell door was opened to admit Cyrus +Whitredge, the lawyer whose bungling defense had done so little to +stave off my conviction, was almost like a premonition of further +disaster. Before I could rise from my seat on the cot he was shaking +hands with me and twisting his dry, leathery face into its nearest +approach to a smile. + +"Don't bother to get up, Bert," he began effusively. "Just stay right +where you are and take it easy. I've been trying for three solid days +to get up here, but court is in session and I couldn't break away. +You're not looking very well, and they tell me down below that you're +off your feed. That won't do, you know--won't do at all. We are going +to get you right out of this, one way or another, mighty quick. You've +taken your medicine like a man, and we don't propose to let 'em give +you a second dose of it--not by a jugful." + +All this was so totally unlike the Whitredge I had known that I fairly +gasped. Then I reflected--while he was drawing up the single +three-legged stool and sitting down--that in all probability the Little +Clean-Up was responsible for the change in him. I was no longer a poor +bank clerk without money or friends. + +"'We,' you say?" I put in, meaning to make him define himself. + +"Why, yes, of course I'm including myself; I'm your attorney, and as +soon as the news of your arrest came I made preparations to drop +everything else, right away, and get into the fight. You got your +sentence and served it, and we'll scrap 'em awhile on the proposition +of bringing you back for more of it simply because you happened to +forget, one day, and step over the State boundaries. I don't know but +what we could show that the law is unconstitutional, if we had to. But +it won't come to anything like that, I guess." + +I looked him straight in the eyes. + +"Whitredge, who has retained you this time?" I asked. + +"I don't know what you mean by that, Bert." + +"I mean that four years and a half ago there were pretty strong reasons +for suspecting that you were Abel Geddis's attorney, rather than mine." + +"Oh, pshaw!" he returned with large lenience. "Geddis wanted to be +fair with you--he thought a good bit of you in those days, Bert, little +as you may believe it--and he did offer to pay my fee, if you couldn't. +But that has nothing to do with the present aspect of the case. I was +your attorney then, and I'm your attorney now. It's a point of +professional honor, and I couldn't think of holding aloof when you're +needing me. Besides, your Colorado lawyers have been in communication +with me--naturally, since I was attorney for the defense four years and +a half ago." + +"They sent you to me here?" I inquired. + +"They knew I would come, of course; I was on the ground and had all the +facts. They couldn't come themselves, either of them. They have had +their hands full with the injunction business." + +"The injunction business?" + +"Yes; haven't you heard?" + +I shook my head. + +"It was in the newspapers, but I suppose they haven't let you see them +here. Your mine is shut down. You were operating as bonded lessees +under a temporary injunction, or something of that sort, weren't you? +Well, the Federal court has made the injunction permanent and tied you +up. As soon as I got this I smelled trouble for you, and as your +attorney in fact I got busy with the wires. The situation isn't half +as bad as it might be. I understand that the plaintiff company, a +corporation called the Lawrenceburg Mining & Reduction Company, has +offered you people five million dollars for a transfer of all rights +and titles under your holdings, and that, notwithstanding the +injunction, this offer still holds good." + +Since it is a proverb that an empty stomach is a mighty poor team-mate +for a befogged brain, I was unable to see what Whitredge was driving +at, and I told him so. + +"Nothing in particular," he countered, "except to remind you that you +still have a good chance to play safe. We are going to 'wrastle' you +out of here, just as I say, Bert, my boy, at any cost, and it's a piece +of great good luck that you won't have to count the pennies in whatever +it may cost." + +"But I shall have to count them if our mine is shut down." + +"Not if you and your partners make this sale to the Lawrenceburg +people. Five millions will give each of you a million and two-thirds +apiece. It's up to you right now to persuade your two partners to +close with the offer while it still holds good. It's liable to be +withdrawn any minute, you know. The other two may be able to hang on +and put up a further fight, but you can't afford to." + +"Why can't I?" + +"For one mighty good reason, if there isn't any other. I met your wife +this morning, Bert. She's stopping across town at the Buckingham--just +to be as near you as she can get. You can't afford to do, or to leave +undone, anything that'll keep that little woman dangling on the ragged +edge. She thinks too much of you." + +He had me on the run, and I think he knew it. What he did not know was +that the smash, the solitary cell, and a weakened body were pushing me +harder than any of his specious arguments. + +"I've got to get out!" I groaned, with the cold sweat starting out all +over me. "Whitredge, I've had enough in these few days to break an +iron man!" + +"Naturally; married only a month, and all that. I'm a dried-up old +bachelor, Bert, my boy, but I know exactly how you feel. As you say, +you've got to get out of here, and the quickest way is the right +way--when you stop to think of that poor lonesome little woman waiting +over yonder in the hotel. I've come fixed for you"--he was on his +feet, now, fumbling in his pockets for some papers and a fountain +pen--"I've drawn up a letter to your two partners,--let me see; where +is it? Oh, yes, here you are--a letter from you advising them to close +with that Lawrenceburg offer. If you'll just authorize me to send a +wire in your name, and then read this letter that I've blocked out and +sign it----" + +I glanced hastily over the type-written sheet he handed me. It was a +business-like letter addressed to Barrett and Gifford, going fully into +the situation from the point of view of a man needing ready money, and +urging the acceptance of the Lawrenceburg offer, not wholly for the +personal reason upon which Whitredge had been enlarging, but +emphatically as a prudent business measure--an alternative to the +possible loss of everything. + +"You see just how the matter stands," he went on while I was reading +the letter. "They've got you stopped, and that is pretty good evidence +that the court is holding you as trespassers on Lawrenceburg property. +The next thing in order, if you fellows hold out, will be a suit for +damages which will gobble up all your former returns from the mine and +leave you without anything--you and both of your partners." + +"What do you get out of it if this sale goes through, Whitredge?" I +asked him suddenly. + +He laughed as if I had perpetrated a new joke. + +"What do _I_ get out of it? Why, bless your innocent soul, Bert, ain't +I working for my fee? And I tell you I'm going to charge you a +rattling big one, too, when I can shake hands with you as a millionaire +and better on the sidewalk in front of this State eleemosynary +Institution!" + +"You talk as if you had the sidewalk means in your hand," I said, +yielding a little to his enthusiasm in spite of my suspicions of him +and my feeble efforts to stand alone. + +"I have!" he announced oracularly. "I have here"--slapping a second +folded paper which he had drawn from his pocket--"I have here a +petition for your free and unconditional pardon, addressed to the +Governor and signed by the trial judge, the prosecuting attorney, and +by ten of the twelve members of the jury. Oh, I tell you, young man, +I've been busy these last three days. You may have been setting me +down as a hard-hearted old lawyer, toughened to all these things, Bert, +but when I read that newspaper story, of how you were kidnapped, as you +may say--torn from the arms of a loving wife and dragged aboard of a +train and railroaded back to prison--every drop of blood in me rose up +in protest, and I swore then and there that if there was any such thing +as executive clemency in this broad land of ours, you should have it!" + +If I had been wholly well and out of prison perhaps the cheap bombast +in all this would have been apparent at once. But I was neither well +nor free. And Polly's heart was breaking; I didn't need Whitredge's +word for this--I knew it by all the torments of inward conviction. + +I understood well enough what he was asking me to do: to tip the scale +against what might be Barrett's and Gifford's better judgment, and to +sign a paper which would stamp me for all time as a criminal pleading, +not for justice, but for pardon. In spite of this knowledge the +pressure Whitredge had brought to bear was well-nigh irresistible. +Barrett and the Colorado lawyers evidently had their hands too full to +think of me; and, in any event, I could not see what possible chance +they might have of reopening my case and proving my innocence. At the +end of it I was reaching for the pen in Whitredge's hand, but at the +touch of the thing with which I was to sign away my fighting rights for +all time a little flicker of strength came. + +"You must give me time, Whitredge; a little time to think this over," I +pleaded. "Four years and a half ago I told you I was innocent--I tell +you so again. You are asking me to confess that I was guilty; if I +sign that petition it will be a confession in fact. I have sworn a +thousand times that I'd rot right here inside of these walls before I'd +ask for a pardon for a crime that wasn't mine. Leave these papers and +let me think about it. Give me a chance to convince myself that there +is no other way!" + +He looked at his watch, and if he were disappointed he was too well +schooled in his trade to show it. + +"All right; just as you say," he agreed. "Shall we make it this +afternoon--say, some time after three o'clock?" + +"Make it to-morrow morning," I begged. + +This time he hesitated, again pulling out his watch and consulting its +face as if it were an oracle. I had no means of knowing--what I +learned later--that he was making a swift calculation upon the arriving +and departing hours of certain railroad trains. None the less, he +agreed somewhat reluctantly to the further postponement; but when the +turnkey was unlocking the door he gave me a final shot. + +"I don't want to influence you one way or the other, Bert--that is, not +against your best interests; but while you're making up your mind don't +leave the little woman out. I shall see her at dinner to-night, and +she'll want to know what's what. I'm going to give her your love and +tell her you're trying mighty hard to be reasonable. Is that right?" + + + + +XXIV + +Restoration + +At the clanging of the cell door behind the departing lawyer I was to all +intents and purposes a broken reed. The theorists may say what they +please about the fine and courageous quality of resolution which rises +only the higher the harder it is beaten down; but man is human, and there +are limits beyond which the finest resiliency becomes dead and brittle +and there is no rebound. + +The temptation to yield was both subtle and compelling. Reason, the kind +of reason which scoffs at ideals, told me that I was foolish to fight for +a principle. On the one hand there were sharp misery, the loss of +freedom, poverty and suffering for Polly: on the other, liberty and a +generous degree of affluence. We could hide ourselves, Polly and I, in +some remote corner of the world where no one knew; and our share of the +five millions, wealth even as wealth is reckoned in the day of wealth, +would put us far enough beyond the reach of want; nay, it would do +more--it would silence the gossiping tongues if there were any to wag. + +Up and down the narrow limits of my cell I paced, praying at one moment +for strength to hold out to the end, and at the next cursing myself for +an idiotic splitter of hairs helpless to break away from the manaclings +of an idea. Love, reason, common sense were all ranged on the side of +the compromise with principle; and opposed to them there was only the +stubborn protest against injustice pleading feebly and despairingly for +its final hearing. + +In the midst of the struggle the kitchen "trusty" brought the mid-day +meal, and for the first time in forty-eight hours I forced myself to eat. +A sound body, weakened only by anxiety and abstinence, is quick to +respond to a resumption of the normal. Under the food stimulus I felt +better, stronger. But now the strength was all on the side of yielding. +With the quickening pulses came the keen lust of life. To live, to be +free, to enjoy, in the years, few or many, of the little earthly span: +after all, these were the only realities. + +Whitredge had left his fountain pen, and the papers--the letter to +Barrett and Gifford and the petition--were lying on the cot where I had +thrown them. For the last time I put the pleading protest under foot. +Freedom, a fortune, and Polly's happiness: the triple bribe was too great +and I uncapped the pen. + +It was at this precise moment that footsteps in the corridor warned me +that someone was coming. A bit of the old convict secretiveness made me +hastily thrust the papers out of sight under the cot blankets, and at the +rattling of the key in the lock I stood up to confront--Whitredge. + +"You?" I said. "I thought you were going to give me until to-morrow +morning." + +He looked strangely perturbed, and the nervousness was also in his voice +when he said: "I meant to, Bert, but I've had a wire, and I've got to go +back to Glendale on this next train"--dragging his watch out of its +pocket and glancing at it hurriedly. "Those papers: you've had time +enough to think things over, and I'm sure you've made up your mind to do +the sensible thing. Let me have them so I can set things in motion +before I leave town." + +I wondered why he kept jerking his head around to look over his shoulder +as he talked, and why the turnkey jingled his keys and waited. But the +time for indecision on my part was past and I reached under the blanket +for the two papers. With the three-legged stool for a writing-table I +was kneeling to put my name at the bottom of the letter to my partners +when there were more footsteps in the corridor, hurried ones, this time, +and I looked up to see the squarely built, competent figure of our +Western lawyer, Benedict, standing in the cell doorway, with the deputy +warden, Cummings, backgrounding him. + +"Hello, Whitredge; at your old tricks, are you?" snapped the new-comer +brusquely. And then to me: "What are you signing there, Bertrand?" + +"Nothing, now--without your advice," I said, getting up and handing him +the letter. + +Whitredge couldn't get out, with Benedict filling the doorway, so he had +to stand a cringing second prisoner, looking this way and that, like a +rat searching for a hole, while the big Westerner read calmly through the +letter which had been written out for me. That moment amply repaid me +for much that I had suffered at the hands of Cyrus Whitredge. + +"Humph!" said Benedict, folding the letter and thrusting it into his +pocket. "Now what's that other document?" + +I gave him the petition for pardon, and again he took his time with the +reading. + +"Nice little scheme you were trying to pull off!" he said to Whitredge, +after the petition, accurately refolded, had gone to join the pocketed +letter. "You are certainly an ornament to an honorable profession." +Then, stepping into the cell and standing aside: "You may go. We'll know +where to find you when you're needed." + +Whitredge's vanishing was like a trick of legerdemain; one moment he +stood before us, and at the next he was gone. At his going, Cummings and +the turnkey also disappeared and I was left alone with Benedict. There +was a hearty handgrasp to assure me that I was not dreaming, and then I +said: + +"I had given you up, Benedict. I thought they had you tied hand and foot +back yonder in the big hills." + +"Myers is handling that end of it," he returned. "I had other irons in +the fire, and they've been getting hot in such rapid succession that I +couldn't leave them. But I did what I could by wire--got the warden's +promise that he would hold your case 'in suspension' until I could show +up in person. Have they been treating you well? I'm afraid they +haven't. You're not looking quite up to the mark." + +I was beginning to understand--a little. + +"When did you telegraph the warden?" I asked. + +"Immediately; from Cripple Creek, and as soon as Barrett had told me your +story. We had our reply at once, and I took the first train for +Glendale, your old home town. What I have been able to dig up in that +little dead-alive burg is a great plenty, Bertrand. Your arrest has +turned out to be just about the most unfortunate thing that could +possibly have happened for certain persons who were most anxious to bring +it to pass--namely, two old rascals who made use of the traveling-man +Barton's story and started the pursuit in the right direction." + +"Call me Weyburn," I broke in. "That is my name--James Bertrand +Weyburn--and I'm going to wear it, all of it, from this time on." + +"I know," laughed the big attorney, drawing up the stool and seating +himself beside the cot much as Whitredge had done at an earlier hour of +the same day. "They call you 'Bert' and 'Herbert' down yonder in your +home village, and they don't seem to know that your middle name is +Bertrand." + +"You say you have been digging: what did you find out?" I questioned +eagerly. + +"Some things that I was looking for and some that I wasn't. I had the +advantage of being a total stranger to everybody, and all I had to do was +to stroll around and ask questions. Let me ask you one, right now; do +you know who the owners of the Lawrenceburg are?" + +"A New York syndicate, I've always understood." + +"Not in a thousand years!" retorted the lawyer, laughing again. "It is +owned, pretty nearly in fee simple, by two old friends of yours--Abel +Geddis and Abner Withers. More than that, it is a reorganized and +renamed corporation founded upon a certain gold-brick proposition, called +'The Great Oro Mining and Reduction Company,' promoted and floated down +in your section of the State something like five years ago by two men +named Hempstead and Lesherton. Does that stir up any old memories for +you?" + +It did, indeed. "The Great Oro" was the mine for the capitalization of +which Abel Geddis had used the money belonging to his depositors; the +basis of the theft which had cost me three good years of my life. + +"But I had understood that the 'Oro' was a fake, pure and simple!" I +protested. + +"It was. A claim had been located and a shaft sunk to ninety feet, but +there was no mineral. That shaft is the present main shaft of the +Lawrenceburg. After Geddis and Withers found they had been +'gold-bricked' they went to Colorado and looked the ground over for +themselves. The result of that visit was a determination on their part +to send a little good money after the bad, so they put a force in the +mine and began to drift from the shaft-bottom, and shortly after that the +workings began to pay." + +"Which direction did that drift take?" I asked. + +Benedict did not answer the question directly. "Things began to fit +themselves together pretty rapidly after I got the facts in the history +of 'The Great Oro'," he went on. "By that time the news of your arrest +and return to the penitentiary had reached Glendale and the gossip bees +were buzzing. Whitredge was rattling around like a pea in a dried +bladder, holding midnight conferences in the bank with the two hoary old +villains who had sworn your liberty away, starting a petition for your +pardon, and I don't know what all. I didn't pay much attention to him +because I was at that time more deeply interested in a number of other +things." + +"Go on," I begged breathlessly. + +"First, I investigated carefully the records of your trial and it didn't +take very long to discover that Whitredge had doubled-crossed you. He +bribed the two deputies sent to transfer you from the police station in +Glendale to the county seat. They were to bully and browbeat you into +making an attempt to escape--thus affording proof presumptive of your +guilt--and this they proceeded to do. They've admitted it under +oath--after I had shown them what we could do to them if they didn't." + +"Whitredge began to plan for that very thing almost at the first," I put +in. "It was he who put the idea of running way into my head." + +"Sure he did. But speaking of affidavits, I have another; from a fellow +named Griggs; you remember him, of course,--your understudy in Geddis's +bank at the time when you were bookkeeper and cashier? He swears that +the original stock certificates in 'The Great Oro' were made out in the +name of Abel Geddis--as you know they were--and that on a certain night +just previous to your arrest, when he had been working late and had gone +to the back room for his hat and coat, Geddis and Whitredge came in and +Geddis opened the vault. Are you paying attention?" + +I was choking with impatience, as he well knew, but he refused to be +hurried. + +"All in good time," he chuckled. "I'm coming to it by littles. Griggs +was curious to know what was going on and he played the spy. He saw +Geddis's name taken out of the stock certificates with an acid and your +name written in its place. You see, they were confidently counting upon +'getting' you through Geddis's daughter and were framing things up to +fit. How much or how little they took the young woman into their +confidence I don't know." + +"That doesn't matter now," I hastened to say. + +"No; Griggs was the man I wanted, and I got him. He will testify in +court, if he is obliged to. He would have done it at the time if Geddis +and Whitredge hadn't discovered him and scared him stiff with a threat to +put him in the prisoner's dock with you, as an accomplice. After I had +secured Griggs's affidavit I wanted one more thing, and I got it--bought +it. That was a map of the Lawrenceburg underground workings, corrected +up to date. I knew Geddis and Withers must have one, and by a piece of +great good luck I found a young surveyor's clerk who had made a tracing +for Geddis from one of Blackwell's blue-prints. He had spoiled his first +attempt by spilling a bottle of ink on it, so he made another. He didn't +see any reason why he shouldn't sell me the spoiled copy." + +"I know what you are going to say!" I shouted. + +"I imagine you do," he laughed. "The Lawrenceburg workings have never +gone downhill at all. They've been burrowing in the opposite direction +all the time, and according to their own map they never touched pay-ore +until they cut the Little Clean-Up vein below your hundred-and-fifty-foot +level. Now you know why they have been fighting us so desperately, and +why, as a final resort, they are willing to pay us five million dollars +for a quit-claim to the Little Clean-Up. We've got them by the neck, +Jimmie. We can make them pay for every dollar's worth of ore they have +stolen from us." + +It was too big to be surrounded at the first attempt. I completely lost +sight of my own involvement in the upflash of joy at the thought that at +the long last the two old scoundrels who had robbed others right and left +were going to get what was coming to them. Benedict went on with his +story quietly and circumstantially. + +"I guessed at once what Whitredge was up to when I found that he was +circulating that pardon petition. He was aiming to make you a +self-confessed criminal before we could have time to turn a wheel. At +that, I wired a Cincinnati detective agency, and a young man who knew his +business was put on the job. The detective's reports showed the whole +thing up. Geddis, Withers and Whitredge were hustling like mad to make +capital out of your recapture by the prison authorities. Whitredge was +to advise you to urge the sale of the Little Clean-Up upon Barrett and +Gifford, and your reward was to be a pardon, by the asking for which you +would be virtually confessing your guilt. Thus the past would be buried +beyond any possibility of a resurrection. Nice little scheme, wasn't it?" + +"You have those two papers--the letter and the petition," I said, with an +uncontrollable shudder. "You'll never know how near Whitredge came to +winning out. I was just about to sign when you came." + +"Whitredge is a dangerous man," was Benedict's comment. "He took the +train from Glendale last night, and the detective went with him, wiring +me from a station up the line. I caught the next train and got here two +hours ago. I might have headed him off of you, I suppose, but I had a +bit of legal business to attend to first. If you are ready, we'll go. +Your wife is waiting for you in the warden's office, and she'll be +wondering why we are so long about getting the doors unlocked." + +"Go?" I stammered. "You--you mean that I'm free?" + +"Sure you are! My legal business was to press the _habeas corpus_ +proceedings which were begun as soon as I had obtained evidence of the +miscarriage of justice in your trial before Judge Haskins. You are a +free man. I left the order of the court with the warden as I came in." + +There is a limit to human endurance, either of sorrow or of joy. I got +up and tried to walk with Benedict to the cell door, which had been left +standing open. I remember catching at the big lawyer's arm, and then the +world went black before my eyes. And that is all I do remember. + + * * * * * * + +We held our council of war--the final one in the long series--late in the +evening of the day of climaxes in the sitting-room of a Hotel Buckingham +suite, Benedict, Barrett and I. Barrett had arrived just as we were +sitting down to dinner, having hurried east as soon as he could be spared +at Cripple Creek. + +"They are all in, down and out," was Barrett's summing-up of the +situation, after he had heard Benedict's story. And then: "It's up to +you, Jimmy"--looking away from me. "You owe those two old men and their +scamp of a lawyer a pretty long score, and I guess you'll be wanting to +pay it." + +"I do!" I gritted. In a flash all the injustice I had suffered at the +hands of Abel Geddis and Abner Withers and Cyrus Whitredge piled in upon +me and there was no room in my heart for anything but retaliation. + +Benedict clipped and lighted a cigar, and Barrett sat back in his chair +and stared at the gas-fixture in the center of the ceiling. + +"I can't blame you much, Jimmie," he offered. "I guess maybe, if the +shoe were on my foot, I'd want to give them the limit. And yet----" + +"There isn't any 'and yet'," I cried out. + +"Perhaps not; but I don't know, Jimmie. If I were going to be the father +of Polly's children, as you are, I--well, I don't believe I'd care to +hand down that sort of a legacy to the children; a legacy of hatred--even +a just hatred--gorged and surfeited on the thumb-screwing of two old men. +Whitredge will get what is coming to him; the Bar Association will see to +that. But these two old misers who are already tottering on the edge of +the grave----" + +"They have robbed me of my good name, and they have robbed us all of our +good money!" I cut in rancorously. + +At this, Benedict, who had been saying little, put in his word. + +"I saw Whitredge an hour ago. He has been wiring Geddis and Withers--to +tell them that the game is up. He says he supposes he will have to take +his own medicine, but he asked me to intercede for the two old men. They +have wired their Colorado attorneys to withdraw the Lawrenceburg suit and +to lift the injunction, and they offer to turn in all their property if +they are permitted to leave the country. That's as bad as a prison +sentence for two men as old as they are. Will you let them do it, and +call the account square, Weyburn?" + +"No, by God!" If I set down the very words that I uttered, it is only in +the interest of truth. At that moment I was like the soldiers who have +seen their dead; I had seen the look in Polly's eyes, put there by that +horrible week of waiting and suspense. + +The room, as I have said, was the sitting-room of our suite--Polly's and +mine--and I had neither seen nor heard the door of communication with the +bed-room open. When I glanced up she was standing in the doorway, and I +knew that she had heard. In the turning of a leaf she had flown across +the room to drop on her knees beside me and bury her face in my lap. + +"Oh, Jimmie--Jimmie, dear!" she sobbed; "you _must_ forgive--forgive and +forget! For my sake--for your own sake--you must!" + +That settled it. Benedict flung his freshly lighted cigar into the grate +and turned away, and Barrett got up and crossed to the window. I stood +up and lifted my dear girl to her feet, and with her tear-stained face +between my palms I turned my back upon the past and told her what we were +going to do. + +"It shall be as you say, Polly; we'll go back to the tall hills and +forget it--and make other people forget it. And we'll let Mr. Benedict, +here, do just what he pleases, no more and no less, with a pair of old +plotters who haven't so very many years to wait before they will have to +turn in their score to the Great Evener." + +At this Barrett jerked out his watch and broke in brusquely; and as at +other times, the brusquerie was only a mask for the things that a man +doesn't wear on his sleeve. + +"Cut it short, you two turtle-doves; you've got about forty-five minutes +before the Westbound Limited is due, and you'd better be packing your +grips. Come on downstairs, Benedict, and I'll buy you a drink to go with +that red necktie of yours. Let's go." + + + + +XXV + +The Mountain's Top + +There is little to add; nothing, perhaps, if the literary unities only +were to be considered. The trials and tribulations have all been lived +through; the man and the woman have found each other; the villains have +been given--if not altogether a full measure of their just dues, at +least a sufficient approach to it; and virtue--but no, here the figure +breaks down; virtue hasn't been rewarded. There wasn't any especial +virtue, since there is little credit in merely enduring what cannot be +cured. + +Of what happened after our return to Colorado only a few things stand +out as being at all worthy of note. For one, Barrett and I, with +Benedict's help, took up the case of one Dorgan, _alias_ Michael +Murphey, _alias_ No. 3126, whom we found still preserving his incognito +in a dam-building camp in Idaho. Appealing to the Governor and Board +of Pardons of my home State, we made it appear that Dorgan was a +reformed man and no longer a menace to society, and in due time had the +satisfaction of seeing him set legally free. + +As another act of pure justice, tempered with a good bit of filial and +fraternal affection--Polly was the prime mover in this--my mother and +sister were brought to Colorado, and a home was built for them in +Colorado Springs, where my sister, ignoring a bank account which would +have enabled her to sit with folded hands for the remainder of her +days, promptly gathered a group of little girls about her and began +teaching them the mysteries of the three "R's." + +A third outreaching--and this, also, was Polly's idea--was in the +altruistic field. A fund was set apart out of the lavish yieldings of +the Little Clean-Up, the income from which provides in perpetuity that +at the doors of at least one prison of the many in our land the +outcoming convict shall be met and helped to stand upon his own feet, +if so be he has any feet to stand upon. + +Gray granite peaks and valleys fallow-dun under the westering autumn +sun; vistas of inspiring horizons leading the eye to vanishing levels +remote and vaguely deliminating earth and sky, or soaring with it to +shimmering heights dark-green or bald; these infinities were spread +before us in celestial array one afternoon in the first year of peace +and joy when we--my good angel and I--clambered together to the summit +of the mountain behind the Little Clean-Up. + +After the little interval of reverent adoration which is claimed by all +true lovers of the mountain infinities at the opening of the +illimitable doors, we fell to talking of the past--my past--as we sat +on a projecting shelf of the summit rock. + +"No," I said. "I can't admit that there is anything regenerative in +punishment. If I had been the thief that everybody believed I was, I +should have come out of prison still a thief--with an added grudge +against society. While I was treated well, as a whole, nothing was +done to arouse the better man in me, or even to ascertain if there +might possibly be a better man in me." + +There was what I have learned to call the light of all-wisdom in +Polly's eyes when she answered. + +"Oh, if one must lean altogether upon sheer logic and the pure +materialism of this divided by that and multiplied by something else," +she returned. "But there are two kinds of regeneration, Jimmie, dear; +the kind which involves a radical change in the life-motive, and the +other which is merely a stripping of the husks from a strong soul that +never needed changing." + +"Your love would put me where I don't belong," I protested humbly. + +"No; not my love: what you are, and what you have done." + +"What I am, you have made me; and what I have done you have suggested. +No; the injustice, the prison, the brand of the convict, the dodging +and evading, the knowledge that, if the truth were to be blazoned +abroad, I could never hope to recross the chasm which Judge Haskins's +sentence had opened between me and the world at large; these things +made a shuddering coward of me--which I was not in the beginning. It +was this prison-bred cowardice that made me potentially Kellow's +murderer, willing in heart and mind, and waiting only for the firing +spark of provocation. It was the same cowardice that made me Agatha +Geddis's slave, and very nearly her murderer. Worse still, it sent me +to you with sealed lips when I should have told you all that you had a +right to know." + +"Well? If you will have it so, what then?" + +"Only this: that the brand which the law put upon the man wasn't any +sign of the cross to make a new creature of him, as you have been +trying to make me believe. That's all." + +Polly's smile is a thing to make any man tingle to the roots of his +hair. "As if the past, or anything in it, could make any difference to +us now!" she chided. "Haven't we learned to say: + + 'Not heaven itself upon the past has power, + But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour'? + +Beloved man, I'm hungry; and it's miles and miles to dinner. Shall we +go?" + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Branded, by Francis Lynde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRANDED *** + +***** This file should be named 19472.txt or 19472.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/7/19472/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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