For a time Jim Maxwell stood there without movement, blinking
confusedly, while his body drank in the steaming warmth. The men in the
room regarded the newcomer with frank stares of curiosity. He was
unknown to any of them. They guessed him to be a miner just in from the
creeks, dog-tired from his fight with the storm. Without being told, one
of the hangers-on of the saloon hurried out to care for the dogs, since
their owner seemed almost helpless. Very soon, in fact, a suspicion grew
in the minds of the observers that something more than the cold had
affected this stranger.
"Full of hooch!" was the verdict.
Presently, Jim's vision cleared. He cast one piercing glance about the
room. He saw Dangerous Dan McGrew sitting at a table along the wall, a
little way to his left. He had schooled himself for the sight. There
was no betrayal of the emotion that shook his soul at first sight of the
man who had robbed him of wife and child and happiness. He even noted
with a savage satisfaction something constrained in the pose of his
enemy, who sat half-turned toward him, a card suspended in mid-air. Dan
McGrew had seen him--that was certain. And it was certain, too, that Dan
McGrew would not make the opening move. Jim Maxwell was content. His foe
hesitated--and hesitation is weakness. He had no doubt as to his own
strength. He believed it adequate for every demand upon it.
He vaunted himself too soon. His eyes passed beyond the man he hated to
the one who sat on the opposite side of the table. A darkness fell upon
his spirit. He gazed steadily enough, for he had no power even to shift
the direction of his eyes. There was no outward sign of the convulsion
in his soul. He remained looking steadfastly at the woman who had been
his wife, at the woman whom he had loved and lost. None of the
onlookers dreamed that the sight of her meant anything to this stranger.
It was natural that he should consider her attentively--she was a
handsome woman, in a place where women were rare.
Jim Maxwell's heart died within him. He had tried so often throughout
the years to believe that the wife, who had been tricked into deserting
him, had at least never been beguiled into aught unfitting her
womanhood. Now, he saw before him the damning proof that she had given
herself to vileness, to Dangerous Dan McGrew, whom presently he would
kill....
But the sight of her dear face! Notwithstanding all the horror, to see
her once again in the flesh before his eyes was a rapture exquisite, yet
torturing. Her face was the loved symbol of all his happiness. It was,
as well, the symbol of all hideousness, which had swallowed up
happiness. As he beheld her thus, ravening emotion devoured his
strength. Suddenly he felt his knees sag. His eyelids fell of their own
weight, so that sight of her was shut out. The shock of darkness, after
the glory of her face, startled him to realization of his surroundings
and steadied him. He asserted his will once again. He straightened and
shuffled toward the bar. But he did not open his eyes until he had
fairly turned his back on the pair at the table by the wall. Those
observing him sniggered and mumbled again of hooch, when he lurched
against the bar, and clung to it for support as a drunken man might....
Jim Maxwell was drunken--drunken with grief and hate and love.
After a little he recovered some measure of composure. He drew from his
pocket a buckskin bag, and poured some gold-pieces on the bar.
"Drinks for the house!" he commanded.
The bartender busied himself in dispensing this hospitality to the
crowd, which surged forward thirstily at the welcome summons. The
Rag-time Kid, a wan-faced youth with a cigarette dangling from his lower
lip, who performed noisily on the piano which stood against one wall,
left his instrument and came forward hastily. Jim saw that drinks were
served to Dangerous Dan McGrew and the woman opposite him, as well as
the few others that were seated at the tables. He nodded curtly when the
company raised their glasses toward him before drinking. His manner,
however, was so singular and so remote that none ventured to address him
directly. They eyed him askance. They speculated among themselves
concerning who the man might be; for now, in some mysterious fashion,
they had come to perceive that this was not one of the ordinary miners
from the creeks, with the mud of the bottoms still matted in his beard.
But they could make no definite surmise to account for him. In some
vague way, they felt the portentousness of his presence among them. It
was as if he stood enveloped in an atmosphere of tragedy. They looked at
him furtively, confused, wondering, half-fearful, at his aspect. They no
longer deemed him merely a drunken man. But what he was, they could by
no means understand. They drank again, for his money still lay on the
bar. They raised their glasses toward him. But the mystery of his
coming remained unsolved, and it grew more burdensome as minutes passed,
pressing heavily upon their spirits. Jim Maxwell drank with the others
the first time and the second. He might, perhaps, have drained a third
glass, but, while he delayed, his eyes chanced to fall on the piano, for
the wan-faced youth with the cigarette dangling from his lower lip, was
still enjoying his respite and was making merry at the bar. It had been
a long time since Jim had touched the keys, but now, in the travail of
his soul, it seemed to him that in music he might find surcease for the
warring emotions within his breast. He went toward the piano, striding
firmly. When he was come to it, he threw off parka and cap and seated
himself and laid his hands noiselessly on the keys in a touch gentle and
fond as a caress.
As the first soft chord sounded, the pallid youth at the bar started as
if struck. He wheeled, and thereafter gazed unfalteringly toward the man
at the piano.
It had been long since Jim Maxwell had played. At the outset, his hands
moved slowly, almost hesitatingly, for the muscles were still a little
numb from the cold of outdoors. But they grew elastic quickly, and a
great series of clanging harmonies echoed through the squalid room. The
others looked now with the wan-faced youth, whose cigarette had fallen
unheeded. There came the dainty scamper of cadenzas, a crashing chord,
and silence. The youth, who played himself, though not like this,
understood that the stranger had made ready. He waited, tremulous with
eagerness; for he loved his art, although he debased it. He muttered to
himself:
"God! how that man can play!"
Jim Maxwell's fingers sought the keys again, weaving strange harmonies.
And through them ran a thread of melody. The listeners could not
understand, though the spell of it held them. Only, they knew somehow
that the one who played was a man, full of a man's passions--the
primitive passions of love and hate. There was a harshness in the
dissonances that told of bitter sorrows; there was a charm in the thread
of melody that was all truth and tenderness.
[Illustration: JIM MAXWELL'S FINGERS SOUGHT THE KEYS AGAIN, WEAVING
STRANGE HARMONIES.]
Those who heard saw visions, each according to his kind. In this
improvisation, Jim interpreted his thronging emotions. The coldness and
the desolation of the North were made audible. Through sound itself, he
made these dwellers in the lonely places realize again the silence of
solitary wastes. The music cried out in sudden anguished longing, then
broke in discords, like shrieks for vengeance. Some of the listeners
stirred uneasily, uncomprehendingly, yet thrilled--for the soul is more
intelligent than the brain. The Rag-time Kid shivered.
Dan McGrew, the cards of his solo-game unheeded on the table before him,
watched the man at the piano with steady gaze. His face was
expressionless. He had recognized Jim Maxwell at first sight, and he
knew that the time of reckoning was at hand. He was dismayed, for he had
come in the course of years to believe that they two would never meet.
Now that they were met, he was ready for whatever might befall. But he
dared do nothing to precipitate the crisis. He must wait to be accused
or attacked. If he could have followed his desire, he would have shot
down the man he had wronged--would have shot him in the back,
remorselessly, in cold blood. That he could not do. The code of the
frontier forbids such murder. At such an act, these men about him would
show no mercy beyond the short shrift of a rope. He could only await the
issue with what patience he might, cursing inaudibly, so poised that he
could draw at a second's warning.
Lou had not recognized Jim Maxwell on his entrance. She had given only a
glance at this bearded stranger. She was infinitely weary of life. She
hated this vulgar place, reeking with rank tobacco-smoke and the fumes
of liquors. She felt, even through an apathy that had become habitual
with her, shame from the leering glances of these men, who took her for
the gambler's light-o'-love. She felt herself degraded more and more at
her manner of life and by the associations thrust upon her. She knew the
evil spirit of the man she had married, which daily and hourly she was
compelled to tolerate. The life was become almost unendurable. Yet, she
continued the sordid existence, partly because she lacked the courage to
break away from him, partly because she could condone the wickedness of
Dan McGrew to some extent in appreciation of his loyalty to her. She
could not doubt the reality of his love for her. That his love was
utterly selfish, she knew. But he gave her all that he could. The
woman's instinct toward martyrdom made her feel it a duty not to desert
him. Now, after the coming of the stranger, she felt, rather than saw,
the change in Dan McGrew, and she wondered over it dully. Not for a
moment did she suspect that her husband's emotion was connected with the
advent of the bearded man, toward whom she glanced so idly.... Love,
often, is not so shrewd as hate.
Her eyes followed Jim Maxwell as he went to the piano. She was still
listless, wholly unsuspecting that aught impended. Even the first softly
sounded notes did not arouse her. It was not until her ears caught the
delicate thread of melody that her heart heard it, and answered, and she
knew that this was the man she loved. Her hands clutched at her bosom in
a spasmodic gesture. She swayed in her chair for a moment, then relaxed
limply, and sat huddled in the corner between the table and the wall,
her face ghastly beneath the rouge. But, lifeless as she seemed, she was
listening through every atom of her being. In the varying phases of the
music, she lived again the blisses and the torments. And, too, it was
borne in upon her that, as she had suffered in the years since their
parting, even so had he, who thus wove in sound the fabric of their
lives. Yet, she could not believe that this man still loved her, though
the music that grew under his fingers was like the talking together of
their souls. A great wonder dawned in her, a greater fear, still greater
hope. Could it be that the scales had fallen from his eyes, that he had
freed himself from a degrading passion, that he had returned to his
allegiance, that he loved her--her! Her body shook as with a palsy from
the riot in her heart.
Abruptly, the music ceased. Then, in another instant, there came a
series of noble chords, sonorous and serene. Followed the tripping dance
of arpeggios, which deftly hinted of a melody to come. The Rag-time Kid
quivered in ecstatic anticipation of something splendid, nor was he
disappointed.
There sounded a lilting melody, a-throb with the joy of life. The notes
rang with the calls of passion; they trembled into the sighings of
exquisite tenderness. There was rapture in the magnificent harmonies
that marched with this melody. It was like a song of two hearts glorious
in the fulfillment of their love, with all the universe chanting praise
of their happiness. It was the lyric of love triumphant.
The man at the piano raised his arms high, and brought his hands down on
the keys in a great swoop. The flames in the smoking-oil lamps leaped
and quivered at the devil's din of the discord. The nerves of those that
heard leaped and quivered. The player got up from the stool. His eyes
swept the staring faces, and he smiled--a smile like a curse.
"You don't know who I am, boys," he said. His voice, resonant, yet
softly modulated, was very gentle--dangerously gentle the listeners
might have thought, had they known him well.
Dan McGrew knew him well. He understood that the crisis was upon him. He
shifted very slightly in his chair, that he might have greater freedom
of movement when the need came. He darted a single glance at his wife,
and saw her sitting erect again, gazing at the player with dilated eyes
in which showed the hunger of a soul. Dan McGrew cursed beneath his
breath, and did not look again. Instead, he held his whole attention on
the man who had spoken, and who now spoke once more:
"I haven't anything to say to you, except that"--the voice deepened and
roughened savagely--"one of you is a hound of hell! His name is--Dan
McGrew!"
Two shots rang out, which almost blent as one--almost, not quite. The
crowd scattered and dropped to the floor. The lights went out.
[Illustration: TWO SHOTS RANG OUT, WHICH ALMOST BLENT AS ONE.]