Stevens, dreaming of twenty horses plunging to death among the rocks in the
river, slept uneasily. He awoke before it was dawn, but when he dragged
himself from his tepee, moving quietly not to awaken his boy, he found John
Aldous on his knees before a small fire, slicing thin rashers of bacon into
a frying-pan. The weight of his loss was in the tired packer's eyes and
face and the listless droop of his shoulders. John Aldous, with three hours
between the blankets to his credit, was as cheery as the crackling fire
itself. He had wanted to whistle for the last half-hour. Seeing Stevens, he
began now.
"I wasn't going to rouse you until breakfast was ready," he interrupted
himself to say. "I heard you groaning, Stevens. I know you had a bad night.
And the kid, too. He couldn't sleep. But I made up my mind you'd have to
get up early. I've got a lot of business on to-day, and we'll have to rouse
Curly Roper out of bed to buy his pack outfit. Find the coffee, will you? I
couldn't."
For a moment Stevens stood over him.
"See here, Aldous, you didn't mean what you said last night, did you? You
didn't mean--that?"
"Confound it, yes! Can't you understand plain English, Stevens? Don't you
believe a man when he's a gentleman? Buy that outfit! Why, I'd buy twenty
outfits to-day, I'm--I'm feeling so fine, Stevens!"
For the first time in forty-eight hours Stevens smiled.
"I was wondering if I hadn't been dreaming," he said. "Once, a long time
ago, I guess I felt just like you do now."
With which cryptic remark he went for the coffee.
Aldous looked up in time to see the boy stagger sleepily out of the tepee.
There was something pathetic about the motherlessness of the picture, and
he understood a little of what Stevens had meant.
An hour later, with breakfast over, they started for Curly's. Curly was
pulling on his boots when they arrived, while his wife was frying the
inevitable bacon in the kitchen.
"I hear you have some horses for sale, Curly," said Aldous.
"Hi 'ave."
"How many?"
"Twenty-nine, 'r twenty-eight--mebby twenty-seven."
"How much?"
Curly looked up from the task of pulling on his second boot.
"H'are you buying 'orses or looking for hinformation?" he asked.
"I'm buying, and I'm in a hurry. How much do you want a head?"
"Sixty, 'r six----"
"I'll give you sixty dollars apiece for twenty-eight head, and that's just
ten dollars apiece more than they're worth," broke in Aldous, pulling a
check-book and a fountain pen from his pocket. "Is it a go?"
A little stupefied by the suddenness of it all, Curly opened his mouth and
stared.
"Is it a go?" repeated Aldous. "Including blankets, saddles, pack-saddles,
ropes, and canvases?"
Curly nodded, looking from Aldous to Stevens to see if he could detect
anything that looked like a joke.
"Hit's a go," he said.
Aldous handed him a check for sixteen hundred and eighty dollars.
"Make out the bill of sale to Stevens," he said. "I'm paying for them, but
they're Stevens' horses. And, look here, Curly, I'm buying them only with
your agreement that you'll say nothing about who paid for them. Will you
agree to that?"
Curly was joyously looking at the check.
"Gyve me a Bible," he demanded. "Hi'll swear Stevens p'id for them! I give
you the word of a Hinglish gentleman!"
Without another word Aldous opened the cabin door and was gone, leaving
Stevens quite as much amazed as the little Englishman whom everybody called
Curly, because he had no hair.
Aldous went at once to the station, and for the first time inquired into
the condition that was holding back the Tête Jaune train. He found that a
slide had given way, burying a section of track under gravel and rock. A
hundred men were at work clearing it away, and it was probable they would
finish by noon. A gang boss, who had come back with telegraphic reports,
said that half a dozen men had carried Quade's hand-car over the
obstruction about midnight.
It was seven o'clock when Aldous left for the Miette bottom. He believed
that Joanne would be up. At this season of the year the first glow of day
usually found the Ottos at breakfast, and for half an hour the sun had been
shining on the top of Pyramid Mountain. He was eager to tell her what had
passed between him and Keller. He laughed softly when he confessed to
himself how madly he wanted to see her.
He always liked to come up to the Otto home very early of a morning, or in
the dusk of evening. Very frequently he was filled with a desire to stand
outside the red-and-white striped walls of the tent-house and listen
unseen. Inside there was always cheer: at night the crackle of fire and the
glow of light, the happy laughter of the gentle-hearted Scotchwoman, and
the affectionate banter of her "big mountain man," who looked more like a
brigand than the luckiest and most contented husband in the mountains--the
luckiest, quite surely, with the one exception of his brother Clossen, who
had, by some occult strategy or other, induced a sweet-faced and
aristocratic little woman to look upon his own honest physiognomy as the
handsomest and finest in the world. This morning Aldous followed a narrow
path that brought him behind the tent-house. He heard no voices. A few
steps more and he emerged upon a scene that stopped him and set his heart
thumping.
Less than a dozen paces away stood Mrs. Otto and Joanne, their backs toward
him. They were gazing silently and anxiously in the direction of the thick,
low bush across the clearing, through which led the trail to his cabin. He
did not look toward the bush. His eyes were upon Joanne. Her slender figure
was full in the golden radiance of the morning sun, and Aldous felt himself
under the spell of a joyous wonder as he looked at her. For the first time
he saw her hair as he had pictured it--as he had given it to that other
_Joanne_ in the book he had called "Fair Play." She had been brushing it in
the sun when he came, but now she stood poised in that tense and waiting
attitude--silent--gazing in the direction of the bush, with that marvellous
mantle sweeping about her in a shimmering silken flood. He would not have
moved, nor would he have spoken, until Joanne herself broke the spell. She
turned, and saw him. With a little cry of surprise she flung back her hair.
He could not fail to see the swift look of relief and gladness that had
come into her eyes. In another instant her face was flushing crimson.
"I beg your pardon for coming up like an eavesdropper," he apologized. "I
thought you would just about be at breakfast, Mrs. Otto."
The Scotchwoman heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.
"Goodness gracious, but I'm glad to see you!" she exclaimed thankfully.
"Jack and Bruce have just gone out to see if they could find your dead
body!"
"We thought perhaps something might have happened," said Joanne, who had
moved nearer the door. "You will excuse me, won't you, while I finish my
hair?"
Without waiting for him to answer, she ran into the tent. No sooner had she
disappeared than the good-natured smile left Mrs. Otto's face. There was a
note of alarm in her low voice as she whispered:
"Jack and Bruce went to the barn last night, and she slept with me. She
tried to be quiet, but I know she didn't sleep much. And she cried. I
couldn't hear her, but the pillow was wet. Once my hand touched her cheek,
and it was wet. I didn't ask any questions. This morning, at breakfast, she
told us everything that happened, all about Quade--and your trouble. She
told us about Quade looking in at the window, and she was so nervous
thinking something might have happened to you last night that the poor dear
couldn't even drink her coffee until Jack and Bruce went out to hunt for
you. But I don't think that was why she cried!"
"I wish it had been," said Aldous. "It makes me happy to think she was
worried about--me."
"Good Lord!" gasped Mrs. Otto.
He looked for a moment into the slow-growing amazement and understanding in
her kind eyes.
"You will keep my little secret, won't you, Mrs. Otto?" he asked. "Probably
you'll think it's queer. I've only known her a day. But I feel--like that.
Somehow I feel that in telling this to you I am confiding in a mother, or a
sister. I want you to understand why I'm going on to Tête Jaune with her.
That is why she was crying--because of the dread of something up there. I'm
going with her. She shouldn't go alone."
Voices interrupted them, and they turned to find that Jack and Bruce Otto
had come out of the bush and were quite near. Aldous was sorry that Joanne
had spoken of his trouble with Quade. He did not want to discuss the
situation, or waste time in listening to further advice. He was anxious to
be alone again with Joanne, and tell her what he had learned from Peter
Keller. For half an hour he repressed his uneasiness. The brothers then
went on to their corral. A few minutes later Joanne was once more at his
side, and they were walking slowly over the trail that led to the cabin on
the river.
He could see that the night had made a change in her. There were circles
under her eyes which were not there yesterday. When she looked at him their
velvety blue depths betrayed something which he knew she was struggling
desperately to keep from him. It was not altogether fear. It was more a
betrayal of pain--a torment of the soul and not of the body. He noticed
that in spite of the vivid colouring of her lips her face was strangely
pale. The beautiful flush that had come into it when she first saw him was
gone.
Then he began to tell her of his visit to Peter Keller. His own heart was
beating violently when he came to speak of the grave and the slab over it
that bore the name of FitzHugh. He had expected that what he had discovered
from Keller would create some sort of a sensation. He had even come up to
the final fact gradually, so that it would not appear bald and shocking.
Joanne's attitude stunned him. She looked straight ahead. When she turned
to him he did not see in her eyes what he had expected to see. They were
quiet, emotionless, except for that shadow of inward torture which did not
leave them.
"Then to-morrow we can go to the grave?" she asked simply.
Her voice, too, was quiet and without emotion.
He nodded. "We can leave at sunrise," he said. "I have my own horses at
Tête Jaune and there need be no delay. We were to start into the North from
there."
"You mean on the adventure you were telling me about?"
She had looked at him quickly.
"Yes. Old Donald, my partner, has been waiting for me a week. That's why I
was so deuced anxious to rush the book to an end. I'm behind Donald's
schedule, and he's growing nervous. It's rather an unusual enterprise
that's taking us north this time, and Donald can't understand why I should
hang back to write the tail end of a book. He has lived sixty years in the
mountains. His full name is Donald MacDonald. Sometimes, back in my own
mind, I've called him History. He seems like that--as though he'd lived for
ages in these mountains instead of sixty years. If I could only write what
he has lived--even what one might imagine that he has lived! But I cannot.
I have tried three times, and have failed. I think of him as The Last
Spirit--a strange wandering ghost of the mighty ranges. His kind passed
away a hundred years ago. You will understand--when you see him."
She put her hand on his arm and let it rest there lightly as they walked.
Into her eyes had returned some of the old warm glow of yesterday.
"I want you to tell me about this adventure," she entreated softly. "I
understand--about the other. You have been good--oh! so good to me! And I
should tell you things; you are expecting me to explain. It is only fair
and honest that I should. I know what is in your mind, and I only want you
to wait--until to-morrow. Will you? And I will tell you then, when we have
found the grave."
Involuntarily his hand sought Joanne's. For a single moment he felt the
warm, sweet thrill of it in his own as he pressed it more closely to his
arm. Then he freed it, looking straight ahead. A soft flush grew in
Joanne's cheeks.
"Do you care a great deal for riches?" he asked. "Does the golden pot at
the end of the rainbow hold out a lure for you?" He did not realize the
strangeness of his question until their eyes met. "Because if you don't,"
he added, smiling, "this adventure of ours isn't going to look very
exciting to you."
She laughed softly.
"No, I don't care for riches," she replied. "I am quite sure that just as
great education proves to one how little one knows, so great wealth brings
one face to face with the truth of how little one can enjoy. My father used
to say that the golden treasure at the end of the rainbow in every human
life was happiness, and that is something which you cannot buy. So why
crave riches, then? But please don't let my foolish ideas disappoint you.
I'll promise to be properly excited."
She saw his face suddenly aflame with enthusiasm.
"By George, but you're a--a brick, Joanne!" he exclaimed. "You are! And
I--I----" He was fumbling in his breast pocket. He brought out his wallet
and extracted from it the bit of paper Stevens had given him. "You dropped
that, and Stevens found it," he explained, giving it to her. "I thought
those figures might represent your fortune--or your income. Don't mind
telling you I went over 'em carefully. There's a mistake in the third
column. Five and four don't make seven. They make nine. In the final, when
you come to the multiplication part of it, that correction will make you
just thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars richer."
"Thanks," said Joanne, lowering her eyes, and beginning to tear the paper
into small pieces. "And will it disappoint you, Mr. John Aldous, if I tell
you that all these figures stand for riches which some one else possesses?
And won't you let me remind you that we're getting a long way from what I
want to know--about your trip into the North?"
"That's just it: we're hot on the trail," chuckled Aldous, deliberately
placing her hand on his arm again. "You don't care for riches. Neither do
I. I'm delighted to know we're going tandem in that respect. I've never had
any fun with money. It's the money that's had fun with me. I've no use for
yachts and diamonds and I'd rather travel afoot with a gun over my shoulder
than in a private car. Half the time I'm doing my own cooking, and I
haven't worn a white shirt in a year. My publishers persist in shoving more
money my way than I know what to do with.
"You see, I pay only ten cents a plug for my smoking tobacco, and other
things accordingly. Somebody has said something about the good Lord sitting
up in Heaven and laughing at the jokes He plays on men. Well, I'm sitting
back and laughing now and then at the tussle between men and money over all
creation. There's a whole lot of humour in the way men and women fight and
die for money, if you only take time to stand out on the side and look on.
There's nothing big or dramatic about it. I may be a heathen, but to my
mind the funniest of all things is to see the world wringing its neck for a
dollar. And Donald--old History--needs even less money than I. So that puts
the big element of humour in this expedition of ours. We don't want money,
particularly. Donald wouldn't wear more than four pairs of boots a year if
he was a billionaire. And yet----"
He turned to Joanne. The pressure of her hand was warmer on his arm. Her
beautiful eyes were glowing, and her red lips parted as she waited
breathlessly for him to go on.
"And yet, we're going to a place where you can scoop gold up with a
shovel," he finished. "That's the funny part of it."
"It isn't funny--it's tremendous!" gasped Joanne. "Think of what a man like
you could do with unlimited wealth, the good you might achieve, the
splendid endowments you might make----"
"I have already made several endowments," interrupted Aldous. "I believe
that I have made a great many people happy, Ladygray--a great many. I am
gifted to make endowments, I think, above most people. Not one of the
endowments I have made has failed of complete success."
"And may I ask what some of them were?"
"I can't remember them all. There have been a great, great many. Most
conspicuous among them were three endowments which I made to some very
worthy people at various times for seven salted mines. I suppose you know
what a salted mine is, Ladygray? At other times I have endowed railroad
stocks which were very much in need of my helping mite, two copper
companies, a concern that was supposed to hoist up pure asbestos from the
stomach of Popocatapetl, and a steamship company that never steamed. As I
said before, they were all very successful endowments."
"And how many of the other kind have you made?" she asked gently, looking
down the trail. "Like--Stevens', for instance?"
He turned to her sharply.
"What the deuce----"
"Did you succeed in getting the new outfit from Mr. Curly?" she asked.
"Yes. How did you know?"
She smiled at the amazement which had gathered in his face. A glad, soft
light shone in her eyes.
"I guess Mrs. Otto has been like a mother to that poor little boy," she
explained. "When you and Mr. Stevens went up to buy the outfit this morning
Jimmy ran over to tell her the news. We were all there--at breakfast. He
was so excited he could scarcely breathe. But it all came out, and he ran
back to camp before you came because he thought you wouldn't want me to
know. Wasn't that funny? He told me so when I walked a little way up the
path with him."
"The little reprobate!" chuckled Aldous. "He's the best publicity man I
ever had, Ladygray. I did want you to know about this, and I wanted it to
come to you in just this way, so that I wouldn't be compelled to tell you
myself of the big and noble act I have done. It was my hope and desire that
you, through some one else, would learn of it, and come to understand more
fully what a generous and splendid biped I am. I even plotted to give this
child of Stevens' a silver dollar if he would get the news to you in some
one of his innocent ways. He's done it. And he couldn't have done it
better--even for a dollar. Ah, here we are at the cabin. Will you excuse
me while I pick up a few things that I want to take on to Tête Jaune with
me?"
Between two trees close to the cabin he had built a seat, and here he left
Joanne. He was gone scarcely five minutes when he reappeared with a small
pack-sack over his shoulders, locked the door, and rejoined her.
"You see it isn't much of a task for me to move," he said, as they turned
back in the direction of the Ottos'. "I'll wash the dishes when I come back
next October."
"Five months!" gasped Joanne, counting on her fingers. "John Aldous, do you
mean----"
"I do," he nodded emphatically. "I frequently leave dishes unwashed for
quite a spell at a time. That's the one unpleasant thing about this sort of
life--washing dishes. It's not so bad in the rainy season, but it's fierce
during a dry spell. When it rains I put the dishes out on a flat rock,
dirty side up, and the good Lord does the scrubbing."
He looked at Joanne, face and eyes aglow with the happiness that was
sweeping in a mighty tumult within him. Half an hour had worked a
transformation in Joanne. There was no longer a trace of anguish or of fear
in her eyes. Their purity and limpid beauty made him think of the rock
violets that grew high up on the mountains. Her lips and cheeks were
flushed, and the soft pressure of her hand again resting on his arm filled
him with the exquisite thrill of possession and joy. He did not speak of
Tête Jaune again until they reached the Otto tent-house, and then only to
assure her that he would call for her half an hour before the train was
ready to leave.
As soon as possible after that he went to the telegraph office and sent a
long message to MacDonald. Among other things he told him to prepare their
cabin for a lady guest. He knew this would shock the old mountain wanderer,
but he also knew that Donald would follow his instructions in spite of
whatever alarm he might have. There were other women at Tête Jaune, the
wives of men he knew, to whom he might have taken Joanne. Under the
conditions, however, he believed his own cabin would be her best refuge, at
least for a day or so. In that time he could take some one into his
confidence, probably Blackton and his wife. In fact, as he thought the
circumstances over, he saw the necessity of confiding in the Blacktons that
very night.
He left the station, growing a bit nervous. Was it right for him to take
Joanne to his cabin at all? He had a tremendous desire to do so, chiefly on
account of Quade. The cabin was a quarter of a mile in the bush, and he was
positive if Joanne was there that Quade, and perhaps Culver Rann, would
come nosing about. This would give him the opportunity of putting into
execution a plan which he had already arranged for himself and old
MacDonald. On the other hand, was this arrangement fair to Joanne, even
though it gave him the chance to square up accounts with Quade?
He stopped abruptly, and faced the station. All at once there swept upon
him a realization of how blind he had been, and what a fool he had almost
made of himself. Blackton was one of the contractors who were working
miracles in the mountains. He was a friend who would fight for him if
necessary. Mrs. Blackton, who preferred to be on the firing line with her
husband than in her luxurious city home, was the leader of all that was
decent and womanly in Tête Jaune. Why not have these friends meet them at
the train and take Joanne direct to their house? Such recognition and
friendship would mean everything to Joanne. To take her to his cabin would
mean----
Inwardly he swore at himself as he hurried back to the station, and his
face burned hotly as he thought of the chance such a blunder on his part
would have given Quade and Culver Rann to circulate the stories with which
they largely played their scoundrelly game. He sent another and longer
telegram. This time it was to Blackton.
He ate dinner with Stevens, who had his new outfit ready for the mountains.
It was two o'clock before he brought Joanne up to the station. She was
dressed now as he had first seen her when she entered Quade's place. A veil
covered her face. Through the gray film of it he caught the soft warm glow
of her eyes and the shimmer of gold-brown tendrils of her hair. And he knew
why she wore that veil. It set his heart beating swiftly--the fact that she
was trying to hide from all eyes but his own a beauty so pure and wonderful
that it made her uncomfortable when under the staring gaze of the Horde.
The hand that rested on his arm he pressed closer to his side as they
walked up the station platform, and under his breath he laughed softly and
joyously as he felt the thrill of it. He spoke no word. Not until they were
in their seat in the coach did Joanne look at him after that pressure of
her hand, and then she did not speak. But in the veiled glow of her eyes
there was something that told him she understood--a light that was
wonderfully gentle and sweet. And yet, without words, she asked him to
keep within his soul the things that were pounding madly there for speech.
As the train rolled on and the babble of voices about them joined the
crunching rumble of the wheels, he wanted to lean close to her and tell her
how a few hours had changed the world for him. And then, for a moment, her
eyes turned to him again, and he knew that it would be a sacrilege to give
voice to the things he wanted to say. For many minutes he was silent,
gazing with her upon the wild panorama of mountain beauty as it drifted
past the car window. A loud voice two seats ahead of them proclaimed that
they were about to make Templeton's Curve. The man was talking to his
companion.
"They shot up a hundred thousand pounds of black powder an' dynamite to
make way for two hundred feet of steel on that curve," he explained in a
voice heard all over the car. "They say you could hear the explosion fifty
miles away. Jack Templeton was near-sighted, an' he didn't see a rock
coming down on him that was half as big as a house. I helped scrape up what
was left of 'im an' we planted him at this end of the curve. It's been
Templeton's Curve ever since. You'll see his grave--with a slab over it!"
It was there almost as he spoke, marked by a white-painted cross in a
circle of whitewashed stones. John Aldous felt a sudden shiver pass through
his companion. She turned from the window. Through her veil he saw her lips
tighten. Until he left the car half an hour later the man in the second
seat ahead talked of Templeton's grave and a dozen other graves along the
right of way. He was a rock-hog, and a specialist on the subject of
graves. Inwardly Aldous cursed him roundly. He cursed him all the way to
Tête Jaune, for to him he attributed the change which had again come over
Joanne.
This change she could only partly conceal from him under her veil. She
asked him many questions about Tête Jaune and the Blacktons, and tried to
take an interest in the scenery they were passing. In spite of this he
could see that she was becoming more and more nervous as they progressed
toward the end of their journey. He felt the slow dampening of his own joy,
the deadening clutch of yesterday at his heart. Twice she lifted her veil
for a moment and he saw she was pale and the tense lines had gathered about
her mouth again. There was something almost haggard in her look the second
time.
In the early dusk of evening they arrived at Tête Jaune. Aldous waited
until the car had emptied itself before he rose from his seat. Joanne's
hand clutched at his arm as they walked down the aisle. He felt the fierce
pressure of her fingers in his flesh. On the car platform they paused for a
moment, and he felt her throbbing beside him. She had taken her hand from
his arm, and he turned suddenly. She had raised her veil. Her face was dead
white. And she was staring out over the sea of faces under them in a
strange questing way, and her breath came from between her slightly parted
lips as if she had been running. Amazed for the moment, John Aldous did not
move. Somewhere in that crowd _Joanne expected to find a face she knew!_
The truth struck him dumb--made him inert and lifeless. He, too, stared as
if in a trance. And then, suddenly, every drop of blood in his body blazed
into fierce life.
In the glow of one of the station lamps stood a group of men. The faces of
all were turned toward them. One he recognized--a bloated, leering face
grinning devilishly at them. It was Quade!
A low, frightened cry broke from Joanne's lips, and he knew that she, too,
had seen him. But it was not Quade that she had looked for. It was not his
face that she had expected to see nor because of him that she had lifted
her veil for the mob!
He stepped down from the car and gave her his hand. Her fingers clutched
his convulsively. And they were cold as the fingers of the dead.