HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
Haney took the train back to his mountain town in a mood which made him
regard his action as that of a stranger. Whenever he recalled Bertha's
trusting clasp of his hand he felt like removing his hat--the stir of
his heart was close akin to religious reverence. "Faith, an' she's
taking a big risk," he said. "But I'll not see her lose out," he added,
with a return of the gambler's phrase. "She has stacked her chips on the
right spot this time."
With all his brute force, his clouded sense of justice, this gambler,
this saloon-man, was not without qualifying characteristics. He was a
Celt, and in almost every Celt there is hidden a poet. Quick to wrath,
quick to jest and fierce in his loves was he, as is the typical Irishman
whom England has not yet succeeded in changing to her own type.
Moreover, he was an American as well as a Celt (and the American is the
most sentimental of men--it is said); and now that he had been surprised
into honorable matrimony he began to arrange his affairs for his wife's
pleasure and glory. The words in which she had accepted him lingered in
his ears like phrases of a little hesitating song. For her he had sold
his gambling halls, for her he was willing at the moment to abandon the
associates of a lifetime.
He was sitting in the car dreamily smoking, his hat drawn low over his
brows, when an acquaintance passing through the car stopped with a word
of greeting. Ordinarily Haney would have been glad of his company, but
he made a place for him at this time with grudging slowness.
"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."
"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
place.
Haney nodded, without smiling.
His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"
"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.
"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
rampage for two days--crazy as a loon."
"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
bust-up?"
"He don't seem to--or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
your guard."
They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
with me--God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
he had no fear--only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
he'd drop it."
He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.
The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
yet finished their evening meal, and Haney and his two cronies had just
taken their second round of drinks when the side door was burst
violently open, and a man, white and wild, with a double-barrelled
shotgun in his hand, abruptly entered. Darting across the floor, he
thrust the muzzle of his weapon almost against Haney's breast and fired,
uttering a wild curse at the moment of recoil.
The tall gambler reeled under the shock, swinging half way about, his
hands clutching at the railing, a look of anguish and surprise upon his
face. The assassin, intent, alert, would have fired again had not a
by-stander felled him to the floor. The room filled instantly with
excited men eager to strike, vociferous with hate; but Haney, with one
palm pressed to his breast, stood silent--curiously silent--his lips
white with his effort at self-control.
At length two of his friends seized him, tenderly asking: "How is it,
old man? Are you hurt bad?"
His lips moved--they listened--as he faintly whispered: "He's got me,
boys. Here's where I quit."
"Don't say that, Mart. You'll pull through," said his friend, chokingly.
Then with ferocious impatience he yelled: "Somebody get the doctor! Damn
it all, get moving! Don't you see him bleed?"
Haney moved his head feebly. "Lay me down, Pete--I'm torn to pieces--I'm
all in, I'm afraid. Get me little girl--that's all I ask."
Very gently they took him in their arms and laid him on one of the
gambling-tables in the rear room, while the resolute barkeeper pushed
the crowd out.
Again Haney called, impatiently, almost fiercely: "Send for
Bertie--quick!"
The men looked at each other in wonder, and one of them tapped his brow
significantly, for no one knew of his latest love-affair. While still
they stared Williams came rushing wildly in. All gave way to him, and
the young doctor who followed him was greeted with low words of
satisfaction. To his partner, whom he recognized, Haney repeated his
command: "Send for Bertie." With a hurried scrawl Williams put down the
girl's name and address on a piece of paper, and shouted: "Here!
Somebody take this and rush it. Tell her to come quick as the Lord will
let her." Then, with the tenderness of a brother, he bent to Haney. "How
is it, Mart?"
Mart did not reply. His supreme desire attended to, he sank into a
patient immobility that approached stupor, while the surgeon worked with
intent haste to stop the flow of blood. The wound was most barbarous,
and Williams' eyes filled with tears as he looked upon that magnificent
torso mangled by buckshot. He loved his big partner--Haney was indeed
his highest enthusiasm, his chief object of adoration, and to see him
riddled in this way was devil's work. He lost hope. "It's all over with
Mart Haney," he said, chokingly, a few minutes later to the men crowding
the bar-room--and then his rage against the assassin broke forth. He
became the tiger seeking the blood of him who had slain his mate. His
curses rose to primitive ferocity. "Where is he?" he asked.
To him stepped a man--one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've
attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a
lamp-post. Want to see?"
For an instant his rage flared out against these officious friends who
had cheated him of his share in the swift delight of the avenger. Then
tears again misted his eyes, and with a dignity and pathos which had
never graced his speech before he pronounced a slow eulogy upon his
friend: "No man had a right to accuse Mart Haney of any trick. He took
his chances, fair and square. He had no play with crooked cards or
'doctored' wheels. It was all 'above board' with him. He was dead game
and a sport, you all know that, and now to be ripped to bits with
buckshot--just when he was takin' a wife--is hellish."
His voice faltered, and in the dead silence which followed this
revelation of Haney's secret he turned and re-entered the inner room, to
watch beside his friend.
The hush which lay over the men at the bar lasted till the barkeeper
softly muttered: "Boys, that's news to me. It does make it just too
tough." Then those who had hitherto opposed the lynching of the murderer
changed their minds and directed new malediction against him, and those
who had handled the rope took keener comfort and greater honor to
themselves.
"Who is the woman?" asked one of those who waited.
This question remained unanswered till the messenger to the telegraph
office returned. Even then little beyond her name was revealed, but each
of the watchers began to pray that she might reach the dying man before
his eyes should close forever. "He can't live till sunrise," said one,
"and there is no train from the Junction till morning. She can't get
here without a special. Did you order a special for her?"
"No, I didn't think of it," the messenger replied, with a sense of
shortcoming.
"It must be done!"
"I'll attend to that," said Slater. "I know the superintendent. I'll
wire him to see her--and bring her."
"Well, be quick about it. Expense don't count now."
It was beautiful to see how these citizens, rough and sordid as many of
them were, rose to the poetic value of the situation. As one of them,
who had seen (and loved) the girl, told of her youth and beauty, they
all stood in rigidly silent attention. "She's hardly more than a child,"
he explained, "but you never saw a more level-headed little business
woman in your life. She runs the Golden Eagle Hotel at Junction, and
does it alone. That's what caught Mart, you see. She's as straight as a
Ute, and her eyes are clear as agates. She's a little captain--just the
mate for Mart. She'll save him if anybody can."
"Will she come? Can she get away?"
"Of course she'll come. She'll ride an engine or jump a flat-car to get
here. You can depend on a woman in such things. She don't stop to
calculate, she ain't that kind. She comes--you can bet high on that. I'm
only worrying for fear Mart won't hold out till she gets here."
Meanwhile, every man in the room where Haney lay, sat in silence, with
an air of waiting--waiting for the inevitable end. The bleeding had been
checked, but the sufferer's breathing was painful and labored, and the
doctor, sitting close beside him, was studying means to prolong life--he
had given up hope of saving it. With stiffened lips Haney repeated now
and again: "Keep me alive till she comes, doctor. She must marry
me--here. I want her to have all I've got--_everything_!"
At another time he said: "Get the judge--have everything ready!"
They understood. He wished to dower his love with his wealth, to place
in her hands his will, beyond the reach of any contestant, and this
resolution through the hours of his agony, through the daze of his
weakness persisted heroically--till even the doctor's throat filled with
sympathetic emotion, as he thought of the young maiden soon to be thrust
into this tragic drama. He answered, soothingly: "I'll do all I can,
Mart. There's a lot of vitality in you yet. We won't give up. You'll
pull through, with her help."
To this Haney made no reply, and the hours passed with ghostly step. It
was a most moving experience for the young doctor to look round that
wide room littered with scattered cards, the wheels of chance motionless
at the hazard where the last gambler's bet had ended. In the "lookout's
chair," where Haney himself used to sit, an unseen arbiter now gloomed,
watching a game where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.
About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."
Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
every resource--forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.
A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
I've no strength to waste--'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
here--to marry us--" And with this request the priest was forced to be
content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
as he turned away.
Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
ceremony must be legal--I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
life.
"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
the Church."
Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."
From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.
"I know that, but to move him would hasten his death. The doctor is
afraid to even turn him. Besides, Mart himself won't have it. 'I'm
better here,' he says. So we've propped him into the easiest position
possible. There's nothing to do but wait for the girl."