WHEN THE MOMENT CAME
AND so under the commanding eyes of California Bill the sordid story
was told again--the story of a father’s avarice and his hatred for his
firstborn, the story of a brother’s treachery, the story of the fortune
that Cole of Spyglass Mountain had lost that very night.
Joshua sat white-faced and listened, while Mars traveled on its endless
orbit, with the faithful telescope, unheeded by its master, slowly
following it like a human finger.
Bill rose as the story reached an end. Slim Wolfgang sat, with head
bowed forward, his long fingers interfretted and working nervously.
Bill laid a hand along the shoulder of the astronomer, and the stubby
fingers patted Joshua’s coat.
“It’s hell,” he said--“plumb hell! But it can’t be helped, and we’re
gonta take it like a man. Ain’t we, Tony? Maybe it ain’t too late.
Maybe ye c’n do somethin’ to prove fraud an’ get th’ money after all.
You’n’ me’ll talk that over when we’ve disposed of th’ body. Now le’s
go out an’ keep this bird inside, while we figger out th’ most horrible
way to torture ’im.”
Joshua rose in the same daze that had wandered with him all that day.
He laughed shortly as the door closed behind him. Then he laughed
louder and louder, and the tears streamed down his face.
“When do I wake up?” he cried at last, still laughing hysterically.
“This isn’t true, Bill. It’s all a dream. I know it. So many things
couldn’t happen to a fellow all at once.”
Bill patted his shoulder again. “She’s true, son--dam’ true,” he told
him.
Then Bill shook him as he renewed his laughter--shook him until the
breath had left him, and he sat down weakly on a piñon stump.
“Thing is,” said Bill, “what’ll we do with Wolfgang?”
For a long time Joshua was silent, as gradually the realization of what
had taken place crept into his befuddled mind.
“What can we do?” he asked simply.
“That’s up to you,” Bill told him. “Whatever you say goes with me. I’d
turn my back, I guess, while ye cut his throat.”
For fully five minutes not another word passed between the two. Then
Joshua rose to his feet with a long sigh.
“I’ve thought it all out, Bill,” he announced, “and there’s nothing
that I can do. I’ll simply let him go--that’s all. I’ll tell you,
Bill: When a fellow has for years devoted his soul to study of the
fundamental things of life, everything else seems puny. Look through
that refractor for an hour and you’ll get the feeling, too. When you
begin to realize the vastness of the universe, and know that beyond
the one in which we live lie countless other universes as stupendous
or even more stupendous than this one, you--you begin to realize that
you are like a tiny straw in the wind--that your little difficulties,
disappointments and fruitless struggles on this insignificant ball of
stones and earth are not worthy of a moment’s thought. Slim Wolfgang
has been the means of robbing me of the girl I love. If I had fallen
heir to that money-- Well, you remember what I told you about Madge.
And now I have nothing left but my work. I’ll wrap myself up in it soul
and body--and forget. So I have no time to bother about Slim Wolfgang.
Open the door and let him go.”
“But, Tony--”
“You don’t understand, Bill. I can never make you understand. So you
must just take my word for it that to revenge myself on Wolfgang
would give me no satisfaction at all. I have not fully realized until
to-night that I have not been truly devoted to my science. I have
allowed other interests to claim a part of my time and my thoughts.
And all this has come upon me at once to prove the old adage that
Science is a jealous mistress, and will brook no rivals. I have learned
my lesson. I can’t have money; I can’t even have relatives; I can’t
have any other work to claim my time; I can’t have love. And if all
these things must be denied me because I have consecrated myself to
Science, what time have I for the petty satisfaction a man would get
from revenging himself on an insignificant fellow stumbler on this
insignificant earth? No, Bill--I’ve lived in other worlds too much to
descend to that. Open the door and let Slim Wolfgang be on his way.”
“Tony, I’m ord’narily a peaceful man myself,” Bill responded. “You know
that ’thout me tellin’ ye. But to-night I’m mad. To-night I don’t know
what I couldn’t do to that pimp in there. An’--”
“But you haven’t been looking at Mars for perhaps three hours,” Joshua
reminded him. “Bill, you can never understand. Let him out, and let him
get on his horse and go. But you stay a little. I’m kind of lonesome, I
find. You’ll enjoy looking at Mars just now, for he’s very close to the
earth. Look for ten minutes, then maybe you’ll understand me better.
Maybe I’m a visionary fool, but Mars will help you to decide on that.
And--and I’d like to talk with you a little after he’s gone.”
California Bill rose briskly to his feet. “You’re th’ doctor,” he said.
“An’ I’ve always found ye sensible.” He opened the door. “Come out
here, Wolfgang,” he ordered. “Ye get only a dishonorable discharge
from these here mountains that ye been stinkin’ up too long.”
Wolfgang came out hesitatingly, and Bill led forward the borrowed horse
that he had ridden.
Bill stood beside him as he set a foot in the stirrup to mount, and
then he ordered:
“Don’t move, fella. Keep that position till I think a minute.”
The gambler did as he was bidden, for his wrist still ached.
Then suddenly Bill drew back his right foot for a vigorous kick--a kick
of supreme contempt, about the greatest insult the West can offer. He
lowered the foot, drew it back again. And then once more both feet were
stationary on the ground.
“No,” he said thoughtfully, “ye’re right, Tony. What’s th’ use? Go on,
Slim! Get on that _caballo_ an’ beat it fast as ye c’n ramble. Keep
goin’ an’ goin’ an’ goin’, an’ never come West ag’in. Tony an’ me,
we’re goin’ in an’ look at Mars. We’re men, we are--we’re big. We got
no time to fool with you. Beat it, fella, before I change my mind an’
kick th’ stuffin’ outa ye jes’ f’r luck.”
For several minutes the two friends listened in silence to the click
of Wolfgang’s mount as it stumbled down the rocky trail. Then all was
still again, and they turned and entered the observatory.
“Tony,” Bill began.
But Joshua interrupted: “Not a word about the money, Bill, please. I
want to forget it altogether. I _must_ forget it.”
“I was gonta talk about Lee Sweet and Madge,” the freighter explained.
“Lee Sweet, as Wolfgang told ye, he’s only tryin’ to scare ye into
desertin’ yer claim. He ain’t any murderer. But when he gets drunk he
may do somethin’ he don’t aim to; so I’m gonta get after ’im right
away an’ let ’im know what a fool this gambler made o’ ’im. An’ tell
’im we’re onto ’im, an’ if he don’t be good we’ll spank ’im. I’m gonta
take a few days off--I know a fella that’ll take the team for me--an’
go hunt Lee Sweet up. I know about where to locate ’im up th’ range,
where he’s still roundin’ up stragglers an’ cows that’ve drifted into
the mountains farther south. I want ye to be feelin’ fine for th’ night
o’ th’ eighteenth, Tony, an’ have no worries on yer mind. ’Cause I got
th’ feelin’, from what ye’ve told me, ye’re gonta be steppin’ high that
night, an’ ye’re gonta nail ole Mars to th’ tree. So don’t fret about
Lee Sweet. I’m goin’ after ’im, an’ see that he ain’t here to bother
ye between now an’ then. And now about Madge. Don’t ye think for a
minute--”
“Here--read this,” offered Joshua, and passed him Madge’s letter.
Bill put on his old steel-rimmed spectacles and leaned toward the
light. He read the letter through twice, then handed it back.
“Well, le’s have a squint at ole Mars,” he suggested, “an’ then I’ll be
on my way. I’ll get a saddle hoss to-morrow an’ ride Sweet down, an’--”
“But what do you think about Madge’s letter?” Joshua asked.
“I think somebody else needs spankin’,” said California Bill. “An’ it’s
up to me to ’tend to that--seems. What do I do? Climb that confoun’
ladder?”
* * * * *
California Bill had not been in the saddle more than a few hours for
several years. He was a prey to misgivings when he rode out of Ragtown
the following morning on his way to Box-R Ranch. He reached the ranch
shortly after dinnertime, and was told, as he had expected, that Sweet
was to the south hunting drifters. So he set off over the desert,
following the foothills, hoping to come upon the cattleman before
nightfall.
In the middle of the afternoon he came upon a small herd being driven
to the foot of the G-string road, but Sweet was not among the men who
drove them. They knew that he was working farther to the south, but
could not tell Bill just where to find him. So he changed position in
the saddle and loped away once more, and by night had reached Gonzales
Wells without having seen another living soul.
There was a station at the wells where desert travelers were housed and
fed, and Bill dragged himself to a hard couch in the loft that night.
Next morning he was undecided, but, having come so far, he determined
to keep on. Surely he would meet up with Sweet that day. But noon
overtook him before he had ridden to Seven Palms, another station, and
he had not seen Sweet.
Here, however, he learned that in all likelihood Sweet had gone into
the mountains with such cows as had been rounded up in that locality.
It was possible, he was told, for Sweet to drive the stragglers along
the ridges to the vicinity of Ragtown without coming down to the
desert. This, it was suggested, was what he might do, in the hope of
picking up on his way any drifting stock that had already sought the
green meadows of the highlands. And Bill was advised to retrace his
course rather than try the mountains over trails with which he was not
familiar.
With the morose feeling that he had once more failed to aid his friend
and protégé, the old freighter, saddle-weary and disappointed, rode
back. He rode hard, for fear that Sweet would reach Ragtown over the
mountain route ahead of him, get drunk, and worry Joshua at what Bill
firmly believed to be the biggest moment in the young astronomer’s
life. He reached Box-R Ranch in the course of time, and, not daring to
rest, set out that same night for the summit.
So stiff he could scarce climb from the saddle, he drew rein before The
Silver Dollar near midnight, to find the regular revel in full swing. A
little questioning soon brought to light the information that Lee Sweet
had reached Ragtown early in the afternoon with three of his vaqueros,
had got gloriously drunk, and had ridden off, whooping and firing into
the air, not twenty minutes before Bill’s arrival. Bill changed horses
and dragged his tired body into the saddle again. And fearing the
worst--for it was the eighteenth of June--he raced around the lake to
Joshua’s homestead and clattered into the trail that led to the summit
of Spyglass Mountain.
* * * * *
The eighteenth of June--with Mars riding the heavens only forty-two
million miles away! Only forty-two million!--yet by the end of August
the distance would be increased to sixty-six million miles!
Midnight--with Cole of Spyglass Mountain seated high up on his
ladder, his far-seeing blue-gray eye glued to the powerful
five-hundred-diameter eye-piece of his telescope. Unnoticeably the
refractor followed the planet in its endless flight. The driving clock
purred softly, the only sound on Spyglass Mountain, for the night was
still as death itself--cold and still and fraught with an uncanny
tensity.
Shanty Madge was forgotten. John Cole and Lester Cole and the legacy
left by Peter Henry Florence were forgotten. Lee Sweet and his
boisterous vaqueros were forgotten. For Cole of Spyglass Mountain
nothing existed in the universe save romantic Mars, riding the sky on
his mysterious rounds.
For hours he had watched, but there came no sign. The glowing planet
looked as it had always looked when close to the earth. Once he
imagined he saw a threadlike tracery, but it instantly was gone, and a
heavy sigh escaped him. The strain was stultifying, and few observers
could have withstood the ordeal that Cole withstood that night.
With another heavy sigh he withdrew his eye from the eye-piece to rest
it, and glanced at the little alarm clock on the opposite wall. He
could barely see its yellow face in the dim light cast by the coal-oil
lamp, but he blinked his eyes several times, closed them tightly,
opened them again, and noted that it was ten minutes after twelve.
He waited a moment, then placed his eye to the eye-piece once more.
And then he sucked in his breath in wonder. The atmosphere had grown
suddenly clearer, it seemed, or else the rest had benefited his
eyesight. A low cry burst from his lips. For there before him, very
faint but unmistakable, stood the hairlike lines of the figure he had
longed for years to see again.
Was he insane? Had he looked too long? Was his mind wrought up to such
a pitch that it was grasping at an optical illusion?
His camera and the color screen! That would prove whether or not his
eyesight had betrayed him. Almost beside himself with eagerness, he
clattered down the ladder, got his camera and the screen, and clambered
to the top again.
Then a shot rang out, and he heard the thud of a bullet as it struck
the metal dome.
Lee Sweet again! Or some of his men! No matter. No time now to think of
them!
Again came a shot and a thud above him. The rifleman was shooting high
in an effort to frighten him, thinking him on the floor and safe from
harm. Well, he was not on the floor. He was high up in the dome, in
the direct line of the bullets. Let them fire! What mattered it? He had
seen the configuration on Mars which was to make him famous. That, or
he had lost his reason. What mattered it? Let them shoot!
There came a fusillade of shots, and the dome rattled. Again and again
it was repeated, and all the time Cole of Spyglass Mountain was setting
up his camera and adjusting the color screen to photograph the strange
hairlike figure he had seen.
He stepped one side on the ladder, at last ready to press the bulb.
Another shower of bullets rattled against the dome, followed by a
single shot and a lusty yell. Then before he could press the bulb
everything went black, and Cole of Spyglass Mountain swayed and tumbled
down the ladder, dragging his camera after him.
* * * * *
About three weeks later a maid presented herself before Madge Mundy in
the Montgomerys’ apartment in Los Angeles.
“There’s a man to see you at the door, miss,” she announced. “He has
no card, and he won’t come in. He says he’s from Ragtown and has an
important message for you.”
“I’ll see him,” said Madge, a strange feeling of faintness coming over
her.
At the door she found California Bill, holding in his short hand an
open-face silver watch of large proportions.
“Hello, Shanty Madge,” he greeted her. “I come to tell ye that Tony’s
gettin’ pretty low. He’s in th’ hospital at Ragtown, an’ I hadta go
clean to Spur to get a decent doctor. He’s pretty well shot up in the
upper works, an’ he won’t fight back--seems. After Lee Sweet shot
’im--”
“After what?” Madge’s head was swimming and her hand grasped the
door-frame.
“Yes’m--after that ornery beef critter shot ’im he went out f’r a
time, an’ then he come back a-ravin’ about what he’d seen on Mars. An’
nothin’ would do but I had to go to Spur that night an’ send a telegram
to Milton University. I done it, o’ course--seein’ his well-bein’
depended on it. Ye see, Lee an’ some o’ his buckeroos was all lit up
an’ jes’ aimin’ to scare Tony. An’ they shot high, thinkin’ Tony was
on th’ ground. But Tony’s up on his ladder squintin’ at ole Mars. An’
now Lee’s th’ scaredest man in all that country. I’ll read ye what Tony
told me to write, so’s I could turn it over to th’ operator at Spur.”
Madge gazed at the old freighter while he fumbled in his pocket and
finally produced a piece of dirty paper. He placed his steel-rimmed
glasses on his nose and read haltingly:
“DR. HIRAM A. BUCK,
Director Observatory,
Milton University,
Elmfield, Massachusetts.
“Observed at thirteenth hour thirteenth minute June eighteenth with
eight-inch refractor singular geometrical configuration on Mars.
Latitude seventy degrees; longitude plus twenty degrees. Central to
Uranius, Nilokeras, and Ganges. Appeared to be circle with straight
line south and tangent to circumference. Very faint. Please wire my
expense if larger instruments confirm reality of object.”
Bill looked up into the reddish-brown eyes of the little gypo queen,
who stood bent forward, lips parted and dry.
“That’s what I sent,” Bill went on, “an’ Tony seemed to be gettin’
better for a spell. He wouldn’t hear o’ me comin’ down here to th’ city
to see you, so I hadta stay beside ’im. Then one day come a reply, an’
I got a copy o’ that here to show ye, too.”
He produced a strip of paper, from which he read:
“Configuration mentioned not observed from this station. Later
reports will follow.
“BUCK.”
“An’ then eight days went by, with Tony fussin’ an’ fussin’ an’ fussin’
all th’ time, an’ then come this.”
Again Bill read from the same source:
“In further reference configuration seen by you June eighteenth no
reports received from other stations.
“BUCK.”
“An’ after that,” continued Bill, “Tony he give up th’ fight. Ye see,”
he added with piteous earnestness, “Tony he got shot before he could
take a picture, an’ he ain’t got any proof. An’ he’s out of his head
now, ravin’ mad, an’ sayin’ over an’ over again:
“‘You’ll come back to Spyglass Mountain, Madge, ’cause ye’re big like
th’ great-hearted trees. Yes, you’ll come back to Spyglass Mountain,
dear.’
“An’ th’ doc says,” Bill concluded, “that Tony won’t pull through if
ye don’t come back. He’s dyin’--seems--don’t care to live. I got one
o’ them buckin’ broncho taxi-things down in th’ street, rarin’ an’
snortin’ to go, Madge. Train leaves f’r Spur in forty minutes by this
here ole watch o’ mine. Connects with th’ stage to Ragtown. I’ll trot
down an’ throw a little _muck-a-muck_ into me while ye’re puttin’ on
yer hat an’ things. Be waitin’ f’r ye on th’ sidewalk, Madge.”
Another week had passed. In the little pine hospital at Ragtown Cole of
Spyglass Mountain lay on a neat white bed, and a girl with bronze-gold
hair bent over him. Dr. J. Miles Stanhope moved about shakily, drunk
as usual, but with kindliness written all over his features. Also the
doctor from Spur was there; and at one side sat California Bill.
The silent, bandaged figure moved on the bed and softly moaned. The
doctor from Spur nodded to Madge, who bent down lower and began once
more the words which she had repeated a hundred times since she reached
the hospital. And as had been the case each time before, the hot tears
wet her cheeks.
“I’ve come back, Joshua! Joshua--it’s Madge speaking to you. Oh,
Joshua, I’ve come back to you! It’s Madge--Shanty Madge. Listen,
Joshua--I’ve come back to you. Shanty Madge is back! I’ve come back to
Spyglass Mountain!”
And now, for the first time in all those tense days, the dark-gray eyes
opened wide and stared up into the Spanish-topaz eyes above them. Then,
shaking like an aspen, Shanty Madge bent low and whispered:
“I’ve come back to you, Joshua--back to Spyglass Mountain!”
A moment longer the puzzled gray-blue eyes studied the wet face of the
girl, and the blended pink and tan of the Pocahontas cheeks brought
recognition. Madge bent lower still and kissed the broad smooth
forehead. A childlike smile crossed Joshua’s clean-cut lips.
“Then,” said his voice, very faint, “I’ll--I guess I’ll get well, after
all.”
Five days later the stage from Spur arrived, and Bill left Madge
and Joshua, now fully conscious and on the mend--according to the
doctor--while he went to the post office for the mail. He hurried back
presently, a sheaf of yellow envelopes in his hand.
“Only th’ first-class mail’s distributed,” he announced. “An’ looky
what I got! Telegrams, Tony--telegrams by the dozen! Read ’em.
Somethin’s broke!”
Eagerly Joshua grasped the first and tore it open, to read in absolute
amazement:
“Congratulations from Dr. Ernest G. Pratt, of Tabor University.
“ERNEST G. PRATT.”
“What’s this? What’s this?” cried Bill.
But Joshua was tearing another envelope.
“SANBORN, OHIO.
“Greatest discovery in many years. Please accept my hearty
congratulations.
“DR. JOHN F. QUINCY, M. S.”
And the next:
“It gives me great pleasure to offer my sincere congratulations and
thanks for your recent contribution to the knowledge of the world.
“PROFESSOR HARVEY G. MILLS.”
“Why, what’s it all about?” cried Joshua, a pink glow in his hollow
cheeks.
But before any one could puzzle out an answer Dr. J. Miles Stanhope
burst in, his cheeks purple with excitement, and thrust before the
group a belated Sunday paper. And there in headlines that crossed the
page, Joshua read as if in a rapturous dream:
CELEBRATED SCIENTIST VINDICATES ALLEGED
FAKE ASTRONOMER
DR. EMANUEL SCHLOTT, GERMAN TELESCOPIST
CABLES MILTON UNIVERSITY
HAS PHOTOGRAPHED FIGURE UNKNOWN
AMERICAN OBSERVER SAW ON JUNE EIGHTEENTH
SO DIM SCHLOTT FAILED TO SEE IT ON PLATE UNTIL
TUCKED-AWAY ARTICLE IN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER
THREE WEEKS OLD CALLS TO
ATTENTION
SCIENTIFIC WORLD IS ASKING BREATHLESSLY: IS
MARS A LIVING PLANET?
FIRST TO REPORT DISCOVERY,
COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN FAMOUS IN A NIGHT
“Oh, Joshua,” cried Madge, “it’s true! It’s true! It’s true! Oh, my
dear--I’m happier than you are. I know I am! It means more to us than
all the money in the world!”
“There!” muttered California Bill. “What’d I tell ye all along?
Confound ’em, why don’t they watch? What’s th’ use of ’em havin’
telescopes if they’re gonta go to sleep at th’ switch? Damn ’em,
anyway! I knew it all along. C’mon outa here, Doc!”
And, muttering crossly to himself, he stalked out and left behind two
silent figures, whose tear-streaked faces were pressed together, with
the paper propped up before them on the bed.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.