AND A MOUNTAIN UPREARED
ON the night after the raid Draco’s gambling house was running in full
panoply as usual; and thither Brant directed his steps upon leaving the
Plainsman building. Arguing from experience, he made sure that young
Langford would be found in the kennel of the dog that had bitten him;
and carrying the deduction a step farther, he was prepared to find the
lad playing the part of led captain to some older villain.
It was not likely that the boy had developed a passion for play of his
own motion. Brant knew that trade well. It had its master workmen, its
slipshod journeymen, its tramps, and its apprentices. He doubted not
that young Langford was still of the undergraduate guild; in which case
a heroic remedy might yet effect a cure.
This train of reasoning led to certain conclusions. If he should find
the boy serving as a stool pigeon for some older man, his task would be
comparatively easy. The professional gambler is sufficiently wise in
his own generation; and a word to the wise--such a word as Brant knew
how to speak--would quickly release the apprentice.
So much for the boy and the first step in his rescue. After that it
would be the father’s part to keep him from forming a new alliance--if
he could.
For himself, however, Brant foresaw price payings of the dearest. The
lower world was thickly peopled in the Denver of that day, and he could
scarcely hope to win in and out unrecognised. As a citizen of that
world his light had not been hidden under a bushel. He was known to the
men of his tribe, and the tribe is nomadic, albeit it keeps well within
its own marches.
What then? Merely this: It would be passed from lip to ear that Plucky
George of the mining camps was in town; that, for reasons best known
to himself, he was living for the time in retirement. And thereafter
he would better cut off his right hand than be seen in public with any
woman whose reputation he valued.
This was the barb of the arrow, and it rankled sorely while he was
measuring the distance between the Plainsman building and the kennel of
the dog. Nevertheless, he went on steadily enough until he stood before
the baize doors screening the interior of the Draconian kennel. But
here he hung reluctant for a moment, knowing that he had reached the
turning point. Once beyond the swinging doors it would be too late to
go back.
So he stopped, and put out his hand and withdrew it, and for the
first time in many years the square jaw of him lacked something of
its resolute outline. Within he could heard the shuffling of feet,
the clinking of glasses, the _b-r-r-r_ of the roulette balls--all
the familiar sounds of the life he had put behind him. He was far
enough away from it now to begin to loathe it; and yet it drew him
irresistibly. What if he should be dragged back into the old paths
again? Stranger things had happened; and the fascination of the serpent
is not less potent because it is loathsome.
While he hesitated, it came to him like the thrilling of an electric
shock that this was one of the penalties he would always have to
pay--this calling to him of the underworld to which he had belonged.
In a flash of the inner self-sight, one of those glimpses into heart
possibilities that not even a good man may prolong to a scrutiny,
he saw that he had lied in telling Hobart that his yearnings were
altogether for better things. They were not. The woundings of the evil
years were not healed, and they might never be. He turned and took a
step away from the doors of peril.
There and then he saw a picture of a grief-stricken young woman leaning
against a vine-covered veranda pillar and sobbing softly as one who
mourns without hope. Then and there the thought of his promise to
Dorothy Langford nerved him afresh, and the swing doors fell apart
under his hand.
The baize screens were yet winging to rest behind him, and he had no
more than taken the measure of the place, when the bartender threw up
his hand by way of welcome. Here was recognition on the very threshold
of the undertaking; and since it had come, Brant set his teeth and
determined to make such use of it as his errand would warrant. So he
went around to the end of the bar and waited until the man was at
liberty. That was not long.
“Well, say, old pardner--shake! I thought you’d turn up all right. How
are they coming, anyhow? Fellow came in here a while back and said
you’d killed a man up on the range and lit out. I told him he lied;
told him you wasn’t the runaway kind; see? What’ll you take?”
Notwithstanding Brant was but a short Sabbath-day’s journey away
from the associations of which the bartender’s greeting was a part,
he winced at the familiarity of it, at the oaths with which it was
plentifully garnished, and even at the underworld _argot_ in which it
was couched. Then he humbled himself and put his newly found dignity
under foot.
“Thank you, I am not drinking anything to-night, Tom. I merely dropped
in to ask a question or two.”
“Fire away.”
“Have you seen a young fellow hanging around here lately--smooth-faced
boy, dark eyes and dark hair--dresses pretty well?”
“Why, yes; that’s the kid. He’s here now.”
“Alone?”
“Well, hardly; the Professor has sort of adopted him, I reckon; anyhow,
they run together most of the time.”
Brant’s face flushed as if the man had smitten him, and with the
narrowing of his eyes the past laid fast hold upon him and once more
the man-quelling demon was in possession.
“There is only one ‘Professor,’ I take it.” He spoke softly, as one
speaks to a little child. “You mean Jim Harding?”
“Sure; _her_ brother. You ought to know him, if anybody does.”
“Yes, I know him.” The recusant sinner turned his back to the bar and
let his gaze go adrift down the long room. It was comfortably filled.
There were pairs and trios and quartettes at the card tables; little
groups around the marble games and roulette boards; a front rank of
sitters about the faro table, with a standing reserve playing over the
shoulders of those in the chairs; and in the midst an uneasy throng
revolving about the various centres of attraction, like the slow-moving
figures in a timeless minuet.
Somewhere in this devil’s dragnet was the boy--the boy who was
Dorothy’s brother. To keep that in mind asked for an effort, because
with the boy he should find his enemy, the man who had traded upon a
sister’s shame. At the thought the gray eyes grew hard and cruel, and
his hand went back toward the bartender.
“Give me your pistol a minute, Tom; I may need it,” he said, without
looking around.
“It won’t do down here, George. They’d hang you too quick for any use.”
“Never mind about that; give me the gun.”
The weapon was passed across the bar and Brant dropped it into his coat
pocket. Then he dipped into the uneasy throng and began a search which
ended beside one of the roulette boards. Young Langford was watching
the game dry-lipped and hot-eyed, and at his side stood a man who might
have passed otherwhere for a schoolmaster. He was tall and slightly
stooping, his garments were of the clerical cut, and his lean face
was clean shaven. Only in the ferrety eyes was there a hint of the
unfathomable wickedness of the man. The nickname of “the Professor”
fitted him aptly, and he dressed the part, playing it with all the
skill of a trained actor.
To outward appearances no more harmless person than James Harding could
have been met in a day’s journey; but Brant knew his man. Coming softly
up behind, he seized Harding’s right wrist and held it helpless while
he spoke.
“Excuse yourself to the boy and come out with me,” he whispered at
Harding’s ear; and the vicelike grip turned the soft-spoken words into
a command.
Harding’s answer was a stealthy movement of his free hand toward his
breast pocket, but Brant checked it with a word.
“Don’t be a fool, or take me for one, unless you are ready to quit. Do
as I tell you, and be quick about it.”
There was murder in Harding’s eyes what time he was measuring his
chance against the weapon in Brant’s pocket. Then fear took its place,
and he obeyed the command.
“All right,” said the boy, without taking his eyes from the spinning
roulette ball. “I’ll wait here for you.”
Brant marched his man to the swing doors and out into the deserted
street. Just beyond the circle illuminated by the arc light in front of
Draco’s he backed Harding to the wall.
“Hands up!” he said briefly.
Harding’s thin lip quivered like that of a snarling dog, but again he
obeyed.
“Turned hold-up, have you, George?” he sneered.
Brant ignored the taunt and deftly disarmed his captive. Then he spoke
tersely and to the point, as one who may enforce his commands.
“You know me, and there is no need to measure words. I brought you out
here to tell you what you are to do. You are going to take that boy
home and turn him loose; and then you are going to keep out of his way.”
“Oh, I am, am I?”
“Yes; and this is the way you are going to do it: You will go back in
there and bring him out; then you will walk him up the street and put
him into the first carriage you come to. Do I make myself perfectly
clear?”
“Sure thing! You’ve got it all down to a fine point, haven’t you?”
“Then you will get in with him and go wherever the driver takes you. By
the time the carriage stops you will have explained matters in any way
you see fit; only young Langford must be given to understand that it is
all off between you.”
“And after that?”
“After that I think it will be best for you to leave Denver. It is a
fair-sized town, but I am afraid it isn’t big enough to hold you and me
at the same time.”
“And what if I refuse? What if I tell you to go to----”
Brant took out the borrowed pistol and balanced it on the palm of his
hand.
“In that case I shall be obliged to make sure of you here and now; and
remembering what you are, I’d about as soon do it as not.”
The man at bay fought the fear back out of the telltale eyes and tried
to laugh hardily.
“You are a pretty smooth talker, George, but you can’t bluff me. I
don’t know just what you are driving at, but I do happen to know that
you don’t care to get your name in the papers just now. All the same,
I’m willing to oblige you--for a consideration.”
“How much?” asked Brant, still balancing the weapon.
“A hundred, say, in money, and that little package of papers you took
the trouble to have sworn out against me up in Taggett’s Gulch.”
Brant considered it for a moment, and the man at bay began to have
a dim premonition that he had gone too far; that his life hung in
the balance while he waited. The terror of it grew with the lagging
seconds, and he had opened his mouth to withdraw the condition when
Brant spoke again:
“You know very well that I don’t have to make terms with you, but you
shall have the money. The papers I keep. Now go and get the boy, and
don’t make any bad breaks. If you do, I shall shoot first and talk
afterward.”
Harding drew breath of relief and re-entered the kennel with Brant at
his heels. Inside the swing doors the latter gave another order.
“Go on and get your man; I’ll wait here while you are doing it.”
When Harding was about it Brant turned to the bartender. “Here is your
gun, Tom; much obliged. And, while I think of it, I’ll turn over the
Professor’s arsenal. You can give it back to him when he calls for it.”
A murderous-looking knife, a life preserver, and a set of brass
knuckles changed hands, and Deverney swept them into a drawer with an
exclamation of surprise.
“Holy Smut! And he let you catch him without his gun!” he said.
“Not much,” rejoined Brant pleasantly. “But I shall keep that for a
little while. I am not through with him yet. And say, Tom, that reminds
me: if that youngster ever comes back here, just pull that ‘No Minors
Allowed’ sign on him and run him out. You won’t lose anything, because
he will have no money to blow in.”
“I’ll do it--for you, George. But the Professor will run him in again.”
“I shall make it my business to see that he doesn’t,” Brant asserted;
and just then Harding came up with young Langford.
“Hello, Brant,” said the cub, with a free-and-easy swagger born of the
place rather than of his temperament. “By gad, I didn’t know you were a
sporting man! Shake hands with my friend Mr. Harding.”
Brant scowled, but the boy saw nothing and rattled on: “Going home
early to-night. What will you take, gentlemen? It’s on me.”
“Nothing,” said Brant shortly; and Harding drew the boy away.
The pair left the place and went up the street, with Brant a few steps
in the rear. At the corner a night-owl carriage was waiting for a
chance fare, and Harding opened the door and got in with his companion.
At the click of the door latch Brant climbed to a seat beside the
driver and gave the order.
“No. 16 Altamont Terrace,” he said; and when the horses were fairly
headed for North Denver he lighted a cigar and ventured to anticipate
success.
But the triumph was short-lived. While the carriage was yet rumbling
over the viaduct the little upflash of triumph flickered and went out.
For, however worthy the cause in which he had fought and won, it was
Brant the man of violence, and no repentant sinner of them all, who had
done the fighting. For the time being he had lapsed as thoroughly as
if the new leaf had never been turned, and the dregs of that cup were
bitter.