and Jim saw each other, they agreed that they'd be tee-totally chawed
up! After a time the stage moved doubtfully on toward Copper Creek.
Billy and Jim went the other way in the buckboard.
Billy explained that he was going to see Jim; and Jim explained that he
had come to get Billy. Billy elaborated on the tale of his doings
since their last meeting, and easily persuaded Jim, as well as himself,
that he was a most wronged individual. To restore his self-respect it
only needed a sympathetic listener, so that he could hear the sound of
his own voice. For the moment he had doubted himself. Now he saw
plainly that he had been misled by false pretences. If he had
understood clearly from the beginning the picayune policy expected of
him by these stingy Easterners, he would have graduated his scale of
expenditures to suit it; but certainly they had implied at least that
they intended to get up a good big mine. Served a man right for going
in with such sharpers!
Jim merely said that he had a first-rate thing to share with Billy.
It was a pleasant sight, the bearded solemn miner, fairly glowing with
pleasure over finding Billy unfortunate and therefore open to his own
kind offices; the eager-faced enthusiastic promoter, elated and
high-spirited because of the relief of putting quite behind him a
colossal failure; because of the privilege of starting again with a
clean slate; because of a hundred new and promising schemes for the
future. Michail Lafond's long planning had availed little, after all.
With all his shrewdness he did not see that in the personality of Billy
Knapp he was attempting to quench the essence of enthusiasm and hope
and faith--inextinguishable fires. That is the American frontiersman.
At Rapid they took the train to Crooked Horn. At Crooked Horn they
reclaimed the horse from Billy Powers. Then they inaugurated the boom.
At this very day, December 24th, 1899, they are still living together
in the new town of Knapp City, Wyoming, wealthy and respected citizens.
And Billy recounts his Copper Creek experiences, generally with
tolerance, as an example of the deceit of his fellow-creatures. They
were the fruit of eighteen years of planning and waiting and working by
a man who thought he could shape greater destinies than his own.
XXXIV
LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED
After the vociferating group had made Houston comfortable with the
bandages and rough surgery of the frontier, it again took up the
discussion of ways and means. It was a tired crowd, haggard from
dissipation and want of sleep. And then, too, it was a cross crowd.
A majority were savage. Their passions were aroused to an unreasoning
pitch, as is the manner of mobs. To them it was not a question of
discussion, but of destruction. They wanted to burn the Company's
buildings, and they were so set on it, and so impatient of even a word
of opposition, that Lafond began to be a little frightened for his new
property. His attempts at dissuasion were everywhere met with rebuff.
Finally, on a sudden inspiration, he sprang to his own window ledge and
signed his desire to speak.
Such men as Moroney, Kelly, Graham, and Williams, cooler heads, whose
stake in the camp's fate was still heavy, succeeded in obtaining a
momentary silence.
"Boys," shouted Mike, "I'll pay you myself!"
They paused in good earnest now, to see what these astounding words
might signify.
"I'll pay you myself!" repeated Lafond. Then--for he was too shrewd to
promise a thing of such moment without giving a plausible reason for
it--he went on, "I can't afford to let this camp bust; I got too much
in it. I can afford better that I spend a little to help it along. I
don't know what it is that the Company intends; but I will find out;
and this I promise to you, if the Company does not pay you, I will make
some arrangement for the mine and I will pay you myself!"
Even Graham and Moroney were a little deceived. Both perceived dimly
an ulterior motive, but on the surface the offer was generous and there
could be no doubt that Lafond's word was perfectly good in such a
matter. As for the men, they were more than satisfied.
"But of course," Lafond was saying, "you must not do any injury to the
property."
Which went without saying, as every one could see.
Michail Lafond ate his breakfast with many long pauses. He had little
appetite. His plans had gone well, and yet in their outcome rested a
little remnant of the indecisive that annoyed him out of all
proportion. Billy had been discharged from his position as
superintendent and driven from camp, yet his exit had been
melodramatically brilliant and had somehow done much to leave his
memory in good odor. He, Lafond, had the promise of the property; but
even yet the deeds were in escrow at Rapid. It was forty-five miles to
Rapid--ten hours! Much might happen in ten hours. At the thought,
which Lafond instinctively paused to note was not in his usual
confident manner, he started up and commanded Frosty to harness his
team of bays to the buckboard. He would complete the contract before
sunset. While the animals were being harnessed, he tried to smoke a
pipe. It went out. He attempted to read a paper. He could not.
Finally he went out of doors and strode rapidly up and down. He felt
chilled, for the air of the early morning was sharp. He thrust his arm
through the open window and took down his old canvas coat from behind
the door, and put it on. In spite of its protection he shivered again.
"Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!" he growled at Frosty. He snapped the
lash of his black-snake whip, making the bays dance to the hindrance of
Frosty's task. His eye caught the new dance hall.
"She's been worth while, if she never does another thing," he commented
to himself, and then realized that he had said it, not because he
believed it, but because he wanted to keep his courage up. What was
this dread of the intangible? He could not understand it. "Getting
too old to sit up all night," he explained it to himself.
His thoughts went back to the night. It had left with him an
impression of being unsatisfactory. Why should it? There was
something about the girl, he did not recall exactly what. Oh yes,
Cheyenne Harry! That affair had balked. Well, it did not much matter:
that was a detail. Now that the dance hall was up, the girl could be
forced to take her place. Lafond told himself that he was a little
tired of finesse and delicate planning--too tired to undertake another
long campaign of the kind merely for the satisfaction to be found in
the process. Besides, in this case it was not necessary. He would
settle the affair now, get it off his mind.
He strode over to the girl's shack and pushed open the door. She was
lying flat on her face, fully dressed as in her first transport of
shame, but she had now fallen into a light sleep. At the creak of the
door, however, she looked up, her eyes red with crying.
"That was a hell of a performance last night," said Lafond brutally,
"and it don't go again."
He had never spoken to her so before.
She sat upright on the bed and stared at him, clasping one hand near
her throat.
"That ain't what you're here for," continued Mike. "There'll be
another dance Saturday night, and you be on hand and stay on hand.
That's your job now--understand?"
A slow comprehension of his meaning crept into her eyes, and she
covered them with her hands. The halfbreed stood in the doorway
coiling and uncoiling the lash of his whip. He wanted some indication
of how she was going to take it.
"Understand?" he repeated.
She merely shuddered.
"Damn it! can't you answer?" he cried impatiently. "What do you think
I've raised you for anyway? You're none of my breed. Answer,
you----," and he spat out an epithet.
She lowered her hands and looked at him again with wide-open eyes from
which all expression had faded. This stony silence irritated Lafond.
"You've had your head long enough. Now you're going to show what
you're made for. Understand? Great God!" he cried, "you've got a
tongue, haven't you? Why don't you answer when I ask you a question?"
In one of the sudden Latin gusts of passion, which generally he held so
well in control, Lafond lashed her across the breast with his
black-snake whip. Almost before the impulse had quitted his brain he
regretted it, for her scream would bring out the camp, and Lafond could
see the awkwardness of an explanation. It was better to break her in
gradually. To his relief, she did not cry out, but merely shivered
pitifully and closed her eyes.
"That's what you'll get if you don't toe the mark," threatened Lafond,
only too glad to avoid a scene. He slouched out of the door, climbed
into his light wagon shaking his heavy head sullenly, and drove away in
the direction of Rapid.
After he had gone and the sound of his wheels had died away, the girl
arose staggeringly from her bed. The bright world had crumbled. For
the first time in her young existence her thoughts turned to the vague
conception of a higher Being which she had built, Heaven knows how,
from materials gathered, Heaven knows where.
"God, God, God!" she cried, "I thought this was a happy world where
people laughed. I did not know there was so much sorrow in the world.
You did not make the world to be sorrowful, did you, God?"
She was almost blind. She knew that she must kill herself: that alone
was clear. It was that or the dance hall. She was to be like Bismarck
Anne. And she realized in a moment that she knew Black Mike, his iron
will and his cruel heart; and she was afraid of him, deadly afraid.
She began to grope about the room. There was a dim square: that must
be the window. Her hands passed fumblingly over the table, just
missing the long sewing scissors. Nothing there. Quick, quick, he
might come back! She almost fell over the cloak, which had fallen to
the floor, and was now entangled about her feet. There was another
square of light: it must be the door. She stumbled out into a glare of
merciless sunshine that filled her brain and beat on the walls of her
understanding until she covered her eyes, and still stumbled on. She
thought she heard men shouting. She was not sure.
From his work of sweeping out the stale saloon, Frosty had seen her.
She was a strange sight, her hair half down, her face white and drawn,
her step so uncertain. Frosty was very fond of her in his stupid
silent way. He yelled and ran toward her.
In this day of excitement, a cry brought a dozen heads to a dozen
windows and doors. In a moment the girl was surrounded. The men were
puzzled. "Plain case of bug-juice," said one, a little sorrowfully.
She felt someone trying gently to lead her somewhere, but she resisted,
crying "Let me go, let me go. I want to get to the big rock."
Graham pushed his way anxiously into the group. He had not been able
to bring himself to attend the dance the evening before, but he had
been told the details, and up to now had felt rather relieved than
otherwise at the turn affairs had taken.
"Why do you want to go to the big rock, Molly?" he asked gently.
At the sound of his voice she began to cry a little. "It is so high up
there, so high," she said over and over.
"Of course it's high, Molly, very high; but don't you think you'd
better wait until to-morrow?"
The men stood about with awe-stricken faces. They saw now that there
was more in this than they had at first supposed. "Nutty," they
whispered to each other in undertones.
"Such a long way down, a long way down," went on the girl. "I could
jump from there very easily; such a long way down!"
Graham took her quietly by the shoulders.
"Listen, Molly, it's I, Jack Graham."
"Yes, Jack."
"And I want you to do just as I say. Will you do it?"
"Yes, Jack."
"I want you to go with me. Do you trust me, Molly?"
She began to sob violently, almost convulsively, dabbing uncertainly at
her eyes.
"What is it, Jack? What am I doing here?"
"Nothing; it's all right. Will you come with me? Ah, that's better."
She looked about her with intelligence.
"What is it, boys? How did I come here?" Her glance wandered past
them to the dance hall, and she turned away suddenly. "Ah! I
remember!" The strained look began to come back into her face.
"Here, here, Molly!" cried Graham in alarm, "that won't do! Here, you
must do just exactly as I say. You must come with me now, and get
something to eat and some sleep. Don't you trust me, Molly?"
He looked steadily into her eyes, his brow contorted with anxiety.
"Oh, Jack, Jack," she cried suddenly, "whom else could I trust but you?
You have been the only man whom I could have trusted from the very
first, the only man I should have trusted. I see that now. I have
known it all the while, but I would not acknowledge it."
"Will you go with me then, Molly?" asked Graham again.
This time it was she who raised her hands to his shoulders. "Jack,"
said she solemnly, "a few minutes ago I was on the point of killing
myself because I saw nothing but death or that dance hall before me. I
had forgotten. I will never do so again. I will go with you now,
Jack, wherever you want me to; and I will go with you, Jack, forever,
to the end of the world."
She leaned suddenly forward and kissed him, and then as suddenly fell
to weeping again, with great sobs that shook her slender body cruelly.
Never was a stranger love scene; never was one more in keeping with the
wayward, capricious, yet intrinsically sterling character of Molly
Lafond. She did not understand it; but she felt to her inmost soul
that it was real; and that if she did not love Jack Graham now, at
least she respected him above all men and above herself, and that her
affection for him would never diminish, but rather increase as the time
went on. And this the event proved to be true. Nor did Graham
understand, but he too felt the sincerity of it. As for the men before
whose audience the curious drama had been enacted, they understood
still less.
But it was very simple after all.
In her nature, as in all other natures, two forces had struggled for
the mastery. With her they happened to be called heredity, or the
East; and education, or the West. Her training, her environment, her
mental atmosphere had powerfully affected her general conduct of life;
but in the great crisis her deeper nature had spoken, and she had
obeyed.
XXXV
OUT OF THE PAST
Michail Lafond drove on slowly down the valley of Copper Creek,
although, if he intended to reach Rapid before dark, there would seem
to be every reason for haste.
He usually conducted his affairs so carefully, so shrewdly, so
calculatingly. How had he happened to give way so to an impulse? He
regretted lashing the girl with his whip, because he felt that it was
unnecessary. Doing unnecessary evil had always been against Lafond's
principles. He considered it bad luck, and somehow that spectre of bad
luck seemed to be coming very close. He had lost confidence.
Therefore he made mistakes.
Just outside of town he encountered Blair's stage crawling along on a
mended axle. Naturally both vehicles pulled up. After explanations of
the accident, Blair remarked casually--
"Struck Billy down the road a piece."
"Yes," said Mike, "he left this morning."
"Almighty lucky happen-so for him, 'cause I had an old codger aboard
that was just on his way to visit Billy. Nice old cuss, too. Name
Buckley, or Bulkley, or something like that. Come from out Wyoming
way."
Lafond clamped on his brake again.
"Yes," said he, "I used to know him. He went off with Billy, you say?"
"Yes, bag _an'_ baggage."
"Goin' to Rapid?"
"Near as I could make out," said Blair. "They reversed the proposition
on the spot. Place of him a visitin' of Billy, Billy he aims to visit
him. Things movin' at camp?"
"They'll tell you up there," replied Lafond and drove on.
What a fiendish stroke of luck! This one man in all the West who knew
of the affair at Spanish Gulch in the seventies, who would remember the
doctor's wife, who would recognize the strong resemblance of her
daughter to her, who might stir up that dust of the past which Lafond
had so carefully laid--that he should come just at this time! To be
sure, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to implicate him--Lafond.
But Buckley was a tenacious sort of individual; he would insist on
investigating. That would mean explanations by Lafond, a detailed
account. The details would have to be invented. And then a chill
struck his heart as he realized that he could not recall all the story
he had told the Indian agent when he had left the little girl in his
charge!
He pulled his horses down to a walk and set himself to thinking
earnestly. He went over in sequence, as nearly as he could remember
them, every word and action, from his meeting with Durand to his
departure from the agency. It was no use. Even at the time, he had
invented the story lightly, without much thought of its importance
except as a temporary expedient. Now the matter had quite escaped him.
Jim Buckley's return West, which had before seemed merely fortunate, he
saw now had been providential. It was a narrow escape. He must visit
the agent as soon as possible, for the purpose of refreshing his memory.
He came to Durand's cabin. The old man stood near the doorway
examining something which he held flat in the palm of his hand. At his
feet, Jacques, the little raccoon, was curled up in a bright-eyed ball
of fur, enjoying the early sun. Out behind the cabin, Isabeau, the
tasselled lynx, stepped lightly to and fro along the length of his
chain; and the great Pantalon sat drolly on his shaggy haunches
sniffing the air. Lafond stopped. He felt he must talk to some one or
give way to this incomprehensible impulse to shriek aloud.
They exchanged greetings. At once Lafond saw something suspicious in
the old man's attitude. He was preternaturally grave. He seemed to be
thinking of something behind his actual speech.
"I've something to show you, Lafond," he remarked after a little.
"It's very queer," and with what Lafond saw at once to be an accusing
motion he held before the latter's eyes the little ivory miniature of
Prue Welch.
He had found it under a _mesquite_ bush. Ever since he had been
struggling vainly to place the familiarity of the features. He had not
seen enough of the girl at the camp to be able to do so definitely, but
he had succeeded in bringing his mind almost to the point of a
recognition which was continually just escaping him.
Lafond started violently, and stared at the portrait.
"Why, what's the matter?" cried Durand. "You look as though you'd seen
a ghost!"
On the instant Lafond recovered his self-possession. He glanced with
side-long evil look at the old man.
"Nothing," said he briefly.
It was evident that the naturalist was trying to trap him.
"Where have you seen her before?" asked the latter, returning to the
portrait. "She is old-fashioned--must have had that painted fifteen or
twenty years ago--and yet I've seen her recently."
Lafond stiffly descended from the vehicle, both hands thrust deep into
the pockets of his canvas coat, and peered over the old man's shoulder.
"Here, Lafond," the latter was saying, "you know more about this than I
do----" He meant that the half-breed possessed a wider circle of
acquaintances. At his words Lafond drew an ivory-handled clasp-knife
from the pocket of his canvas coat, opened it in two lightning motions
and stabbed the old man deeply in the back. The latter stumbled
forward, half turning as he fell. Lafond plunged his blade wickedly
into Durand's throat, where it stuck, twisting out of the murderer's
hands. The victim writhed twice, gasped, and died.
Black Mike stood over the body for a moment, panting. He stooped to
recover the knife. On its ivory handle he read the words "William
Knapp," on which he remembered, and left it where it was. Then he
climbed into his wagon and insanely lashed his horses into a frantic
run.
The little furry 'coon approached its master bristling. It dabbled its
black paws, almost human, in the blood that stood on the threshold, and
then, frothing at the muzzle, it scrambled into the house and up a high
bookshelf, where it crouched, its eyes like coals of green fire.
On the hillside opposite a white-faced little boy rose from behind a
mesquite clasping the neck of a homely dog. He ran at once to town,
where he burst in on Moroney, crying, "Pop, pop, Black Mike's gone and
killed old Bugchaser with a knife," after which he began to cry
hysterically. It took time for the camp to arouse, to dress, to hear
the tale, to believe, to visit the scene of the deed, to believe again
after finding Billy's knife, to discuss, to decide, and finally to
saddle horses and depart, puzzled, on the trail of Lafond. It had a
rope. But it also wanted to hear more about it. Therefore its speed
was not as rapid as it might have been, had a horse thief, for
instance, been the object of pursuit.
So Lafond, after his first impulse to get away from the scene of his
deed had spent itself, jogged along unmolested toward Rapid. His brain
was working like lightning, but always on one line. He saw himself
alone, standing opposed to this huge black Bad-luck. Everything was
against him. But they couldn't get him down. He was
Man-who-speaks-Medicine, the Sioux; he was Lafond, the half-breed; he
was Black Mike, the pioneer. Let them come on! They thought they
could corner him. He would show them. One was gone. There remained
the other two. Lafond's mind saw red; he was set on murder. No
consideration of reason, probability, or common sense obtruded itself
athwart his plan. He could perceive one fact--that three men knew his
secret, of whom one was dead and the other two were living. Why Knapp
and Buckley should have told Durand; what they expected to gain by
going to Rapid; or what benefit the naturalist imagined could accrue to
him from his insinuating the state of affairs to the half-breed, the
latter did not inquire. He only knew that he wanted to catch Knapp's
buckboard before it had left the pine belt. Ambush would then be
easier. He lashed his horses unmercifully.
Rockerville told him the two men had passed through not half an hour
before, and wondered at the wildness of his eye.
That was well. They could not escape him now, for their wagon was
heavily loaded, and they were travelling leisurely, having no reason
for haste. Remembering appearances, he told Rockerville that it did
not much matter, he would not try to catch up; and then drove back
toward Copper Creek, only to make a detour by a wood road into the
Rapid trail again. As he approached the foothills, he could hear
occasionally the creak of a brake below him, by which he knew that he
was drawing near. He slowed up at once, for he knew of a short cut a
mile or so ahead, which the prospectors would not attempt because of
their heavy load, but by which he could come out ahead of his victims.
Then he would lie in wait. The short cut in question dipped steeply
down into the bed of a creek, and as steeply up on the other side;
while the main stage-road made a long horseshoe curve around the head
of the canyon. Lafond decided to drive rapidly down, to leave his team
in the creek bottom, and to climb on foot to the level of the main road
on the other side. In the meantime he drew as near to the other wagon
as he could without being seen. The minutes seemed to drag.
At last he discerned the dimly blazed trail, rocky and dangerous
enough, which dropped sheer away into the underbrush below. He locked
the brakes and turned sharply down to the right. The descent was
hazardous, bumpy, exceedingly noisy. For this reason, it was not until
he had reached the level ground at the bottom of the canyon and the
clash of iron tire against stone had ceased, that he became aware the
ravine was already occupied. A sound of voices and laughter floated up
through the thin screen of leaves. As the half-breed's vehicle pushed
out toward the creek itself, he saw that he had unwittingly stumbled on
a camp of Indians up in the Hills on one of their annual jaunts after
teepee poles.
Once a year they make these excursions. The whole band--men, women,
children, ponies, dogs, and household goods--goes along. It is an
outing. The women fell and strip the long slender saplings. The men
loaf lazily in front of their temporary shelters or ride about the
Hills to the various camps, giving war dances for nickels and silver
pieces. The occasion is eminently peaceful.