"And a gentleman never forces anyone to take liquor when he does not
want to, never forces anyone to disclose his history when he does not
want to. The gentleman says to himself, in the first instance, 'there is
all the more for myself.' In the second case he knows that his own past
might scarcely bear scrutiny. Ah well! As we are all gentlemen here I
know that with perfect reliance in you I can say that I had rather not
speak about Farrell and his gang."
There was a slight murmur at this.
"There are men of the gang still in the territory. As you are now aware,
it was they who came to you with a cock-and-bull story about me. In
your desire to further law and order in this progressive Baker City you
rightly decided that I must pay the penalty for the deed you believed
that I had done."
He paused a moment and then continued in another tone:
"Now there is nothing I regret more than the sad death of Mr. Pinkerton.
He was a man we all honoured and respected. I am glad you do not now
believe that I was his slayer. With those who raised that calumny
against me--should I meet them--I will deal as seems fit to me."
A great cheer followed this.
Apache Kid cleared his throat.
"Men of Baker City!" he cried, "I wish, finally, to thank you for this
so exuberant expression of your regret that you believed me guilty."
They took this better than I expected. A cheer in which you heard an
undercurrent of rich laughter filled the street and drowned his last
words:
"I bear you no ill will."
He bowed, backed from the balcony-rail into the saloon, touched me on
the arm where I stood by the door, and before those who had followed us
in well knew what we were about, we had run through the sitting-room
that gave out on that balcony, gained the rear of the house, and were
posting back to the jail by the rear street.
But there, relieved at last of the anxiety that had held me together all
the way from the Lost Cabin Mine, knowing now that my friend was safe,
all the vigour seemed to leave me.
My memory harked back to the nights in the forests on the hillsides, to
the attack upon us on the shoulder of Baker Ridge, to the mud-slide, to
the night of Canlan's madness, and the previous night of his onslaught
on our camp. Larry Donoghue loomed in my mind's eye, large-framed,
loose-limbed, heavy-mouthed. Again I saw the summit over which we
passed, the Doreesque ravines and piled rocks, the forest trail, the
valley where Mr. Pinkerton lay, on the cliff of which I had faced the
terrors of the snake. I saw the Indians trooping at the ford, the dead
men lying in the wood at Camp Kettle, the red-headed man in the Rest
House, the loathsome "drummer" at the Half-Way House,--and all the while
the sheriff's voice was in my ears and sometimes Apache's replying.
My brain was in a whirl, and I heard the sheriff say:
"That boy is sick looking."
He said it in a kind, reassuring voice, and I knew that I was in the
home of friends, and need no longer keep alert and watchful and fearful.
My chin went down upon my breast.
I had a faint recollection of fiery spirits being poured down my throat,
and then of being caught by the arm-pits and lifted and held for awhile,
and of voices whispering and consulting around me. Then I felt the air
in my face, and came round sufficiently to know I was in the street, and
the dim ovals of faces turned on me, following me as I was hurried
forward at what seemed a terrible speed, and then I opened my eyes to
find myself in a room with the blind down at the open window.
It was night time, for the room was in darkness, and I lay looking at a
thin cut in the yellow blind, a cut of about three inches long, through
which the moonlight filtered; and as I looked at it I saw it begin to
move with a wriggling motion, and even as I looked on it it stretched
upward and downward from either end. At the top ran out suddenly two
horizontal cuts, the lower end split in two, and ran out left and right,
and then it all turned into the form of a man like a jumping-jack, with
twitching legs and waving arms. A head grew out of it next, and rolled
from side to side; it was the figure of Mike Canlan. I turned my head on
the pillow and groaned.
"Heavens!" I cried, "I am haunted yet by this."
And then a great number of voices began whispering in a corner of the
chamber. I cried out in terror, and then the door opened and a woman
entered, carrying a candle, shaded with one hand, the light of it
striking upon her freckled face and yellow hair.
It was Mrs. Laughlin, and she sat down by me and took my hand, feeling
my pulse, and ran her rough palm across my brow. She may have been a
belligerent woman, and had many "tiffs" with her husband, but I cannot
tell you how soothing was her rough touch to me then,--rough, but
extremely kind.
The whisperings kept on, but very faint now,--fainter and fainter in my
ears like far echoes, and, holding her bony hand, I fell asleep.
The fever of the mountains, the weariness of the way, the fear of
pursuit, the smell of powder, and the sight of dead men's eyes,--all
these I had braced myself against. But now I steeled myself no longer.
Now I rested, I, who had feared much and yet been strong (which I have
heard persons say is the greatest form of bravery,--the coward's
bravery), I rested fearless, clinging to this worn woman's hand.
*CHAPTER XXVII*
_*The Beginning of the End*_
I feel somehow that I have to apologise for "giving in" that way. I
should have liked to figure before you like a cast-iron hero. But when
I set out to tell you this story I made up my mind to tell the truth
about all those concerned in it--myself included.
I could not understand how Apache Kid kept so fresh through it all.
But, of course, you remember what he told me of his life, and he was, as
the saying is, "hard as nails." Yet he avoided commiserating me on my
condition, being a man quick enough to understand that I resented this
break-down. He even went the length of telling me, as he sat in my
room, that he felt "mighty rocky after that trip," himself. And when
the doctor pronounced that I might get up, he told me that I was getting
off very easily.
On two points I had to question Apache Kid and his answers to my
questions gave me a further insight into his character. The first of
these matters was regarding the wealth we had brought with us from the
Lost Cabin Mine.
"I have done nothing about it yet," said he. "I thought it advisable
for us to go together to the bank."