"Then you have no idea what it amounts to yet?" I asked.
"No," said he. "You know it will neither increase nor diminish with
waiting."
"But why did you wait?"
"O," he said lightly, "if a man cannot wait for his partner getting
well, and do the thing ship-shape, he must be very impatient."
"You don't seem anxious, even, to know what you are really worth."
"I fear not," said he. "O, man, can't you see that once we know, to a
five-cent piece, what all that loot is worth, we are through with the
adventure and there's no more fun to be had? I'm never happy when I get
a thing. It's in the hunting that I find relief."
But there fell a shadow on his face then.
I asked him if Miss Pinkerton was still in Baker City. I declare, he
blushed at the very mention of her name. I could see the red tinge the
brown of his cheeks.
I often wondered, when Apache Kid spoke, just what he was really
thinking. He did not always say what he thought, or believe what he
said. He had a way, too, of giving turns to his phrases that might have
given him a name for a hardness that was not really his.
"O," he said, "she heard that you were ill and wanted to come and look
after you, but you were babbling not just of green fields, exactly--you
were babbling of Hell--and I can never get over a foolish idea that
early in youth was pumped into me that women do not know about Hell and
should not know. I thought it advisable to prevent her coming to see
you--and hear you."
I felt my own cheeks tingle to think that I had been raving such ravings
as he hinted at.
"And did Mrs. Laughlin----" I began.
But Mrs. Laughlin herself replied, coming quietly into the room.
"Yes, yes," she said, and laughed. "Mrs. Laughlin heerd it all," and
then she turned on Apache Kid. "And Mrs. Laughlin was none the worse o'
hearing it, Apache Kid," she said, "not because she 's old, but because
in gettin' up in years she 's learnt how to weigh things and know the
good from the bad, even though the good does look bad. Oh! I know what
you are thinking right now," she interrupted herself. "You 're thinkin'
you might remark I don't have no call to talk 'cause I heerd you talkin'
just now without you knowin'----"
"Madam----" began Apache Kid, in a courteous voice, but she would not
permit him to speak.
"I was coming along in my stocking soles, in case the lad was sleeping,"
and she plucked up her dress to disclose her stockinged feet, "and I
heerd by accident what you was talkin'. And I 'm going to tell you, Mr.
Apache Kid, that you 're a deal better a man than you pretend."
It was, to me, an unlooked-for comment, for her manner was almost
belligerent.
"You had it pumped into you, you says! O! An old woman like me
understands men well. It's you sarcastic fellows, you would-be
sarcastic fellows, that have the kind, good hearts. And you talk that
way to kind of protect them."
I saw Apache Kid knitting his brows; but, as for me, I do not know
enough of human nature to profess to understand all that this wise woman
spoke.
"Take you care, Apache Kid," she said, and shook her finger at him, and
even on her finger, as I noticed, there were freckles, and on the back
of her hand. "Take you care that you don't get to delude yourself into
hardness, same as you delude men into thinking you a dangerous sort o'
fellow--a kind of enigma man."
"I am afraid I don't follow you," said Apache Kid.
"But you do follow me," she said. "All you want to do is to let
yourself go--let that bit of yourself go and have its way--that bit that
you always make the other half of you sit and jeer at!"
She paused, and then shaking her finger again remarked solemnly:
"Or you 'll maybe find that the good, likeable half o' you ain't a half
no longer, only a quarter, dwindled down to a quarter, and the half of
you that puts up this bluff in the face of men becomes three-quarter
then. I 'm thinking I would n't like you so good then, Apache Kid! Not
but what I 'd be----" she hesitated, "sorry for you like," she said.
"To win your sorrow, Mrs. Laughlin," said he, looking on her solemnly,
"would be a desirable thing."
She gazed at him a long while, and to my utter astonishment, for I did
not quite understand all this, there were tears in her eyes when she
said, as to herself, "Yes, you mean that."
She sighed, and then said she: "What you need is to settle down with a
good, square, honest girl. If I was younger like myself----" she broke
off merrily.
Apache Kid looked her in the face with interested eyes.
"I wish I knew just what you were like, just how you spoke and acted
when you were--in the position you have suggested as desirable."
"Would you have had me?" she said.
"I would perhaps have failed to know you possessed all these qualities
you do, for you would never have shown them to me."
"Would I not?" said she. "Well, I show myself now; and if you object to
young girls not showing their real selves, you begin and set 'em the
example. You go down to the Half-Way House and show that Miss Pinkerton
your real self, and----"
"Mrs. Laughlin!" he said. "I would not have expected this----"
"Why!" she cried, "I'm old enough to be your grandmother. Well, well!
I see the lad is all right; that's what I came up for, so I 'll get away
down again."
"Laughlin has certainly a jewel of a wife," said Apache Kid, after she
departed, and that was all on the matter.
Miss Pinkerton herself was not mentioned again by either of us, and the
other subject of our talk we settled two days later, when I, having "got
to my legs" again on the day following that chat, accompanied Apache Kid
to the jail where the sheriff unlocked the safe for us and gave us our
property, which he had in keeping.
The horse, I heard then, had been returned to the livery stable from
which Canlan had hired it.
All that the sheriff had to say on the matter of our property was to the
effect that though two of the Lost Cabin owners had been often enough
known to say that they had no living relative, the other--Jackson--was
supposed to have a sister living.
"If you want to do the square thing," said he, "you ought to advertise
for her."
Apache turned to me.
"I forgot that," said he; "I forgot to tell you," and he drew a
newspaper from his pocket. "Don't you get the 'Tribune,' Sheriff!"
He opened the paper and pointed to his announcement for relatives of J.
E. Jackson.
"I have put it in this local rag," said he, "and a similar one in a
dozen leading papers over the States, and in three of the smaller papers
in his own State. I heard he was an Ohio man."
The sheriff held out his hand.
"I once reckoned," said he, "that we 'd be ornamenting a telegraph pole
in Baker City with you, but now I reckon we will see you sheriff of
Carson City, sure."
Apache Kid took the proffered hand and shook it; but he showed me deeper
into himself again when he said in a dry voice:
"I don't think, Sheriff, that there will be any real need for you to
congratulate me any oftener than you have done already, on finding out
further mistakes you have made in your attempts to discover my real
character."
And so saying we went out; and as I shook the sheriff's hand I noticed
that he took mine absently. I think he was pondering what my friend had
said.
"One grows weary of patronage," said Apache Kid to me as we plodded
along the deserted streets to the bank.
"Deserted streets?" you say. Yes, deserted. For an "excitement" had
sprung up at Tremont during my ten days in bed. As we passed the hotels
on our way to the bank, the hotels that had always been thronged and
full of voices, the doors always on the swing, we saw now on the
verandah of each of them one solitary man, with chair tilted back and
feet in the rail. These were the worthy proprietors, each figuring on
the chances of Baker City booming again, each wondering if he should
follow the rush.
As we passed the corner of the street in which "Blaine's joint" had
stood, I noticed above the door and window a strip of wood less
sun-scorched than the rest. That was where the famous canvas sign had
been, rolled up now and carted off with the coffee-urn to this other
"city" that had depopulated Baker City. The stores, of course, were
still open; for the city which is centre for five paying mines can never
die. It may not always _boom_, with megaphones in every window and
cigar smoke curling in the streets, but it will not _languish_.
Still, it was not the Baker City that I knew of yore, and as we entered
the door of the bank, carrying our bullion, it struck me that the
stage-setting was just in keeping with the part we played; for as Apache
Kid had said--when we knew our wealth the adventure would be over. This
was the last Act, Scene I. And I felt a quiver in my heart when the
thought intruded itself, even then, that Scene II (and last) would be a
farewell to Apache Kid.
Slowly the teller in the bank weighed out our nuggets, scanning us
between each weighing over his gold-rimmed glasses and noting down the
amounts on his writing pad.
"Grand total," said he, and paused to awaken the thrill of suspense,
"forty thousand dollars."
"Forty thousand dollars," thought I, "and fifteen hundred in notes, that
makes forty-one thousand five hundred."
"A mere flea-bite," Apache said.
"I beg your pardon?" said the teller, astonished.
"A mere flea-bite," repeated Apache Kid. "Look at that," and he held up
a turquoise in his fingers. "Don't you think a man would give forty-one
thousand five hundred for a bagful of these?"
"A bagful?" said the teller.
Apache nodded.
"Do you wish to dispose of some of these, too?" the teller asked.
"No, thanks," said Apache Kid. "They go to an eastern market."
"An eastern market!" Did that mean that Apache Kid was going east? Was
I to have his company home? Home I myself was going. But he--as I
looked at his brown face, the alert eyes puckered at the side with long
life in the sunshine, the lips close with much daring (and I think just
a little hard), the jaws firm with much endurance, and that
self-possessed bearing that one never sees in the civilised East, I knew
he was not going back East.
The tiny gold ear-rings might be removed, but the stamp of the man could
not; and men of that stamp are not seen in cities.
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
_*Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way
House to Kettle*_
You hear people talk of the _Autumn feeling in the air_. Well, the
Autumn feeling was in the air as we drove down through the rolling
foothills to the Half-Way House.
My farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin had touched me deeply. It was only
a word or two and a handshake, for when it comes to parting in the West,
there is never any effusion--partings there are so frequent that people
spare themselves the pain of them and make them brief. But
nevertheless, they sting.
There was sunlight, to be sure, all the way; but that Autumn feeling was
there. The sound of the wheels fell dead on the air, and we were all
moody and quiet. I got it into my head that I was soon to say farewell
to Apache Kid, and that forever. He was exceedingly thoughtful and
silent, and I wondered if he was meditating on the suggestion of Mrs.
Laughlin regarding the advisability of his settling down, asking Miss
Pinkerton for her hand, and becoming a respectable person.
Before we came in sight of the Half-Way House we heard the dull rasp of
a saw, and then, topping the second last roll of the sandy hills and
swinging round the base of the last one, we went rocketing up to the
hotel. A man at the wood trestle, which stood at the gable-end,
straightened himself and looked up at our approach, and I saw that he
was the red-headed man who had "held up" Apache Kid at the Rest House on
our last journey.
Apache Kid's face went a trifle more thoughtful at sight of him, but
just then Miss Pinkerton appeared at the door to welcome us. But when
we alighted I detected something new in her manner toward us. What it
was I cannot exactly tell. Certainly she was just as demure, as
open-eyed, as natural as before. But she did not seem to require our
presence now for all that she welcomed us in a friendly way. There was
that in her manner that made me think she would bid us farewell just as
innocently and pleasantly, and straightway forget about us. Her welcome
seemed a duty.
"These are the two gentlemen I told you about, George," she said to the
red-headed man. "Mr. Brooks," she introduced, "but I don't know your
names, gentlemen, beyond just Apache Kid and Francis."
George nodded to us.
"I guess these names will serve," said he. "How do, gentlemen? Kind of
close this eve."
"It is, indeed," said Apache Kid. "The Summer is ended, the harvest is
past," he quoted.
"Yes," said George, "there is that feeling in the air, now."
"As if the end of all things was at hand," said Apache Kid.
He was looking George right in the eyes.
I thought something forbidding was in their exchange of glances, but
then of course I had seen them meet before in the peculiar circumstances
of which you know. Margaret, I think, saw nothing noteworthy (for all
she was a woman), but then, she did not know that these men were
acquainted; they gave no sign of that.
"You will want a wash before you eat," she said, ushering us in, and
George nodded, and, "See you later," said he.
Margaret attended to our wants herself when we sat down to table in the
fresh dining-room. But there was little said until the meal was over,
and she sat down beside us. Apache Kid seemed to be thinking hard.
"Well, Miss Pinkerton," he said at last, making bread pills on the table
and smoothing a few crumbs about in little mountain ridges and then
levelling them again. "You remember what we told you about Mr.
Pinkerton's last wishes for you?"
"Yes," she said, "I was telling George what pop had said."
Apache's eyebrows frowned a trifle, and then settled again.
"Yes?" he said, as though requesting an explanation of what she meant by
this; but she remained silent.
"O, I thought perhaps the gentleman had made some suggestion, when you
mentioned his name just now," said Apache Kid.
But she did not yet reply, and he went on again:
"Well, Miss Pinkerton, I may tell you that we failed to find any such
bonanza at the Lost Cabin as we had hoped for."
Margaret Pinkerton stiffened, and I glanced up to see her looking on
Apache's face with pin-points of eyes and a look on her face as though
she said: "So--you are a contemptible fellow, after all."
I think she had really admired Apache Kid before, but I surmised--a
third party, the one who looks on and does not talk, can surmise a great
deal--that, as the saying is, she had been _tampered with_. She had
heard tales against my friend, and now doubtless believed that she was
provided with proof that he was a rogue. The look on her face was as
though she were gaining confirmation.
"Excuse me interrupting," said George, in the doorway, "but I suppose
you have speciments o' this ore."
I expected Apache Kid either to ignore the interruption or to recognise
it with some sarcasm or flash of anger. Instead, he turned lightly to
the speaker.
"Ah!" he said, "I had not noticed you. So you are interested in----" he
paused, "in mines," he said.
Margaret stiffened, and George said easily:
"Well in this one I reckon I am."
"Ah yes," said Apache Kid. "There has been of course a lot of talk
about it. Yes, I have specimens."
He produced two pieces and handed them to George, and then turning to
Miss Pinkerton, he said:
"I was going to make a suggestion to you, Miss Pinkerton, remembering
your father's desire that we--remembering the desire he expressed to us,
I was going to make the suggestion, that, if it would not offend you,
you would accept-- May I speak before this gentleman?"
"Certainly," said she, coldly.
He bowed.
"I was going to suggest that you might allow me to transfer to your bank
the sum of--let me see--" and he took a paper from his pocket. It was
inconceivable that he had forgotten the amount, but he glanced at the
paper, and then looked up as though making a computation, but in so
doing looked both at the young woman and at George, who was leaning
against a neighbouring table. "The sum of twenty thousand, seven
hundred and forty dollars," said he.
There was no change on his face; he spoke as lightly of the sum as might
a Rockefeller, and his was the only face that remained immobile. But
then, of course, he was the only one who knew what was coming.
George stared with a look of doubt.
Margaret looked at Apache Kid keenly and then at George for a long
space, thoughtfully.
For me--I was thunderstruck. I gasped. I think I must have cried out
something (I know that what I thought was: "Why! This is your entire
share, apart from the turquoises,") for the three were all looking at me
then.
I knew besides that he had no money left, apart from our Lost Cabin
wealth; for he had told me so. Twenty thousand, seven hundred and fifty
had been his share of the gold and ten dollars of this he had paid
already for his seat in the stage. He was giving this girl all he had.
"It will not go very far," said Apache Kid, smiling. "It is, after all,
very little to offer, but I am in hopes that within a fortnight or so I
may be able to perhaps double the amount. I know," and now, if you
like, I could see the sneer creep on his face, "I know that women are
not mercenary and I must apologise for speaking of money matters. It
was not only money matters that were in Mr. Pinkerton's mind, I believe.
I believe it was your happiness that he was anxious about. I cannot
pretend to myself that I could ever, by offering you money, wipe out the
debt we owe him. I know that we were the cause of his death, though we
did not fire the fatal shot. Money, to my mind, could never recompense
for a life lost for others."
He looked up and saw Margaret's eyes fixed on him--and his eyes did not
remove. He gazed into hers unflinching, and as he looked hers filled
with tears. He had his head raised and she seemed to be looking clear
into his soul. Her face was very beautiful to see then.
How George took all this I do not know; for I was looking on the girl.
"O!" she said, her voice quavering. "O, I think you are just _all
right_."
Then she bowed her head and wept quietly to herself and as I could not
bear to see her thus and do nothing to console her, I very softly rose
to steal out. I knew myself a spectator, not an actor in this affair.
Out into the red-gold evening I went and looked across the brown,
rolling plain and Apache followed me and then George came after us and
said quietly to him:
"What game is this you are playing?"
Apache Kid turned to him. "Be guided," he said, "by a woman's
intuition. You saw that she knew I was playing no game."
And then he said very quietly: "Are you aware, George, that if I wished
I could steal her away from you?"
The breath sucked into George's nostrils in a series of little gasps and
came forth similarly.
"I believe you are a devil," he said. "And if it was n't for her, I 'd
finish our other little matter right now."
"We will let that rest--for her sake," said Apache Kid. "Still, tell
me, are you aware of that? Do you know that I am master here?"
George's face was pale under the sun-brown.
We were standing there in that fashion when there was a sound of slow
hoofs in the sand and three ponies came ploughing along the road, an
old, dry-faced Indian riding behind the string.
"You want to buy a horse?" he asked.
Apache Kid looked up.
"Well, we might trade," said he. "How much you want for them two, this
and that?"
"Heap cheap," said the Indian. "Ten dollah."
"For two?"
"No, ten dollah for one, ten dollah for one."
"It's a trade then," said Apache Kid. "Will you lend me twenty dollars,
Francis?"