"If they do come down after you," said she, "I 'll tell them----"
"Better tell them you did n't see us go away," interrupted Apache Kid.
"Better just don't see us go away--and then you 'll be able to speak the
truth. You won't know which way we went."
She seemed very sad at this, but George now returned with the saddles,
and we were soon ready for the way, our blankets strapped behind.
Margaret held up her hand.
"Good-bye," she said.
"Good-bye, Miss Pinkerton," said Apache Kid.
She stretched up and said: "You 're too good a man to be----" I lost
the rest, and, indeed, I was not meant to hear anything.
She shook hands with me.
"If ever you are in them parts again," she said, "don't forget us; but
you 'll have to ask for Mrs. Brooks then."
Apache was holding out his hand to George, who took it quickly, with
averted face.
"Good-bye, Mr. Brooks," said Apache Kid. "And, by the way, in case you
might think it worth while to have a look at that ore in place, I 've
left a map of your route to the mountain with Miss Pinkerton, and an
account of how you might strike it. You can tell the sheriff of Baker
you have it. He and Slim, that lean assistant of his, are the only men
who know about the lie of the land; the Indian tracker does n't count.
You can do what you like between you."
George seemed nonplussed.
"This," said he, "is real good of you, sir; but I don't know what you do
it for."
"O!" said Apache Kid. "I told you I had n't much faith in its value,
you remember."
"Yes, so you did," said George; but he seemed doubtful, and then
suddenly took Apache Kid's hand again and shook it. "We 're friends, we
two," said he.
"Why, sure, you 're friends," said Margaret, hastily; but her eyes
looked out on the road to Baker City, and she seemed listening for some
approach.
Apache touched his horse, and it wheeled and sidled a little and threw
up the dust, and then suddenly decided to accept this new master.
My mount was duplicating that performance, and when he got started
Margaret gave just one wave of her hand and, taking George by the arm,
led him indoors. When we looked back, the house stood solitary in the
sand.
"What does this mean?" I said.
But Apache Kid did not answer, and we rode on and on in silence while
the evening darkened on the road to Camp Kettle.
But the look on Apache Kid's face forbade question.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
_*So-Long*_
You will hardly be astonished to hear that the saloons in Kettle are
open night and day. Go there when you please, you need no "knocking-up"
of sleepy attendants. The hotel door is never closed.
It was long after midnight when we came into the place, over the very
road and at the same hour and at much the same speed as Mr. Pinkerton
must have ridden in pursuit of us, not a month prior to this ride of
ours. This road from Baker City to Camp Kettle was the base of a
triangle over which we had travelled, as it were, at the apex of which
triangle was the Lost Cabin Mine; and when we passed the place on the
hillside, where we had gone so short a while before, something of a pang
leapt in my heart. I bade farewell there to that terrible chapter in my
life forever,--bade farewell there to the Lost Cabin Mine.
"I will have to borrow from you again," said Apache Kid (the first
speech he had spoken since leaving the Half-Way House), as we came
loping into Kettle at three of the morning. "Give me fifty dollars, and
we'll settle later."
I told him the money was as much his as mine, and gave him what he asked
before we reined up at the hotel door, where a wild-faced lad took our
horses. An effeminate-looking youth, with that peculiar stamp that
comes to effeminate youths in the West,--as though they counterbalanced
their effeminacy, in so rugged a place, by keeping quiet, and so held
their own among the strenuous majority,--led us to a double-bedded room
(for we were very sleepy and desired to rest), we carrying up our
blankets and belongings with us. He set a lamp in the room, wished us
good-night with a smile,--for it was nigh morning, really a new
day,--and we sat in silence, while on the low ceiling the smoke of the
lamp wavered.
The room was close, stuffy, and Apache Kid flung open the window and
moths straightway came fluttering in, moths as large as a dollar piece,
and other strange insects, one like a dragon-fly that rattled on the
roof and shot from side to side of the apartment so fiercely that it
seemed rebounding from wall to wall by the force of its own impact.
Apache threw off his coat and blew out a deep breath.
"Warm," he said. "It's beastly to sleep indoors. No! This just adds
proof. I could n't ever do with civilised ways, now. That girl," and
he nodded towards the west, "she is mine, or she was mine--when she
found that she had been right after all in her opinion of me. And she
swung back to me more than ever strong because she had been lured away.
But I--" he threw up his head and cried the words out in a whisper, so
to speak: "I must never be weighed in the balance before being accepted.
I must just be accepted. That is why I like you. You just accept me.
But I made it all right with her. She will never regret having believed
George's stories of me for when I went back to her and put the roll down
and said: 'For your father's sake, Miss Pinkerton--you will accept
this,' you could see that she wanted to ask forgiveness for having put
me in her black books. But I put that all right."
"How?" I asked, for he had paused.
"Oh, I told her I was a villain, told her I fully expected to be
arrested there and had only stopped to settle my promise to her father.
It was a different thing for me to tell her I was a villain from another
telling her that. When a villain tells his villainy to the ear of a
woman he becomes almost a hero to her. She begged me to change my ways,
and I promised that for her sake I would. Quite romantic, eh? A touch
of Sydney Carton--eh?" and he laughed. "And now she will remember me, if
she does not indeed forget me, as a good fellow gone wrong, and thank
God she has so good a husband as George. And George is not so bad a
fellow. He can appreciate his master when he meets him. That is one
good point about George. George is like the lion in the cage, the lion
that roars in rage after the tamer has gone and determines to slay him
on his next visit. But on the next visit he goes through his tricks as
usual. It's a pleasure at least to know that George at last was forced
to hold out his hand to me and call himself my friend. He does n't know
why he did. He 'll remember and wonder and he'll never understand.
That day that he came in and held me up,--you remember?--I said to
myself: 'You come to kill me to-day, but the day will come, not when I
will crush you, but when you will come to me just like my little poodle
dog.'"
He broke off and smote the buzzing insect to the floor as it blundered
past his face (he was sitting on a chair with his arms folded on the
back) and drew his foot across it.
"And he came, didn't he?" he added. "My poodle dog!
"But after all," he said, after a pause, "a woman that could be moved by
my little poodle dog could never be the woman for me. When I look for a
woman it must be one who does not doubt me--and who does not fear me.
She did not fear me and that was why I thought-- Ah well, you see, she
doubted me. But let's to bed."
So we put out the light and turned in.
But I lay some time considering that Apache Kid was not the domineering
man his words might have caused one to think. He covered up a deal of
what was in his heart with a froth of words.
Next day (or I should say, later in that day), we continued our journey,
after a few hours' sleep and a monstrous breakfast; but never another
word was spoken on the matter of the previous night and in the bright
afternoon we came into Kettle River Gap and found that the "east-bound"
was due at three in the afternoon.
In the hotel to which we repaired for refreshment Apache Kid wrote a
letter to a dealer in New York, a letter which I was to deliver in
person, carrying with me the turquoises.
"One gets far better prices in New York than in any of the western
towns," explained Apache Kid. "You can rely on this fellow, too. We are
old friends, and he will do the square thing. You can send on half the
amount to me, deducting what you have lent me."
"Oh, nonsense!" said I.
"Deducting what you have lent me," he repeated. "Twenty dollars at the
Half-Way House and fifty at Camp Kettle. That makes seventy."
"You will need some more," said I.
"No," said he. "I have still almost all the fifty, of course, and I can
sell the two pintos for what I paid for them. Don't worry me. I have
never been obliged to a soul in my life for anything."
But looking up and catching my eye looking sadly on him he smiled and:
"Humour me," he said, "humour me in this."
When the letter was written he handed it to me, open, and said:
"Well, that is all, I think, until we hear the east-bound whistle."
My heart was in my mouth.
"That other matter?" I said.
"What other?" said he.
"You wanted me to do something for you in the old country."
"True," said he, and sat pondering; and then coming to a conclusion he
wrote a name and address on another sheet, and putting it in an
envelope, which he sealed, he said: "When you reach home you can open
that, and--it should be easy enough to find out who lives there. If
they are gone, you can trace them without anyone knowing what you are
doing. They must never know about me, however. You will promise?"
"I promise," said I.
"You can write to--let me see--say, where shall I go now?--say Santa
Fe--to be called for."
"Had you not better come home?" I asked half-fearfully, and he looked at
me as twice I had seen him look,--once, when he silenced the "Dago"
livery-stable keeper; once, when he silenced the sheriff. I knew Apache
Kid liked me; but at that glance I knew he had never let me quite close
to himself. There was a barrier between him and all men. But the look
passed, and said he, slowly and definitely:
"I can never go home."
We went out into the air and sat silent till the east-bound whistled and
whistled and screamed nearer and nearer.
It was while we sat there that I remembered that he had advertised for
Jackson's relatives, and asked what he would do if they were heard of.
He had evidently forgotten about that, for he seemed put out, and then
remarked that he would send them his share of the turquoises, still to
be disposed of.
"But you----" I began, and he held up his hand.
"I don't want the stuff, anyhow," said he. "Now--don't worry me. Don't
ask me questions. What I like about you is that you take me for
granted. Don't spoil the impression of yourself you have given me by
wanting to know how I will get on, and thinking me foolish for what I
intend to do." He looked round on me. "Yes," said he, "I like you. Do
you know that the fact that you had never asked me what George Brooks
and I were enemies for made me your most humble servant? Would you like
to hear that story?"