"Well, well," he said, and laughed. "That makes me like you all the
more. You are really interested, and yet are polite enough not to ask
questions. Yes--that's the sort of man I like."
But he had no intention of telling me that affair,--just chuckled to
himself softly and remarking, "That must remain a mystery," he lapsed
again into silence.
And then the train whistled at the last curve, shot into sight, and came
thundering and screaming into the depot.
"Oh! Apache Kid," said I, "I cannot go to-day. I must wait till
to-morrow."
"That is a pity," said he, "for then you would have to wait here alone
all to-morrow. I go West with to-morrow morning's 'west-bound.'"
"Ah, then," said I, "I will go with this one; for I could not stand the
loneliness here with you flying away from me."
"No?" he said, half inquiringly; and then he surveyed me, interested,
and said again, "No, not so easily as I can stand your departure--I
suppose." But he looked away as he spoke.
My belongings lay just in the doorway, ready to hand, and these he
lifted, boarding the train with me and finding me a seat. This was no
sooner done than the conductor outside intoned his "All aboard!"
Apache Kid snatched my hand.
"Well," said he, "in the language of the country--so-long!"
I had no word to say. I took his hand; but he gave me only the fingers
of his, and, whirling about, lurched down the aisle of the car, for the
train had already started, and the door swung behind him. I tried to
raise the window beside me, but it was fast, and by the time I had the
next one raised and looked out, all the depot buildings were in the haze
of my tears, in the midst of which I saw half a dozen blurred, waving
hands, and though I waved into that haze I do not know whether Apache
Kid was one of those who stood there or not.
So the last I really saw of Apache Kid was his lurching shoulder as he
passed out of the swinging car.
*CHAPTER XXX*
_*And Last*_
It was with a full heart that I sat down, oblivious of all other
occupants of the car. I sat dazed, the rattle of the wheels in my ears,
and the occasional swishing sound without, when we rattled across some
trestle bridge above a foaming creek hastening down out of the hills.
Sunset came, glowing red on the tops of the trees on either hand. The
Pintsch lamps were lit, and glimmered dim in that glow of the sunset
that filled the coaches. It was not yet quite dark when we left
Republic Creek, the gate city of the mountains, behind. The sunset
suddenly appeared to wheel in the sky, and piled itself up again to the
right of the track. We were looping and twining down out of the hills.
I went out onto the rear platform for a last look at them. Already the
plains were rolling away from us on either side, billowy, wind-swept,
sweet-scented in the dusk. Behind was the long darkness, north and
south, of the mountains. I gazed upon it till the glow faded, and the
sinister, serrated ridge was only a long, thin line of black on the
verge of the prairie.
Then I turned inwards again to the car and lay down to sleep, while we
rolled on and on through the night over the open, untroubled plains.
But sleep on a train is an unquiet sleep, and often I would waken,
imagining myself still in the heart of the mountains, sometimes speaking
to Apache Kid, even Donoghue.
Old voices spoke; the Laughlins, the sheriff, my two fellow-travellers
spoke to me in that uneasy slumber, and then I would awaken to answer
and find myself in the swinging car alone, and a great rush of emotion
would fill my heart.
* * * * *
Two items still remain to be told.
At New York I found the address to which Apache Kid had directed me. A
sphinx of a gentleman read the letter I gave him, looked me over, and
then asked: "The turquoises? You have them with you?"
I produced the bag, and he scrutinised them all singly, with no change
on his face, rang a bell, and bade the attendant, who came in response,
to bring him scales. He weighed each separately, touched them with his
tongue, held them up to the light, and noted their values on paper. He
must have been, indeed, a man Apache Kid could trust.
"Will you have notes or gold?" he asked. "The sum is two hundred
thousand dollars, and I am instructed in this note, which as it is open
you will know entitles you to half, to pay you on the spot."
I asked for a bill of exchange on the Bank of Scotland. He bowed and
obeyed my request without further speech, but when he rose to usher me
to the door his natural curiosity caused him to say:
"Do you know how your friend came by these?"
"I do," said I; but I thought to give this quiet man a Roland for his
Oliver, seeing he was so much of a sphinx, and I said no more save that.
He smiled.
"Quite right," said he. "And did you leave your friend well?" he asked,
smiling on me in a fatherly fashion.
"In the best of health," I said.
"I see I have to remit to Santa Fe," said he. "He did not say where he
was going after that, did he? I can hardly expect him to stay there
long."
"No, he did not say," I replied.
"Ah! Doubtless I shall hear of him when he thinks necessary," and he
bowed me out and shook hands with me at the door.
The second item that still remains to be told is of my opening of the
second letter that Apache Kid gave me. There was no difficulty in
finding the address of his "people" which this contained. But if the
address astonished me, I was certainly less astonished than deeply
moved, when, by watching the residence, I found that his mother still
lived,--a stately, elderly lady, with silver hair.
By careful inquiries, and by some observation, I found that there were
two sisters also in the house, and once I saw all three out shopping in
Princes Street, very tastefully but plainly dressed, and it struck me to
the heart, with a sadness I cannot tell, to think that here was I, who
could step up to them and say: "Madam, your son yet lives; ladies, your
brother is alive," and yet to know that my lips were sealed; that for
some reason Apache Kid could never again come home.
They noticed me staring at them, and, remembering my manners, I looked
away. This intelligence I wrote to Apache Kid (to be called for at
Santa Fe), as he had desired. But I never heard any word in reply. The
letter, however, was not returned, so I presume he received it.
I do not know whether the fact that I am bound by a promise causes me,
in contradictory-wise, to desire all the more to speak to these three of
Apache Kid,--how alien his name sounds here in Edinburgh of all
places!--but I do know that I long to speak to them. In Apache Kid's
younger sister, especially in her winsome face, there is something I
cannot describe that moves my heart. Once I saw her with her sister
eating strawberries on one of the roof-cafes in Princes Street, whither
I had gone with my mother. My mother noticed the drifting of my eyes and
looked at the girl and looked back at me and smiled, and shook her head
on me, and said:
"She is a sweet girl, but do not stare; you have lost your manners in
America!"
She did not understand, and I could not explain. But her words, spoken
jestingly, took me back to that conversation with Apache Kid on the
stagecoach, after we had left the Half-Way-to-Kettle House, when he
delivered his opinion on the transition period in the West; and I
wondered if he had yet looked up Carlyle's remark about the manners of
the backwoods.
My little fortune had to be explained in some way, but you may be sure I
told nothing of the terrors of the journey that we undertook in the
gathering of it. The common fallacy that fortunes are to be picked up in
America, by any youth who cares to go a-plucking there, helped me
greatly with most folk, and I never was required to tell the bloody
story of the Lost Cabin Mine.
But now that they who might have wept for my share in that business have
gone beyond all weeping and grieving I can publish the tale with no
misgivings; for the only fear that haunts me, as I go my ways through
the world, is lest I give pain to any of these quiet, cloistered hearts,
who, in their blissful and desirable ignorance, live apart in peace, not
knowing how barbaric, how sad, how full of unrest, and how
blood-bespattered the world still is.