At Walcott's request the date of the wedding was set early in January,
he having announced that business would call him to the South the first
week in December for about a month, and that he wished the wedding to
take place immediately upon his return.
The announcement of the engagement and speedily approaching marriage of
the daughter of D. K. Underwood to his junior partner caused a ripple of
excitement throughout the social circles of Ophir and Galena. Though
little known, Walcott was quite popular. It was therefore generally
conceded that the shrewd "mining king," as Mr. Underwood was denominated
in that region, had selected a party in every way eligible as the future
husband of the sole heiress of his fortune. Kate received the
congratulations showered upon her with perfect equanimity, but with a
shade of quiet reserve which effectually distanced all undue familiarity
or curiosity.
Through the daily paper which found its way to the mining camp Darrell
received his first news of Kate's engagement. It did not come as a
surprise, however; he knew it was inevitable; he even drew a sigh of
relief that the blow had fallen, for a burden is far more easily borne
as an actual reality than by anticipation, and applied himself with an
almost dogged persistency to his work.
The winter set in early and with unusual severity. The snowfall in the
mountains was heavier than had been known in years. Much of the time
the canyon road was impassable, making it impracticable for Darrell to
visit The Pines with any frequency, even had he wished to do so.
The weeks passed, and ere he was aware the holidays were at hand. By
special messenger came a little note from Kate informing him of
Walcott's absence and begging him to spend Christmas at the old home.
There had been a lull of two or three days in the storm, the messenger
reported the road somewhat broken, and early on the morning preceding
Christmas the trio, Darrell, Duke, and Trix, started forth, and, after a
twelve hours' siege, arrived at The Pines wet, cold, and thoroughly
exhausted, but all joyfully responsive to the welcome awaiting them.
Christmas dawned bright and clear; tokens of love and good will abounded
on every side, but at an early hour news came over the wires which
shocked and saddened all who heard, particularly the household at The
Pines. There had been a hold-up on the west-bound express the preceding
night, a few miles from Galena, in which the mail and express had been
robbed, and the express clerk, a brave young fellow who stanchly refused
to open the safe or give the combination, had been fatally stabbed. It
was said to be without doubt the work of the same band that had
conducted the hold-up in which Harry Whitcomb had lost his life, as it
was characterized by the same boldness of plan and cleverness of
execution.
The affair brought back so vividly to Mr. Underwood and the family the
details of Harry's death that it cast a shadow over the Christmas
festivities, which seemed to deepen as the day wore on. Outside, too,
gathering clouds, harbingers of coming storm, added to the general
gloom.
It was with a sense of relief that Darrell set out at an early hour the
following morning for the camp. He realized as never before that the
place teemed with painful memories whose very sweetness tortured his
soul until he almost wished that the months since his coming to The
Pines might be wrapped in the same oblivion which veiled his life up to
that period. He was glad to escape from its depressing influence and to
return to the camp with its routine of work and study.
This second winter of Darrell's life at camp was far more normal and
healthful than the first. His love and sympathy for Kate had
unconsciously drawn him out of himself, making him less mindful of his
own sorrow and more susceptible to the sufferings of others. To the men
at the camp he was far different, interesting himself in their welfare
in numerous ways where before he had ignored them. The unusual severity
of the winter had caused some sickness among them, and it was nothing
uncommon for Darrell to go of an evening to the miners' quarters with
medicines, newspapers, and magazines for the sick and convalescent.
He was returning from one of these expeditions late one evening about
ten days after Christmas, accompanied by the collie. It had been snowing
lightly and steadily all day and the snow was still falling. Darrell was
whistling softly to himself, and Duke, who showed a marvellous
adaptation to Darrell's varying moods, catching the cue for his own
conduct, began to plunge into the freshly fallen snow, wheeling and
darting swiftly towards Darrell as though challenging him to a
wrestling-match. Darrell gratified his evident wish and they tumbled
promiscuously in the snow, emerging at length from a big drift near the
office, their coats white, Duke barking with delight, and Darrell
laughing like a school-boy.
Shaking themselves, they entered the office, but no sooner had they
stepped within than the collie bounded to the door of the next room
where he began a vigorous sniffing and scratching, accompanied by a
series of short barks. As Darrell, somewhat puzzled by his actions,
opened the door, he saw a figure seated by the fire, which rose and
turned quickly, revealing to his astonished gaze the tall form and
strong, sweet face of John Britton.
For a moment the two men stood with clasped hands, looking into each
other's eyes with a satisfaction too deep for words.
After an affectionate scrutiny of his young friend Mr. Britton resumed
his seat, remarking,--
"You are looking well--better than I have ever seen you; and I was glad
to hear that laughter outside; it had the right ring to it."
"Duke was responsible for that," Darrell answered, with a smiling glance
at the collie who had stationed himself by the fire and near Mr.
Britton; "he challenged me to wrestle with him, and got rather the worst
of it."
A moment later, having divested himself of his great coat, he drew a
second seat before the fire, saying,--
"You evidently knew where to look for me?"
"Yes, your last letter, which, by the way, followed me for nearly six
weeks before reaching me, apprised me of your return to the camp. I was
somewhat surprised, too, after you had established yourself so well in
town."
"It was best for me--and for others," Darrell answered; then, noting the
inquiry in his friend's eyes, he added:
"It is a long story, but it will keep; there will be plenty of time for
that later. Tell me of yourself first. For two months I have hungered
for word from you, and now I simply want to listen to you a while."
Mr. Britton smiled. "I owe you an apology, but you know I am a poor
correspondent at best, and of late business has called me here and there
until I scarcely knew one day where I would be the next; consequently I
have received my mail irregularly and have been irregular myself in
writing."
Darrell's face grew tender, for he knew it was not business alone which
drove his friend from place to place, but the old pain which found
relief only in ceaseless activity and an equally unceasing beneficence.
He well knew that many of his friend's journeys were purely of a
philanthropic nature, and he remarked, with a peculiar smile,--
"Your travels always remind me very forcibly of the journey of the good
Samaritan; when he met a case of suffering on the way he was not the one
to 'pass by on the other side;' nor are you."
"Perhaps," said Mr. Britton, gravely, "he had found, as others have
since, that pouring oil and wine into his neighbor's wounds was the
surest method of assuaging the pain in some secret wound of his own."
Darrell watched his friend closely while he gave a brief account of his
recent journeys along the western coast. Never before had he seen the
lines of suffering so marked upon the face beside him as that night.
Something evidently had reopened the old wound, causing it to throb
anew.
"I need not ask what has brought you back into the mountains at this
time of year and in this storm," Darrell remarked, as his friend
concluded.
For answer Mr. Britton drew from his pocket an envelope which Darrell
at once recognized as a counterpart of one which had come to him some
weeks before, but which he had laid away unopened, knowing only too well
its contents.
"I am particularly glad, for Miss Underwood's sake, that you are here,"
he said; "she feared you might not come, and it worried her."
"Which accounts for the importunate little note which accompanied the
invitation," said Mr. Britton, with a half-smile; "but I would have made
it a point to be present in any event; why did she doubt my coming?"
"Because of the season, I suppose, and the unusual storms; then, too,"
Darrell spoke with some hesitation, "she told me she believed you had a
sort of aversion to weddings."
"She was partly right," Mr. Britton said, after a pause; "I have not
been present at a wedding ceremony for more than twenty-five years--not
since my own marriage," he added, slowly, in a low tone, as though
making a confession.
Darrell's heart throbbed painfully; it was the first allusion he had
ever heard the other make to his own past, and from his tone and manner
Darrell knew that he himself had unwittingly touched the great, hidden
sorrow in his friend's life.
"Forgive me!" he said, with the humility and simplicity of a child.
"I have nothing to forgive," Mr. Britton replied, gently, fixing his
eyes with a look of peculiar affection upon Darrell's face. "You know
more now, my son, than the whole world knows or has known in all these
years; and some day in the near future you shall know all, because, for
some inexplicable reason, you, out of the whole world, seem nearest to
me."
A few moments later he resumed, with more of his usual manner, "I am not
quite myself to-night. The events of the last few days have rather upset
me, and," with one of his rare smiles, "I have come to you to get
righted."
"To me?" Darrell exclaimed.
"Yes; why not?"
"I am but your pupil,--one who is just beginning to look above his own
selfish sorrows only through the lessons you have taught him."
"You over-estimate the little I have tried to do for you; but were it
even as you say, I would come to you and to no one else. To whom did the
Divine Master himself turn for human sympathy in his last hours of grief
and suffering but to his little band of pupils--his disciples? And in
proportion as they had learned of Him and imbibed His spirit, in just
that proportion could they enter into his feelings and minister to his
soul."
Mr. Britton had withdrawn the cards from the envelope and was regarding
them thoughtfully.
"The receipt of those bits of pasteboard," he said, slowly, "unmanned me
more than anything that has occurred in nearly a score of years. They
called up long-forgotten scenes,--little pathetic, heart-rending
memories which I thought buried long ago. I don't mind confessing to
you, my boy, that for a while I was unnerved. It did not seem as though
I could ever bring myself to hear again the music of wedding-bells and
wedding-marches, to listen to the old words of the marriage service. But
for the sake of one who has seemed almost as my own child I throttled
those feelings and started for the mountains, resolved that no
selfishness of mine should cloud her happiness on her wedding day. I
came, to find, what I would never have believed possible, that my old
friend would sacrifice his child's happiness, all that is sweetest and
holiest in her life, to gratify his own ambition. I cannot tell you the
shock it was to me. D. K. Underwood and I have been friends for many
years, but that did not prevent my talking plainly with him--so plainly
that perhaps our friendship may never be the same again. But it was of
no avail, and the worst is, he has persuaded himself that he is acting
for her good, when it is simply for the gratification of his own pride.
I could not stay there; the very atmosphere seemed oppressive; so I came
up here for a day or two, as I told you, to get righted."
"And you came to me to be righted," Darrell said, musingly; "'Can the
blind lead the blind?'"
Mr. Britton was quick to catch the significance of he other's query.
"Yes, John," he answered, covering Darrell's hand with his own; "I came
to you for the very reason that your hurt is far deeper than mine."
Under the magnetism of that tone and touch Darrell calmly and in few
words told his story and Kate's,--the story of their love and brief
happiness, and of the wretchedness which followed.
"For a while I constantly reproached myself for having spoken to her of
love," he said, in conclusion; "for having awakened her love, as I
thought, by my own; but gradually I came to see that she had loved me,
as I had her, unconsciously, almost from our first meeting, and that the
awakening must in any event have come sooner or later to each of us.
Then it seemed as though my suffering all converged in sorrow for her,
that her life, instead of being gladdened by love, should be saddened
and marred, perhaps wrecked, by it."
"Love works strange havoc with human lives sometimes," Mr. Britton
remarked, reflectively, as Darrell paused.
"I was tempted at times," Darrell continued, "as I thought of what was
in store for her, to rescue her at any cost; tempted to take her and go
with her to the ends of the earth, if necessary; anywhere, to save her
from the life she dreads."
"Thank God that you did not, my son!" Mr. Britton exclaimed, strangely
agitated by Darrell's words; "you do not know what the cost might have
been in the end; what bitter remorse, what agony of ceaseless regret!"
He stopped abruptly, and again Darrell felt that he had looked for an
instant into those depths so sacredly guarded from the eyes of the
world.
"You did well to leave as you did," Mr. Britton said, after a moment's
silence, in which he had regained his composure.
"I had to; I should have done something desperate if I had remained
there much longer."
Darrell spoke quietly, but it was the quiet of suppressed passion.
"It was better so--better for you both," Mr. Britton continued; "when we
find ourselves powerless to save our loved ones from impending trouble,
all that is left us is to help them bear that trouble as best we may.
The best help you can give Kate now is to take yourself as completely as
possible out of her life. How you can best help her later time alone
will show."
A long silence followed, while both watched the flickering flames and
listened to the crooning of the wind outside. When at length they spoke
it was on topics of general interest; the outlook at the mining camp,
the latest news in the town below, till their talk at last drifted to
the recent hold-up.
"A dastardly piece of work!" exclaimed Mr. Britton. "The death of that
young express clerk was in some ways even sadder than that of Harry
Whitcomb. I knew him well; the only child of a widowed mother; a poor
boy who, by indomitable energy and unswerving integrity, had just
succeeded in securing the position which cost him his life. Two such
brutal, cowardly murders ought to arouse the people to such systematic,
concerted action as would result in the final arrest and conviction of
the murderer."
"It is the general opinion that both were committed by one and the same
party," Darrell remarked, as his friend paused.
"Undoubtedly both were the work of the same hand, in all probability
that of the leader himself. He is a man capable of any crime, probably
guilty of nearly every crime that could be mentioned, and his men are
mere tools in his hands. He exerts a strange power over them and they
obey him, knowing that their lives would pay the forfeit for
disobedience. Human life is nothing to him, and any one who stood in the
way of the accomplishment of his purposes would simply go the way those
two poor fellows have gone."
"Why, do you know anything regarding this man?" Darrell asked in
surprise.
"Only so far as I have made a study of him and his methods, aided by
whatever information I could gather from time to time concerning him."
"Surely, you are not a detective!" Darrell exclaimed; "you spoke like
one just now."
"Not professionally," his friend answered, with a smile; "though I have
often assisted in running down criminals. I have enough of the hound
nature about me, however, that when a scent is given me I delight in
following the trail till I run my game to cover, as I hope some day to
run this man to cover," he added, with peculiar earnestness.
"But how did you ever gain so much knowledge of him? To every one else
he seems an utter mystery."
"Partly, as I said, through a study of him and his methods, and partly
from facts which I learned from one of the band who was fatally shot a
few years ago in a skirmish between the brigands and a posse of
officials. The man was deserted by his associates and was brought to
town and placed in a hospital. I did what I could to make the poor
fellow comfortable, with the result that he became quite communicative
with me, and, while in no way betraying his confederates, he gave me
much interesting information regarding the band and its leader. It is a
thoroughly organized body of men, bound together by the most fearful
oaths, possessing a perfect system of signals and passwords, and with a
retreat in the mountains, known as the 'Pocket,' so inaccessible to any
but themselves that no one as yet has been able even to definitely
locate it--a sort of basin walled about by perpendicular rocks. The
leader is a man of mixed blood, who has travelled in all countries and
knows many dark secrets, and whose power lies mainly in the mystery with
which he surrounds himself. No one knows who he is, but many of his men
believe him to be the very devil personified."
"But how can you or any one else hope to run down a man with such
powerful followers and with a hiding-place so inaccessible?" Darrell
inquired.
"From a remark inadvertently dropped, I was led to infer that this man
spends comparatively little time with the band. He communicates with
them, directs them, and personally conducts any especially bold or
difficult venture; but most of the time he is amid far different
surroundings, leading an altogether different life."
"One of those men with double lives," Darrell commented.
Mr. Britton bowed in assent.
"But if that were so," Darrell persisted, his interest thoroughly
aroused, as much by Mr. Britton's manner as by his words, "in the event,
say, of your meeting him, how would you be able to recognize or identify
him? Have you any clew to his identity?"
"Years ago," said Mr. Britton, slowly, "I formed the habit of studying
people; at first as I met them; later as I heard or read of them. Facts
gathered here and there concerning a person's life I put together, piece
by piece, studying his actions and the probable motives governing those
actions, until I had a mental picture of the real man, the 'ego' that
constitutes the foundation of the character of every individual. Having
that fixed in my mind I next strove to form an idea of the exterior
which that particular 'ego' would gradually build about himself through
his habits of thought and speech and action. In this way, by a careful
study of a man's life, I can form something of an idea of his
appearance. I have often put this to the test by visiting various
penitentiaries in order to meet some of the noted criminals of whose
careers I had made a study, and invariably, in expression, in voice and
manner, in gait and bearing, in the hundred and one little indices by
which the soul betrays itself, I have found them as I had mentally
portrayed them."
Mr. Britton had risen while speaking and was walking back and forth
before the fire.
"I see!" Darrell exclaimed; "and you have formed a mental portrait of
this man by which you expect to recognize and identify him?"
"I am satisfied that I would have no difficulty in recognizing him," Mr.
Britton replied, with peculiar emphasis on the last words; "the work of
identification,"--he paused in front of Darrell, looking him earnestly
in the face,--"that, I hope, will one day be yours."
"Mine!" exclaimed Darrell. "How so? I do not understand."
"Mr. Underwood has told me that soon after your arrival at The Pines and
just before you became delirious, there was something on your mind in
connection with the robbery and Whitcomb's death which you wished to
tell him but were unable to recall; and both he and his sister have said
that often during your delirium you would mutter, 'That face! I can
never forget it; it will haunt me as long as I live!' It has always been
my belief that amidst the horrors of the scene you witnessed that night,
you in some way got sight of the murderer's face, which impressed you so
strongly that it haunted you even in your delirium. It is my hope that
with the return of memory there will come a vision of that face
sufficiently clear that you will be able to identify it should you meet
it, as I believe you will."
Darrell scrutinized his friend closely before replying, noting his
evident agitation.
"You have already met this man and recognized him!" he exclaimed.
"Possibly!" was the only reply.
_Chapter XXII_