Dodsley, an opinion designedly pitched in a high and stentorian key and
expressive of everything but compliment. On the contrary, Three-fingered
Hoover--a guileless man, if ever there was one--stood bravely up for
Jake, imputing this artifice of his to a passion which knows no ethics so
far as competition is concerned. It was true, as Hoover admitted, that
poets seldom make good husbands, but, being an exceptionally good poet,
Jake might prove also an exception in matrimony, providing he found a
wife at his time of life. But as to the genius of the man there could be
no question; not even the poet Pabor had in all his glory done a poem so
fine as that favorite poem of Hoover's, which, direct from the burning
types of the "Leadville Herald," Hoover had committed to the tablets of
his memory and was wont to repeat or sing on all occasions to the
aggrandizement of Jake Dodsley's fame. Gradually the trend of the
discussion led to the suggestion that Hoover sing this favorite poem, and
this he did in a soothing, soulful voice. Barber Sam accompanying him
upon that wondrous guitar. What a picture that must have been! Even
upon the mountain-sides of that far-off West human hearts respond
tenderly to the touch of love.
--Wot though time flies?
Turrue love never dies!
That honest voice--oh, could I hear it now! That honest face--oh, could
I see it again! And, oh, that once more I could feel the clasp of that
brave hand and the cordial grace of that dear, noble presence!
It was in the fall of the year; the nights were long, yet this night sped
quickly. Long before daybreak significant sounds in the back room
betokened that Miss Woppit was up and moving around. Through the closed
door and from behind the improvised rampart of wood-box and small trunk
the young lady informed her chivalric protectors that they might go home,
prefacing this permission, however, with a solicitous inquiry as to
whether anything had been heard from Brother Jim and his posse.
Jim Woppit and his men must have had a hard ride of it. They did not
show up in camp until eleven o'clock that day, and a tougher-looking
outfit you never saw. They had scoured the surrounding country with the
utmost diligence, yet no trace whatever had they discovered of the
outlaws; the wretches had disappeared so quickly, so mysteriously, that
it seemed hard to believe that they had indeed existed. The crime, so
boldly and so successfully done, was of course the one theme of talk, of
theory, and of speculation in all that region for the conventional period
of nine days. And then it appeared to be forgotten, or, at least, men
seldom spoke of it, and presently it came to be accepted as the popular
belief that the robbery had been committed by a gang of desperate tramps,
this theory being confirmed by a certain exploit subsequently in the San
Juan country, an exploit wherein three desperate tramps assaulted the
triweekly road-hack, and, making off with their booty, were ultimately
taken and strung up to a convenient tree.
Still, the reward of one thousand dollars offered by the city government
of Red Hoss Mountain for information leading to the arrest of the glen
robbers was not withdrawn, and there were those in the camp who quietly
persevered in the belief that the outrage had been done by parties as yet
undiscovered, if not unsuspected. Mr. Mills, the superintendent of the
Royal Victoria, had many a secret conference with Jim Woppit, and it
finally leaked out that the cold, discriminating, and vigilant eye of
eternal justice was riveted upon Steve Barclay, the stage-driver. Few of
us suspected Steve; he was a good-natured, inoffensive fellow; it seemed
the idlest folly to surmise that he could have been in collusion with the
highwaymen. But Mr. Mills had his own ideas on the subject; he was a man
of positive convictions, and, having pretty nearly always demonstrated
that he was in the right, it boded ill for Steve Barclay when Mr. Mills
made up his mind that Steve must have been concerned in one way or
another in that Magpie Glen crime.
The wooing of Miss Woppit pursued the even tenor of its curious triple
way. Wars and rumors of wars served merely to imbue it with certain
heroic fervor. Jake Dodsley's contributions to the "Leadville Herald"
and to Henry Feldwisch's Denver "Inter-Ocean," though still aimed at the
virgin mistress of The Bower, were pitched in a more exalted key and
breathed a spirit that defied all human dangers. What though death
confronted the poet and the brutal malice of nocturnal marauders
threatened the object of his adoration, what, short of superhuman
intervention, should prevent the poet from baffling all hostile
environments and placing the queen of his heart securely upon his throne
beside him, etc., etc.? We all know how the poets go it when they once
get started. The Magpie Glen affair gave Jake Dodsley a new impulse, and
marked copies of his wonderful effusions found their way to the Woppit
cabin in amazing plenty and with exceeding frequency. In a moment of
vindictive bitterness was Barber Sam heard to intimate that the robbery
was particularly to be regretted for having served to open the sluices of
Jake Dodsley's poetic soul.
'T was the purest comedy, this wooing was; through it all the finger of
fate traced a deep line of pathos. The poetic Dodsley, with his
inexhaustible fund of rhyme, of optimism and of subtlety; Barber Sam,
with his envy, his jealousy, and his garrulity; Three-fingered Hoover
with his manly yearning, timorousness, tenderness, and awkwardness--these
three in a seemingly vain quest of love reciprocated; the girl, fair,
lonely, dutiful--filled with devotion to her brother and striving, amid
it all, to preserve a proper womanly neutrality toward these other men;
there was in this little comedy among those distant hills so much of real
pathos.
As for Jim Woppit, he showed not the slightest partiality toward any one
of the three suitors; with all he was upon terms of equal friendship. It
seemed as if Jim had made up his mind in the beginning to let the best
one win; it was a free, fair, square race, so far as Jim was concerned,
and that was why Jim always had stanch backers in Jake Dodsley, Barber
Sam, and Three-fingered Hoover.
My sympathies were all with Hoover; he and I were pardners. He loved the
girl in his own beautiful, awkward way. He seldom spoke of her to me,
for he was not the man to unfold what his heart treasured. He was not an
envious man, yet sometimes he would tell how he regretted that early
education had not fallen to his lot, for in that case he, too, might have
been a poet. Mother--the old red fiddle--was his solace. Coming home to
our cabin late of nights I'd hear him within scraping away at that tune
De Blanc had written for him, and he believed what Mother sung to him in
her squeaky voice of the deathlessness of true love. And many a time--I
can tell it now--many a time in the dead of night I have known him to
steal out of the cabin with Mother and go up the main road to the gateway
of The Bower, where, in moonlight or in darkness (it mattered not to
him), he would repeat over and over again that melancholy tune, hoping
thereby to touch the sensibilities of the lady of his heart.
In the early part of February there was a second robbery. This time the
stage was overhauled at Lone Pine, a ranch five miles beyond the camp.
The details of this affair were similar to those of the previous business
in the glen. A masked man sprang from the roadside, presented two
revolvers at Steve Barclay's head, and called upon all within the stage
to come out, holding up their hands. The outrage was successfully
carried out, but the booty was inconsiderable, somewhat less than eight
hundred dollars falling into the highwayman's hands. The robber and his
pals fled as before; the time that elapsed before word could be got to
camp facilitated the escape of the outlaws.
A two days' scouring of the surrounding country revealed absolutely no
sign or trace of the fugitives. But it was pretty evident now that the
two crimes had been committed by a gang intimately acquainted with, if
not actually living in, the locality. Confirmation of this was had when
five weeks later the stage was again stopped and robbed at Lone Pine
under conditions exactly corresponding with the second robbery. The
mystery baffled the wits of all. Intense excitement prevailed; a reward
of five thousand dollars was advertised for the apprehension of the
outlaws; the camp fairly seethed with rage, and the mining country for
miles around was stirred by a determination to hunt out and kill the
miscreants. Detectives came from Denver and snooped around. Everybody
bought extra guns and laid in a further supply of ammunition. Yet the
stage robbers--bless you! nobody could find hide or hair of 'em.
Miss Woppit stood her share of the excitement and alarm as long as she
could, and then she spoke her mind to Jim. He told us about it. Miss
Woppit owed a certain duty to Jim, she said; was it not enough for her to
be worried almost to death with fears for his safety as marshal of the
camp? Was it fair that in addition to this haunting terror she should be
constantly harassed by a consciousness of her own personal danger? She
was a woman and alone in a cabin some distance from any other habitation;
one crime had been committed within a step of that isolated cabin; what
further crime might not be attempted by the miscreants?
"The girl is skeered," said Jim Woppit, "and I don't know that I wonder
at it. Women folks is nervous-like, anyhow, and these doings of late hev
been enough to worrit the strongest of us men."
"Why, there ain't an hour in the day," testified Casey, "that Miss Woppit
don't telephone down here to ask whether everything is all right, and
whether Jim is O. K."
"I know it," said Jim. "The girl is skeered, and I 'd oughter thought of
it before. I must bring her down into the camp to live. Jest ez soon ez
I can git the lumber I 'll put up a cabin on the Bush lot next to the
bank."
Jim owned the Bush lot, as it was called. He had talked about building a
store there in the spring, but we all applauded this sudden determination
to put up a cabin instead, a home for his sister. That was a
determination that bespoke a thoughtfulness and a tenderness that
ennobled Jim Woppit in our opinions. It was the square thing.
Barber Sam, ever fertile in suggestion, allowed that it might be a pious
idea for Miss Woppit to move down to the Mears House and board there
until the new cabin was built. Possibly the circumstance that Barber Sam
himself boarded at the Mears House did not inspire this suggestion. At
any rate, the suggestion seemed a good one, but Jim duly reported that
his sister thought it better to stay in the old place till the new place
was ready; she had stuck it out so far, and she would try to stick it out
the little while longer yet required.
This ultimatum must have interrupted the serenity of Barber Sam's temper;
he broke his E string that evening, and half an hour later somebody sat
down on the guitar and cracked it irremediably.
And now again it was spring. Nothing can keep away the change in the
season. In the mountain country the change comes swiftly, unheralded.
One day it was bleak and cheerless; the next day brought with it the
grace of sunshine and warmth; as if by magic, verdure began to deck the
hillsides, and we heard again the cheerful murmur of waters in the gulch.
The hollyhocks about The Bower shot up once more and put forth their
honest, rugged leaves. In this divine springtime, who could think evil,
who do it?
Sir Charles Lackington, president of the Royal Victoria mine, was now due
at the camp. He represented the English syndicate that owned the large
property. Ill health compelled him to live at Colorado Springs. Once a
year he visited Red Hoss Mountain, and always in May. It was announced
that he would come to the camp by Tuesday's stage. That stage was robbed
by that mysterious outlaw and his gang. But Sir Charles happened not to
be among the passengers.
This robbery (the fourth altogether) took place at a point midway between
Lone Pine and the glen. The highwayman darted upon the leading horses as
they were descending the hill and so misdirected their course that the
coach was overturned in the brush at the roadside. In the fall Steve
Barclay's right arm was broken. With consummate coolness the highwayman
(now positively described as a thick-set man, with a beard) proceeded to
relieve his victims of their valuables, but not until he had called, as
was his wont, to his confederates in ambush to keep the passengers
covered with their rifles. The outlaw inquired which of his victims was
Sir Charles Lackington, and evinced rage when he learned that that
gentleman was not among the passengers by coach.
It happened that Jake Dodsley was one of the victims of the highwayman's
greed. He had been to Denver and was bringing home a pair of elaborate
gold earrings which he intended for--for Miss Woppit, of course. Poets
have deeper and stronger feelings than common folk. Jake Dodsley's
poetic nature rebelled when he found himself deprived of those lovely
baubles intended for the idol of his heart. So, no sooner had the outlaw
retreated to the brush than Jake Dodsley whipped out his gun and took to
the same brush, bent upon an encounter with his despoiler. Poor Jake
never came from the brush alive. The rest heard the report of a rifle
shot, and when, some time later, they found Jake, he was dead, with a
rifle ball in his head.
The first murder done and the fourth robbery! Yet the mystery was as
insoluble as ever. Of what avail was the rage of eight hundred miners,
the sagacity of the indefatigable officers of the law, and the united
efforts of the vengeance-breathing population throughout the country
round about to hunt the murderers down? Why, it seemed as if the devil
himself were holding justice up to ridicule and scorn.
We had the funeral next day. Sir Charles Lackington came by private
wagon in the morning; his daughter was with him. Their escape from
participation in the affair of the previous day naturally filled them
with thanksgiving, yet did not abate their sympathy for the rest of us in
our mourning over the dead poet. Sir Charles was the first to suggest a
fund for a monument to poor Jake, and he headed the subscription list
with one hundred dollars, cash down. A noble funeral it was; everybody
cried; at the grave Three-fingered Hoover recited the poem about true
love and Jim Woppit threw in a wreath of hollyhock leaves which his
sister had sent--the poor thing was too sick to come herself. She must
have cared more for Jake than she had ever let on, for she took to her
bed when she heard that he was dead.
Amid the deepest excitement further schemes for the apprehension of the
criminals who had so long baffled detection were set on foot and--but
this is not a story of crime; it is the story of a wooing, and I must not
suffer myself to be drawn away from the narrative of that wooing. With
the death of the poet Dodsley one actor fell out of the little comedy.
And yet another stepped in at once. You would hardly guess who it
was--Mary Lackington. This seventeen-year-old girl favored her father in
personal appearance and character; she was of the English type of blonde
beauty--a light-hearted, good-hearted, sympathetic creature who
recognized it as her paramount duty to minister to her invalid father.
He had been her instructor in books, he had conducted her education, he
had directed her amusements, he had been her associate--in short, father
and daughter were companions, and from that sweet companionship both
derived a solace and wisdom precious above all things else. Mary
Lackington was, perhaps, in some particulars mature beyond her years; the
sweetness, the simplicity, and the guilelessness of her character was the
sweetness, the simplicity, and the guilelessness of childhood. Fair and
innocent, this womanly maiden came into the comedy of that mountain
wooing.
Three-fingered Hoover had never been regarded an artful man, but now, all
at once, for the first time in his life, he practised a subtlety. He
became acquainted with Mary Lackington; I am not sure that he did not
meet Sir Charles at the firemen's muster in Pueblo some years before.
Getting acquainted with Miss Mary was no hard thing; the girl flitted
whithersoever she pleased, and she enjoyed chatting with the miners, whom
she found charmingly fresh, original, and manly, and as for the miners,
they simply adored Miss Mary. Sir Charles owed his popularity largely to
his winsome daughter.
Mary was not long in discovering that Three-fingered Hoover had a little
romance all of his own. Maybe some of the other boys told her about it.
At any rate, Mary was charmed, and without hesitation she commanded
Hoover to confess all. How the big, awkward fellow ever got through with
it I for my part can't imagine, but tell her he did--yes, he fairly
unbosomed his secret, and Mary was still more delighted and laughed and
declared that it was the loveliest love story she had ever heard. Right
here was where Hoover's first and only subtlety came in.
"And now, Miss Mary," says he, "you can do me a good turn, and I hope you
will do it. Get acquainted with the lady and work it up with her for me.
Tell her that you know--not that I told you, but that you happen to have
found it out, that I like her--like her better 'n anybody else; that I 'm
the pure stuff; that if anybody ties to me they can find me thar every
time and can bet their last case on me! Don't lay it on too thick, but
sort of let on I 'm O. K. You women understand such things--if you 'll
help me locate this claim I 'm sure everything 'll pan out all right;
will ye?"
The bare thought of promoting a love affair set Mary nearly wild with
enthusiasm. She had read of experiences of this kind, but of course she
had never participated in any. She accepted the commission gayly yet
earnestly. She would seek Miss Woppit at once, and she would be so
discreet in her tactics--yes, she would be as artful as the most skilled
diplomat at the court of love.
Had she met Miss Woppit? Yes, and then again no. She had been rambling
in the glen yesterday and, coming down the road, had stopped near the
pathway leading to The Bower to pick a wild flower of exceeding
brilliancy. About to resume her course to camp she became aware that
another stood near her. A woman, having passed noiselessly from the
cabin, stood in the gravelly pathway looking upon the girl with an
expression wholly indefinable. The woman was young, perhaps twenty; she
was tall and of symmetrical form, though rather stout; her face was
comely, perchance a bit masculine in its strength of features, and the
eyes were shy, but of swift and certain glance, as if instantaneously
they read through and through the object upon which they rested.
"You frightened me," said Mary Lackington, and she had been startled,
truly; "I did not hear you coming, and so I was frightened when I saw you
standing there."
To this explanation the apparition made no answer, but continued to
regard Mary steadfastly with the indefinable look--an expression partly
of admiration, partly of distrust, partly of appeal, perhaps. Mary
Lackington grew nervous; she did therefore the most sensible thing she
could have done under the circumstances--she proceeded on her way
homeward.
This, then, was Mary's first meeting with Miss Woppit. Not particularly
encouraging to a renewal of the acquaintance; yet now that Mary had so
delicate and so important a mission to execute she burned to know more of
the lonely creature on that hill side, and she accepted with enthusiasm,
as I have said, the charge committed to her by the enamored Hoover.
Sir Charles and his daughter remained at the camp about three weeks. In
that time Mary became friendly with Miss Woppit, as intimate, in fact, as
it was possible for anybody to become with her. Mary found herself drawn
strangely and inexplicably toward the woman. The fascination which Miss
Woppit exercised over her was altogether new to Mary; here was a woman of
lowly birth and in lowly circumstances, illiterate, neglected, lonely,
yet possessing a charm--an indefinable charm which was distinct and
potent, yet not to be analyzed--yes, hardly recognizable by any process
of cool mental dissection, but magically persuasive in the subtlety of
its presence and influence. Mary had sought to locate, to diagnose that
charm; did it lie in her sympathy with the woman's lonely lot, or was it
the romance of the wooing, or was it the fascination of those restless,
searching eyes that Mary so often looked up to find fixed upon her with
an expression she could not forget and could not define?
I incline to the belief that all these things combined to constitute the
charm whereof I speak. Miss Woppit had not the beauty that would be
likely to attract one other own sex; she had none of the sprightliness
and wit of womankind, and she seemed to be wholly unacquainted with the
little arts, accomplishments and vanities in which women invariably find
amusement. She was simply a strange, lonely creature who had accepted
valorously her duty to minister to the comfort of her brother; the
circumstances of her wooing invested her name and her lot with a certain
pleasing romance; she was a woman, she was loyal to her sense of duty,
and she was, to a greater degree than most women, a martyr--herein,
perhaps, lay the secret to the fascination Miss Woppit had for Mary
Lackington.
At any rate, Mary and Miss Woppit became, to all appearances, fast
friends; the wooing of Miss Woppit progressed apace, and the mystery of
those Red Hoss Mountain crimes became more and--but I have already
declared myself upon _that_ point and I shall say no more thereof except
so far as bears directly upon my story, which is, I repeat, of a wooing,
and not of crime.
Three-fingered Hoover had every confidence in the ultimate success of the
scheme to which Miss Mary had become an enthusiastic party. In
occasional pessimistic moods he found himself compelled to confess to
himself that the reports made by Miss Mary were not altogether such as
would inspire enthusiasm in the bosom of a man less optimistic than
he--Hoover--was.
To tell the truth, Mary found the task of doing Hoover's courting for him
much more difficult than she had ever fancied a task of that kind could
be. In spite of her unacquaintance with the artifices of the world Miss
Woppit exhibited the daintiest skill at turning the drift of the
conversation whenever, by the most studied tact, Mary Lackington
succeeded in bringing the conversation around to a point where the
virtues of Three-fingered Hoover, as a candidate for Miss Woppit's
esteem, could be expatiated upon. From what Miss Woppit implied rather
than said, Mary took it that Miss Woppit esteemed Mr. Hoover highly as a
gentleman and as a friend--that she perhaps valued his friendship more
than she did that of any other man in the world, always excepting her
brother Jim, of course.
Miss Mary reported all this to Hoover much more gracefully than I have
put it, for, being a woman, her sympathies would naturally exhibit
themselves with peculiar tenderness when conveying to a lover certain
information touching his inamorata.
There were two subjects upon which Miss Woppit seemed to love to hear
Mary talk. One was Mary herself and the other was Jim Woppit. Mary
regarded this as being very natural. Why should n't this women in exile
pine to hear of the gay, beautiful world outside her pent horizon? So
Mary told her all about the sights she had seen, the places she had been
to, the people she had met, the books she had read, the dresses she--but,
no, Miss Woppit cared nothing for that kind of gossip--now you 'll agree
that she was a remarkable woman, not to want to hear all about the lovely
dresses Mary had seen and could describe so eloquently.
Then again, as to Jim, was n't it natural that Miss Woppit, fairly
wrapped up in that brother, should be anxious to hear the good opinion
that other folk had of him? Did the miners like Jim, she asked--what did
they say, and what did Sir Charles say? Miss Woppit was fertile in
questionings of this kind, and Mary made satisfactory answers, for she
was sure that everybody liked Jim, and as for her father, why, he had
taken Jim right into his confidence the day he came to the camp.