The Heart of the Hills
Jim Pryse was leaning against one of the verandah posts of his home
in the Valley of Hope. And, just behind him, lounging in a low-seated
chair, was a red-headed creature, freckled, clean-shaven. He was a man
of perhaps thirty years. Certainly not more. And he was dressed in
somewhat similar fashion to Pryse himself. The difference lay in the
fact that he wore no coat or waistcoat over the yellowish silk shirt,
whose sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and revealed forearms which
suggested tremendous physical strength.
“Talk it out, Larry,” Jim said, as the other broke off from his
half-laughing, wholly serious protest, and helped himself to a drink
from the Rye whisky and water that stood on the small table close
beside him. “Notions stick with me when I get ’em into my fool head.
They take a deal of shifting. Still, I always reckon there’s things
other folks can see that I’m mostly blind to, and I like to know about
’em.”
He gazed out over the shadowed, evening scene. It was as though the
wand of some magician had passed over the valley he had known some two
years back, when Hope and Despair had fought out their long battle in
his half-starved soul.
The mighty background of it all was unchanged. There lay the shadowed
forests sweeping up and about the giant hill-slopes, which helped to
hold secret the sweet grass pastures which flooded the heart of the
valley. There lay the calm, silvery winding path of the river that
had once provided him with his principal means of life. There lay
the unending pastures that had first inspired his imagination. It was
all there, just as he had known it in the days when Dan Quinlan’s
ministering visits had meant his moral as well as physical salvation.
But it was no longer simply a splendid picture of Nature’s handiwork. A
complete transformation had been wrought.
The outline of it all was still clearly visible in the last of the
daylight. Night shadows were gathering, and a few twinkling lights
dotted the fringe of the forest beyond the river. There were buildings
in almost every direction within half a mile of where he stood. They
were low, squat buildings of green logs and skilful thatch, and
represented human habitations for the unfortunate freight that had come
to people the valley. Nearer by stood a number of larger buildings.
They were barns standing in the vicinity of the corrals, which were
many and stout. Beyond these lay the rectangular outlines of fenced
pastures, which seemed to extend so far into the distance that they
became completely lost to view. Beyond that were several hundred acres
of fenced ploughing that were beyond his view.
The lowing of cattle came back to him from the corrals and the far
pastures. The night sounds of the river, where the frog chorus was
unceasing, no longer emphasised the desolation he had once known. The
whole valley was alive with all that which the human mind delights in.
There were occasional echoes stirred by human voices, and the friendly
yelp of dogs. And then there, where he was standing, was his own
beautiful log-built home, furnished as civilisation demands, and full
of human companionship.
His had been the controlling mind that had brought it all about. His
had been the wealth that had made it possible. And in the work of it
all he had been supported without stint by the loyalty of his sister,
and this cheerful, freckled creature who was revelling in one of his
occasional cautionary protests.
Laurence Manford laughed as he set his glass back on the table and lit
a fresh cigar.
“It’s not a deal of use, Jim,” he declared. “I haven’t a thing to say
against the notion of it all. It’s the sort of notion any feller who
knows you right would look for. It seems to me there’s boys born into
this pretty swell old world of ours with most of the juice you ought to
find in their heads running around the valves of their foolish hearts.
It’s not reasonable to figger a feller’s heart can think right with
the things inside it that don’t belong there. That’s your trouble.
Guess you were born with a heart that’s short-circuited your thinking
machine. Now, I’m the other way about. I start in to think at the right
end of me, and, when anything else butts in, just beat it over the
head till it quits. Being that way, I got a pretty wide view of this
enterprise of yours, and find myself guessing darn hard about the way
it’s going to end. We got forty crooks around this layout,” he finished
up significantly, “and some of ’em are pretty tough.”
“Well?”
Jim moved back to a chair and sat himself opposite his fiery-headed
friend. He was smiling contentiously, and Larry recognised that he must
make good his argument.
“If I know a thing, that’s just what it isn’t,” he said, sending the
ash of his cigar sprawling. “The forty-first blew in to-day with the
record of a sewer.”
“But we don’t take in folks with that sort of record,” Jim protested.
“Who sent him?”
“Your man in Vancouver.”
“Richards?”
“Sure.”
“What’s his trouble?”
“Smuggling Chinks. And with that goes the dope trade, if I know a
thing, though he don’t admit it. Then he beat the boy who arrested
him over the head with a lead pipe, and made his getaway. He didn’t
kill the feller, but--it wasn’t his fault. Richards reckoned because
he hadn’t killed him he could send him along. It looks like Richards
stretched a point in this boy’s case. And when that sort of thing
happens it seems to me there’s an ugly look in it. Do you get me? This
boy’s a real tough. You’ll see him in awhile.”
Pryse remained silent, and Larry went on. He pointed out across the
valley where the twinkling lights were shining.
“I took a walk around those bunk-houses just after the dinner hour, and
happened on some knife-play. You know that boy, Dago Naudin? Reckons
he’s French, ’an stinks of sage brush. He’d chewed off Slattery’s right
ear, and was yearning to disembowel him with a ten-inch knife that I’ll
swear has tasted the job before. Here’s the knife.”
He drew a vicious-looking weapon out of a sheath slung at the back
of his belt, and touched the edge of it with his thumb. It was horn
handled, and studded with inlays of what looked like gold and silver.
“Mexican,” he said, passing it across to the other. “And I guess that’s
his country, too. I jumped in to save murder, and nearly broke his
wrist to get that knife. He cursed me and mine, and you and yours,
in bastard Spanish. We’re going to get trouble with that tough. And
Slattery’s not a deal better. Say, did you ever figger just how we
stand right here? Do you ever remember Blanche? Oh, yes, I know. We got
boys around here who’re mighty glad and pleased to be here. They’re
boys we can count on good, in a way. There’s the Doc--Peter Lennox.
There’s that boy Lovell Taylor, who tripped up in his bank in Toronto,
and has hated himself for it ever since. There’s Jock Smith, who did
what he did to save a woman from the husband who reckoned to kill her.
There’s that queer soul Fingers, who, if he’s a crook at all, is a
merry son-of-a-gun, anyway. Oh, yes. There’s boys who deserve all we
can do for them. But there’s others----” He spread out his hands. “Dago
Naudin’s the worst of the bunch. And Slattery’s darn bad, too.”
“And what d’you think they can do?”
“Why, every sort of old devilment you ever heard of, from giving
this layout away to highway robbery, and murder of one Jim Pryse.
And--there’s your sister, Blanche.”
“And what are we doing when that play starts?”
“Why, bucking a game, with the chances ten and more to one with the
other feller.”
Pryse shook his white head, and smiled derisively.
“You know, Larry, one of the reasons--only one, mind--I was so almighty
glad when you wouldn’t stand for me running this layout without taking
a hand in the play yourself was that you’re the sort that looks all
round and through a thing, and, having looked that way, makes up his
mind and never shifts it. You’ve got a faculty I don’t know a deal
about, and I’m glad to have you hand out the things that faculty
suggests to you. But I want to say right here you’re seeing things just
now I can’t get a glimpse of. There’s going to be no highway robbery
and murder, with me for the victim. When it comes to that, I guess I’ve
a real good hand to play. And I’ll play it to the limit. But you’re not
thinking of Jim Pryse, boy. You’re just about as certain as I am that I
can beat the game at a show-down, especially with Larry Manford at my
elbow. It’s Blanche you got on your mind.”
Larry nodded, and there was no laughter in his eyes.
“I know,” Jim went on earnestly, “and I think the more of you for it.
Blanche is dead game to the bone, and--and she’s worth the love of the
best man in the world. And I want to say right here that when you and
she fix things to get married you’ll get nothing in the world from me
but my best goodwill and any old thing I can do to make things the way
you’d have ’em. I allow there’s quite a big chance that we’re taking
for Blanche. I saw that from the start--or, anyway, when I saw, and
began to realise, the make-up of the crook. Now I’m ready, with you,
to persuade her to beat it back to our home city. Do you guess she’ll
quit us? Not if we both wear out our knee-caps crawling at her feet.
She’s red-hot on this thing, and we’ve got to take the whole darn blame
if things should turn amiss for her. You can’t impress me a thing more
than I am impressed on this. I’m guessing all the time. And with men
like Dago, and Slattery, and this new boy you tell me of, your best
warning isn’t any too much. Knowing Blanche the way I know her, we’ve
just got to do the best we both know.”
Larry re-lit the cigar he had permitted to go out and finished his
drink.
“Sometimes I thought you didn’t realise, Jim,” he said. “You haven’t
said a deal before. But you do, and I’m glad. You’re right. But for
Blanche the worst of ’em wouldn’t matter a whoop in hell. But I’m crazy
for Blanche, an’ I’d go stark, raving mad if things happened to her.
No,” he finished up regretfully. “She wouldn’t quit. That’s the worst
of it. That’s what----”
“Sets you so almighty crazy for the greatest woman I’ve ever known.”
Larry’s eyes shone responsively as Jim stood up. He pulled out his
watch and looked at it. Then he, too, stood up, and for a moment gazed
out into the twilit valley.
“I’ll round up that ‘stray’ for you, Jim,” he said, and stepped off the
verandah.
* * * * *
Now a swinging oil lantern was shedding its warm light on the verandah.
Jim Pryse was sitting at the table which the whisky decanter had
recently occupied. A book like a ledger lay open before him. And Larry
Manford was in occupation of a chair near by.
A shortish, stocky man, clad in a city suit, was standing before the
table. He was black-eyed, with nearly a month’s growth of dark beard
and whisker on his face. His eyes were small and narrow, and twinkled
alertly, but without any amiability of expression.
“Name?” Pryse prepared to write. Then he added: “You don’t need to hand
any name but that by which you wish to be known.”
“It don’t matter a curse, boss,” the man retorted sharply. “If this is
the right joint folk reckon, names don’t need to worry. Richards knows
me, anyway. Pike--Jack Pike. That’s the name I’ve carried fer most of
ten years.”
“Wanted for?”
The man laughed softly.
“Yeller traffic, an’ spreadin’ out the cop who jumped in on me.”
“Richards sent you along?”
“Sure. He told me to make these hills, where I’d find the shelter I
needed fer awhile. I hoofed the railroad to Raeburn, as the feller
said, an’ waited around. Then I picked up a boy who put me wise.”
“Yes. Picked you up outside the depôt.”
“By the water-tank. That was how Richards said. I went there each day
at noon till he came.”
Jim took down the details, and the crook looked on with a shade of
anxiety.
“Say, what’s the game?” he asked sharply, eyeing the book and the man
beyond it without friendliness. “Ther’ ain’t no trick in this? If
ther’s cross work, I guess----”
“There’s no trickery.” Jim looked squarely into the man’s eyes, which
shone fiercely in the lamplight. His own were smiling without warmth.
There was something very compelling in them, and the man calmed at once
under their regard. “You best understand just how things are here.
Any man who’s up against the law in an ordinary way can get shelter
here for just as long as he fancies--under conditions. There’s crimes
I guess this place is no shelter for. Yours, as Richards has warned
me, don’t rank with those crimes. This book is a roaster of the folks
who come along. If you need our shelter--and you’re free to come or go
when you choose--you’ve got to work for your keep, and will be paid for
that work at the ordinary rate of pay. It’s farm and ranch work, cattle
raising and grain. If you need to hide years you can stop right here on
those terms. If you choose to quit to-morrow you’ll be guided clear,
after being blindfold, same as you were brought here. You can go east
or west or across the United States border. You’ll have to part with
those two guns you’ve got in your pants if you fancy stopping around,
though. There’s no need for guns here.”
The crook was on the point of sharp protest, but Jim’s voice
anticipated him.
“There’s no argument. You can’t shelter here one night with those guns
in your pants. Further, you’ll need to convince us you’ve no weapon of
offence on you. That’s all.”
“If I hand ’em over, will I get ’em again when I quit?”
“Surely. This is a shelter for boys like you, not a ‘hold up.’”
The stranger reluctantly drew a pair of heavy automatic pistols from
the two hip-pockets of his trousers, and still more reluctantly passed
them across the table, butt first. The latter detail had a significance
by no means lost upon those watching him. Jim took possession of them,
and placed them in the drawer of the table.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Now, just oblige by showing me the
linings of all your pockets--unless you are willing for my friend here
to go through them. We take no chances.”
The man laughed bitterly.
“No, you surely don’t.”
“No,” agreed Jim calmly. “Those pockets?”
The man turned them out. There was nothing it was necessary to relieve
him of, except some cartridge clips for his pistols. And he returned
his goods to their places, his narrow eyes twinkling with something
intended for a smile. As the last of the collection was replaced Larry
cleared his throat.
“You best unfasten your vest, boy, and hand over that knife,” he said
quietly.
The man turned like a tiger on the red-headed man, whom he had almost
forgotten.
“What d’you mean?” he cried.
“Just what I say. That knife,” Larry said, without moving.
“Do you think I’m going to herd around with a bunch like you got here
without----”
“We need that knife.”
Larry had risen from the chair, and the newcomer measured him with no
friendly eyes. Then, as though his estimate was conclusive argument, he
opened his cloth vest and produced a long sheath-knife and laid it on
the table, hilt towards Jim.
Jim nodded and glanced across at Larry. Perhaps there was a sign
passed between them. At any rate, Jim turned on the crook.
“I think we’re through. My man Despard’ll pass you on to your right
bunk-house, and see you get the blankets, and feed, and anything in
reason you need. You can buy smoke and most anything else you need from
him. Even a certain limit of booze. Work starts at daylight. You’re
welcome here so long as you behave like a reasonable citizen. And if
any danger from outside comes along, you’ll get ample warning. I want
you to get this, and get it good. This layout is run dead right. It’s
a sheer shelter from the things that worry you outside. We guarantee
that. We call it the ‘Valley of Hope’ because it gives folks like you
a chance of a getaway from what’s chasing you, and the chance of a
fresh start. What we ask in return is work, and that you can act the
reasonable man while you’re here. If you don’t, we can deal with any
breaking of our rules. Stop around as long as you fancy, and you’re
welcome.”
Completely disarmed, Pike’s whole attitude seemed to undergo a change.
He drew a deep breath, and glanced from Jim’s snow-white head to the
fiery red of Larry Manford. And quite suddenly his eyes twinkled with
genuine good-nature.
“You two guys are pretty bright,” he grinned, “an’ someways I don’t
feel sore about it. Well, you got me wher’ you need. I don’t guess I
could put up a scrap worth callin’ with a skippin’ lamb. I’m to get
right after mossbackin’. I’m goin’ to run a binder, an’ cut hay, an’
cordwood. Gee! Me! I want to laff. But it’s good, too. It surely is to
a boy whose spent most of his time in the dark corners of the city, and
only works overtime when there’s no moonlight to worry with. I’m only
lookin’ fer shelter till the noise dies down. Then I’ll beat it over
the United States border. Meanwhile I’ll chew those reg’lations good,
an’ put ’em through. I’m surely goin’ to be a real peaceful mossback
in this layout. Say----”
Jim waited. He wanted the man to talk. The psychology of the crook was
a never-failing source of interest to him. The man flung out an arm,
and the gesture was comprehensive.
“It kind of leaves me guessing, this,” he declared, and his eyes took
in the wide, single-storied house, and passed on to the remotenesses
of the valley. “You boys ain’t any religious bunch. You don’t seem
the kind of junk them queer folks who run fancy societies are made
of. This gent here,” he went on, indicating Larry, who was still
standing, “looks the sort that belongs around a prize-ring. I’ve seen
a deal worse’n him in a first-class sluggin’ match.” He chuckled in
his throat. “I’d surely need all that knife, an’ them guns, if I got
up agin’ him.” He shook his bullet head. “No. It beats me. You ain’t
askin’ dollars. Only work. An’ you reckon to pay for that right. Well,
what then? You got a swell ranch place. I’ve seen it in daylight. I
guess it’s a business proposition of sorts.”
“Yes. It’s a sheer business proposition, and needs to pay.”
“Then why in hell get boys on the crook around to run it?”
The man’s question came sharply. Jim smiled up into the furtive eyes.
“That’s our business,” he said. “Your concern is, it’s a safe shelter
just when you need one. You’ll be up with the daylight and in your
blankets before ten o’clock. And you’ll be well paid for the work you
do. You’ll eat good, and just live the way you feel, and, after awhile,
the air and work’ll have cleaned out your vitals and made life seem
good to you. For the rest, it doesn’t matter to you. There’s Despard
waiting behind you. I’ll say good-night.”
Jack Pike glanced over his shoulder and discovered a burly white man
standing immediately behind him. He had approached without a sound, and
the stranger was unpleasantly startled at the vision. He looked into
the man’s face, studying him with suspicion uppermost. But he said no
word. Then he turned back to the man at the table, and his eyes were
full of unvoiced questioning. He glanced round at the silent vision of
the red-headed Larry. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“So long,” he said curtly. And to the man behind him; “Lead the way,
boy. This is the queerest joint I’ve lit on in years. But it don’t
matter.”