THE INGRATITUDE OF WESTON
THE presence of Leslie without snow-shoes, the disappearance of the rope,
and Weston's voice caused Ross to "savvy" immediately in impotent anger
and bitter disappointment. But not until the two boys had reached the
cabin and Leslie was warming himself beside the hot stove, did he fully
comprehend the trick that had been played on him.
"Weston!" he exclaimed stupidly in answer to Ross's explanation. "Why,
this isn't the man you told about at Sagehen Roost--it's the Miller
that you went away with. I saw that Weston fellow, you know. They're
not the same!"
"It's evident that when you've seen Weston you've seen any number of
men that he cares to imitate. This Miller is Weston, the McKenzies'
cousin and the man you----" Here Ross checked himself, as Leslie had
not yet connected the dark-haired Weston with the light-haired Oklahoma
man of the same name.
Finally, after supper, Leslie recovered from his bewilderment
sufficiently to tell connectedly the story of the days that had
intervened between Ross's departure from Meadow Creek and his own.
"Begin at the beginning," urged Ross finally, putting a pine chunk in
the stove and snuffing the candle.
He had seated the newcomer in the armchair beside the fire, while he sat
on an overturned box in front of the stove door and within reach of a
heap of wood. On the table at his elbow lay the gun which Steele had
insisted on adding to his equipment the day he arrived in Meadow Creek
and which he had not since touched. Leslie had brought it strapped
across his shoulders and with it all the ammunition which Steele had
provided. This was another proof of Weston's strangely curious good
will that continued to puzzle Ross. How the unsuspecting Leslie was
prevailed on to bring the limited arsenal was a part of the story
which Ross was demanding. While the storm raged outside and the dim
candle-light flickered and cast long uncanny shadows within, and the
pine chunk flamed and cracked cheerily filling the room with a warmth
grateful to the chilled narrator, Leslie complied with the request to
"begin at the beginning."
"I'd no sooner seen your back, Ross, as you followed Miller out of the
door, than I had an awfully uncomfortable feeling of responsibility.
By the time the storm had swallowed you two up, the whole outfit there at
Weimer's was sitting hard on my shoulders. We watched you out of sight,
Uncle Jake and I, and then we went back into the cabin and, Ross, if
that cabin seems to Uncle Jake now as--well--as--when you left----"
Leslie paused and stared at the candle. Ross drew his seat nearer the
stove and cleared his throat.
"Uncle Jake has stayed there a lot in the winter all alone, you must
remember. He was telling me about it not long ago, how the----"
Above the cabin, through the roaring and soughing of the wind among
the spruce, came the long drawn yelling, harassed, pitiful cry of a
coyote. From the canon the cry was answered. Again and again the two
human-like voices wailed despairingly at each other while the boys
involuntarily drew nearer together and Ross laid a caressing hand on
the gun and finished his speech:
"That's exactly what Uncle Jake told me--how the coyotes and wolves
prowled around, and he didn't mind them nor the loneliness at all."
Leslie nodded. "I noticed that he didn't seem to mind your being away in
the same way I did. He just took to his pipe and his bunk and seemed
settled for a rest until you got back again. That didn't add any to
my restfulness, I can tell you, for what could I do up in the tunnel
without him? I rustled around a bit trying to decide what to do when
the door opened and there was Miller again, or Weston rather. I was as
surprised as they make 'em until he said:
"'Say, young feller, Doc he sent me back t' round up a book on medicine
that he may need. It'll be layin' round loose som'ers, maybe in that
hair covered chist of hisn.'"
Leslie went on to say that when he had opened Ross's emergency chest
Weston professed to have forgotten the name of the book he had been
directed to fetch, and, consequently, had taken all the books, stuffing
them carelessly into his game pouch. Then the storm had again swallowed
him up.
"After he went away," said Leslie, "I got to thinking pretty strongly
about the dynamite. If it was so easy for one man to get into the valley
from the land only knew where, why couldn't the McKenzies make their
way back and spirit the dynamite off for good and all? We'd gone and
touched off that charge under Soapweed Ledge to make 'em understand that
we had it again, you know."
"Yes, I know!" affirmed Ross grimly. "Geese that we were!"
"Well, those sticks got on my nerves, and I made up my mind to fasten
them up if such a thing were possible. So I put on my snow-shoes and
began to rattle around in the storm to see what I could do. I thought
no one could come up into the tool house from under because of the mass
of snow all around, and because the dynamite box was so heavy with all
of your and our and the McKenzies' sticks in it that it held the floor
boards down with a vengeance. But I wasn't taking any chances after
seeing what our 'friends the enemy' were capable of doing, so I got
all the spike nails that Weimer had and nailed down the floor. Then I
plowed through the storm up to Wilson's shack, shoveled my way in,
collected all the tools that could be used to pry or hammer with and
brought 'em back to our tool house. And with them, Ross, I brought a
great padlock and chain that I recollected seeing up there rusty and
unused. I oiled it and put a bar across the tool-house door and padlocked
it. And if I do say it, it would cost a man some time and strength
and racket to get into that shack. It would also take some tools, and
there's none in the valley except what are behind that locked door,
for before night came I had raided the McKenzie cabin and brought over
all their tools. Then," continued Leslie, "I went to sleep feeling
some better."
"I'll bet you," cried Ross eagerly, "that it's because you fastened up
the dynamite that you're here! I do believe that when Weston went back
it would have been easier to cache that if he could have got it than to
have brought you here."
"I don't know, Ross." Leslie gave a short laugh. "It was easy enough
to get me here, as easy as to get you. I--but you want the story as it
comes."
"Every word of it. Go on. The next day----"
The next day, Leslie continued, so furious a blizzard was raging that he
didn't work in the tunnel but spent the time keeping open the trails
to the dump, the wood-pile and the spring. But the second day, the sky
having cleared, he tried his best to get Weimer to work.
"Ich vill vork mit Doc," was Uncle Jake's declaration of independence,
"mit you, nein!"
"You can imagine, Ross, how much work I did alone, not used to going
ahead with the blasting. When I came down at noon the old fellow had
dished up a capital dinner. He washed the dishes, but not one step would
he budge to the tunnel. Said that you were likely to drop in any time
that day and he'd stay in and watch for you. Said it would be work
enough for him to do to fill you up after your long tramp through the
snow! He simply boiled over with ready excuses. When I went up to the
tunnel I left him with his goggles on, swinging open the door about once
in two minutes for a look over on Soapweed Ledge. You know it was clear
that day and----"
Here Leslie suddenly paused and sat up with a jerk. He gripped the arms
of the chair and gave a startled exclamation.
"See here, Ross, that clearness business has reminded me of something
that I noticed in the morning, and, because I thought it couldn't be
true, I paid but little attention. But now I know--well, this is what
it was: when I reached the dump I glanced across the valley at the
McKenzie shack. It seemed completely buried in snow except the roof and
the chimney stovepipe, and at first I imagined that I saw heat coming
out of that stovepipe! You know how, after a hot fire, the heat will
crinkle the air above a chimney and no smoke in sight?"
"That's so!" exclaimed Ross. "And you think----"
"At the time I thought it was a mere notion of mine, but now I believe I
saw correctly, and that Weston was there waiting to dispose of my case."
"That's the idea," agreed Ross excitedly. "There all the time after he
left me, probably. He had likely got him a hot breakfast before you were
up and then let the fire die."
Leslie nodded. "Same as I did when I was hiding down in Miners' Camp.
But, anyway, I didn't investigate and forgot all about that chimney
until this minute."
Here Leslie broke off to ask abruptly, "Another thing, Ross, right here
before I forget. The day you left, you remember Uncle Jake was sick and
you went down to get dinner and left me in the tunnel?"
"Yes."
"Well, only a few minutes after you left I looked out and you, as I
supposed then, stood in the mouth of the tunnel----"
"Nope, 'twas Weston," interrupted Ross. "He said he went up there first.
He came to the shack from that direction."
"Then he got a squint at the work and the dynamite and your assistant
right then! I thought it was queer I didn't get an answer when I yelled
to know if you had dinner ready. But just as I spoke, the figure took a
sneak, and I supposed you had just stopped a bit to look things over."
"Weston was attending to that, evidently," retorted Ross promptly. "But
now let's see--you've brought the happenings up to to-day, haven't
you?"
"Not quite," Leslie answered. "I'll be there in a minute, though.
Yesterday I got as uneasy as Weimer over your not getting back, and
Miller, or Weston, I mean, not coming as he promised. I confess I was in
a blue funk by afternoon, and I saw things were shaping for another
storm. I went slipping and sliding out beside the dump a dozen times
where I could look over to Soapweed Ledge while Uncle Jake tramped
around outside the shack continually watching for you."
"Poor Uncle Jake!" muttered Ross stirring uneasily.
"Well, that brings me to to-day," Leslie began after a pause. "I was
down beside the dump looking for you about eleven o'clock this morning
when I saw him coming over the Ledge--Weston, I mean. Same goggles,
same cap drawn down over his ears, same outfit except the game pouch.
I noticed as soon as he came near that the pouch was gone. Tell you
what, Ross, I made tracks down the trail, got my snow-shoes on and
went to meet him. I would have hurried to meet a Hottentot! Uncle Jake
stayed behind jabbering in German, and fairly dancing up and down in
his excitement because you had not come with Weston."
Ross, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palms, staring at
Leslie, saw in a flash the latter as he had appeared at Sagehen Roost,
overbearing and dictatorial. Then he saw him running across the lonely
valley of Meadow Creek eager to meet any one on a fraternal footing.
"Weston must have left his shack and made a long trip behind it up the
mountain and around over the summit to have come in on the Ledge; don't
you think so?" asked Ross. "He probably didn't want to run any risk of
being seen."
Leslie assented and went on with his story. He had gone to meet Weston
with a demand as to Ross's whereabouts and return.
"Don't ye worry none about Doc," Weston declared heartily. "He's
fixin' things fine over our way. Doc's all right!"
"So he is," Leslie agreed, "and for that reason we want him right here,
Uncle Jake and I!"
"Wall," Weston drawled good-naturedly, "he says the same about you even
t' wantin' ye where he is now for a day."
"What do you mean?" Leslie asked.
The two had been walking back toward the shack and the frantic Weimer,
and Weston did not explain until he had assured Uncle Jake of Ross's
safety and health, and was seated beside the stove.
"Not once while he was there," Leslie told Ross, "not even when he
was eating dinner, did he take off his cap--merely pushed it back a
little. Uncle Jake urged him to shed it, but he just grinned and said he
had a bald spot on the top of his head, and had got into the habit of
wearing his cap all the time to keep that spot warm. Said he guessed
he wouldn't 'bust into that habit now.' I thought he was an odd Dick
to get into such a habit, and with a fur cap, too, but it was all so
plausible, Ross, everything he said was said with such an air of truth,
that I didn't once suspect."
"No more did I," confessed Ross.
"And then, of course, I was awfully interested in what he had to tell,
and ask me to do. He told a clever lie, Ross. He said that you had
brought down an elk with his gun and wanted me to come back with him and
the sled you had made to help the McKenzies haul supplies, and help
pack the venison over the mountains for our winter meat. It was all
the more clever because I knew that meat was all we needed to make our
winter's supplies good. The story hit Uncle Jake in the right spot,
too. He hurried up dinner for us to be gone before the big snow came.
Weston thought we could reach his cabin that night and make it back again
to-morrow morning with the elk meat. He said it would be a pretty good
pull for the three of us, but as there was a good crust we could make
it with that sled. Why, Doc, there wasn't a suspicion of deceit in his
manner. He said you had fixed his pard up all right and would leave
some stuff for him, and so didn't need to stay any longer. So I went up
to the tool house and got the sled out and we started----"
"The gun," interrupted Ross. "Did you think of the gun?"
"Not much I didn't! That was Weston. Just as we were starting off he
turned back and said:
"'See here, young feller. Doc said as how ye was t' bring his gun along
and mebby he could bring down a mountain sheep as we come back. They is
a lot of them animals over with us.'"
So the two had turned back and Leslie strapped Ross's gun across his
shoulders. He carried the ammunition. Weston insisted on taking all of it
along as he and his partner had run short, and Ross had promised them a
share of his! Then they had started out, and, screened by the veil of
gently falling snow, entered on the same tortuous, winding, upward trail
that Ross and Weston had taken a few days previously.
"And all the way," Leslie continued, "whenever the trail let us walk
together, he was telling me a long yarn about the day you and he had
spent chasing that elk whose meat we were going after. I listened, Ross,
with my mouth opened half the time, and wished a dozen times, if I did
once, that I had been with you.
"Well, as the afternoon passed, the storm became heavier, and part of
the way we couldn't see a dozen feet before us, and finally I think
Weston himself was uncertain of our way although he said he wasn't.
It must have been about four o'clock when we came to the head of the
ledge. Weston searched and groped along until he came to a tree where a
rope was already tied.
"'It's the one I used fer Doc and me,'" he explained and slung it over
the cliff.
"He had been hauling the sled along, while all I had to carry was the
gun and ammunition. Now he said that I had better leave my snow-shoes
on top of the cliff and tie the end of the rope around my waist and
he would let me down to the ledge. That I was to kick clear of snow
and then go up the canon and get you to come down and help heave the
sled over and get it down to the canon. He said you would know better
than I how to do that. He kept giving me directions about where to
find the cabin, for the snow had thickened until we couldn't see the
ledge, to say nothing of the canon. You see, Ross, I'll confess I
was too nervous about going over into space attached to that rope to
think that his proceeding was queer. I just didn't question a thing,
but shut my eyes and went over. It didn't occur to me to wonder why
my snow-shoes, instead of that gun, weren't tied on my shoulders.
Well, I struck the ledge and untied the rope and felt my way along that
ticklish shelf until the squall lifted and then--you know the rest.
If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget how I felt when that rope
was drawn up and he yelled down that I was to tell you I was in the
same boat that you were!"
It was late and Leslie was too tired to talk longer. Ross gave him the
bunk and, waiting only long enough to fill the stove with wood, close
the draughts and blow out the candles, wrapped up in a blanket and lay
down beside the stove, his coat for a pillow. He did not fall asleep at
once, but lay staring up at the flicker of firelight dancing about on
the mud-chinked logs overhead.
After all his planning and working, he thought, his mission in the
mountains was doomed to failure. The claims would pass into the
McKenzies' hands, and, besides, he would have missed one year of the
preparation for the work he had chosen. He rolled over and half groaned.
"Awake, Ross?" came from the bunk. "I'm so tired I haven't dropped off
yet and, besides--say, Ross, here I am and there's dad waiting for me
to turn up with that missing five hundred--and then your claims--we're
not exactly in luck, are we? I feel as though I'd like to get my hands
on that Weston-Miller fellow's throat."
"There's one thing I can do, though--study," muttered Ross. "That I've
got to hold myself to."
Conversation languished then, and both boys fell asleep, Ross's last
thought being of Weimer watching for their return in the lonely valley
of Meadow Creek.
By daylight the following morning the two were up, full of plans for
living and doing during the long months of their imprisonment.
"There are some nails, but no hammer," said Ross. "But we can drive 'em
with a stick of wood and fix up another bunk out of these two boxes.
They're the longest, and I think they'll fill the bill for my five
feet ten. Then we'll divide the straw and the blankets, and by keeping
up the fire all night, I guess we won't freeze to death."
On the floor in the corner back of the stove they built the bunk. There
were not nails enough nor were the boxes strong enough to allow of
making a substantial bunk such as the owner of the shack had built
against the side logs.
Until the bunk was completed, Leslie, while working docilely enough under
the older boy's direction, regarded the more comfortable bunk as his
permanent possession. He had never been taught to be unselfish. He had
from his motherless childhood demanded what he wished and received it
until the question arose of his continued attendance in school. There
he had taken the course he wished and was now paying for it dearly.
It was not until he was dividing the straw in his bunk and had come
across Ross's watch and pocketbook that the idea smote him hard that
the other had vacated the easier bunk in a wordless generosity that
he, Leslie, had never practiced, and that he had not even thanked the
bunk's former occupant.
"See here, Ross," he began brusquely, "you needn't think that you're
going to rest your old bones in the new bunk all the time, for you
ain't! I shall try it myself half the time."
"Week and week about, then," Ross agreed. "And this brings us up
against a calendar. I brought my watch, thank fortune! But what about a
calendar? I want to be sure that I know when the 4th of July gets
here, for Steele says you'd never know it except by the calendar,
there's so much snow."
"Snow!" groaned Leslie. "Snow! There's never a time when there isn't
snow in these mountains, it seems. Well, I know what day to-morrow is,
and--have you a pencil?"
Ross slapped the breast pocket of his slicker. "Yep, a long one. And
there's one in the pockets of the trousers you'll find in that box,"
nodding toward the repository of the shack owner's clothing. "Guess
we will keep a record of the days up on the side logs. I know how many in
each month when I say that old jingle, 'Thirty days hath September,'
etc."
But the need of a calendar was not so pressing as the need of wood.
The few days that Ross had spent in the shack had caused an alarming
shrinkage in the pile of chunks already cut; and Ross, commencing to
shovel his way to the nearest pine tree, now ran across a number of logs
which had been "snaked" down the mountainside before the snow came, and
lay ready for the axe and saw.
"I guess if Aunt Anne were here, she'd not complain that I took no
exercise," he muttered grimly, shouldering a short cross cut saw.
While he sawed Leslie got dinner. After dinner Leslie took his turn at
the saw and axe while Ross considered the matter of the calendar. Looking
about the shack, his glance fell on Weston's game pouch. He had hung
it on a peg driven between two side logs and had forgotten it.
"The very thing!" he exclaimed aloud. "We can mark the days on the margin
of the old newspapers that are in the bottom of that pouch."
Taking the bag down he dumped the crushed papers out on the table, and
sitting down, began to smooth them out, glancing over the contents
idly. He found nothing which interested him until he reached the last
wad. When he spread this out, he found, stuck to the newspaper by
candle-drippings, a scrap of coarse note paper which at once riveted his
attention. It contained only the latter part of one sentence and the
first part of another.
"----come and help us out, and no fooling about it, either. If you back
out I will turn you over to old man Quinn----"
Over and over Ross read these words. They were few and short, but to him
now they were the intelligible index to a whole volume. The scrap was
stuck to a "Gazette" bearing a date which was just previous to Weston's
appearance in Meadow Creek. There was no name to show that Sandy had
written the letter, but Ross knew Weston had escaped from Oklahoma. No
doubt Sandy possessed the knowledge that compelled his obedience.
Ross drew a long breath. "Strange what parts of two sentences may tell a
fellow!"
"Tell a fellow what?" demanded Leslie's curious voice at his elbow. A
hand came over his shoulder and pinned the paper down to the table while
Leslie read the contents aloud.
"'Old man Quinn,'" he finished excitedly. "Why, that is my father,
but--Lon Weston--say, what does that mean, Ross?"