GOLD
He saw that the need of gold is a curse--that the craving for gold
is a greater curse--that the possession of gold may be the greatest
curse of all.
When Hugh Edwards left Saint Jimmy and the Indian, he was beside himself
with grief and rage. He had prepared himself, in a measure, to lose
Marta. He had told himself that his love was strong enough to endure
even that test, but to give her up because she proved to be the daughter
of the man who, by making him a convict, had robbed him of the right to
keep her, was more than he could endure.
As he rushed blindly from the house that had been to him a house of
refuge, but was now become a house of torment, Marta called to him.
He did not stop. He must get away--away from them all. The old
prospector, Saint Jimmy, Natachee, Marta, the dead Mexican--they had all
conspired with God to sink him in a hell of conflicting love and hatred.
When he came to himself, he was at the cabin where he had made his home
during those first months of his life in the Cañon of Gold. When he was
seeking a place to hide, as a wild creature wounded by the hunters
seeks to hide from the dogs, he had found that little cabin. He had
learned to feel safe there. But he did not feel safe there now. The
empty place was crowded with memories that would drive him to some deed
of madness.
It was there his dream of freedom and love had been born. It was there
that the dear comradeship of the girl had led him to believe there might
still be something to hope for, to work for and to live for. He could
not stay there now. The place was no longer a place where he could hide
from his enemies; it was a trap, a snare. He must go, and go quickly.
Without consciously willing his movements, indeed, without realizing
where he was going, he climbed out of the cañon and hurried away up the
mountain slopes and along the ridges in the direction of Natachee’s hut.
With no clearly defined trail to follow, it is doubtful if in his normal
mental state he could have found the place. He certainly would not have
made the attempt, particularly at that time of day. But some
subconscious memory must have guided him, for at sundown he found
himself in the familiar gulch where he had toiled all through the winter
for the gold that meant for him the realization of his dreams of freedom
and happiness with Marta. When night came, he was seated on that spot
from which he had so often, in the agony of those lonely months of
hiding, watched the tiny point of light in the gloom of the cañon below.
With his eyes fixed on that red spot, which he knew was the window of
Marta’s room, Hugh Edwards brooded over the series of events that had
ended in that hour of his dead hopes and broken dreams.
His thoughts went back even to those glad days when he was graduated
from his university, and when, with a heart of honest courage and
purpose, he had accepted a position of trust in the institution that
seemed to afford such an opportunity for service. He recalled every
proud step of his advancement from office to office, of increasing
responsibility.
He lived again that appalling hour when he knew that he had been
promoted only that he might be betrayed. Again he suffered the agony of
his arrest--the trial, with his baffled attempts to prove his
innocence--the hideous publicity--the hatred of the people--and again he
heard the sentence that condemned him to years in prison, and to a life
of dishonor and shame.
Once more he endured the horror of a convict’s life--and the death of
his mother.
Then came the terrible experiences of his escape--when he was hunted as
a wild beast is hunted, with dogs and guns.
And then--the Cañon of Gold, with its promise of peace and safety--its
blessed work and dreams and hopes--its miraculous gift of love.
One by one, the strange events of his life in the Cañon of Gold passed
in review before him--the period when he lived in the cabin next door to
the old prospectors and their partnership daughter--his comradeship
with Marta and the sure development of their love--the story of the
girl’s questionable parentage that had made it possible for him to think
of her as his wife--then the visit of the sheriff--his enforced life of
torment with the Indian, and his fruitless toil for the gold that held
him with its promise of freedom and Marta.
Again he lived over the coming of the outlaw, with the sudden turn of
fortune that made Natachee his ally, and gave him the gold from the Mine
with the Iron Door.
And then, with the gold in his possession and all its promises almost
within his grasp, the tragedy and disaster that had followed. Until now,
having gained the wealth for which, inspired by love, he had toiled and
fought, he had lost the thing which gave the gold its value. The thing
for which he had wanted the gold had become impossible to him.
The light in the Cañon of Gold went out. The hours passed, and still the
man held his place on that wild spot high up in the mountains.
And now he saw and felt the mysteries of the night--saw the wide sea of
darkness that engulfed the vast desert below, and felt the whispering
breath of the desert air--saw the mighty peaks and shoulders of the
mountains lifting out of the dark shadows below, up and up and up into
the star-lit sky, and felt the fragrant coolness dropping from the pines
that held the snows--saw the night sky filled with countless star
worlds, and felt the brooding Presence that fixes the time of their
every movement, and marks their paths of gleaming light--saw the black
depths of the Cañon of Gold, and felt the ghostly multitude of the
disappointed ones who had toiled there, as he had toiled, for the
treasure they never found, or, finding, were cursed with its possession.
And then, as one who in a vision glimpses the underlying truth of
things, this man, on the mountain heights above the Cañada del Oro, saw
that life itself was but a Cañon of Gold.
As men through the ages had braved the dangers and endured the hardships
of desert and mountains to gain the yellow wealth from the Cañada del
Oro, so men braved dangers and endured hardships everywhere. Every dream
of man was a dream of gold. Every effort was an effort for gold. Every
hope was a hope for gold. For gold was life and honor and power and love
and happiness. And gold was death and dishonor and murder and hatred and
misery.
It was gold that had led Marta’s father to purchase the rich mining
property from the ignorant owners, for a price that was little more than
nothing. The victims of George Clinton’s shrewdness had stolen his
child, in the hope that by her they might regain the gold they had lost.
It was for gold that Clinton had robbed the people who, because of their
need for gold, had trusted him with their savings. To insure himself in
the possession of gold, Clinton had sent Donald Payne to prison and
condemned him to a life of dishonor. Gold, to the escaped convict, had
meant, at first, the bare necessities of life. It had come to mean
everything for which a man desires to live. For gold, Sonora Jack had
given himself to crime. Lured by the gold of the Mine with the Iron Door
he had come to the Cañada del Oro and had been brought, finally, to his
death. It was gold that had, at last, led to the revelations that
brought the love of Hugh Edwards and Marta to naught.
The man saw that the story of his life in the Cañon of Gold, with its
needs, its hopes, its labor, its fears, its victories and defeats, was
the story of all life, everywhere.
He saw that the need of gold is a curse--that the craving for gold is a
greater curse--that the possession of gold may be the greatest curse of
all.
When Hugh Edwards went down to the cabin he found Natachee the Indian
waiting for him.