In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack Hamlin had sat up all
night in the magnolia saloon of the Divide, and as it was rather early
to go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, shaken off the sedentary
attitude and prepared himself for sleep by a fierce preliminary
gallop in the woods. Besides, he had been a large winner, and on those
occasions he generally isolated himself from his companions to avoid
foolish altercations with inexperienced players. Even in fighting
Jack was fastidious, and did not like to have his stomach for a real
difficulty distended and vitiated by small preliminary indulgences.
He was just emerging from the wood into the highroad when a buggy dashed
past him, containing a man and a woman. The woman wore a thick veil; the
man was almost undistinguishable from dust. The glimpse was momentary,
but dislike has a keen eye, and in that glimpse Mr. Hamlin recognized
Van Loo. The situation was equally clear. The bent heads and averted
faces, the dust collected in the heedlessness of haste, the early
hour,--indicating a night-long flight,--all made it plain to him that
Van Loo was running away with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no moral
scruples, but he had the ethics of a sportsman, which he knew Mr. Van
Loo was not. Whether the woman was an innocent schoolgirl or an actress,
he was satisfied that Van Loo was doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin
also had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman was or was not
fair game, he knew that for HIS purposes Van Loo was. With the greatest
cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse and cantered after them.
They were evidently making for the Divide and a fresh horse, or to
take the coach due an hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's present object
to circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in his way to return.
Incidentally, however, the superior speed of his horse gave him the
opportunity of frequently lunging towards them at a furious pace, which
had the effect of frantically increasing their own speed, when he would
pull up with a silent laugh before he was fairly discovered, and allow
the sound of his rapid horse's hoofs to die out. In this way he amused
himself until the straggling town of the Divide came in sight, when,
putting his spurs to his horse again, he managed, under pretense of
the animal becoming ungovernable, to twice “cross the bows” of the
fugitives, compelling them to slacken speed. At the second of these
passages Van Loo apparently lost prudence, and slashing out with his
whip, the lash caught slightly on the counter of Hamlin's horse. Mr.
Hamlin instantly acknowledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and speeded
on to the hotel, arriving at the steps and throwing himself from the
saddle exactly as the buggy drove up. With characteristic audacity, he
actually assisted the frightened and eager woman to alight and run into
the hotel. But in this action her veil was accidentally lifted. Mr.
Hamlin instantly recognized the pretty woman who had been pointed out
to him in San Francisco as Mrs. Barker, the wife of one of the partners
whose fortunes had interested him five years ago. It struck him that
this was an additional reason for his interference on Barker's account,
although personally he could not conceive why a man should ever try
to prevent a woman from running away from him. But then Mr. Hamlin's
personal experiences had been quite the other way.
It was enough, however, to cause him to lay his hand lightly on Van
Loo's arm as the latter, leaping down, was about to follow Mrs. Barker
into the hotel. “You'll have time enough now,” said Hamlin.
“Time for what?” said Van Loo savagely.
“Time to apologize for having cut my horse with your whip,” said Jack
sweetly. “We don't want to quarrel before a woman.”
“I've no time for fooling!” said Van Loo, endeavoring to pass.
But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's wrist, although he still
smiled cheerfully. “Ah! Then you DID mean it, and you propose to give me
satisfaction?”
Van Loo paled slightly; he knew Jack's reputation as a duelist. But
he was desperate. “You see my position,” he said hurriedly. “I'm in a
hurry; I have a lady with me. No man of honor”--
“You do me wrong,” interrupted Jack, with a pained expression,--“you do,
indeed. You are in a hurry--well, I have plenty of time. If you cannot
attend to me now, why I will be glad to accompany you and the lady
to the next station. Of course,” he added, with a smile, “at a proper
distance, and without interfering with the lady, whom I am pleased
to recognize as the wife of an old friend. It would be more sociable,
perhaps, if we had some general conversation on the road; it would
prevent her being alarmed. I might even be of some use to YOU. If we are
overtaken by her husband on the road, for instance, I should certainly
claim the right to have the first shot at you. Boy!” he called to the
hostler, “just sponge out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be ready when the
buggy goes?” And, loosening his grip of Van Loo's wrist, he turned away
as the other quickly entered the hotel.
But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He had already
some experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility on the drive, and
had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an impediment to
his flight from the country. And another idea had come to him. He
had already effected his purpose of compromising her with him in that
flight, but it was still known only to few. If he left her behind for
the foolish, doting husband, would not that devoted man take her back
to avoid a scandal, and even forbear to pursue HIM for his financial
irregularities? What were twenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Barker's money
to the scandal of Mrs. Barker's elopement? Again, the failure to realize
the forgery had left him safe, and Barker was sufficiently potent with
the bank and Demorest to hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only
obstacle to his flight; but even he would scarcely pursue HIM if Mrs.
Barker were left behind. And it would be easier to elude him if he did.
In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that he had entered the
bar-room, but, finding himself there, he moved towards the bar; a glass
of spirits would revive him. As he drank it he saw that the room was
full of rough men, apparently miners or packers--some of them Mexican,
with here and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two men more ostentatiously
clad, though apparently on equal terms with the others, were standing in
the corner with their backs towards him. From the general silence as he
entered he imagined that he had been the subject of conversation, and
that his altercation with Hamlin had been overheard. Suddenly one of the
two men turned and approached him. To his consternation he recognized
Steptoe,--Steptoe, whom he had not seen for five years until last night,
when he had avoided him in the courtyard of the Boomville Hotel. His
first instinct was to retreat, but it was too late. And the spirits had
warmed him into temporary recklessness.
“You ain't goin' to be backed down by a short-card gambler, are yer?”
said Steptoe, with coarse familiarity.
“I have a lady with me, and am pressed for time,” said Van Loo quickly.
“He knows it, otherwise he would not have dared”--
“Well, look here,” said Steptoe roughly. “I ain't particularly sweet on
you, as you know; but I and these gentlemen,” he added, glancing around
the room, “ain't particularly sweet on Mr. Jack Hamlin neither, and we
kalkilate to stand by you if you say so. Now, I reckon you want to
get away with the woman, and the quicker the better, as you're afraid
there'll be somebody after you afore long. That's the way it pans out,
don't it? Well, when you're ready to go, and you just tip us the wink,
we'll get in a circle round Jack and cover him, and if he starts after
you we'll send him on a little longer journey!--eh, boys?”
The men muttered their approval, and one or two drew their revolvers
from their belts. Van Loo's heart, which had leaped at first at this
proposal of help, sank at this failure of his little plan of abandoning
Mrs. Barker. He hesitated, and then stammered, “Thank you! Haste is
everything with us now; but I shouldn't mind leaving the lady among
CHIVALROUS GENTLEMEN like yourselves for a few hours only, until I
could communicate with my friends and return to properly chastise this
scoundrel.”
Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight whistle, and gazed at Van Loo.
He instantly understood him. But the plea did not suit Steptoe, who,
for purposes of his own, wished to put Mrs. Barker beyond her husband's
possible reach. He smiled grimly. “I think you'd better take the woman
with you,” he said. “I don't think,” he added in a lower voice, “that
the boys would like your leaving her. They're very high-toned, they
are!” he concluded ironically.
“Then,” said Van Loo, with another desperate idea, “could you not let us
have saddle-horses instead of the buggy? We could travel faster, and in
the event of pursuit and anything happening to ME,” he added loftily,
“SHE at least could escape her pursuer's vengeance.”
This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as the guilty couple fled
TOGETHER, and in the presence of witnesses. But he was not deceived by
Van Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice. “Quite right,” he said
sarcastically, “it shall be done, and I've no doubt ONE of you will
escape. I'll send the horses round to the back door and keep the buggy
in front. That will keep Jack there, TOO,--with the boys handy.”
But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea of Mr. Van Loo's methods
and of his OWN standing with Steptoe's gang of roughs as Mr. Steptoe
himself. More than that, he also had a hold on a smaller but more
devoted and loyal following than Steptoe's. The employees and hostlers
of the hotel worshiped him. A single word of inquiry revealed to him
the fact that the buggy was NOT going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and
Mrs. Barker WERE--on two horses, a temporary side-saddle having been
constructed out of a mule's pack-tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, with his
usual audacity, walked into the bar-room, and going to the bar leaned
carelessly against it. Then turning to the lowering faces around him, he
said, with a flash of his white teeth, “Well, boys, I'm calculating to
leave the Divide in a few minutes to follow some friends in the buggy,
and it seems to me only the square thing to stand the liquor for the
crowd, without prejudice to any feeling or roughness there may be
against me. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm generally there when
the band plays, and I'm pretty sure to turn up for THAT sort of thing.
So you'll just consider that I've had a good game on the Divide, and
I'm reckoning it's only fair to leave a little of it behind me here,
to 'sweeten the pot' until I call again. I only ask you, gentlemen, to
drink success to my friends in the buggy as early and as often as you
can.” He flung two gold pieces on the counter and paused, smiling.
He was right in his conjecture. Even the men who would have willingly
“held him up” a moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, saw no reason
for declining a free drink “without prejudice.” And it was a part of
the irony of the situation that Steptoe and Van Loo were also obliged
to participate to keep in with their partisans. It was, however, an
opportune diversion to Van Loo, who managed to get nearer the door
leading to the back entrance of the hotel, and to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who
was watching him, as the men closed up to the bar.
The toast was drunk with acclamation, followed by another and yet
another. Steptoe and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, were both
wondering if Hamlin's intention were to intoxicate and incapacitate the
crowd at the crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled grimly over his superior
knowledge of their alcoholic capacity. But suddenly there was the
greater diversion of a shout from the road, the on-coming of a cloud of
red dust, and the halt of another vehicle before the door. This time it
was no jaded single horse and dust-stained buggy, but a double team
of four spirited trotters, whose coats were scarcely turned with foam,
before a light station wagon containing a single man. But that man
was instantly recognized by every one of the outside loungers and
stable-boys as well as the staring crowd within the saloon. It was James
Stacy, the millionaire and banker. No one but himself knew that he had
covered half the distance of a night-long ride from Boomville in two
hours. But before they could voice their astonishment Stacy had thrown
a letter to the obsequious landlord, and then gathering up the reins had
sped away to the railroad station half a mile distant.
“Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a hurry,” said one of the eager
gazers in the doorway. “Somebody goin' to get smashed, sure.”
“More like as if he was just humpin' himself to keep from getting
smashed,” said Steptoe. “The bank hasn't got over the effect of their
smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything they had in their hands
tumbled yesterday in Sacramento. Men like me and you ain't goin' to
trust their money to be 'jockeyed' with in that style. Nobody but a man
with a swelled head like Stacy would have even dared to try it on. And
now, by G-d! he's got to pay for it.”
The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker showed that he had quite
forgotten Van Loo and Hamlin in his superior hatred of the millionaire,
and both men noticed it. Van Loo edged still nearer to the door, as
Steptoe continued, “Ever since he made that big strike on Heavy Tree
five years ago, the country hasn't been big enough to hold him. But mark
my words, gentlemen, the time ain't far off when he'll find a two-foot
ditch again and a pick and grub wages room enough and to spare for him
and his kind of cattle.”
“You're not drinking,” said Jack Hamlin cheerfully.
Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then started. “Where's Van Loo?” he
demanded of Jack sharply.
Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Gone to hurry up his girl, I
reckon. I calculate he ain't got much time to fool away here.”
Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at the same moment they
were all startled--even Jack himself--at the apparition of Mrs. Barker
passing hurriedly along the veranda before the windows in the direction
of the still waiting buggy. “D--n it!” said Steptoe in a fierce whisper
to the man next him. “Tell her not THERE--at the back door!” But before
the messenger reached the door there was a sudden rattle of wheels, and
with one accord all except Hamlin rushed to the veranda, only to see
Mrs. Barker driving rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into the
room, but Jack also had disappeared.
For in the confusion created at the sight of Mrs. Barker, he had slipped
to the back door and found, as he suspected, only one horse, and that
with a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right. Van Loo, when he
disappeared from the saloon, had instantly fled, taking the other horse
and abandoning the woman to her fate. Jack as instantly leaped upon the
remaining saddle and dashed after him. Presently he caught a glimpse of
the fugitive in the distance, heard the half-angry, half-ironical shouts
of the crowd at the back door, and as he reached the hilltop saw, with a
mingling of satisfaction and perplexity, Mrs. Barker on the other road,
still driving frantically in the direction of the railroad station. At
which Mr. Hamlin halted, threw away his encumbering saddle, and,
good rider that he was, remounted the horse, barebacked but for his
blanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose girths, again dashed
forwards,--with such good results that, as Van Loo galloped up to the
stagecoach office, at the next station, and was about to enter the
waiting coach for Marysville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlin was laid on
his shoulder.
“I told you,” said Jack blandly, “that I had plenty of time. I would
have been here BEFORE and even overtaken you, only you had the better
horse and the only saddle.”
Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate and reckless. Beckoning Jack
out of earshot of the other passengers, he said with tightened lips,
“Why do you follow me? What is your purpose in coming here?”
“I thought,” said Hamlin dryly, “that I was to have the pleasure of
getting satisfaction from you for the insult you gave me.”
“Well, and if I apologize for it, what then?” he said quickly.
Hamlin looked at him quietly. “Well, I think I also said something about
the lady being the wife of a friend of mine.”
“And I have left her BEHIND. Her husband can take her back without
disgrace, for no one knows of her flight but you and me. Do you think
your shooting me will save her? It will spread the scandal far and wide.
For I warn you, that as I have apologized for what you choose to call my
personal insult, unless you murder me in cold blood without witness, I
shall let them know the REASON of your quarrel. And I can tell you more:
if you only succeed in STOPPING me here, and make me lose my chance of
getting away, the scandal to your friend will be greater still.”
Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. There was a certain amount
of conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind of creature
before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition of his character.
He amused and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin was also a man of the
world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might be good. He put his hands
in his pockets, and said gravely, “What IS your little game?”
Van Loo had been seized with another inspiration of desperation. Steptoe
had been partly responsible for this situation. Van Loo knew that Jack
and Steptoe were not friends. He had certain secrets of Steptoe's that
might be of importance to Jack. Why should he not try to make friends
with this powerful free-lance and half-outlaw?
“It's a game,” he said significantly, “that might be of interest to your
friends to hear.”
Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, turned on his heel, and said,
“Come with me.”
“But I must go by that coach now,” said Van Loo desperately, “or--I've
told you what would happen.”
“Come with me,” said Jack coolly. “If I'm satisfied with what you tell
me, I'll put you down at the next station an hour before that coach gets
there.”
“You swear it?” said Van Loo hesitatingly.
“I've SAID it,” returned Jack. “Come!” and Van Loo followed Mr. Hamlin
into the station hotel.