BETH'S ONE EXPEDIENT
Bostwick had told Beth partial truths. His journey had been hard. His
car had been twice disabled on the desert; Lawrence had been difficult
to find; delays had confronted him at every turn, and not until
midnight of the day before this had he come with his quarry to
Goldite--barely in time to save the situation, with the reservation
opening less than forty-eight hours away.
He had not seen Glen, nor approached the town of Starlight closer than
fifteen miles. He had not yet expended Beth's money, which only that
morning had been practically placed at McCoppet's disposal. But having
finally landed the Government surveyor in camp, he had achieved the
first desirable end in the game they were playing, and matters were
moving at last with a speed to suit the most exacting.
During the interim between Searle's departure and return affairs had
been a trifle complicated in another direction--affairs that lay
between the gambler and his friend, the lumberman, big Trimmer.
Trimmer had been paid one thousand dollars only of the sum agreed upon
when he gave the name of Culver to the half-breed Indian, Cayuse. He
had since spent his money, demanded the balance due, and threatened
McCoppet with exposure, only to be met with a counter threat of prison
for life as the half-breed's accomplice in the crime. McCoppet meant
to pay a portion of the creature's price, but intended to get it from
Bostwick. Indeed, to-day he had the money, but was far too much
engrossed with Lawrence to give the lumberman a thought.
Trimmer, waxing greedy through the ease with which he had blackmailed
McCoppet, had developed a cunning of his own. Convinced that the
gambler was accustomed to incubating plans in his private office, the
lumberman made shift to excavate a hole beneath the floor of that
particular den of privacy, and, after having spent half a night in
vain, in this place of concealment, was at last being duly rewarded as
he listened to McCoppet and Lawrence.
With his ear to a knot-hole he gathered in everything essential to a
knowledge of the plot. He became aware that Lawrence "fell" for twenty
thousand dollars; he overheard the details of the "survey" about to be
made; but to save his very life he could not have fathomed the means
that were about to be employed to "jump" the mining property belonging
to Van Buren and his partners.
Equipped with this latest means of squeezing McCoppet, the creature
emerged from his hole in time to meet the gambler at the bar, during a
moment of Bostwick's temporary absence.
"Opal," he said significantly, "I need to see you fer a minute. It
won't be no healthier to refuse me now than it was the first time I
come."
The gambler looked at him coldly. "I haven't got time to talk now,
Larry, but some of your money is at your order any time you want it, in
gold, or poker chips, or gin."
Trimmer was placated. "All right," he said, and cunningly resolved,
upon the spot, to keep his latest secret on the ice.
Lawrence had already disappeared to hasten arrangements for getting out
upon his work.
Bostwick had waited half an hour in the utmost impatience. With a
hundred things to increase his restlessness of mind and body, he had
finally gone to the postoffice and there discovered a letter from
Glenmore Kent.
It was short, and now no longer fresh. It had been composed just after
the young man's accident, and after relating how he had received a not
inconsiderable injury, requested Searle to come to Starlight at once,
if possible, and not to divulge any needless facts to Beth.
"I'm broke, and this knock puts me down and out," the letter concluded.
"Come down, like a good old chap, and cheer me up."
Bostwick destroyed the letter promptly, lest it fall by some accident
into other hands than his own. Not without a slight feeling of guilt,
the man shut out all thought, for the present, of deserting Goldite and
the plot. That Beth would learn nothing from himself as to Glen's
condition was a certainty. He was glad of this wisdom in the boy--this
show of courage whereby he had wished his sister spared.
But the more he thought upon Beth's attitude towards himself, and the
mystifying confessions old Billy Stitts had made, concerning the
errands he was running for the girl, the more Bostwick fretted and
warmed with exasperation, suspicion, and jealousy. He returned to
McCoppet's. The door to the den was still barred. Impatiently he
started again for Mrs. Dick's. He was not in the least certain as to
what he meant to do or say, but felt obliged to do something.
Meantime, Beth had written to her brother. Bostwick's evasions and
lies had aroused more than merely a vague alarm in her breast. She had
begun to feel, perhaps partially by intuition, that something was
altogether wrong. Searle's anxiety to assure her she need not write to
Glen--that he was coming to Goldite--had provided the one required
element to excite a new trend in her thought. She knew that Glen would
not come soon to town. She knew she must get him word. She had
thought of one way only to insure herself and Glen against deceit--ask
Van to go in person with her letter, and bring her Glen's reply.
Had she felt the affair to be in the slightest degree unimportant she
might have hesitated to think of making this request, but the more she
dwelt upon it the more essential it seemed to become. Her brothers
very life might be dependent upon this promptness of action. A very
large sum of money was certainly involved in some sort of business of
which, she felt, both she and Glen were in ignorance. Bostwick had
certainly not seen Glen at all. His deceptions might mean
anything!--the gravest of dangers to them all!
It had taken her the briefest time only to resolve upon her course--and
then old Billy came upon the scene, as if in answer to a question she
had asked--how to get her request and the letter to Glen across the
hills to Van, at the "Laughing Water" claim?
Three letters she wrote, and tore to scraps, before one was finally
composed to express all she felt, in the way that she wished it
expressed. Old Billy went off to wait and returned there duly,
enormously pleased by his commission. He knew the way to the "Laughing
Water" claim and could ride the borrowed pony.
As pleased as a dog with a parcel of meat, entrusted to his keeping by
a confident master, he finally started for the hay-yard, with two
dainty letters in his keeping. One was to Van, with Beth's request;
the other was, of course, to her brother.
Bostwick met the proud old beau at the corner of the street.
"Say, Uncle, what did I tell you," said Billy at once. "This time it's
the biggest errand yet."
Bostwick had wondered if he might not catch Mr. Stitts in some such
service as he boasted now, and his wit was worthy of his nature.
"Yes," he said readily, "Miss Kent was saying she thought perhaps she
could get you to carry a note to Mr. Van Buren." It was a hazardous
coup but he dared it with the utmost show of pleasure in his smile.
For a second, however, as he watched the old man's face, he feared he
had overshot the mark.
Old Billy was pleased and disappointed together. However, his wish to
prove his importance greatly outweighed his chagrin that Beth should
have taken even "Uncle" Bostwick into her confidence.
"That ain't all she give me," he announced, as foolishly as a child.
"I've got her letter to her brother, over to Starlight, too, and
nothin' couldn't stop me from takin' it up to the 'Laughing Water'
claim. You bet I'll see Van Buren gits it right into his hand from me!"
If Bostwick had contemplated making an attempt to bribe the old beau
into permitting him a glance at the letters, he abandoned the thought
with sagacious alacrity. He must think of something safer. A letter
to Van Buren and one to Glen was more than he had counted on
discovering. It made him decidedly uneasy.
"I'm sure you'll deliver everything safely," he said, masking his
annoyance with a smile. "Before you go, perhaps, you'd take something
to drink."
The suggestion in his mind was crude, but at least it was something.
"Huh!" said old Billy, "Me!--drink and git a jag when she's expectin'
me to hike right out of camp? Guess you don't know me, Uncle, not
worth a mice! Didn't I say nuthin' couldn't stop me? And I'm goin'
right now."
He clapped his bony old hand over his pocket, where the two precious
letters reposed, and winking prodigiously at Bostwick, departed
forthwith from the scene.
Bostwick could have run him down, beaten him to the ground and snatched
the letters from him, but he did not dare. Instead, he merely
continued to grin while Billy remained in sight. Then instead of going
on to Beth's, he circled a building and returned down street towards
McCoppet's.