SUVY PROVES HIS LOVE
If a single ray of far-off hope had lingered in Van's meditations
concerning Beth, and the various occurrences involving himself and his
mining property, it vanished when he told her of the letter he had seen
and beheld her apparent look of guilt.
One thing the interview had done: it had cleared his decks for action.
He had lain half stunned, as it were, till now, while Bostwick held the
"Laughing Water" claim and worked it for its gold. A look that was
grim and a heat that would brook no resistance had come together upon
him.
That claim was his, by right of purchase, by right of discovery as to
its worth! He had earned it by hardships, privations, suffering! He
meant to have it back! If the law could avail him, well and good! If
not, he'd make a law!
McCoppet he knew for a thief--a "law-abiding" criminal of the subtlest
type. Bostwick, he was certain, was a crook. Behind these two lay
possibilities of crime in all its forms. That suddenly ordered survey
of the line was decidedly suspicious. Bostwick and his fiancée had
come prepared for some such coup--and money was a worker of miracles
such as no man might obstruct.
Van became so loaded full of fight that had anyone scratched a match
upon him he might have exploded on the spot. He thought of the
simplest thing to do--hire a private survey of the reservation line,
either to confirm or disprove the work that Lawrence had done, and then
map out his course. The line, however, was long, surveyors were fairly
swamped with work, not a foot could be traveled without some ready cash.
He went to Rickart of the bank. Rickart listened to his plan of
campaign and shook his head.
"Don't waste your money, Van," he said. "The Government wouldn't
accept the word of any man you could hire. Lawrence would have to be
discredited. Nobody doubts his ability or his squareness. The
reservation boundary was wholly a matter of guess. You'll find it
includes that ground--and the law will be against you. I'd gladly lend
you the money if I could, but the bank people wouldn't stand behind me.
And every bean I've got of my own I've put in the Siwash lease."
Van was in no mood for begging.
"All right, Rick," he said. "But I'll have that line overhauled if I
have to hold up a private surveyor and put him over the course at the
front of a gun." He went out upon the street, more hot than before.
In two days time he was offered twenty dollars--a sum he smilingly
refused. He was down and out, in debt all over the camp. He could not
even negotiate a loan. From some of his "friends" he would not have
accepted money to preserve his soul.
Meantime, spurred to the enterprise by little Mrs. Dick, old
Gettysburg, Napoleon, and Dave accepted work underground and began to
count on their savings for the fight.
At the "Laughing Water" claim, during this period, tremendous elation
existed. Not only had three lines of sluices been installed, with
three shifts of men to shovel night and day, but a streak of gravel of
sensational worth had been encountered in the cove. The clean-up at
sunset every day was netting no less than a thousand dollars in gold
for each twenty-four hours at work.
This news, when it "leaked," begot another rush, and men by the
hundreds swarmed again upon the hills, in all that neighborhood,
panning the gravel for their lives. Wild-catting started with an
impetus that shook the State itself. And Van could only grit his teeth
and continue, apparently, to smile.
All this and more came duly to the ears of Glenmore Kent and Beth. The
girl was in despair as the days went by and nothing had been
accomplished. The meager fact that Lawrence had run and corrected the
reservation line, at Searle's behest, was all that Glen had learned.
But of all the men in Goldite he was doubtless best equipped with
knowledge concerning Bostwick's Eastern standing. He knew that Searle
had never had the slightest Government authority to order the survey
made--and therein lay the crux of all the matter. It was all he had to
go upon, but he felt it was almost enough.
The wires to New York were tapped again, and Beth was presently a local
bank depositor with a credit of twenty thousand dollars. In a quiet,
effective manner, Glen then went to work to secure a surveyor on his
own account, or rather at Beth's suggestion.
With the fact of young Kent's advent in the town Van was early made
acquainted. When Beth procured the transfer of her money from New York
to Goldite, Rickart promptly reported the news. It appeared to Van a
confirmation of all his previous suspicions. He could not fight a
woman, and Bostwick and McCoppet remained upon the claim. Searle wrote
nearly every day to Beth, excusing his absence, relating his success,
and declaring the increase of his love.
On a Wednesday morning Glenmore's man arrived by stage from Starlight,
instruments and all. His name was Pratt. He was a tall, slow-moving,
blue-eyed man, nearly sixty years of age, but able still to carry a
thirty-pound transit over the steepest mountain ever built. Glen met
him by appointment at the transportation office and escorted him at
once to Mrs. Dick's.
Already informed as to what would be required, the surveyor was
provided with all the data possible concerning the reservation limits.
Beth was tremendously excited. "I'm glad you've come," she told him
candidly. "Can you start the work to-day?"
"You will want to keep this quiet," he said. "I need two men we can
trust, and then I'm ready to start."
"Two?" said Glen. "That's awkward. I thought perhaps you could get
along with little me."
Beth, in her tumult of emotions, was changing color with bewildering
rapidity.
"Why--I expected to go along, of course," she said. "I've got a
suit--I've done it before--I mean, I expect to dress as you are, Glen,
and help to run the line."
Pratt grinned good-naturedly. "Keeps it all in the family. That's one
advantage."
"All right," said Glen. "Hike upstairs and don your splendors."
He had hired a car and stocked it with provisions, tents, and bedding.
He hastened off and returned with the chauffeur to the door.
Beth, in the costume she had worn on the day when Van found her lost in
the desert, made a shy, frightened youth, when at length she appeared,
but her courage was superb.
At ten o'clock they left the town, and rolled far out to the westward
on their course.
Van learned of their departure. He was certain that Beth had gone to
the "Laughing Water" claim, perhaps to be married to Bostwick. Three
times he went to the hay-yard that day, intent upon saddling his
broncho, riding to the claim himself, and fighting out his rights by
the methods of primitive man.
On the third of his visits he met a stranger who offered to purchase
Suvy on the spot at a price of two hundred dollars.
"Don't offer me a million or I might be tempted," Van told him gravely.
"I'll sell you my soul for a hundred."
The would-be purchaser was dry.
"I want a soul I can ride."
Van looked him over critically.
"Think you could ride my cayuse?"
"This broach?" said the man. "Surest thing you know."
"I need the money," Van admitted. "I'll bet you the pony against your
two hundred you can't."
"You're on."
Van called to his friend, the man who ran the yard.
"Come over here, Charlie, and hold the stakes. Here's a man who wants
to ride my horse."
Charlie came, heard the plan of the wager, accepted the money, and
watched Van throw on the saddle.
"I didn't know you wanted to sell," he said. "You know I want that
animal."
"If he goes he sells himself," said Van. "If he doesn't, you're next,
same terms."
"Let me have that pair of spurs," said the stranger, denoting a pair
that hung upon a nail. "I guess they'll fit."
He adjusted the spurs as one accustomed to their use. Van merely
glanced around. Nevertheless, he felt a sinking of the heart. Five
hundred dollars, much as he needed money, would not have purchased his
horse. And inasmuch as luck had been against him, he suddenly feared
he might be on the point of losing Suvy now for a price he would have
scorned.
"Boy," he said in a murmur to the broncho, "if I thought you'd let any
bleached-out anthropoid like that remain on deck, I wouldn't want you
anyway--savvy that?"
Suvy's ears were playing back and forth in excessive nervousness and
questioning. He had turned his head to look at Van with evident joy at
the thought of bearing him away to the hills--they two afar off
together. Then came a disappointment.
"There you are," said Van, and swinging the bridle reins towards the
waiting man, he walked to a feed-trough and leaned against it
carelessly.
"Thanks," said the stranger. He threw away a cigarette, caught up the
reins, adjusted them over Suvy's neck, rocked the saddle to test its
firmness, and mounted with a certain dexterity that lessened Van's
confidence again. After all, Suvy was thoroughly broken. He had
quietly submitted to be ridden by Beth. His war-like spirit might be
gone--and all would be lost.
Indeed, it appeared that Suvy was indifferent--that a cow would have
shown a manner no less docile or resigned. He did look at Van with a
certain expression of surprise and hurt, or so, at least, the horseman
hoped. Then the man on his back shook up the reins, gave a prick with
the spurs, and Suvy moved perhaps a yard.
The rider pricked again, impatiently. Instantly Suvy's old-time
fulminate was jarred into violent response. He went up in the air
prodigiously, a rigid, distorted thing of hardened muscles and
engine-like activities. He came down like a new device for breaking
rocks--and the bucking he had always loved was on, in a fury of
resentment.
"Good boy!" said Van, who stood up stiffly, craning and bending to
watch the broncho's fight.
But the man in the saddle was a rider. He sat in the loose security of
men who knew the game. He gave himself over to becoming part of the
broncho's very self. He accepted Suvy's momentum, spine-disturbing
jolts, and sudden gyrations with the calmness and art of a master.
All this Van beheld, as the pony bucked with warming enthusiasm, and
again his heart descended to the depths. It was not the bucking he had
hoped to see. It was not the best that lay in Suvy's thongs. The
beating he himself had given the animal, on the day when their
friendship was cemented, had doubtless reduced the pony's confidence of
winning such a struggle, while increasing his awe of man. Some miners
passing saw the dust as the conflict waged in the yard. They hastened
in to witness the show. Then from everywhere in town they appeared to
pour upon the scene. The word went around that the thing was a
bet--and more came running to the scene.
Meantime, Suvy was rocketing madly all over the place. Chasing a
couple of cows that roamed at large, charging at a monster pile of
household furnishings, barely avoiding the feed-trough, set in the
center of the place, scattering men in all directions, and raising a
dust like a concentrated storm, the broncho waxed more and more hot in
the blood, more desperately wild to fling his rider headlong through
the air. But still that rider clung.
Van had lost all sense save that of worry, love for his horse, and
desire to see him win this vital struggle. A wild passion for Suvy's
response to himself--for a proving love in the broncho's
being--possessed his nature. He leaned far forward, awkwardly,
following Suvy about.
"I'm ashamed of you, Suvy!" he began to cry. "Suvy! Suvy, where's
your pride? Why don't you do him, boy? Why don't you show them?
Where's your pride? My boy! my boy!--don't you love me any more?
You're a baby, Suvy! You're a baby!" He paused for a moment,
following still and watching narrowly. "Suvy! Suvy! You're gone if
you let him ride you, lad! If you love me, boy, don't break my heart
with shame!"
Suvy and a hundred men heard his wild, impassioned appeal. The men
responded as if in some pain of the heart they could not escape, thus
to see Van Buren so completely wrapped up in his horse. Then some all
but groaned to behold the bucking cease.
It seemed as if Suvy had quit. The man in the saddle eased.
"Boy!" yelled Van, in a shrill, startling cry that made the pony
shiver. He had seen some sign that no one but himself could
understand. "Boy! not that! not that!"
Already Suvy had started to rise, to drop himself backwards on his
rider.
He heard and obeyed. He went up no more than to half his height, then
seemed to be struck by a cyclone. Had all the frightful dynamic of an
earthquake abruptly focused in his being, the fearful convulsion of his
muscles could scarcely have been greater. It was all so sudden, so
swift and terrible, that no man beheld how it was done. It was simply
a mad delirium of violence, begun and ended while one tumultuous
shudder shook the crowd.
Everyone saw something loose and twisting detached from the pony's
back. Everyone witnessed a blur upon the air and knew it was the man.
He was flung with catapultic force against a frightened cow. He struck
with arms and legs extended. He clung like a bur to the bovine's side,
for a moment before he dropped--and everyone roared unfeelingly, in
relief of the tension on the nerves.
The next they knew Van was there with his horse, shaking the animal's
muzzle.
"My boy!" he said. "My boy! My luck has changed!"
Apparently it had. The man who had thought he could ride the horse
limped weakly to a blanket-roll, and sat himself down to gather up the
pieces of his breath and consciousness. He wanted no more. He felt it
was cheap at the price he had paid to escape with a hint of his life.
Van waited for nothing, not even the money that Charlie of the hay-yard
was holding. He mounted to the saddle that had been the seat of hell,
and in joy unspeakable Suvy walked away, in response to the pressure of
his knees.