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THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE ONE-WAY TRAIL
THE TRAIL OF THE AXE
THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE
THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS
[Illustration: "Say--Jessie," he breathed hotly, "you're--you're fine!"]
THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
BY
RIDGWELL CULLUM
AUTHOR OF
"THE ONE-WAY TRAIL," "THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1912, by
George W. Jacobs & Company
TO
MY TWO LITTLE CHUMS
CHRIS AND RIDGE
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
CONTENTS
I POTTER'S CLAY 9
II THE HARVEST OF PASSION 23
III THE AWAKENING OF SCIPIO 37
IV SCIPIO BORROWS A HORSE 54
V HUSBAND AND LOVER 69
VI SUNNY OAK PROTESTS 87
VII SUNNY OAK TRIES HIS HAND 94
VIII WILD BILL THINKS HARD--AND HEARS NEWS 108
IX THE FORERUNNER OF THE TRUST 116
X THE TRUST 124
XI STRANGERS IN SUFFERING CREEK 136
XII THE WOMAN 142
XIII BIRDIE AND THE BOYS 154
XIV BIRDIE GIVES MORE ADVICE 167
XV THE TRUST AT WORK 177
XVI ZIP'S GRATITUDE 188
XVII JESSIE'S LETTER 196
XVIII ON THE ROAD 205
XIX A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION 216
XX HOW THE TRUST BOUGHT MEDICINE 225
XXI SCIPIO MAKES PREPARATIONS 236
XXII SUNDAY MORNING IN SUFFERING CREEK 240
XXIII A BATH AND-- 247
XXIV --A BIBLE TALK 259
XXV WILD BILL FIRES A BOMB 267
XXVI WILD BILL INSPECTS HIS CLAIM 274
XXVII SUSPENSE 285
XXVIII JAMES 296
XXIX THE GOLD-STAGE 304
XXX ON THE SPAWN CITY TRAIL 316
XXXI THE BATTLE 325
XXXII A MAN'S LOVE 335
XXXIII THE REASON WHY 346
XXXIV THE LUCK OF SCIPIO 353
XXXV HOME 363
THE TWINS OF SUFFERING CREEK
CHAPTER I
POTTER'S CLAY
Scipio moved about the room uncertainly. It was characteristic of him.
Nature had given him an expression that suggested bewilderment, and,
somehow, this expression had got into his movements.
He was swabbing the floor with a rag mop; a voluntary task, undertaken
to relieve his wife, who was lounging over the glowing cookstove,
reading a cheap story book. Once or twice he paused in his labors, and
his mild, questioning blue eyes sought the woman's intent face. His
stubby, work-soiled fingers would rake their way through his
straw-colored hair, which grew sparsely and defiantly, standing out at
every possible unnatural angle, and the mop would again flap into the
muddy water, and continue its process of smearing the rough boarded
floor.
Now and again the sound of children's voices floated in through the
open doorway, and at each shrill piping the man's pale eyes lit into a
smile of parental tenderness. But his work went on steadily, for such
was the deliberateness of his purpose.
The room was small, and already three-quarters of it had been
satisfactorily smeared, and the dirt spread to the necessary
consistency. Now he was nearing the cookstove where the woman sat.
"I'd hate to worry you any, Jess," he said, in a gentle, apologetic
voice, "but I'm right up to this patch. If you'd kind of lift your
feet, an' tuck your skirts around you some, guess you could go right
on reading your fiction."
The woman looked up with a peevish frown. Then something like a
pitying smile warmed her expression. She was a handsome creature, of a
large, somewhat bold type, with a passionate glow of strong youth and
health in every feature of her well-shaped face. She was taller than
her diminutive husband, and, in every detail of expression, his
antithesis. She wore a dress with some pretensions to display, and
suggesting a considerable personal vanity. But it was of the tawdry
order that was unconvincing, and lacked both refinement and tidiness.
Scipio followed up his words with a glance of smiling amiability.
"I'm real sorry--" he began again.
But she cut him short.
"Oh, bother!" she exclaimed; and, thrusting her slippered feet upon
the stove, tucked her skirts about her. Then, utterly ignoring him,
she buried herself once more in her book.
The mop flapped about her chair legs, the water splashed the stove.
Scipio was hurrying, and consequently floundering. It was his endeavor
not to disturb his wife more than was necessary.
Finally he wrung out his mop and stood it outside the door in the sun.
He emptied his bucket upon the few anaemic cabbages which grew in an
untidy patch at the side of the hut, and returned once more to the
room.
He glanced round it with feeble appreciation. It was a hopeless sort
of place, yet he could not detect its shortcomings. The rough,
log-built walls, smeared with a mud plaster, were quite unadorned.
There was one solitary opening for a window, and in the center of the
room was a roughly manufactured table, laden with the remains of
several repasts. Breakfast was the latest, and the smell of coffee and
fried pork still hung about the room. There were two Windsor chairs,
one of which his wife was occupying, and a ramshackle food cupboard.
Then there were the cookstove and a fuel box, and two or three iron
pots hanging about the walls.
Out of this opened a bedroom, and the rough bedstead, with its tumbled
blankets, was in full view where Scipio stood. Although the morning
was well advanced the bed was still unmade. Poor as the place was, it
might, in the hands of a busy housewife, have presented a very
different appearance. But Jessie was not a good housewife. She hated
the care of her little home. She was not a bad woman, but she had no
sympathy with the harshnesses of life. She yearned for the amplitude
to which she had been brought up, and detested bitterly the pass to
which her husband's incapacity had brought her.
When she had married Scipio he had money--money that had been left to
him for the purpose of embarking in business, a purpose he had
faithfully carried out. But his knowledge of business was limited to
the signing of checks in favor of anyone who wanted one, and, as a
consequence, by the time their twins were three years old he had
received an intimation from the bank that he must forthwith put them
in credit for the last check he had drawn.
Thus it was that, six months later, the thirty or forty inhabitants of
Job's Flat on Suffering Creek--a little mining camp stowed away in the
southwest corner of Montana, almost hidden amongst the broken
foothills of the Rocky Mountains--basking in the sunshine of a Sunday
afternoon haze, were suddenly startled by the apparition of a small
wagon, driven by a smaller man with yellow hair, bearing down upon
them. But that which stirred them most surely was the additional sight
of a handsome girl, sitting at his side, and, crowded between them on
the seat, a pair of small children.
Scipio, in a desperate effort to restore his fortunes, and set his
precious family once more on a sound financial basis, had come in
search of the gold which report said was to be had on Suffering Creek
for the trouble of picking it up.
This vision startled Suffering Creek, which, metaphorically, sat up
and rubbed its eyes. Here was something quite unaccustomed. The
yellow-haired fragment of humanity at the end of the reins was like
nothing they had ever seen; the children were a source of wondering
astonishment; but the woman--ah! There was one woman, and one woman
only, on Suffering Creek until Jessie's arrival, and she was only the
"hash-slinger" at Minky's store.
The newcomer's face pleased them. Her eyes were fine, and full of
coquetry. Her figure was all that a woman's should be. Yes, the camp
liked the look of her, and so it set out to give Scipio a hearty
welcome.
Now a mining camp can be very cordial in its rough way. It can be
otherwise, too. But in this case we have only to do with its
cordiality. The men of Suffering Creek were drawn from all sorts and
conditions of society. The majority of them lived like various grades
of princes when money was plentiful, and starved when Fortune frowned.
There were men amongst them who had never felt the softer side of
life, and men who had been ruthlessly kicked from that downy couch.
There were good men and scoundrels, workers and loafers; there were
men who had few scruples, and certainly no morals whatever. But they
had met on a common ground with the common purpose of spinning
fortune's wheel, and the sight of a woman's handsome face set them
tumbling over each other to extend the hand of friendship to her
husband.
And the simple-minded Scipio quickly fell into the fold. Nor was it
long before his innocence, his mildness, his never-failing
good-nature got hold of this cluster of ruffians. They laughed at
him--he was a source of endless amusement to them--but they liked him.
And in such men liking meant a great deal.
But from the first Scipio's peculiar nature, and it was peculiar, led
him into many grievous mistakes. His mind was full of active purpose.
He had an enormous sense of responsibility and duty to those who
belonged to him. But somehow he seemed to lack any due sense of
proportion in those things which were vital to their best interests.
Ponderous thought had the effect of turning his ideas upside down,
leaving him with but one clear inspiration. He must do. He must
act--and at once.
Thus it was he gave much consideration to the selection of the site of
his house. He wanted a southern aspect, it must be high up, it must
not be crowded amongst the other houses. The twins needed air. Then
the nearer he was to the creek, where the gold was to be found, the
better. And again his prospecting must tap a part of it where the
diggers had not yet "claimed." There were a dozen and one things to be
considered, and he thought of them all until his gentle mind became
confused and his sense of proportion completely submerged.
The result was, he settled desperately upon the one site that common
sense should have made him avoid. Nor was it until the foundations of
the house had been laid, and the walls were already half their full
height, that he realized, from the desolation of refuse and garbage
strewn everywhere about him, that his home was overlooking the camp
"dumps."
However, it was too late to make any change, and, with characteristic
persistence, he completed his work and went into residence with his
wife and the twins.
The pressure of work lessened, he had a moment in which to look
around. And with the thought of his twins on his mind, and all his
wife had once been accustomed to, he quickly realized the necessity of
green vegetables in his _menage_. So he promptly flew to the task of
arranging a cabbage patch. The result was a foregone conclusion. He
dug and planted his patch. Nor was it until the work was completed
that it filtered through to his comprehension that he had selected the
only patch in the neighborhood with a heavy underlay of gravel and
lime stone.
But his crowning effort was his search for gold. There are
well-established geological laws governing the prospector's craft
which no experienced gold-seeker ever departs from. These were all
carefully explained to him by willing tongues. Then, after poring over
all he had learned, and thought and searched for two days and two
nights, he finally discovered a spot where no other prospector had
staked the ground.
It was a curious, gloomy sort of patch, nearly half-a-mile up the
creek from the camp, and further in towards the mountains. Just at
this spot the banks of the creek were high, there was an unusual
blackness about the soil, and it gave out a faint but unrecognizable
odor, that, in the bright mountain air, was quite pleasant. For
several hundred yards the ground of this flat was rankly spongy, with
an oozy surface. Then, beyond, lay a black greasy-looking marsh, and
further on again the hills rose abruptly with the facets of
auriferous-looking soil, such as the prospector loves to contemplate.
Scipio pondered. And though the conditions outraged all he had been
told of the craft he was embarking upon, he plunged his pick into this
flat, and set to work with characteristic good-will.
The men of the camp when they discovered his venture shook their heads
and laughed. Then their laugh died out and their hard eyes grew
serious. But no one interfered. They were all seeking gold.
This was Scipio's position on Suffering Creek, but it does not tell
half of what lay somewhere in the back of his quaintly-poised mind. No
one who knew him failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a
love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his
girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were
the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees
of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of
his peculiar mind.
No matter what the toil of his claim, he always seemed to find leisure
and delight in saving his wife from the domestic cares of their home.
And though weary to the breaking-point with his toil, and consumed by
a hunger that was well-nigh painful, when food was short he never
seemed to realize his needs until Jessie and the children had eaten
heartily. And afterwards no power on earth could rob him of an hour's
romp with the little tyrants who ruled and worshiped him.
Now, as he stood before the littered table, he glanced out at the sun.
The morning was advancing all too rapidly. His eyes drifted across to
his wife. She was still reading. A light sigh escaped him. He felt he
should be out on his claim. However, without further thought he took
the boiler of hot water off the stove and began to wash up.
It was the clatter of the plates that made Jessie look up.
"For goodness' sake!" she exclaimed, with exasperation. "You'll be
bathing the children next. Say, you can just leave those things alone.
I've only got a bit more to read to the end of the chapter."
"I thought maybe it 'ud help you out some. I--"
"You give me a pain, you sure do," Jessie broke in. "You get right out
and hustle gold, and leave things of that sort to others."
"But I don't mind doing it, truth I don't," Scipio expostulated
mildly. "I just thought it would save you--"
Jessie gave an artificial sigh.
"You tire me. Do you think I don't know my work? I'm here to do the
chores--and well I know it. You're here to do a man's work, same as
any other man. You get out and find the gold, I can look after the
house--if you can call it a house," she added contemptuously.
Her eyes were quite hopeless as she let them wander over the
frowsiness in the midst of which she sat. She was particularly
discontented this morning. Not only had her thoughts been rudely
dragged back from the seductive contemplation of the doings of the
wealthy ones as the dime fiction-writer sees them, but there was a
feeling of something more personal. It was something which she hugged
to her bosom as a priceless pearl of enjoyment in the midst of a
barren, rock-bound life of squalor.
The sight of him meandering about the room recalled these things.
Thoughts, while they troubled her, yet had power to stimulate and
excite her; thoughts which she almost dreaded, but which caused her
exquisite delight. She must get rid of him.
But as she looked about the room something very like dismay assailed
her. There were the hated household duties confronting her; duties she
was longing to be free of, duties which she was tempted to abandon
altogether, with everything else that concerned her present sordid
life.
But Scipio knew none of this. His unsuspicious nature left him utterly
blinded to the inner workings of her indolent, selfish spirit, and was
always ready to accept blame for her ill-humors. Now he hurriedly
endeavored to make amends.
"Of course you can, Jess," he said eagerly. "I don't guess there's
another woman around who can manage things like you. You don't never
grumble at things, and goodness knows I couldn't blame you any, if
you did. But--but ther' seems such a heap to be done--for you to do,"
he went on, glancing with mild vengefulness at the litter. "Say," he
cried, with a sudden lightening and inspiration, "maybe I could buck
some wood for you before I go. You'll need a good fire to dry the
kiddies by after you washened 'em. It sure wouldn't kep me long."
But the only effect of his persistent kindliness was to further
exasperate his wife. Every word, every gentle intention on his part
made her realize her own shortcomings more fully. In her innermost
heart she knew that she had no desire to do the work; she hated it,
she was lazy. She knew that he was far better than she; good, even
noble, in spite of his mental powers being so lamentably at fault. All
this she knew, and it weakly maddened her because she could not rise
above herself and show him all the woman that was so deeply hidden
under her cloak of selfishness.
Then there was that other thought, that something that was her secret.
She had that instinct of good that made it a guilty secret. Yet she
knew that, as the world sees things, she had as yet done no great
harm.
And therein lay the mischief. Had she been a vicious woman nothing
would have troubled her, but she was not vicious. She was not even
less than good in her moral instincts. Only she was weak, hopelessly
weak, and so all these things drove her to a shrewish discontent and
peevishness.
"Oh, there's no peace where you are," she cried, passionately flinging
her book aside and springing to her feet. "Do you think I can't look
to this miserable home you've given me? I hate it. Yes, I hate it all.
Why I married you I'm sure I don't know. Look at it. Look round you,
and if you have any idea of things at all what can you see but a
miserable hog pen? Yes, that's it, a hog pen. And we are the hogs. You
and me, and--and the little ones. Why haven't you got some 'get up'
about you? Why don't you earn some money, get some somehow so we can
live as we've been used to living? Why don't you do something, instead
of pottering around here trying to do chores that aren't your work,
an' you can't do right anyway? You make me mad--you do indeed. But
there! There's no use talking to you, none whatever!"
"I'm sorry, Jess. I'm real sorry you feel like this."
Scipio left the table and moved to the cupboard, into which he
mechanically began to stow the provender. It was an unconscious action
and almost pathetic in its display of that kindly purpose, which,
where his wife was concerned, was never-failing. Jessie saw, angry as
she was, and her fine eyes softened. Perhaps it was the maternal
instinct underlying the selfishness that made her feel something akin
to a pitying affection for her little husband.
She glanced down at the boiler of water, and mechanically gathered
some of the tin plates together and proceeded to wash them.
"I'm kind of sorry, Zip," she said. "I just didn't mean all that.
Only--only it makes me feel bad seeing all this around, and you--you
always trying to do both a man's and a woman's work. Things are bad
with us, so bad they seem hopeless. We're right here with two kiddies
and--and ourselves, and there's practically no money and no prospects
of there being any. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to do
something desperate. It makes me hate things--even those things I've
no right to hate. No, no," as the man tried to stop her, "don't you
say anything. Not a word till I've done. You see, I mayn't feel like
talking of these things again. Maybe I shan't never have a chance of
talking them again."
She sighed and stared out of window.
"I want you to understand things as I see them, and maybe you'll not
blame me if I see them wrong. You're too good for me, and I--I don't
seem grateful for your goodness. You work and think of others as no
other man would do. You don't know what it is to think of yourself.
It's me, and the children first with you, and, Zip--and you've no call
to think much of me. Yes, I know what you'd say. I'm the most perfect
woman on earth. I'm not. I'm not even good. If I were I'd be glad of
all you try to do; I'd help you. But I don't, and--and I just don't
seem able to. I'm always sort of longing and longing for the old days.
I long for those things we can never have. I think--think always of
folks with money, their automobiles, their grand houses, with lots and
lots of good things to eat. And it makes me hate--all--all this. Oh,
Zip, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm not good. But I'm not, and I--I--"
She broke off and dashed the back of her hand across her eyes in time
to wipe away the great tears that threatened to roll down her rounded
cheeks. In a moment Scipio was at her side, and one arm was thrust
about her waist, and he seized one of her hands.
"You mustn't to cry," he said tenderly, as though she were a child.
"You mustn't, Jess--truth. You ain't what you're saying. You ain't
nothing like it. You're dear and good, and it's 'cause you're that
good and honest you're saying all these things. Do you think I don't
know just how you're suffering? Do you? Why, Jess, I know just
everything about you, and it nigh breaks my heart to think of all I've
brought you to. It ain't you, Jess, it's me who's bad. It's me who's a
fool. I hain't no more sense than a buck rabbit, and I ain't sure a
new-littered pup couldn't put me to sleep for savvee. Now don't you go
to crying. Don't you indeed. I just can't bear to see those beautiful
eyes o' yours all red and running tears. And, say, we sure have got
better prospects than you're figgering. You see, I've got a claim
there's no one else working on. And sure there's minerals on it.
Copper--or leastways it looks like copper, and there's mica, an'
lots--an' lots of stuff. I'll sure find gold in that claim. It's just
a matter of keepin' on. And I'm going to. And then, when we find it,
what a blow-out we'll have. We'll get automobiles and houses, and--and
we'll have a bunch of sweet corn for supper, same as we had at a hotel
once, and then--"
But the woman had suddenly drawn away from his embrace. She could
stand no more of her little husband's pathetic hopes. She knew. She
knew, with the rest of the camp, the hopelessness of his quest, and
even in her worst moments she had not the heart to destroy his
illusions. It was no good, the hopelessness of it all came more than
ever upon her.
"Zip dear," she said, with a sudden, unwonted tenderness that had
something strangely nervous in it, "don't you get staying around here
or I'll keep right on crying. You get out to your work. I'm feeling
better now, and you've--you've made things look kind of brighter," she
lied.
She glanced out of window, and the height of the sun seemed suddenly
to startle her. Her more gentle look suddenly vanished and one of
irritability swiftly replaced it.
"Now, won't you let me help you with all these things?" Scipio
coaxed.
But Jessie had seemingly quite forgotten her moment of tenderness.
"No," she said sharply. "You get right out to work." Then after a
pause, with a sudden warming in her tone, "Think of Jamie and Vada.
Think of them, and not of me. Their little lives are just beginning.
They are quite helpless. You must work for them, and work as you've
never done before. They are ours, and we love them. I love them.
Yes"--with a harsh laugh--"better than myself. Don't you think of me,
Zip. Think of them, and work for them. Now be off. I don't want you
here."
Scipio reluctantly enough accepted his dismissal. His wife's sudden
nervousness of manner was not hidden from him. He believed that she
was seriously upset, and it pained and alarmed his gentle heart. But
the cause of her condition did not enter into his calculations. How
should it? The reason of things seemed to be something which his mind
could neither grasp nor even inquire into. She was troubled, and
he--well, it made him unhappy. She said go and work, work for the
children. Ah, yes, her thoughts were for the children, womanly,
unselfish thoughts just such as a good mother should have. So he went,
full of a fresh enthusiasm for his work and for his object.
Meanwhile Jessie went on with her work. And strangely enough her
nervousness increased as the moments went by, and a vague feeling of
apprehension took hold of her. She hurried desperately. To get the
table cleared was her chief concern. How she hated it. The water grew
cold and greasy, and every time she dipped her cloth into it she
shuddered. Again and again her eyes turned upon the window surveying
the bright sunlight outside. The children playing somewhere beyond the
door were ignored. She was even trying to forget them. She heard their
voices, and they set her nerves jangling with each fresh peal of
laughter, or shrill piping cry.
At last the last plate and enameled cup was washed and dried. The
boiler was emptied and hung upon the wall. She swabbed the table
carelessly and left it to dry. Then, with a rush, she vanished into
the inner room.
The moments passed rapidly. There was no sound beyond the merry games
of the twins squatting out in the sun, digging up the dusty soil with
their fat little fingers. Jessie did not reappear.
At last a light, decided step sounded on the creek side of the house.
It drew nearer. A moment or two later a shadow flitted across the
window. Then suddenly a man's head and shoulders filled up the
opening. The head bent forward, craning into the room, and a pair of
handsome eyes peered curiously round.
"Hi!" he cried in a suppressed tone. "Hi! Jessie!"
The bedroom curtain was flung aside, and Jessie, arrayed carefully in
her best shirtwaist and skirt, suddenly appeared in the doorway. Her
eyes were glowing with excitement and fear. But her rich coloring was
alight with warmth, and the man stared in admiration. Yes, she was
very good to look upon.