AT THE BRIDGE
At the edge of the water, beside a little bridge spanning the Kill,
Douglas sat on a stone and leisurely chewed at a sandwich. It was an
hour since he had bidden Marion good-bye and resumed his wandering way
up the stream; and now, though noon was not quite at hand, he felt
that this was the time and the place to eat. The flat-topped stone
was a comfortable seat, the sun poured its welcome warmth around him,
the pure water flowing past furnished both drink and finger-bath, and
somewhere among the leaves a phœbe-bird sang to him its sweetly simple
little plaint.
So, healthily hungry and pleasantly tired by his morning ramble to this
point, he basked and ruminated as if it made no difference whether he
continued his upward course along the brook or stayed where he was
until dark. For that matter, it made none. He was his own man and
master, free to come or go or start or stop as fancy decided; and if he
should change his careless purpose of the morning--to follow the stream
upward to its birthplace in high Lake Minnewaska--no consequences would
follow. What he did not do to-day he could do to-morrow, or leave
forever undone. It mattered not, so long as one more care-free day was
added to his life.
He knew, of course, that soon these golden days must end. Just as the
gray chill of November and the ensuing cold of winter would presently
terminate this dreamy season of the harvest-time, so the necessity of
doing his share of the work of the world must eventually drive him
forth from the Traps and back to the hurly-burly of the towns. But the
bleak time of the snows still was weeks away; and so, he hoped, was
the day when he must desert this wild corner of the hills. Meanwhile,
like the squirrels which roved about in search of supplies to tide them
through the bitter time approaching, he rambled and gathered into the
storehouse of Memory many a mind-picture to feed his nature-loving soul
when he should again be walled within the clanking city.
Every day since the ending of the “line storm” he had traveled the
Traps. Time and again he had spent an entire day threading his way
over, under, and around the myriad bowlders lying at the foot of Dickie
Barre’s precipice: some towering on end to the height of their parent
rock itself, bearing mute witness to the terrific power of the ice of
the glacial age, hiding among them masked chasms seldom seen by human
eyes; some leaning together as if placed by the hands of some Indian
giant whimsically building a rock wigwam; and countless blocks of every
size and shape, overlying one another at every angle, as if battered
from the face of the butte by the hammer of a mad Thor.
In the long cliff itself he had found gloomy caverns and crevices which
he did not enter, but which, he suspected, were by no means unknown
to certain men of the Traps. The days were too short and his progress
through the chaos too slow and arduous to devote time to an extended
exploration of those holes. So he had viewed their exteriors with a
shrewd smile and passed on. And, though no sound from within those
gloomy portals ever floated to him, perhaps it was as well that he did
pass on.
But he had not spent all his time in that labyrinth, nor had he passed
southward in it beyond the point where his “catamount girl” had first
cried to him in the night for help. Then she had been coming toward
him from the south, and he felt that in that direction was her little
secret dream-cave, and that not far from it the fugitive Steve now
was hiding. Her secret should remain her own; he did not wish even to
blunder into it by chance. Instead, he turned his errant steps in other
directions.
Down the Clove road he had gone, visiting the Clove itself--a
flat-bottomed valley through which the Kill meandered, and where old
stone houses hinted at the Indian days when every settler’s home
must be his fortress. Along the way, and in the Clove, he had met
men who stared with unmasked interest, answered slowly and briefly
when addressed, showed neither friendliness nor hostility, but seemed
relieved when he moved on. Only one had asked him a question, and that
query was direct and personal.
“Ye’re Hammerless Hampton, ain’t ye?”
“My name’s Hampton,” he had answered. “Why the Hammerless?”
A slow nod toward his hammerless gun had revealed the reason for his
new name. When he in turn began asking questions the man had moved away.
Now, ending his meal and dipping up a measure of water in his tin cup,
Hammerless Hampton smiled at the memory.
“I’m getting to be a sort of desperado,” he mused. “That nickname
sounds like Bowie Bill, or Derringer Dick, or Six-gun Sam--h’m! or like
Snake Sanders. Hope the citizenry hereabouts doesn’t classify me along
with that reptile. I let him think, before I punched him, that I was
dodging the law, and maybe he’s spread the idea around. I’d give a big
shiny quarter to know just what I’m supposed to be. I know I’m a goat,
but am I a black one or a white one or a spotted one?”
Downing the drink, he refilled his cup and set it beside him on the
stone while he loaded his pipe. Then he looked at his watch.
“Guess I’ll move in a few minutes,” he decided. “I believe the
schoolhouse is up yonder at the corner, and the youngsters will be out
soon and chasing down here, maybe. But I’ve time for a smoke first.”
He glanced along up-stream, under the bridge, as he lit his pipe. Up
that way led an unkempt road debouching from the sandy track leading
across the bridge, and he decided to follow it part of the way. Then
his eyes lifted, and as they rested on the railing above him they
widened.
Leaning on that rail, watching him, stood a woman.
He had not heard her approach, but she was there, and seemed to
have been there several minutes. She was slatternly, frowsy-haired,
olive-skinned, with Indian cheek-bones and black eyes; garbed in a
shapeless, faded dress, and barefoot. Yet she was quite young and not
without a sensuous comeliness. Now, meeting his surprised gaze, she
slowly smiled as if she had found her survey of him rather pleasing.
“Howdy,” he said coolly. “Where did you spring from?”
Her smile widened, revealing the fact that two of her front teeth had
been knocked out.
“Kind o’ caught ye nappin’, hey?” she drawled. “Was ye waitin’ for
somebody?”
He puffed a couple of times before replying, meanwhile observing that
her gaze went a little beyond him to the gun-barrels glistening in the
sun.
“Nope. If I were, I wouldn’t be sitting here in plain sight.”
She nodded with a bovine air of wisdom.
“Tha’s right,” she agreed. “But what ye lookin’ for? Ther’ ain’t
nawthin’ along o’ here.”
“Well, now, let’s see. If I’m looking for anything, it’s for the place
where this brook starts.”
She regarded him with increasing amusement. Then she laughed outright,
her sleek shoulders quivering as she rocked on her dusty toes.
“I guess so. Yas, I guess so! A lot o’ good that’d do ye, wouldn’t it
now? Ha ha! Be ye findin’ any cold tea up into the rawcks, mister?”
“Up in the rocks? What makes you think I’ve been up there?”
She looked up the road; down the road; at the bushy track leading away
behind her, up-stream. Reassured, she laughed down at him.
“Oh, I hearn ’bout ye,” she declared. “Some o’ them rawcks has got eyes
into ’em, mister. Ye’ve been up ther’ a-noseyin’ all around. Was ye
lookin’ ther’ for the place wher’ this crick starts?”
Again she shook with laughter. Coupled with the oddity of the missing
teeth, her mirth was contagious. Douglas grinned in answer.
“Nope. Hunting a gold-mine. What did you think?”
To his surprise, she took the jest seriously. Her black brows lifted
and her wide smile faded. Presently she nodded in that wise way of hers.
“Ninety-Nine’s Mine!” she said. “But ’tain’t a gold-mine, mister--it’s
silver. An’ it’s fu’ther down than the place wher’ ye been
lookin’--leastways that’s what folks say. But ye’ll be a long time
a-huntin’, I shouldn’t wonder. Why didn’t ye say so before, ’stead
o’ gittin’ folks all riled up ’cause they didn’t know what ye was
pesterin’ round after?”
He stared, wondering whether she was making game of him, and decided
that she was not. A lost mine! His blood quickened at the thought. But
he kept control of his face and smiled again casually.
“You’re the first one to ask me what I was doing,” he told her. “The
rest of them decided I was a detective without asking me, so I let them
think what they liked.”
“Ye’re simple!” she scoffed. “If folks knowed ye was a-huntin’ the
mine they’d jest laff an’ let ye go it, but seein’ ye a-slidin’ round
so quiet an’ not knowin’--wal, ye can’t blame folks for s’picionin’
things. An’ all to once ye might fall into trouble so hard ye’d never
git outen it.”
“Maybe you’re right. But aren’t you wrong about the silver? I thought
it was gold.”
She swallowed the bait whole.
“Nah! Silver, I tell ye. I’d oughter know--I lived into this place all
my life, an’ I hearn the story many’s the time.
“Ol’ Ninety-Nine--everybody’s forgot what his real name was, ’twas so
long ago--he worked the mine all by hisself an’ wouldn’t let nobody
else know wher’ ’twas. Bimeby he turned up missin’, an’ he never come
back. But a long time afterward one o’ the Injuns round here come to
’Lias Fox an’ ast him to help him onto somethin’ he couldn’t do alone.
’Lias he was pretty old, but he was strong an’ willin’, an’ him an’
this Injun went up into the woods down yender, toward the ledges. An’
when they got up into the rawcks the Injun blindfolded him ’fore he’d
go any fu’ther ’long.”
She paused suddenly and again looked up and down the road.
“An’ then he took ’Lias a-stubblin’ round into them rawcks,” she
resumed, “an’ pretty quick ’Lias lost track o’ wher’ he was. But bimeby
the Injun took the hankercher offen his eyes, an’ he was a-standin’
beside a big flat rawck like a trap-door, with another rawck a-stickin’
up beside of it like a marker. Then the Injun got a good stout pry,
an’ they got one end under the flat rawck an’ bore down, an’ the two of
’em hefted up that rawck an’ wedged it. An’ under it was a hole with
some rawck steps a-runnin’ down an’ into the ledge.
“The Injun he went down into the hole, but he made ’Lias stay out an’
see the pry didn’t slip. Pretty quick he come up an’ tied ’Lias’s eyes
ag’in, an’ ’Lias had to let him ’cause he was old an’ the Injun looked
pretty bad. Then the Injun walked him out a ways an’ left him an’ went
back, an’ ’Lias hearn the rawck go _bang_ down wher’ ’twas before, an’
then the Injun come back, an’ they went ’long out, with the Injun ahead.
“’Lias, he got so curious he nigh busted, an’ he slipped the cloth up
an’ peeked. An’ the Injun was a-carryin’ two big heavy bars o’ silver.
’Lias, he knowed then he’d been to Ninety-Nine’s Mine. But he didn’t
dast say nawthin’, an’ he pulled down the hankercher an’ never let
on. Bimeby the Injun stopped an’ took off the cloth, an’ they was out
o’ the rawcks an’ the Injun didn’t have no silver--he’d laid it down
somewheres. He told ’Lias to go home an’ keep his mouth shet, an’ he’d
come back sometime an’ show ’Lias somethin’ that’d make him rich. An’
then he went back into the rawcks an’ ’Lias went home.
“’Lias, he waited years an’ years, but the Injun never come back.
’Lias got too old to go huntin’ that place, but he told his boy Tom
’bout it ’fore he died, an’ Tom he hunted till he died, but he never
did git to it. An’ Tom’s boys, Will an’ Abner, they hunted too--till
Will got kilt. A piece o’ rawck fell offen the ledge an’ mashed him all
up. Then Abner, he got scairt an’ never looked no more--he says old
Ninety-Nine’s cuss is onto the place an’ no white man will ever git
that silver. Sence then ’most every man into the Traps has looked, but
nobody found it.”
Her drawl was gone and her tongue flying fast in the joy of retelling a
well-worn tale. Now she suddenly moved off the bridge and came slipping
down the slope toward him. He arose.
“But ther’s somethin’ that everybody don’t know,” she added
mysteriously. “An’ that’s this--the place wher’ the sun hits the wall
fust into the mornin’, that’s wher’ Ninety-Nine’s Mine is! Mebbe ye can
find it, mister--don’t tell nobody--but if ye find it ’member I told
ye. Will ye gimme some o’ the silver if ye find it? I--I wanter git
outen this place!”
In the black eyes upturned to his were appeal, revolt, wistfulness--and,
as they continued to look at him, something else. Unabashed,
unmistakable, they gave him the message that she found him very good to
look on; that he had but to reach for her and take her. He stepped back
a little.
“I’ll do that--if I find it,” he assured her, repressing a smile. “If
ever I stumble into Ninety-Nine’s Mine I’ll give you a full share of
whatever is in it. Now I think I’ll move----”
He paused. She had started and thrown a scared glance behind. From up
on the hill sounded shouts and the thud of running feet. School was out.
“Oh, my Gawd--git in under the bridge quick!” she gasped. “I dasn’t be
seen with ye--quick--let ’em git by!”
She tugged at his arm, then jumped for cover under the bridge. He
hesitated, scorning to hide. But she beckoned imploringly.
“Ye’ll git me into misery!” she quavered. “Don’t let ’em see
ye--they’ll stop an’----”
He yielded to her importunity. Seizing his gun, he bounded under the
planks.
The spatting feet and the childish voices rocketed down upon them. The
boards thumped roaringly, and into the little tunnel drizzled sand from
the cracks. They were passing by----
Then a boy’s voice shouted:
“Lookit! There’s a tin cup!”
Douglas glowered at the forgotten cup gleaming on the stone outside. He
started to move toward it, intending to drive or lure the children away
without letting them peer under the bridge and find the woman. But he
was too late.
Down the slope ran two skinny children, boy and girl, to grab the
prize. Their quick eyes darted under the bridge. They stopped, and, for
a second, stood open-mouthed. Then across their faces shot a cunning
look. Upward they jumped again at top speed, and into the road their
twinkling legs vanished. And out pealed their voices in malicious glee,
screaming at the other youngsters:
“Hey! Oo-ee! Lookit! That ’ere ’tective feller has got Snake Sanders’s
woman under the bridge!”