It was not until he heard from the count, a few hours later, that Dirke
found himself restored to the state of mind which he was pleased to
consider natural. The call for action dissipated his misgivings, carried
him beyond the reach of doubts and regrets, gave him an assurance that
Fate had at last ranged itself on his side. For even if duelling were
not a peculiarly un-American institution, it is a mode of warfare of
such refinement and elaborateness, as to be utterly foreign to the
atmosphere of a mining-camp, and Dirke could only regard the challenge
which came to him in due form and order that morning, as a special
interposition of those darker powers which he had so long, and hitherto
so vainly invoked. He went about his preparations for the meeting in an
exaltation of spirit, such as he had never before experienced.
Paradoxical as it may seem, absurd as it really was, he was sustained,
uplifted, by the sense of immolating himself upon the altar of an ideal
cause. He was about to do an ideally evil thing, to the accomplishment
of an ideally evil end. Insane as this feeling was, it was his
inspiration, and he felt himself, for the first time in his life, acting
consistently, courageously, confidently.
The meeting took place on a remote, barren hillside, on the edge of a
dead forest whose gaunt stems stood upright, or leaned against each
other, a weird, unearthly company. As Dirke arrived with his second,--a
saturnine Kentuckian, with a duelling record of his own,--he glanced
about the desolate spot thinking it well chosen. Only one feature of the
scene struck him as incongruous. It was a prickly poppy standing there,
erect and stiff, its coarse, harsh stem and leaves repellent enough, yet
bearing on its crest a single flower, a wide white silken wonder,
curiously at variance with the spirit of the scene. Dirke impatiently
turned away from the contemplation of it, which had for an instant
fascinated him, and faced, instead, the count, who was approaching from
below, accompanied by his friend and countryman.
Shots were to be exchanged but once, and though the principals were both
good shots, the seconds anticipated nothing serious. The count, for his
part, was not desirous of killing his adversary, and he had no reason to
suppose that the latter thirsted for his blood. He considered the
incident which had led to this unpleasant situation as a mere freak on
the part of this morose individual whom he had unfortunately run afoul
of. He had, indeed, moments of wondering whether the man were quite in
his right mind.
Dirke wore the ring, and he gloried in wearing it, as he took his place,
elate, exultant, yet perfectly self-contained.
"Are you ready?" the Kentuckian asked, and the sense of being "ready"
thrilled him through every nerve.
At the given signal, Dirke raised his pistol in deliberate, deadly aim.
De Lys saw it, and a subtle change swept his face, while he instantly
readjusted his own aim. In Dirke's countenance there was no change, no
slightest trace of any emotion whatever. Yet both seconds perceived, in
the flash of time allowed, that the combat was to be a mortal one, and
that it was Dirke who had thus decreed it.
And then it was, in that crucial moment, that Dirke's groping soul came
out into the light,--even as the wide white flower over yonder had come
out into the light, springing from its grim, unsightly stem. In that
flashing instant of time his true nature, which he had so long sought to
belie, took final command. All that was false, fantastic, artificial,
loosed its hold and fell away. For the first time in two years Dabney
Dirke was perfectly sane.
At the word to fire, he did the one thing possible to the man he was;
his pistol flashed straight upwards.
The two shots rang out simultaneously, setting the echoes roaring among
the hills. Dirke staggered, but recovered his foothold again and stood
an instant, swaying slightly, while he slowly, with an absent look in
his face and in his eyes, drew the ring from his finger. As de Lys came
up, he dropped the trinket at his feet. Then, slowly, heavily, he sank
back, and the men gently lowered him to the ground.
De Lys knelt beside him, white with consternation.
"Monsieur!" he cried; "Monsieur! It was a misunderstanding! I mistook
you wholly! And you, you were magnanimous! Ah, _mon Dieu_!"
And then a wonder came to pass, for Dabney Dirke's lips parted in a
smile. The smile was faint, yet indescribably sweet, and the voice was
faint, and far-away, in which he murmured brokenly; "It was--a
message--to--the stars."
The horror in the faces bending over him was lost in a look of awe.
There was an influence mystically soothing in the dying man's words. The
dry, soft air played about the group, rustling the short, sparse grass.
It seemed the only motion left in a hushed and reverent world.
Then, as the smile deepened upon his face, fixed there by the hand of
death, the lips parted for the last time, and Dirke whispered; "I am
going--in--for astronomy!"
VIII.
MR. FETHERBEE'S ADVENTURE.
Mr. Fetherbee was in his element,--a fact which the casual observer
would have found it hard to believe; for he was a dapper little
gentleman, dainty in his attire and presumably fastidious as to his
surroundings, and these last were, in the present instance, hardly
calculated to suit a fastidious taste. In a word, Mr. Fetherbee was
"doing" Lame Gulch, doing it from the tourist's standpoint, delighting
in every distinctive feature of the rough-and-ready, sordid,
picturesque, "rustling" young mining-camp.
He was a popular little man, and he had been received with open arms, so
to speak, by the Springtown contingent, when he had put in an appearance
the day before at the _Mountain Lion_. He had arrived in a state of high
good humor, induced by the stage ride from the railroad terminus, which
he had accomplished, perched upon the topmost seat of the big
"Concord," scraping acquaintance with a miscellaneous lot of pilgrims,
all bound to the same conglomerate Mecca. Indeed, so charmed had he been
with the manners and language of his fellow-passengers, that it is to be
feared that he did but scant justice to the superb scenery spread out
for the delectation of the traveller. There were moments, to be sure,
when a line of gleaming snow-caps visible through the interstices of a
tract of starveling trees would arrest his attention; yet the more
moving and dramatic interest of some chance utterance in his immediate
vicinity, was sure to recall him to a delighted contemplation of a
rakish sombrero or of a doubtfully "diamond" scarf-pin. When, at last,
the stage reached the edge of the sort of basin in which the camp lies,
and began the descent of the last declivity, he could scarcely contain
himself for sheer joy. What, to him, were the glories of the encircling
peaks, the unfolding wonders of this heart of the Rockies, compared with
the actual sight of the mushroom growth of pine huts and canvas tents,
straggling sparsely up the hill, centring closely in the valley?
Children and dogs tumbled over each other on the barren slope which
looked like one vast back yard; donkeys grazed there, apparently
fattening upon a rich diet of tin cans and shavings. Over yonder was a
charred heap which had once been a building of some pretension, as was
evident from the rude stone foundation which the blackened timbers
leaned against. So Lame Gulch had its history, its traditions, its ruin.
The charred timbers already looked older than the everlasting hills that
towered on every hand, wrapped in the garment of eternal youth.
"What a lot of houses there are here," Mr. Fetherbee remarked to his
next neighbor, a seamy old reprobate with an evil eye.
"Hm!" was the reply, the articulate profanity of which was lost in a
cloud of the thickest, vilest tobacco smoke. "Ever seen a mining-camp
when the stuff's given out?"
"No; what does it look like?"
"Like a heap of bloomin' peanut-shells chucked in a corner."
At the _Mountain Lion_ were Allery Jones, Harry de Luce, Dick Dayton
"the mascot," and half a dozen other Springtown men, and they pounced
upon the new-comer with every flattering indication of delight.
Mr. Fetherbee had been but six months a resident of Springtown, but it
had hardly taken as many days for Springtown to make the discovery that
he was the king of story-tellers. He and his wife had taken up their
residence in that most delightful of health resorts, and, having
definitively closed up his affairs in the East, he had entered upon the
Western life with keen zest. In one particular only he was apparently
destined here as elsewhere to the disappointment which had dogged his
footsteps from childhood up. Fortune had treated him kindly in many
respects; she had given him health and prosperity, she had bestowed upon
him a host of friends, and the wife of his choice,--a choice which
fifteen years of rather exceptional happiness had amply justified,--best
of all, he was endowed with an unfailing relish for these blessings: yet
in the one burning desire of his heart he had been persistently
frustrated. He had never had an adventure.
Men he knew had found this crowning bliss ready to their hand. There was
his old chum, Jack Somers, who had been actually shipwrecked among the
Azores; there was Caleb Fitz who had once stopped a runaway horse and
saved the lives of two beauteous ladies, getting a corresponding number
of his own ribs broken into the bargain; lucky dog! There was that
miserable little cad, Sandy Seakum, who had been in Boston at the big
fire of '72, and had done something he was forever bragging about in the
way of saving a lot of bonds and other securities belonging to his
father-in-law. But for Mr. Fetherbee there had been no such honors. He
had never met so much as a savage dog; the very burglars had declined to
concern themselves with his house; and once when the top story of a
hotel he was sleeping in had caught fire, and prodigies of valor were
performed in the rescue of the inmates under the roof, he had disgraced
himself irretrievably in his own eyes by sleeping through the night
unconscious of any disturbance. It was perhaps this unsatisfied craving
for adventures of his own which gave such a vivid coloring to his
anecdotes of other men's exploits; possibly too, his sense of humor,
which had an entirely individual flavor, had been quickened by a sly
appreciation of his own oddities.
On the evening of his arrival at Lame Gulch, Mr. Fetherbee had outdone
himself. He had sat, the centre of an appreciative group, in the corner
of the big office, well away from the roaring wood fire, his chair
tilted back against the wall, his hat on the back of his head, spouting
entertainment in an uninterrupted stream. Not that Mr. Fetherbee was in
the habit of tilting his chair back, or, for the matter of that, of
wearing his hat on the back of his head. But here, at Lame Gulch, he
felt it incumbent upon him to enter as far as was practicable into the
spirit of the piece. As he sat, enveloped in smoke and surrounded by the
familiar forms of his Springtown cronies, he was obliged to admit that
the "piece" in question had not yet developed much action. Yet the
atmosphere was electric with possibilities, and the stage was well
peopled with "characters," not one of which escaped the watchful eye of
Mr. Fetherbee. A "character" he would have defined as a picturesque and
lawless being, given to claim-jumping, murder, and all ungodliness;
these qualities finding expression in a countenance at once fascinating
and forbidding, a bearing at once stealthy and imperious. If no single
one of the slouching, dark-browed apparitions that crossed his vision
could be said to fulfil all these requirements, the indications
scattered among them were sufficiently suggestive to have an
exhilarating effect upon the genial little story-teller.
And now it was morning and the serious business of the day had begun. He
was off for "the mines" with Dick Dayton, Allery Jones, and Frank
Discombe,--a young mining engineer who was far more proud of his
attainments as "Jehu," than of his really brilliant professional
reputation. They rattled noisily along the main street of the camp in a
loose-jointed vehicle drawn by two ambitious steeds which Allery Jones
characterized as "fiery skeletons." It was a glorious September morning,
and though there had been a heavy frost in the night, the sensitive
mountain air was already, two or three hours after sunrise, warmed and
mellowed through and through. The road soon began to rise, taking a fine
sweep about the shoulder of Bear Mountain, and then making its way over
obstacles of a pronounced nature, through a very poor and peaked "virgin
forest." The wood-cutter had hacked his way right and left, combining a
quest for firewood with his efforts in the service of the road-builder,
scorning to remove stumps and roots, delighting in sharp corners and
meaningless digressions. The horses struggled gallantly on, sometimes
marching like a sculptor's creation, elevated on a huge pedestal of rock
above the wagon which grovelled behind, its wheels sunk to their hubs in
the ruts on either side;--sometimes plunging into unexpected
depressions, which brought their backs below the level of the dasher.
The wheels made their individual way as best they could, without the
slightest reference to one another. At one moment Mr. Fetherbee perched
with Dayton on the larboard end of the rear axle-tree; a moment later he
found himself obliterated beneath the burly form of the latter, whom the
exigencies of mountain travel had flung to the starboard side. Released
from Dayton's crushing weight, his small person jounced freely about, or
came butting against Discombe's back in the most spontaneous manner
possible. The threatened dislocation of his joints, the imminent
cracking of all his bones, the squeezing of his small person between the
upper and the nether millstones of Dayton's portly form and the
adamantine seat-cushions; each and every incident of the transit Mr.
Fetherbee took in perfectly good part. Yet it may be questioned whether
he would have arrived at the goal intact, had it not been for the timely
splitting of an under-pinning of the wagon, which caused a sudden
collapse in the bows of the storm-tossed bark, and obliged the
travellers to descend while yet half a mile distant from their journey's
end.
The drive had been a silent function, each man having been preoccupied
with the effort to preserve the integrity of his physical structure.
Once on their feet, a splashed and battered company, they observed one
another critically, bursting into shouts of unrestrained mirth over the
astonishing hieroglyphics of mud which had inscribed themselves upon
their respective countenances. Mr. Fetherbee himself looked like an
Indian brave in full war-paint.
The day thus pleasantly begun was one of divers experiences, any one of
which seemed to contain within itself all the essential elements of an
adventure. More than once Mr. Fetherbee felt, as he jocosely expressed
it, as if every minute would be the next! Thanks to Discombe's
commanding position as superintendent of several of the mines, they were
able to investigate the situation pretty thoroughly. They climbed up and
down ladders, regardless of the wear and tear upon their breathing
apparatus, they hailed the discovery of "free gold" in a bit of ore with
as much enthusiasm as if they had been able to distinguish the
microscopic speck which was agitating the minds of foreman and
superintendent. Into one mine they descended, two passengers at a time,
standing on the edge of a huge ore-bucket, which was gently lowered down
the shaft. It was a treat to see the gnomelike figure of Mr. Fetherbee
poking about among the rocky ribs of Mother Earth, closely attended by
the flickering lights and weird shadows cast by the tallow-dip with
which he had prudently provided himself early in the day. Emerging into
the light of heaven they all rested for a while, sprawling there upon
the sun-baked hillside, looking down into a quiet wooded valley full of
brooding sunshine and heavenly shadows, while their ears were filled
with the din of the ore-bucket, restored to its legitimate function,
rattling up the shaft and sending its contents crashing down into the
dump.
There was but one moment of the day when Mr. Fetherbee's spirit quailed.
His kind friends, anxious that he should miss no feature of "local
coloring" had thoughtfully conducted him to the very worst of the
miner's boarding-houses, where they all cheerfully partook of strange
and direful viands for his sake. Mr. Fetherbee, shrewdly suspecting the
true state of the case, had unflinchingly devoured everything that was
set before him, topping off his gastronomic martyrdom with a section of
apricot pie, of a peculiar consistency and a really poignant flavor.
Just as he had swallowed the last mouthful, the proprietor of "The Jolly
Delvers" came up, and Mr. Fetherbee, in the first flush of victory,
remarked: "Well, sir! That _is_ a pie, and no mistake!" Upon which the
host, charmed with this spontaneous tribute, hastened to set before his
guest another slice. And then it was that Mr. Fetherbee, but now so
unflinching, so imperturbable, laid down his weapons and struck his
colors. He eyed the pie, he eyed his delighted fellow-sufferers, and
then, in a voice grown suddenly plaintive, he said: "Don't tempt me,
sir! It would be against my doctor's orders!"
But even the memory of his discomfiture could not long check the flow of
Mr. Fetherbee's spirits, and ten minutes later the valiant little
trencher-man was climbing with cheerful alacrity into the wagon, which
had been, in the interim, subjected to a judicious application of ropes
and wires.
"Think she's quite seaworthy?" he asked, as the structure groaned and
"gave" under his light weight.
"Guess she'll weather it," Discombe growled between his teeth which were
closed upon the stem of his pipe. "If she doesn't, there'll be a
circus!"
"Waves likely to be as high as they were this morning?"
"No; it's a kind of a double back-action slant we've got to tackle this
time," and off they rattled, even more musically than before, by reason
of the late repairs.
Over the brow of the mountain they went, and down on the other side. For
some fifteen minutes they rumbled along so smoothly that the insatiate
Mr. Fetherbee experienced a gnawing sense of disappointment and feared
that the fun was really over. But presently, without much warning, the
road made a sharp curve and began pitching downward in the most headlong
manner, taking on at the same time a sharp lateral slant. The brake
creaked, and screamed, the wheels scraped and wabbled in their
loose-jointed fashion, the horses, almost on their haunches, gave up
their usual mode of locomotion, and coasted unceremoniously along, their
four feet gathered together in a rigid protest.
"Do you often come this way?" asked Mr. Fetherbee, in a disengaged
manner.
"Well, no;" Discombe replied, composedly. "This is my first trip. They
sometimes haul the ore down here on a sort of drag, but I guess these
are the first wheels that ever---- I say, fellows, you'd better get out
and hang on. She's slipping!"
[Illustration: "IT'S A KIND OF DOUBLE BACK-ACTION SLANT WE'VE GOT TO
TACKLE THIS TIME."]
In an instant all but Discombe had sprung out, and seizing the side of
the wagon, or the spokes of the stiff front, wheel, in fact anything
they could lay hands on, hung on to the endangered craft like grim fate,
while Discombe, standing on the step, held the horses up by main force.
There were moments when the longed-for adventure seemed imminent, and
Mr. Fetherbee's spirits rose. He had quite made up his mind that if the
wagon went over he should go with it, go with it into "kingdom come"
rather than let go! He wondered whether he should be able to do the
situation justice when he got home. It was a pity that Louisa could not
see them with her own eyes! Though, on second thoughts, he was afraid he
did not present a very dignified appearance, and if Louisa had a
weakness, it consisted in the fact that she made a fetich of dignity,
especially where her vivacious husband was concerned.
Meanwhile the ground was receding more and more rapidly under his
sliding, stumbling feet, and his eyes were full of sand. Dayton and
Allery Jones were frankly puffing and groaning, but Mr. Fetherbee
scorned to make any such concession to circumstances. He was wondering
whether his gait would be permanently out of kilter after this
complicated and violent scramble, when he became aware that the lateral
slant was gradually lessening. A moment later he and his two companions
had loosed their hold and stood stretching and rubbing themselves, while
the wagon, under Discombe's pilotage, continued on its way, scooping the
horses down the hill at an increasing rate of speed. Just above where
they were standing, was a shed-like structure which looked much the
worse for wind and weather.
"That's the old shaft of the 'Coreopsis,'" Dayton remarked.
"So it is," said Jones. "Harry de Luce went down on the rope the other
day."
"How do you do it?" asked Mr. Fetherbee, much interested.
"Hand over hand, I suppose; or else you just let her slide. De Luce went
down like a monkey."
"He must have come up like a monkey! I don't see how he did it!"
"He didn't come up; he went out by the tunnel. It would take more than a
monkey to go up three hundred feet on a slack rope, or thirty feet
either, for the matter of that."
As Mr. Fetherbee stood mopping his brow, thereby spreading a cake of
mud which he had unsuspectingly worn since morning, in a genial pattern
over his right temple, a consuming ambition seized him.
"Now that's something I should like to do," he declared. "Anything to
prevent?"
"Why, no; not if you're up to that kind of thing. They're doing it every
day."
"Why don't you go down that way now?" Dayton asked. "We shall be driving
right by the tunnel in an hour or two, and can pick you up."
By this time they had effected an entrance into the shed, the door of
which was securely locked, while the boards of one entire side of the
tumble-down structure swung in at a touch. The three men stood looking
down the pitch black hole into which the rope disappeared.
"Looks kind of pokey, doesn't it?" said Allery Jones. "Think you'd
better try it, Fetherbee?"
For answer, Mr. Fetherbee seized the lightly swinging rope with both
hands, twisted one leg about it and slid gaily from sight.
"_Bon voyage!_" called Dayton, down the inky shaft.
"_Yage!_" came a hollow voice from the reverberating depths. They felt
of the rope which was taut and firm.
"He's all right," said Dayton. "There's not enough of him to get hurt,"
and he squeezed his portly person out between the flapping boards.
"All the same, I shall be glad to see him again," Jones declared, with
an anxious frown upon his usually _nonchalant_ countenance; and the two
men started briskly down the hill in pursuit of "the team."
Meanwhile, Mr. Fetherbee was making his way slowly and cautiously down
the rope. It was a good stout one and he had no real misgivings. Yet the
situation was unusual enough to have a piquant flavor. In the first
place the darkness was more than inky in character, the kind of
blackness in comparison with which the blackest night seems luminous.
Then there was the peculiar quality of the air, so different from
anything above ground, that the words chill, and dampness, had no
special relation to it. In the strange, tomb-like silence, his own
breath, his own movements, waked a ghostly, whispering echo which was
extremely weird and suggestive. Mr. Fetherbee was enchanted. He felt
that he was getting down into the mysterious heart of things; that he
was having something which came within an ace of being an adventure.
Then, as he felt his way down, farther and farther below the vain
surface of things, that intervening ace vanished, and he came up against
his adventure with a suddenness that sent a knife-like thrill to his
heart. His foot had lost its hold of the rope; he was hanging by his
hands only.