What made it harder for Lockwood just now was that even on that very
day, in spite of all precaution, in spite of all good resolutions, he
had at last seen Felice. Doubtless the young woman herself had contrived
it; but, be that as it may, Lockwood, returning from a tour of
inspection along the ditch, came upon her not far from camp, but in a
remote corner, and she had of course demanded why he kept away from her.
What Lockwood said in response he could not now remember; nor, for that
matter, was any part of the conversation very clear to his memory. The
reason for this was that, just as he was leaving her, something of more
importance than conversation had happened. Felice had looked at him.
And she had so timed her look, had so insinuated it into the little,
brief, significant silences between their words, that its meaning had
been very clear. Lockwood had left her with his brain dizzy, his teeth
set, his feet stumbling and fumbling down the trail, for now he knew
that Felice wanted him to know that she regretted the circumstance of
her marriage to Chino Zavalla; he knew that she wanted him to know that
the situation was as intolerable for her as for him.
All the rest of the day, even at this moment, in fact, this new phase of
the affair intruded its pregnant suggestions upon his mind, to the
exclusion of everything else. He felt the drift strong around him; he
knew that in the end he would resign himself to it. At the same time he
sensed the abyss, felt the nearness of some dreadful, nameless
cataclysm, a thing of black shadow, bottomless, terrifying.
"Lord!" he murmured, as he drew his hand across his forehead, "Lord! I
wonder where this thing is going to fetch up."
As he spoke, the telegraph key on his desk, near at hand, began all at
once to click off his call. Groaning and grumbling, Lockwood heaved
himself up, and, with his right leg bent, hobbled from chair-back to
chair-back over to the desk. He rested his right knee on his desk chair,
reached for his key, opened the circuit, and answered. There was an
instant's pause, then the instrument began to click again. The message
was from the express messenger at Iowa Hill.
Word by word Lockwood took it off as follows:
"Reno--Kid--will--attempt--hold-up--of--
brick--on--trail-to-night--do--not--send--
till--advised--at--this--end."_
Lockwood let go the key and jumped back from the desk, lips compressed,
eyes alight, his fists clenched till the knuckles grew white. The whole
figure of him stiffened as tense as drawn wire, braced rigid like a
finely bred hound "making game."
Chino was already half an hour gone by the trail, and the Reno Kid was a
desperado of the deadliest breed known to the West. How he came to turn
up here there was no time to inquire. He was on hand, that was the
point; and Reno Kid always "shot to kill." This would be no mere
hold-up; it would be murder.
Just then, as Lockwood snatched open a certain drawer of his desk where
he kept his revolver, he heard from down the road, in the direction of
Chino's cabin, Felice's voice singing:
"To the war I must go,
To fight for my country and you, dear."
Lockwood stopped short, his arm at full stretch, still gripping tight
the revolver that he had half pulled from the drawer--stopped short and
listened.
The solution of everything had come.
He saw it in a flash. The knife hung poised over the knot--even at that
moment was falling. Nothing was asked of him--nothing but inertia.
For an instant, alone there in that isolated mining-camp, high above the
world, lost and forgotten in the gloom of the cañons and redwoods,
Lockwood heard the crisis of his life come crashing through the air upon
him like the onslaught of a whirlwind. For an instant, and no more, he
considered. Then he cried aloud:
"No, no; I can't, I _can't_--not this way!" And with the words he threw
the belt of the revolver about his hips and limped and scampered from
the room, drawing the buckle close.
How he gained the stable he never knew, nor how he backed the horse from
the building, nor how, hopping on one leg, he got the headstall on and
drew the cinches tight.
But the wrench of pain in his foot as, swinging up at last, he tried to
catch his off stirrup was reality enough to clear any confusion of
spirit. Hanging on as best he might with his knees and one foot,
Lockwood, threshing the horse's flanks with the stinging quirt that
tapered from the reins of the bridle, shot from the camp in a swirl of
clattering hoofs, flying pebbles and blinding clouds of dust.