Houston and Rutherford were promptly at the depot, as agreed, to take
the early morning train to the mines.
Mr. Blaisdell met them with a great show of cordiality, his thin lips
contracted into a smile which was doubtless intended to be very
agreeable, but which produced a sensation exactly the reverse.
"Well," Rutherford began, with his peculiar drawl, when he and Houston
were seated together in the car, with Mr. Blaisdell safely engaged in
conversation at a little distance, "I can't say that I'm any more
favorably impressed with Mr. Buncombe, or whatever his name is, than I
was with old Boomerang yesterday. That fellow looked like a silly,
pompous, old fool, and this one like a sly, old villain. I wish he'd
stop that confounded, wolfish grin of his, it makes me feel
uncomfortable, he looks as if he knew he had his prey just dead easy,
and his chops were watering in anticipation. I say, old fellow, I
don't think much of this Buncombe-Boomerang combination of yours, and
I guess it's a good thing I'm along with you till we find out what
sort of a trap we're getting into."
Houston smiled; Rutherford had expressed his own opinion a great deal
nearer than he cared to admit. He had seen enough of the men with whom
he was to be associated to convince him that they were villains,
cowardly villains too, the very sort of men that would be most
desperate and dangerous when cornered; but he was fast laying his
plans, and now the only drawback seemed that he would have no
assistant, and he felt the time would come when he would need one, and
some one familiar with mining. An expert from the east would not do,
he would be suspected; and a detective would not possess the necessary
information regarding mining in general, and these mines in
particular. At times, a vague idea of taking Rutherford into his
confidence came into his mind, but he was not ready to do this yet, if
at all.
All this flashed through Houston's mind as Rutherford made the above
remark, and he answered:
"I don't apprehend any particular danger at present, but I am glad you
are with me."
"The question with me is," continued Rutherford, "how I'll amuse
myself during your office hours in such a region as this; I don't
imagine I'll find a great many congenial companions."
"You seem to have forgotten the school teacher," Houston remarked,
with a quiet smile.
"Oh, bother the school ma'am! I had forgotten her. I suppose she'll be
as graceful as a scalene triangle, and about as entertaining as a
mummy. They're mostly that kind, or else the gushing, adoring sort,
that can't talk of anything but Browning, or Emerson, or theosophy, or
something of that kind; and the most conceited lot of creatures that
ever lived."
Meanwhile, the train wound in and out among the mountains, stopping
for a few moments at a small town where huge smelters were pouring
forth their clouds of dense smoke, darkening the air until it seemed
more like night than day; then on a few miles farther, to the little
station known as the "Y," so-called on account of the form of the spur
tracks owned by the mining company, by which the ore was brought down
from the mines above.
At the station was a store containing general mining supplies, with
the post-office in one front window, a boarding and lodging house, and
three or four saloons and gambling houses, these last designed to
catch the wages of the miners from the surrounding camps.
Mr. Blaisdell having found one of the superintendents who had come
down with a team for supplies, they were soon on their way up the
gulch, and in the course of an hour were left at the office buildings,
while the team went on to the mines.
Here Rutherford waited in the outer room of the little unpainted,
frame building, while Mr. Blaisdell took Houston into the further
room, and introduced him to Morgan, the general superintendent, and to
his work, at the same time. Then, having seen Houston duly installed
at his post of duty, perched on a wabbly stool, before a rickety,
ink-bespattered desk, beside a window gray with the dust and smoke of
ages, through which a few straggling sunbeams fell, Mr. Blaisdell
sailed complacently forth to escort Rutherford to Jim Maverick's
boarding house, whither the baggage had already been taken by the
team; then, all necessary arrangements for rooms and board having been
completed, he went out to the mines, leaving Rutherford alone in the
camp of the Philistines. He found no one, however, more formidable
than Mrs. Maverick, an old woman bent nearly double, with white hair
and hollow, deep-sunken eyes, so faded it was impossible to tell what
their original color might have been, and the "help," a stout,
red-cheeked, coarse-featured girl of fifteen, whom Mrs. Maverick
called "Minty," but who rejoiced in the euphonious name of Araminta
Bixby, and who ogled and grinned at Rutherford until he found the task
of preserving his dignity more difficult than ever.
In the course of an hour he sauntered down to the office to meet
Houston, and a little later the two sat in the porch of the low,
wide-spreading house, partly frame and partly of logs, the roof of the
porch supported by the trunks of slender trees, unhewn, from which
even the bark had not been removed.
From the porch there was a view of the lake, and in the distance the
gleaming cascades, while just opposite, the gulch road followed its
winding course and disappeared among the mountains.
Presently there came up the winding road three men, apparently father
and sons,--low-browed, heavy-eyed, brutal looking creatures,--who
followed the foot path up toward the house, and glaring sullenly at
the young men, shuffled around to the back door.
"Evidently mine host and his sons," remarked Houston.
"Well," replied Rutherford, "I think if I see a few more such
specimens as those, I'll take the first train out. Say though, I
haven't seen a sign of that school teacher, I begin to think she is a
myth."
"Sh!" said Houston quickly, under his breath, "see what you think of
this!"
Rutherford turned in the direction Houston was facing, and had two
beings just then descended from the mythical regions, he could not
have been more astonished than at sight of the pair approaching from
the lake. The first was a young girl, apparently about sixteen, but
tall and well developed, the scant garments that she wore revealing
the beautifully rounded outlines of her form, her carriage free and
every movement full of grace. Her face was exquisitely beautiful, the
features refined and perfect as though chiseled in marble; her eyes
shone with a star-like brilliancy, and her hair fell about her
shoulders like a mass of burnished gold.
Beside her was a woman several years her senior, equally beautiful,
but an altogether different type of beauty; more mature, more perfect
and more rare. Tall and splendidly developed, she moved with a queenly
grace. Her face was classical in its contours, the profile resembling
that of some of the old Grecians, while its beauty was so refined, so
subtile, it could not be easily described. Perhaps the eyes were its
chief attraction; large and dark, and of Madonna-like depth and
tenderness; soulful eyes that reflected every emotion of the pure,
womanly nature, as the calm lake mirrors the sunlit sky or the
lowering storm-cloud, the silvery moon or the lightning's flash. The
wavy, auburn hair, tinged in the sunlight with red gold, was gathered
into a knot near the top of a shapely, well-poised head, while stray
curls clustered rebelliously about the broad, fair brow, forming a
shining aureole.
Like a vision, the pair passed silently into the house, leaving
Rutherford, for once in his life, speechless, and Houston watching
him, apparently enjoying the situation.
"What's the matter, my boy?" he asked, in a low, laughing tone, "Are
you spell-bound?"
"Spell-bound? well, slightly!" responded Rutherford. "Great Heavens,
Houston! do they have such women as those out here?"
"Evidently they have some fine samples of the genuine article, but I
am not prepared to state how large a stock they carry. I'm positive of
one thing though, that within the last three minutes you have changed
your mind about taking the next train out. Not all the desperadoes and
villains you've met from Valley City out, could drive you away from
the mountains now."
"You're right, they couldn't," said Rutherford, with a broad grin,
"not if I know myself; no, sir, when I'm in the line of duty nothing
can scare me out of it worth a cent, and just now I feel it to be my
duty to solve some of the mysteries thickening around me, among them,
that of the mountain nymphs."
"Altogether too substantial for mountain nymphs, my boy," said
Houston, "and you will please remember, while pursuing your line of
duty, that I have vouched for your good behavior here, and am in a
measure responsible for you, and I don't want to get into any trouble
on your account."
Rutherford cleared his throat, and rising slowly with all the dignity
he could muster, looked gravely over his glasses at Houston in exact
imitation of Mr. Blaisdell, and in an oracular tone remarked:
"And you will please remember, my young friend, that I am out here as
your duly constituted guardian, and as such, it is my duty to form the
acquaintance of these--ahem!--these fair daughters of Eve, and judge
for myself whether or not they will be suitable companions for an
unsophisticated youth, like yourself."
"Good!" said Houston, and after a few more jokes, dinner being
announced by the moon-faced Minty, they went in to partake of their
first meal in what Rutherford styled the "Hotel de Maverick."