THE RUNAWAY GAUNTLET
He found the wagon and dumped Joe into the box. The broncho team was
chilled from the rain and needed no urging. Bud braced himself on the
swaying seat, but made little attempt to guide the horses.
The rain had ceased now and a rift in the clouds gave him some idea of
the road. Through sort of a haze he could see the glow of the burning
building, and it seemed to be straight ahead.
Suddenly he jerked upright in the seat. The road must run straight
through Kingsburg, he reasoned. He would have to drive through that
street.
"Only one road to Eagle's Nest," he told himself aloud. "Gotta take
that road. Hurrah for Ireland!"
[Illustration]
He dropped off the seat, hurled it off the wagon-box, and knelt in the
bottom. Then he lashed the horses with the ends of the lines and they
broke into a wild run.
"Erin go bragh, and everythin' else!" he yelled, as they went careening
wildly down the rutty, muddy road, straight into Kingsburg.
The hotel building was a mass of flames. Burning embers were exploding
in the air like sky-rockets, and the panic stricken horses were running
as though a thousand devils were after them.
The crowd saw them coming and tried to stop them, but as well try to
stop the wind. The team whirled aside, swept the porch-post from under
the wooden awning, yawed wildly, but swept back into the road, while
from behind them came to yelling voices of men.
"Yee-ow!" yelped Bud. "Pow-w-wder River!"
For a mile or more they raced wildly, while Bud clutched the wagon-box
to keep from being thrown out. The clouds had broken now and the road
was visible. He tried to control the team, which was almost exhausted,
but they were not through running yet.
A little further on they ran into a stretch of deep mud, which pulled
them down to a walk. It was growing daylight now. Bud nodded with
drowsiness. He was weak from exertion and loss of blood and had no mind
to fight it off; he wrapped the lines around his arm and braced himself
against the side of the wagon-box.
* * * * *
Then it seemed that the team had stopped and he heard voices. Someone
was shaking him. He opened his eyes and looked up at Grandon.
"Good ol' Grandon," muttered Bud. "Yuh ain't changed a bit. How are
yuh?"
Grandon had a smile on his face and Bud shook his head. This could not
be Grandon. He must be dreaming. Then he saw old Louie Beaudet, looking
down at him; then Dr. Clarey.
"I've sure got lots of folks in m' dreams," he grinned sleepily, but no
sound came from his lips.
They were talking now and he frowned over the line of conversation.
It was not just like a dream, somehow. He turned his head and glanced
around. The familiar interior of Louie Beaudet's store was too real to
be a dream, and if that was not enough, there was Norah Clarey sitting
in a chair, looking at him.
It was a very disheveled Norah Clarey, to be sure, and her face was
white and tired-looking. Little Marie Beaudet was crouched on the floor
beside her, holding her hand.
Bud frowned. It was beyond him. The doctor and Grandon were talking
about Joe Burgoyne. Then it began to come back to him; the fight,
the runaway team. He turned back on his pillow and stared up into
Henderson's face.
"Where's Joe Burgoyne?" asked Bud weakly.
At the sound of his voice, Grandon and the doctor came to his side and
looked down at him.
"Burgoyne is in jail, Bud," said Henderson, "and he'll stay there for a
good long time."
Bud wrinkled his brow, as he tried to figure out how they knew about
Joe's crimes. The doctor had put his hand on Bud's shoulder and was
speaking down to him.
"Bud Conley, I don't know how I can ever thank ye."
"Yo're plumb welcome," said Bud in a puzzled voice, and then to
himself. "Sure, there's some mistake here, cowboy."
"Ba gar, I'm tak' back w'at I say about you, Con-lee," said Louie
Beaudet hoarsely. "I'm hope you forgive."
"Sure," nodded Bud, more at sea than ever. He twisted his head and
looked at Norah. She was smiling at him and he grinned foolishly. He
knew that he was going to wake up pretty soon and find himself out in
the rain. This was too good to last. He moistened his lips with his
tongue and grinned up at Grandon.
[Illustration]
"Say, I found where all them men went, Grandon. There was a big cellar
under Magee's place, with a tunnel from the outside. I found their
liquor cache, too. Joe was the leader of the whole gang. He was the one
that shot McKay and the Indian, I think."
"I know that is true," nodded Grandon. "Burgoyne was the boss of
Kingsburg, but he spent his time here watching our movements. No wonder
we could never find out anything."
"It burned down," said Bud slowly, "and we had a reg'lar he-man fight."
"From the looks of Burgoyne, I'd agree with that," said Henderson.
"But how in hell----?"
Bud stopped and apologized for his profanity, but before he could
continue, Grandon said, "Joe boasted of how he ruined you with the
force, Conley. Magee poisoned your drink, and they stole little Marie
and forced her to drink the same liquor. Joe wanted the doctor to find
you and Marie together. You see, Joe wanted you away from Miss Clarey."
"Oh!" exploded Bud, "but how----?"
"The red coat she saw was the one they stole from McKay," interrupted
Grandon. "They thought she might see it. Joe wanted an excuse to break
off his engagement with Marie; so he tried to kill two birds with one
stone. Joe robbed Louie and left your gun beside the safe."
"Thasso?" blinked Bud. This was all news to him. "Did Burgoyne tell yuh
all this?"
"No, he told nothing," declared the doctor. "But, like all of his kind,
he was a boaster, and he told it all to Norah."
"Oh--yeah," breathed Bud. "Uh--well, I don't--" He turned his head and
squinted at Norah, as though trying to find what it was all about.
"It was a wild night for us, too," laughed the doctor, but without
mirth. "Norah disappeared right after dark and we spent most of the
night, hunting for her in the rain, and were on our way to Kingsburg,
when you nearly ran us all down.
"Norah doesn't know much of what happened, because they had her under
all that canvas in the rear end of the wagon-box, but she recognized
your voice. Burgoyne was going to take her away with him. The man must
be mad."
Bud gulped several times and shut his eyes. Norah had been in that
wagon all the time! No wonder Joe Burgoyne had screamed over his loss
and knocked the man down.
And he, Bud Conley, had run the gauntlet of that town; yelled like a
wild fool and let that team run away, regardless, while Norah was under
the canvas in the rear of that wagon-box. He shuddered and opened his
eyes.
"You will not leave Eagle's Nest now, will ye?" queried the doctor.
Bud turned his head and looked at Norah. She was smiling at him. He
looked up at Grandon.
"Sure, I dunno." He lapsed into his brogue for a moment, "I don't know
why I should stay. There's nothin' for me to do here. I'm no longer a
policeman."
"Still want to leave the force, Conley?"
"Still--say, what the devil's the matter, Grandon? Am I looney, or did
I dream that I resigned?"
Grandon chuckled softly. "You did resign, Conley." It was not like
Grandon to chuckle.
"Perhaps we were both a little hasty, Conley. Did you ever resign
before?"
"I've always been fired," said Bud ruefully.
"And I've never received a resignation, which may account for it," said
Grandon. "At any rate we overlooked one of the most essential things,
Conley."
"And what was that?"
"Your signature."
"Well--I'll--be--danged!" Bud wrinkled his nose. "I betcha I overlooked
it."
Norah got up from her chair and came over to him.
"Are you going to sign it, Bud?" she asked anxiously.
"Who me? Sign--say, what do you--" He looked up at Norah and the smile
was wiped off his lips now. "I've lost a lot of blood, but I still
retain my full quota of sense. I'll not sign, and I'll try to make
good."
"Conley," said Grandon softly, "You have made good."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Bud, but he was not looking at Grandon.
"I wasn't meanin' the force, sir."
[Illustration]
_The complete novel in our next number_
EAST!
_By_
H. BEDFORD-JONES
A story of the West in the East; of a young American bent on adventure
who came up against one of the age-old mysteries of China--land of
enigmas--and found the high adventure he sought.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
MAKE GOLD WHILE THE WATER RUNS
BY ROBERT RUSSELL STRANG
_Author of "Sawing Wood and Saying Nothing," "The Witness from Circle
City," etc._
LUCK CHANGES IN THE NORTH COUNTRY AS IT DOES THE WORLD OVER--BUT
ALASKA IS A HARD COUNTRY TO GET OUT OF, IF YOU'RE WANTED
"There's no use talkin' fellas, I'm the luckiest guy that ever was born!"
The speaker began to sing:
_"I held a flush in Klondyke,
A full house down in Nome;
I rolled 'em sevens on Tanana
On the creek we called it Dome.
I'd four of a kind in Koyukuk,
Three kings in the Kuskoquim,
And I'm known from Skagway to Chandelar
As your uncle Lucky Jim._
"No brains at all, y' understand, boys, nor need for 'em. If I depended
on the gray stuff under my hat for my three daily squares, I'd have to
worry along with a stomach no bigger than a walnut. But me and luck are
the best of tillicums. He has helped me get away with a stake in every
placer camp in Alaska. Fact!"
"Did you get very far with any of 'em?" sneered Chenoa Pete, a man with
pig's eyes and a hanging lower lip.
The crowd laughed at this sally, but no one louder than Lucky Jim
himself.
"I did not," he replied with a wry face. "I never tried to. But one of
these days I'll be makin' a little trip to Frisco."
"Why don't you go out and make a strike in this district?" Mike
Haggart wanted to know. "We surely need one."
"I never try to make a strike within a hundred miles of a'gin mill.
Hootch and work don't mix."
This statement riled Pinleg Scoddy, the proprietor of the Red Fox. An
ugly, domineering, soulless brute he was.
"The sooner yuh goes out and makes a stake the better I'll like yuh,"
he growled. "Yuh owes me ten ounces now."
The tin clock back of the bar had it all to itself for a full ten
seconds, which it made the most of.
[Illustration]
"Ain't it awful, fellas?" Lucky Jim asked the group of parka clad men
who stood about the big stove, "Ain't it hell? The man behind the bar
says I owe him ten ounces!"
Nonchalantly he rolled a cigarette, lighted it and took a deep pull,
then turned and faced Pinleg Scoddy.
"I owe you ten ounces, you say." He blew a cloud of smoke from his
mouth. "I don't doubt you. I take a man's word every time. 'Cause if
you can't take that, he ain't got nothin' else wuth a hoot." He took
another leisurely pull at his smoke. "I owe you ten ounces, and since
last fall I've shoved over three hundred ounces across your spruce
planks. Ain't that right?"
"It don't matter a damn what you've spent!" Pinleg shot back. "You'll
decorate the bar next time yuh invites the bunch to drink."
"I'm invitin' them right now!" Lucky Jim cried in a voice that caused
Pinleg Scoddy to start. "Have a drink with me, boys!" he shouted. To
Pinleg he added, "I'll be in town but two days more, but I mean to have
my drink when I want it and where I spent my money. Set 'em up!"
Out of the corner of his eye the proprietor of the Red Fox got a
glimpse of the hard looks that were being directed at him.
"This will be the last one," he growled sullenly as he set out the
glasses.
By ones and twos--and an embarrassed lot they were--the men strolled up
to the bar. Dad Manslow was the only one that made no move. Lucky Jim
did not notice this until after the glasses were filled.
"What's the matter, Dad?" he inquired.
"I'll tell yuh what!" wrathfully shouted the old man. "After such an
uncalled-for bawl-out I'll never again lift another glass of hootch
off'n Pinleg Scoddy's bar! He's the cheapest skate that ever struck
Totatla City--which has always been my opinion of him."
In high dudgeon the speaker got on his crutches and began to thump
toward the door.
"Just a minute, Dad!" called Lucky Jim. "You've taught me a lesson."
Lucky Jim lifted his glass and tossed its contents on the floor.
"What's good enough for you, Dad," he observed, "is pie for me. Add
this to the ten ounces," he flung at Pinleg, then turned and joined Dad
Manslow at the door.
With two exceptions--Chenoa Pete and Mike Haggart--the others left
their drinks untouched and returned to their seats.
Lucky Jim opened the door for his companion and followed him to the
street.
"I wants yuh to come around to my shack, Lucky. I've a proposition to
make yuh."
"Right," returned Lucky Jim.
They started up the waterfront.
The young moon crested with silver the snow-billows of the seemingly
interminable flat across the frozen river. The air was absolutely
soundless, and cold enough to bite like fire. Totatla City, a
one-sided street of log cabins and stores half-buried in snow, seemed
deserted.
They had traveled scarce a hundred yards when Chenoa Pete slipped out
of the Red Fox and peered cautiously up the street. He kept his eye
on them until they entered Dad Manslow's cabin, then hastened in that
direction.
Chenoa Pete was a man who didn't believe in hard work. He did a little
gambling, some polite stealing, and a bit of rough stuff when the
opportunity presented itself. A man who lived by his wits. Mike Haggart
was his side-kick.
He approached Dad Manslow's cabin with the caution of a cat on the
hunt. When he arrived at the door he turned back the hood of his parka
and began to listen with all his might.
"--I've drank yore hootch ever since yuh struck the camp," Dad was
saying, "and enjoyed yore comp'ny mightily. The spirit, as ye might
say, of Alaska is strong in yuh. Yo're the man I've bin a-lookin' fur
fur a year. Are yuh open fur a proposition this summer that'll net yuh
anywheres frum three to five thousand dollars?"
"Hold on, Dad," cautioned Lucky Jim. "Since I struck Totatla City I've
heard whisperin's about you hitting the camp a year ago last fall with
a couple of thousand in dust, and believe me, there's a few who would
give something to know where you got it. I don't. A secret ain't a
secret when two know it, and you really don't know me from one of the
ravens down on the bluff. Besides, I'm so lucky myself that--so to
speak--I've always got a little pot of gold in the hole."
"Lucky Jim, I've lost my strength, I admit, but, by gum! I've still got
my judgment. I'll put it to yuh another way. Yo're a pioneer yoreself,
will yuh do a pioneer a favor?"
Lucky Jim reached a hand across the table. Dad pressed it in silence.
"A year ago last fall I arrived in the camp with $2000 and the scurvy.
I had been in the hills for over a year, and had lived on meat and fish
straight for half that time. After I've eaten a peck of raw potatoes
and put the scurvy on the run, my next choice is rheumatism. It was
winter, so couldn't go nowheres.
"Now and again I used to make a trip over to the Red Fox and spend the
evenin'. One night along toward spring they knock me out over there
and take $1200 of my dust. Anyway, when I wake up in my cabin next
morning, I've got but $400 left. I've been living on that for a year
now.
[Illustration]
"I've always blamed Pinleg Scoddy, Chenoa Pete and Mike Haggart for
that trick. Next day they told me I got awful drunk and just threw
my gold around like sawdust. Seein' I never did that all my life
before, I'm pretty certain I didn't do it that night. Since then I've
suspicioned every man that hangs around there but you.
"In the condition I'm now in, one night in the open would be the death
o' me. I don't want charity, but I do want to get hold of enough dust
to take me to the hot springs at Sitka and get the aches and pains
boiled outa my old carcass. I figger a thousand dollars would put me
on my feet again as fit as a fiddle--why, man, I'm only seventy-seven!
After that I'm goin' back to the Caribou diggin's. I had good ground
there in the seventies. And there's a gulch there--But never mind that.
Get me a thousand dollars, Lucky Jim, and you can keep every other
color you take out of Easy Money bar this summer, and keep the bar to
boot."
"You'll go to Sitka next fall, Dad!"
The old man's Adam's apple worked up and down for a few moments.
"This yere Easy Money bar," he resumed, "is about two hundred miles up
the river, but easily located once yuh have the key to its position. I
cached my rocker under some moss on the mainland, and I reckon the high
water last spring wiped out all traces of me, but yuh can't miss it.
I'll tell yuh why."
Dad lowered his voice to a whisper and imparted to Lucky Jim the
information necessary to a recognition of Easy Money bar.
While this was taking place Chenoa Pete cursed softly and fluently. He
did not catch a word of the directions. He tiptoed away, still cursing.
For some moments after Dad concluded Lucky Jim made no comment, just
sat there smiling to himself.
"Have I made it plain enough to yuh?" Dad inquired.
Lucky Jim started.
"As plain as day!" he rejoined. "Bein' the luckiest guy that ever was
born, I could go up the river blindfold and find it. I'll hit the trail
day after tomorrow sometime. How are you fixed for grub till I get
back?"
"I'll manage! I'll manage!" Dad hastily exclaimed.
Lucky Jim threw a hurried glance around the cabin. The only thing his
eye encountered in the line of food was half a sack of flour.
"I'll tell you why I asked," he said. "I've got three hundred pounds of
good grub down in my shack that the dogs can't possibly haul, and if I
leave it behind you know what the squirrels will do to it. Wish you'd
let me haul it over here."
"I--I ain't got much room," Dad lied. "Yuh see----"
"I'll haul it over anyway. Then you can use what you want of it and pay
me for it in the fall. How is that?"
"Well," Dad laughed, "since yuh put it thataway. And I'll sure settle
for it in the fall."
"Much obliged," said Lucky Jim. "I'll be over with that junk tomorrow
night."
He lifted the latch and departed.
"Wonders will never cease!" declared Lucky Jim as he returned over
town. "To think that his Easy Money should be my Gold Tender, the bar I
staked last July!"
He strode into the Arctic Trading Company's store. From beneath his
parka he withdrew a gold watch to which was attached a heavy nugget
chain. He detached the timekeeper and threw the chain in the gold
scales.
"See how much you make that," he asked Ned Griffin.
The latter balanced the chain with weights.
"Fourteen ounces two pennyweights," he made answer.
Jim spent nearly all of it on provisions, all of which he took to his
own shack first to allay any suspicions Dad might have had.
Then he loaded up the things and took them to Dad's cabin, remarking he
was glad to have somewhere to leave the grub, as he couldn't possibly
pack it with him.
Dad eyed the outfit, then tried to catch Lucky Jim's eye, but failed.
"Yuh must have put in a hell of an outfit last fall," he at length
remarked suspiciously.
"It's the first thing I attend to when I hit a camp with a poke. Get me
a cabin and fill it with grub."
The provisions were stowed away in silence.
"I'll be hittin' the trail between now and morning," whispered Lucky
Jim, "that is, if she snows. What was it you named that bar again?"
"Easy Money."
Lucky Jim slapped his knees and laughed uproariously.
Dad stared at him in amazement.
"Anythin' the matter with it?" he inquired.
[Illustration]
"Nothing; nothing at all. But did you ever get any easy money out of
the ground, Dad?"
Dad smiled. "Every color I've ever panned or rocked I've always
considered easy money."
"Though you had to work your head off to get it."
Dad nodded. "But it's the only life," he declared.
"There's no doubt about it!" seconded Lucky Jim. "Well, look for me the
third week of September. That will give you time to get down to Fort
Gibbon and catch a boat for the Outside. So long."
"And good luck," wished Dad.
"I never travel without her," Lucky Jim called over his shoulder.
II
It did snow that night, and Lucky Jim steered his sled across the
frozen river about two o'clock. On arriving at the farther bank he
slipped on his snowshoes and took the lead. The dog-team followed.
This dive into the wilderness seemed to differ little from starting
across the ocean in a small boat, for the great flat resembled a sea
that had been frozen when a heavy swell was on. But although Lucky
Jim had never crossed the flat before--it was a route that invited
hardship, even disaster--he knew perfectly well what he was doing. He
was cutting off a great elbow in the river.
About four that afternoon he made camp on an "island," a half-acre
covered with scrub spruce and birch. Centuries before this piece of
high ground had doubtless occupied a place in the river channel of that
time.
In the afternoon of the fourth day out he struck the river again. The
weather had cleared. He reckoned he had covered sixty miles since
leaving Totatla City--a distance he could have negotiated much sooner
had he been traveling light and pressed for time; but the dogs were
hauling a load in excess of seven hundred pounds, three hundred of
which was their own rice and dried salmon.
And in reality Lucky Jim had made good time, for by crossing the flat
instead of coming around by the river he had cut the distance from
Totatla City in two. This he proved to his satisfaction by reason of a
peculiarly shaped hill on the opposite bank, at the foot of which he
had camped over night on his way down the fall before, and from which
point it had taken him twenty-four hours by raft to reach Totatla City.
He reckoned the river current--in the fall of the year--at five miles
an hour.
He started up the river on the shore ice next morning. An hour later
he arrived at the foot of the rapids, and shortly thereafter passed up
through the canyon.
Fifteen days out from Totatla City he made his camp on Easy Money
bar--or, as he had named it the summer before, Gold Tender. That night
he made himself a calendar for the month of April out of the leaf of a
notebook and crossed out the first day.
"On the face of it," he chuckled that night after rolling into his
wolf robe, "it sounds queer that I should have landed on Dad's bar
last summer, but not after you come to think it over. The bar is one
of the highest on the whole river, I guess, and the heavy wash gravel
that carries the pay stares everybody that passes in the face. Only a
chechako would miss it, or one of the hot-air prospectors that hang
around the Red Fox and the Nugget hotels. Which I take it Dad and me
are the only two old-timers who have passed this way."
Lucky Jim had come over the divide from the Kantishna region the summer
before.
[Illustration]
A week later Lucky Jim was in possession of a good summer cabin--he
had occupied a tent on his previous stay on the bar--and was engaged
chopping down some spruce trees destined to become sluicing lumber,
when the barking of the dogs announced the approach of someone.
He paused and listened. A jangle of sleighbells came to his ear.
Shouldering his axe he stepped to the bank and looked down the river.
At a distance of three hundred yards he spied two mushers each driving
a dog-team attached to which were heavily laden sleds. He went into his
cabin, belted on a gun and returned to the bank to await the strangers'
arrival.
As they drew near he noticed that both men were deeply tanned from
the reflection of the April sun on the snow, and that they wore
snowglasses. Because of these he did not at first recognize them.
"Hello!" he cried.
This hail was responded to in kind, but only after a slight but
noticeable hesitation. He never removed his eye from them. They halted
when they came level with him. He recognized them then as Chenoa Pete
and Mike Taggart, men for whom he had little use. He had reckoned that
they "didn't belong."
"Whither bound?" he asked.
"Oh, up the river a ways," returned Chenoa Pete.
"Unhitch and stick around for a day," invited Lucky Jim.
"We dassn't," spoke up Mike Taggart. "The snow is packin' fast and
we've got quite a ways to go yet. Is this where you pick up your whisky
dust?"
Mike waved a hand embracingly.
From where they stood, a dozen bars in the river were distinctly
outlined, but in view of the fact that Lucky Jim had not yet done any
work on Easy Money, all bars looked alike to the mushers.
Lucky Jim waved his hand in the manner Mike Taggart had employed.
"This is where I mean to do a little prospecting this summer," he made
answer.
"Let's mush," suggested Chenoa Pete. "So long," he flung up to Lucky
Jim, a civility repeated by Mike Taggart a moment later, and to which
Lucky Jim replied in kind.
"We can't do a damned thing," swore Chenoa Pete when safely out of
Lucky Jim's hearing, "until after he has gone to work. It may be any
one of half a dozen bars near where he's camped. Let him do the dead
work anyway, I mean to have a good long rest, beginning some time
tomorrow."
"I'd give something to know how he got here so quick! He's put up that
shack since he arrived. He took some short cut or another."
"He came fast, I'll admit, Mike, but no man in his senses would cut
across the flat--summer or winter. He's probably got a crackajack team.
He's some fast mover, though."
Lucky Jim returned thoughtfully to his work. The meeting, from his
point of view, had been an unsatisfactory one. The majority of mushers,
he reasoned, would have stuck around and smoked a pipe or two, had
dinner with him.
"They've left a bad taste in my mind," he declared.
* * * * *
By May first Lucky Jim finished whipsawing lumber. He then turned his
attention to a bedrock drain across the bar. The snow was about gone,
but the earth was still frozen. He laid a wood fire four feet wide and
about one hundred and fifty feet long diagonally across the bar, and
lighted it. Next day he began to dig out the drain.
Lucky Jim did not work like an ordinary man; he was as tireless as a
machine. And he worked intelligently. During every day of the next
three weeks he worked eighteen hours a day. Worked and slept.
At the end of that time his bedrock drain was completed. It was five
feet deep and on bedrock from one end to the other. He had struck good,
even rich pay. He spent two days making sluice-boxes, another making
riffles for them out of three-inch poles, and still another fitting the
whole into his trench.
[Illustration]
The ice in the river moved downstream that night. Beginning next
morning he worked thirty-six hours, steady, on a wing dam. The last of
the ice passed down the river. He pulled the gate in the dam and let
the water into the boxes, picked down some pay dirt from the sides. It
worked like a charm. He was ready to sluice. He staggered to his cabin,
curled up in his blankets and was sound asleep in no time.
Out of a hundred men Lucky Jim would have been the only one to go
to all this trouble. The remaining ninety-nine would have contented
themselves with rocking, and let it go at that. The high water might
last no longer than a week. But in that week's sluicing Lucky Jim would
shove more pay dirt through the boxes than three men could rock all
summer long.
Shortly after midnight--though almost as clear as day at this
time--the dogs began to bark, but Lucky Jim did not hear them. A few
moments later Chenoa Pete shoved the barrel of his rifle through the
open window, then cautiously raised his head. In that moment Mike
Haggart entered by way of the door and covered Lucky Jim. Chenoa Pete
then climbed in by way of the window.
Like a jack-in-the-box Lucky Jim suddenly raised himself to a sitting
posture, and mechanically reached for his rifle which hung on the wall
just above his bunk.
"Quit that and put them up!" ordered Mike Haggart.
Lucky Jim rubbed his eyes and glanced from one to the other.
"What's the idea?" he asked, raising his hands above his head.
"You're goin' back down the river," stated Chenoa Pete. "If you go
quietly, everything will be hunkydory. If you make a fuss about
it--why, you won't go at all. Get up!"
While his hands happened to be up Lucky Jim seized the opportunity for
a good yawn.
"You poor crooks," he then said, throwing his legs over the bunk onto
the floor. "I suppose you wouldn't listen to a partnership proposition?"
An idea had entered Lucky Jim's head.
"I should say nix!" exclaimed Chenoa Pete with a laugh. "You've got
everything set and ready for a whoppin' clean-up a week from now. I'll
say you're a good miner. But down the river you've got to go."
"And you're gonna stay down, too, see!" And Mike Haggart poked Lucky
Jim in the side with the business end of his rifle.
"Just why are you running me off this bar?"
"Why? Good Lord, ain't we been watching Dad Manslow for eighteen months
and tryin' to get outa him where he got that $2,000 worth of dust? Do
you think a bar like this is picked up every day?"
"Why don't you go out and hunt up your own bars?"
"Aw, cut out the wranglin'!" exclaimed Chenoa Pete. "Put some grub in a
box and get the hell outa here!"
Lucky Jim filled a sack with provisions and, followed by the
claim-jumpers, went down the trail cut in the bank to the beach. There
he was ordered aboard a raft tied to the root of a drift log, then told
to call his dogs aboard. When this was done, they untied the rope and
shoved the raft out into the current.
"So long," called Lucky Jim. "I'll see you in Totatla City when you
come down."
"You've got some wait!" cried Chenoa Pete.
Lucky Jim started. "So they mean to go out by way of Kantishna, huh?"
he mused.
"I still think we'd ought to have tied him," quoth Mike Haggart.
"You're a good man with your hands, Mike, but you ain't got the brains
of a flea. Just suppose he was to get into Totatla City in that
condition? They'd have something on us, wouldn't they? Or suppose he
got drowned in the rapids and goes floatin' down the river and winds
up on a bar--which Alaskan rivers are always doin'. Wouldn't the
whole marshal's force at Fairbanks be put to work on the case? He's
got nothing on us at all. The worst he can do is to get an injunction
to throw us off, and he'd have to go to Fairbanks to get that. By
which time the season would be over. And seein' he has no witnesses
to corroborate his statement, I don't believe he could even get an
injunction. Lucky Jim knows all this. He'll swallow his medicine and
take a chance on meeting up with us some other time. Which he'll never
get the chance. About the middle of September we'll duck across to Ruby
and catch a down-river boat for Nome. We've got possession. Let's get
to work. What shift do you want to take?"
"Night shift for mine; it's cooler."
"All right. Go on to bed. We've got to take advantage of every hour of
the high water."
Chenoa went up the river about two hundred yards and crossed the
mainland to the bar by way of Lucky Jim's log bridge. Five minutes
afterward the water was racing through the sluices, and Chenoa Pete
shoveling and picking in the pay dirt from the sides of the bedrock
drain.
After watching the raft disappear around a bend Mike Haggart climbed
the trail to the bank, thence to the cabin.
"I thought I had put everybody off my trail," Lucky Jim was saying to
himself, "who might happen to be interested in my movements. I got away
clean enough, but the same snow storm that protected that, also gave
me away--the untracked snow about my cabin. Of course, one of them
must have followed Dad and me to his cabin the night he made me the
proposition. Well, there they are, and here I am. I guess Dad's trip
to Sitka is all off."
Thoughts of this riled him.
"They're robbin' an old pioneer, that's what they're doin'! And I had
it figured out that he'd spend the rest of his days in comfort. And, by
gum, he will, too!"
[Illustration]
When about two miles below the bar Lucky Jim steered the raft into a
slough and went ashore. He kindled a fire and made himself a small pail
full of coffee. Hour after hour he sat there drinking the warm liquid,
and now and again throwing a couple of small sticks on the fire.
Around seven in the morning he cooked and ate his breakfast, then went
to sleep.
He woke about five in the afternoon; cooked himself another meal,
chained up the dogs, then climbed the hill. An hour later, from a point
of vantage on the mountain spur that rose just back of his cabin, he
looked down upon Easy Money bar. Not without a thrill he noticed that
his bedrock drain was no longer that, but a real cut.
"I'll bet there's some real money in those boxes at this minute!" he
cried.
Critically he inspected the several channels of the river beyond Easy
Money and other bars, then the flat beyond these. Evidently satisfied
with the results of his reconnoitre, he returned to his camp. His first
act thereafter was to make a measuring stick and drive it into the
river bottom a few yards from the shore.
Next day Lucky Jim took the dogs, crossed the divide and spent the
day fishing on a stream on the other side. On his return with a mess
of trout the first thing he did was to look at his measuring stick.
The river, it told him, had gone down three inches during the past
twenty-four hours.
"Five more days," he yawned. "Ho hum."
The customary thing on placer claims in Alaska is to make a clean-up
every week. There was a special reason why the boxes would be cleaned
up on Easy Money bar at the end of that period: If the river continued
to fall and no rain came, there would not be sufficient water to sluice
with. One or two men can't raise a whole river.
In the afternoon of the sixth day after his ejection, Lucky Jim
trekked up the river by way of the mountain ridge. When well beyond
Easy Money bar he dropped down to the river, then crossed it on a log.
He walked down the beach until within a half-mile of Easy Money bar,
then disappeared into the flat--just plumb dropped out of sight.
This was made possible by reason of the fact that for years innumerable
the flat had annually been inundated for miles back from the river
during the high water in the spring, and the receding waters had
honeycombed the black muck to a depth of eighteen inches to two feet.
On top of the "niggerheads," or pillars of muck thus formed, grew wild
bunch grass. Through this maze Lucky Jim started to crawl downstream,
secure in the fact that no one could see him.
He arrived at a point in line with Easy Money bar at nine o'clock,
mud from his nose to the toes of his moccasins. In places he had been
obliged to crawl through several inches of exceedingly dirty water. But
he got there.
Between his place of concealment and Easy Money bar lay two other bars,
one of which was covered with willows. For almost another day he lay
and watched both men at work in the cut. And what a cut!
"They've put through the boxes just about double the dirt that I could
have done alone!" he whispered to himself.
At length Chenoa Pete left the cut and strolled up to the cabin. Mike
Haggart continued to work alone.
It was still almost as clear as at noon, and the hills were rosy in the
westering sun when Lucky Jim dropped down the bank and made for the
first bar. Such was the racket made by the rocks going over the riffles
in the sluice-race that there was slight chance of his being heard.
Keeping to one side so that even should Mike Haggart turn around he
would still be none the wiser regarding his presence, Lucky Jim dashed
across the second channel and into the willows of bar number two. A
clump of birch on the lower end of Easy Money bar protected him against
discovery from the cabin.
Lucky Jim collected his wits for the final rush. Carefully he selected
two rocks from the tail-race that exactly fitted his capable hands,
stepped into channel number three and up the tail-race into the
sluice-boxes.
Mike Haggart never knew what struck him. He fell back into the boxes
and the water raced over him. Five minutes afterward, tied hand and
foot and with the collar of his own shirt in his mouth as a gag, Lucky
Jim dumped him among the willows of bar number two.
He then hastened to the head of the sluice-string and almost but not
quite, shut off the water. Here he also discovered Mike Haggart's
rifle, which he removed to a handier location. He began to pull the
nails driven in the sides of the boxes which held the riffles in place.
That done he washed the bottoms of them carefully. The gold dust lay on
them like sawdust.
"It's goin' to be a fine clean-up," he declared.
He turned on a little more water and began to work down the residue
with a shovel. Later he laid that aside and pulled two wooden paddles
from his hip pocket; reduced the water, produced a homemade whisk-broom.
By and by a nice pile of clean gold lay against one side of the head
box.
"Ten or twelve thousand dollars anyway," he assured himself. "Dad
Manslow goes to Sitka, I guess!"
He scooped the gold into a panning pan that lay handy, and with this
under one arm and Mike Haggart's rifle under the other he crossed the
log bridge to the mainland and started up the hillside. Lucky Jim was
taking no chances of losing the clean-up.
[Illustration]
He returned fifteen minutes later, strode into the cabin and poked
Chenoa Pete in the ribs with his rifle.
"Get up!" he ordered.
Chenoa Pete sat up and stared at him. His jaw fell, and for a few
moments Lucky Jim expected a flood of tears. Never in all his life
before had he been a witness to such keen disappointment. As had been
meted to him when similarly situated, he once more jabbed the crook in
the ribs.
"Get up and get out!"
Chenoa Pete was a big man and in a purely physical encounter would
doubtless have disposed of Lucky Jim, not easily, but by force of
his advantage in weight. And because of this superiority, in the past
he had got by fairly easily, and elected himself to the position of
dictator of the parasite element in Totatla City. Dignity off its perch
is a sad sight. His eyes actually filled with tears.
"Get the hell out of my cabin!" cried Lucky Jim, disgusted at this
exhibition. "I'd like to sentence you to work alongside of me with a
shovel for six months. Out you go!" And he poked the big fellow in the
back and actually shoved him through the door.
There Chenoa Pete was commanded to take an axe and get to work on a
raft. While this order was being executed, Lucky Jim seated himself
on a stump with the rifle across his knees. Now and again he rolled
a cigarette. When the raft was completed, its maker was requested to
carry his partner from the farther bar and place him on it. But in the
line of provisions Lucky Jim did not make the mistake they had made.
He had been allowed to take what, and as much as he wanted, so had
taken as much as would last him for about three weeks. He gave them a
four-quart kettle half-filled with dry rolled oats--and no salt.
"Now let me tell you something," he warned them when ready to depart,
"don't stick around Totatla City. Because if you're there when I arrive
I'll call a miners' meeting. You know what that will mean to such as
you. Now get!"
They got.
Lucky Jim followed by way of the bank, and took no little abuse, and
listened to about a thousand threats, from Chenoa Pete. He merely
laughed.
Two hours later he returned with a pack on his back and his dogs at
his heels. Then he retrieved the clean-up from the hillside, dried and
weighed it. It totalled $10,500.
"I'm surely the lucky guy!" he exclaimed. "This looks as if I'd get
away with a homestake this summer!"
He sluiced and shoveled into the boxes for two more days. When the
water got so low that it couldn't carry off the washed rocks, he
cleaned up once more. Fifteen hundred dollars this time. He dug out and
re-set his boxes.
For over a month thereafter Lucky Jim rocked the pay dirt. This change
from a swift to a slow method of getting rich would have disgusted the
majority of miners in his affluent situation, but the thought of going
down the river at this time never even crossed his mind.
Along toward the first of August a wet spell set in, and being all set
to take advantage of the high water, he subtly put the latter to work
for him. For almost two weeks it rained steadily, all of which time
Lucky Jim shoveled sixteen and seventeen hours every day.
"Make gold while the water runs," he would tell himself when his arms
ached. "There's a long winter coming."
When for the second time the water went down, Lucky Jim's gold sacks
contained a matter of $22,000.
Still he kept his head and set to rocking again, and continued this
until the middle of September. By which time the water was low in the
river, the birch and willows yellow, and a light snow lay on the ground.
His summer's work on Easy Money bar had netted him something better
than $25,000. The gold was in five sacks of $5,000 each.
"I guess," he said, "Dad can go to California or Timbucto if he wants
to. And welcome. A pioneer has every right to spend his last years in
comfort."
On the morning of September 17th he started down the river. He was
lean, brown and as hard as nails. Late that night he made camp just
above the canyon. He wasn't minded to risk the rapids in the dark.
Anyway, he reckoned he had plenty of time. He had relaxed and was
enjoying his trip.
[Illustration]
In the morning he went through the rapids without incident. A mile
below this the main channel passed through a narrow gap between two
islands. When halfway through, and at the narrowest point, a rope
settled about his shoulders and he was jerked violently off the raft.
After a short struggle he got his arms free and started to swim for the
shore. A small raft passed him on which stood Mike Haggart.
"How d'ye like it, huh?" he snarled and hit Lucky Jim a blow on the
head with his pole in passing.
* * * * *
For some time thereafter the world was dark. He came to lying on the
beach, the rope still about his waist. He struggled to his feet and
stared downstream. He was just in time to see Chenoa Pete spring aboard
his raft from the deck of a smaller one. He steered it into the eddy
until Mike Haggart came along and joined him. Five minutes later they
disappeared round a bend.
"This looks bad," muttered Lucky Jim. "And of course they'll drift
clear to Fort Gibbon and catch a boat there for the Outside. Poor Dad."
He wound the rope about his waist.
He crossed the island and waded the channel between it and the flat. He
started walking down the bank, because there seemed nothing else that
he could do. Meantime, he was thinking, and thinking the hardest he
knew how.
Thirty minutes later he paused beside the charred remains of a
camp-fire. He looked about him. He had a remarkable memory for
landmarks.
"This is where I camped four days out from Totatla City last March," he
said to himself. "Let's see."
He turned and looked away across the interminable flat. In mind he went
over it the entire distance.
"I don't doubt but what the ground is firm by this time," he muttered,
"but--Well, there's about one chance in a thousand that I nose them
out! It's at least a hundred and twenty-five miles away by way of the
river, and sixty, maybe a little more, across the flat. And I've still
got my gun. Poor Dad!"
Lucky Jim started on a lope across the flat. Without a pound of grub.
Meanwhile, Chenoa Pete was complimenting his partner.
"I'll say you can handle a rope, Mike!" he declared admiringly. Then he
laughed. "Damn if I ever saw anything so funny in all my life. I never
did! One moment he was on the raft, and the next--haw, haw, haw! He
went through the air like a fish on the end of a line!"
"At first," returned Mike, highly elated with the success of his
exploit, "I meant to drop it around his neck. Then says I to myself, I
won't get but the one chance, so I made the loop bigger and dropped it
around his body."
"It was pretty work. Of course, I'd have got him with the rifle if you
had missed, but I'm leary about rivers. I remember one time a guy in
the upper country shot his three partners comin' down the Yukon in a
small boat and buried them on an island. Next year along comes the old
river and washes half that island away and turns the three guys loose
on the current. The Mounted Police finally picked them up, and two
years later there was a hangin' in Dawson. Believe me, Mike, Alaska is
a hard country to get out of, if you're wanted!"
"It is," Mike Haggart agreed. "But we ain't goin' out. Nome will be
good enough for us this winter."
"Anywhere along the lower river."
They then hefted Lucky Jim's pokes of dust, and guessed and guessed
again at the value of their contents.
"He surely is some worker!" vowed Mike Haggart.
The day passed and evening came on apace. Chenoa Pete rolled himself
in a blanket and lay down. Mike Haggart set himself to watch till
midnight. The moon rose and the stars came out.
All through that long day, loping and walking by turns, no definite
plan formed itself in Lucky Jim's mind with regard to the manner of
successfully handling the crooks even should he succeed in intercepting
them. True, he had their lariat about his waist, and his gun was still
in its holster at his belt--he had dried and cleaned it the first time
he rested. Even so, the idea of shooting them down in cold blood was
repugnant to him, and besides, might not be wholly effective, for the
raft would continue to drift. But walking or running, the problem never
for a moment left his mind.
[Illustration]
He rested for two full hours at sunset, but when the moon shot up he
resumed his way. As when he crossed the flat in the spring, he was
going it blind. In reality, however, his sense of direction was so
highly developed that he might have been racing along a chalked line
that ended opposite Totatla City. During the years he had spent in
Alaska, Lucky Jim had taken longer chances, and many of them, to save a
long detour. He was a man perfectly at home in the wilderness.
For the first time in his carefree life he worried over an issue,
dreaded the approach of the crucial moment. Not for his own, be it
understood, but for Dad Manslow's sake. He would have done just as much
on his own behalf, but he never would have worried, racked his brain
for a solution to the affair. He would have trusted to what he called
his luck, and backed the same with his indefatigable spirit and energy.
At six in the morning he encountered a rather wide back slough, the
quicksand on the edge of which gave him pause. A bank of blue smoke
rimmed with sunlight away to the left he guessed must be Totatla City.
He reasoned, therefore, that he could not be far from the river. He was
nervous, but never for a moment did he forget the main chance. He must
get to the river just as fast as he could. He started along the bank of
the slough.
Lucky Jim no longer ran. Nor, despite his long fast and his almost
continuous effort, could it be said that he staggered. It was a queer,
humped-up lope. The joints of his knees were so stiff, and ached so
that, in order to avoid bending them, when taking a step he flung his
leg out from his body. On the stage or in a motion picture, his manner
of locomotion would have been considered a scream.
The lariat was still about his waist, and the gun still hung at his
belt.
He came upon the river suddenly on rounding a bend. To stave off
reaction, the desire to fling himself down and forget everything,
he walked into the river and headed for an island against which the
current nibbled. At the deepest point, which was a mere dozen feet from
the island, the water just reached his armpits. He breasted this on an
upstream slant and finally effected a landing.
He turned and looked back. He at length decided that any raft, or tree
or floating thing that came down the river must of necessity come
within twenty feet of the island. And before he was aware of it, he
had, so to speak, seized his problem by the throat.
He went to the lower end of the island and tied three drift logs
together with the lariat; left it on the shingle ready to launch. He
returned to the head of the island and gathered a pile of stones. A
couple of shots over their heads from his gun and a swat on the head
with a rock would, he reasoned, create no little confusion, out of
which he expected to come with a drop on them.
Miracles will never cease is a true saying. They never cease to happen
for the benefit of those who help them with all their might to come
to pass. Lucky Jim was still piling rocks when he happened to look
upstream and spy the nose of the raft coming around a bend about a
third of a mile away. He flattened himself in the brush and waited;
drew his gun.
As the raft drew nearer he sighted the dogs, and started. The fools!
Weren't there a hundred men in Totatla City who knew his dogs? What
damned fools they were! But how his heart did sing within him. He
repressed the desire to let loose a great big laugh. Towser, his lead
dog lay in the front end, his massive head on his paws. He looked--or
so thought Lucky Jim--peeved. Chenoa Pete had a hand on the sweep; his
companion was lying down.
The raft came on without a ripple. The current was driving it toward
the upper end of the island. Chenoa Pete began to work the sweep,
leisurely. When thirty feet distant Lucky Jim fired a shot over his
head then sprang to his feet.
"Sick 'em, Towser!" he shouted. "Sick 'em, Rum! Sick 'em, Rye! Sick
'em, Brandy!"
Coincident with calling each of his dogs by name Lucky Jim fired a
shot. Then he sprang down to the beach, picked up a handful of gravel
and threw it at the two men. Recognizing the familiar voice, the dogs
first barked with delight. "Sick 'em," they also understood without a
doubt, for they immediately sprang on Chenoa Pete and Mike Haggart,
snarling, snapping and biting, husky fashion.
[Illustration]
The raft came alongside Lucky Jim, and just about ten feet away. He
started down the beach in line with it.
"Jump, you fools," he shouted, "or they'll eat you alive!" He fired
another couple of shots.
Out of the mélée on the raft sprang a figure in rags bawling blue
murder. There was a splash. Lucky Jim had just paused long enough to
note that it was Chenoa Pete that was struggling in the water, and
bawling still. He was followed a moment later by Mike Haggart. Neither
men had had a chance to seize a gun. The dogs had kept them too busy.
Lucky Jim raced ahead a short distance then plunged into the water. The
dogs welcomed him with yowls of joy as he climbed aboard the raft. His
pokes of dust still lay in the bottom of his empty sled.
"Fine," he said.
He turned and looked back. Chenoa Pete was already ashore and Mike
Haggart was climbing the bank. He waved his hand to them.
"You're the poorest fish that ever came out of this river!" he called
to them.
* * * * *
He docked at Totatla City an hour later. The _Dusty Diamond_ was at the
wharf, bow downstream. Lucky Jim hitched the dogs to the sled and set
out for Dad Manslow's cabin. The old man came to the door when he heard
his voice.
"Well, Dad, here I am!" cried Lucky Jim. "And, believe me, my usual
well-known luck has been on the job every minute since I left you. On
the square, Dad! I'm the luckiest guy----"
Dad's grin, an ear-to-ear affair, cut him short.
"You tell that dodgasted rubbish about your luck to the sit-downers
and stove-huggers!" he exclaimed. "I know what prospectors' luck is.
It's guts an' gumption! Did yuh have any trouble findin' the bar or
anything?"
Lucky Jim's whimsical smile faded.
"Why, Dad, twice a couple o' tinhorns tried to put something over on
me, but there wasn't enough gray matter mixed in with their stuff,
which was pretty raw. It was easy money from Easy Money bar, Dad."
He uncovered the five pokes of dust. "And there's the clean-up," he
concluded.
The Adam's apple on the old man's throat worked up and down, and his
eyes blurred.
"God bless yuh, Lucky Jim," he mumbled.
Lucky Jim started to carry the gold inside. On a plate on the table
were a few soda biscuits. He shoved one into his mouth, then went after
another sack. Dad carried in the remainder while Lucky Jim stuffed
himself with biscuits.
The _Dusty Diamond_ let loose two blasts with her siren.
"Is she going down today?" inquired Lucky Jim.
"That's her fifteen minute whistle," replied Dad. "She'll be the last
boat to leave Totatla City this fall. I'd like to catch her. If you'll
weigh me out that thousand dollars----"
Lucky Jim opened one of the sacks and did that. He poured the dust into
the old man's poke.
"Now," said Dad, "I'll pay you for the grub. I guess I just about
cleaned it up. How much was it?"
"Oh, call it two hundred dollars."
Dad weighed that amount out of his thousand and poured in back into
Lucky Jim's poke.
Dad produced his dunnage bag. Into this Lucky Jim threw the four full
sacks, $20,000 worth.
"Hey!" cried Dad, alarmed. "What yuh doin'? That ain't mine!"
"Ain't I got as good a right to go outside as you have?"
The old man's face lighted up. "Gosh, that'll be great!" he cried.
Lucky Jim swung Dad's sack across his shoulders.
"Let's get aboard," he suggested. "I've still got a little debt to
settle at the Red Fox."
[Illustration]
He picked up the remaining sack of gold and led the way on board the
steamboat. Out of the corner of his eye he beheld a little raft drift
past on which were seated two men back to back, sort of like twin
billikins. He waved to them airily.
He dropped Dad's seventy-odd years' gatherings in the _Dusty Diamond's_
saloon.
"Don't ever let that bag out of your sight," he told Dad. "I'll be back
in a few minutes."
Lucky Jim did not reappear on the dock until the gangplank had been
hauled ashore and the lines cast off. Dad Manslow, almost frantic,
stood on the saloon deck waving and shouting.
"Come on!" he cried, "Come on!"
Lucky Jim could still have jumped aboard.
"I can't come today, Dad," he made answer. "I'm too sleepy. Take care
of yourself. So long."
The _Dusty Diamond_ swung out into the channel.
Lucky Jim strolled across the street into the Red Fox and entered
the bar. He was familiarly greeted by half a hundred men not unlike
himself. He took off his old fur cap and bowed acknowledgments; tapped
his breast.
"Lucky Jim," he cried, "from Easy Money bar."
He turned to stare at Pinleg Scoddy whose face was creased into
something that remotely resembled a smite of welcome. He flung his poke
on the bar.
"Take eleven ounces out of that!" ordered Lucky Jim coldly.
Pinleg Scoddy started at the size of the poke, and guessed at its value
to within five ounces. He pushed it back toward its owner.
"Aw, forget that," he cried, "and have a little drink on the house."
"Take eleven ounces of dust out of that poke!" repeated Lucky Jim.
This time there was no temporizing. With a face as red as a split beet,
Pinleg Scoddy weighed out what was coming to him and returned the poke
to Lucky Jim.
The latter tucked the poke under his arm and turned to the crowd.
"Boys," he cried, "I'm going up to the Nugget hotel to raise the roof. I
need all the help I can get. Come along!"
A minute later the Red Fox bar was empty.
A PINKERTON novelette in our next number
DOWNSTREAM
_By_ Robert E. Pinkerton
A story of the North; of those pushing upstream, their fortunes still
ahead; of those coming downstream, the magic of the wild behind them.
[Illustration]
THE ROAD TO MONTEREY
_A Yankee Sailor wages a lone-hand fight among the Cattle Dons of
Southern California_
BY GEORGE WASHINGTON OGDEN
PART II
THE ROAD TO MONTEREY
GEORGE WASHINGTON OGDEN
The previous chapters
When Gabriel Henderson, young and keen for adventure, shipped
aboard a Yankee ship, and sailed around the Horn to California, he
little guessed how his future was to lie in that land of golden
fortunes.
It was in the days of bucko skippers and Gabriel, driven beyond
endurance by brutality and injustice, deserted ship while they were
loading skins from the ranch of Don Abrahan Cruz y Garvanza, not
far from the pueblo of Los Angeles.
He escaped, but only from one servitude to another, for Don Abrahan
befriended him only to reduce him to peonage on his ranch. Don
Abrahan was a power in all that district of California, his cattle
grazed on a thousand hills, and his name was feared for many square
miles.
Young Henderson finds that, though suave in manner, the don has him
in his power, and he accepts his bondage--but only until he can
plan escape, which is a difficult matter, owing to the power of Don
Abrahan.
He is made the servant of Don Roberto, son of old Abrahan, and
his lot is every moment a trial to his proud spirit. At the
feast celebrating the coming of age of Don Roberto, Henderson is
questioned by Helena Sprague, affianced wife of Roberto as to his
presence as a servant. They are talking--which fact alone would
compromise a woman in that country--when Roberto and a friend come
along. Helena escapes up a tree, but her slipper falls into the
hands of Roberto's friend.
CHAPTER VI
IN THE PATH OF THE GOATS
Henderson felt his wits revolving for a moment like a straw in a
whirlpool. The unlucky arrival of Don Roberto, the doubly unfortunate
chance upon the lost shoe by his companion, had forced him into a
situation that would require either great audacity or greater diplomacy
to come out of with the lady's honor untouched in the eyes of those
jealous and biased moralists.
He recalled her vividly in the light of the brief description she had
given of herself, but with nothing of either the insignificance or
the humility of the worm. She had not been present at the celebration
before that day; her appearance among the belles of the _ranchos_,
whose dark beauty was becoming rather tiresome, had been like a green
hill to the mariner's eye.
He had puzzled over her that day, trying to account for the wide
difference of type she presented, not knowing that Yankee marriages
were common among the first families of California. Her hair was of
a reddish brown, dusky in its depths where the Saxon strain mastered
the Latin; her fair skin was dashed as she had said, with a little
partridge-flight of freckles across her nose. Not of a prettiness such
as would be appealing to these fast-maturing youths; rather a sober
and studious type, her gray eyes wise and clear. There was a thinness
in her cheek, as if whetted by a sorrow, the reflection of trouble in
her eyes. This he remembered, picturing her again, swiftly, as he stood
trying to make fast a line to his swirling thoughts.
He must get hold of the shoe, he must create some sort of diversion
that would lead the two strollers away from the tree, whatever their
curious humor to pry into his supposed romance might be. The girl
must be brought down out of the tree and taken to the house by some
sequestered way, and all must be done in a matter of minutes, before
her absence from the side of her duenna could connect her with the lost
shoe.
The two young men had stopped beneath the tree, laughing over their
discovery. Henderson feared the girl's fright might betray her, not
knowing how improbable it was that a Mexican gentleman would look in a
tree for a lady, though the rustling of her movement might be plain in
his ears.
"What kind of a shoe is this--a sheep-skin sandal?" Don Roberto
inquired, a laugh in his voice over the thought of this interrupted
love-scene between his valet and some day-laborer's girl. "Come to the
moonlight with this precious discovery, Don Fernando; let us see."
Don Fernando, the young man who had stumbled upon the shoe, hesitated,
the small thing in his hand.
"It seems to be a lady's dancing-shoe. I believe such as might be
meeting your servant under a tree by night would not wear a shoe of
this kind, Don Roberto. Somebody has lost it in a stroll, and could
not find it again in the dark."
"Is it possible?" Don Roberto asked, something more than surprise in
his voice, a thing ominous, suspicious. "Let us have a look at it over
here."
"It is just a little thing of silk and kid," said Don Fernando,
temporizing as if undecided what to do.
"Step into the moonlight, Don Fernando--it is half as bright as day.
We'll see this pretty shoe, then watch for the mate of it. What a joke
it will be to give back her shoe!"
"Oh, Don Roberto, Don Roberto!" his friend protested gently.
"But the shoe--give me the shoe, then, Don Fernando."
[Illustration]
"If you will pry into a lady's misfortune," Don Fernando laughed,
passing the shoe to his friend's outstretched hand.
"Permit me," said Henderson, snatching the shoe from Roberto's fingers.
"Impertinent dog!"
Roberto sprang back a step with the malediction thrown in his servant's
face, as if to be out of reach of violence that he expected to follow
it. The leap carried him into the moonlight, where he stood with hand
at his sash, feeling for the weapon which, for the occasion, was not
there.
"Restore me the shoe! This instant give it back!" he commanded.
"I was sent for it; I will restore it to the owner," Henderson replied,
his manner lofty and severe.
"Who commands you?"
"That is for me to know, Don Roberto."
"Very well," said Roberto indifferently, as if the humor of the
situation had mended the affront given him by his valet. "Go on, then,
and take the shoe to its owner. We will accompany you, we will go by
your side, to see the pretty foot that it fits."
"No, Don Roberto. Let the poor fellow have his hour of romance, if
he can. I am not one with you to pry into it, or into the lady's
confusion, let her be whom she may."
Fernando turned away with these words, going toward the house.
Henderson felt his heart warm to the young fellow.
"Yankee thief! You'll feel the bite of rawhide for this," Roberto
threatened. "Come, take me to the owner of this shoe."
Henderson stood in the bright moonlight confronting this petulant
tyrant who believed himself master not only of the present situation,
but the future as well. The little shoe was soft in Henderson's hand;
he held its pliant thin sole bent in his palm, hiding it from Roberto's
curiously hungry eyes. It was a moment for swift consideration, quick
arrival upon a course that would save the shoe's owner from the blight
of scandal. Don Fernando was walking away rapidly; he passed out of
sight among the low-hanging branches of the pepper trees.
"Very well," Henderson yielded, after what seemed a struggle against
himself.
"Half of your lashes will be remitted for this, my fine Gabriel,"
Roberto generously declared. "But for snatching the shoe out of my
hand, may rats eat my heart if I do not find your ribs with my whip
tomorrow!"
"This way, then," said Henderson, leading off in the direction of the
laborers' huts below the brow of the hill.
Where there had been merely contempt for Roberto's pampered pride, his
oppression and disdain, there leaped hot in Henderson's breast this
moment a desire to bring him low. As quick as the flash of his vengeful
desire, Henderson's lively mind contrived a way.
"Who is there in this direction wearing the shoes of a lady?" Roberto
inquired, halting suspiciously after they had gone a few rods from the
tree.
"It remains for you to see," Henderson replied. If Don Roberto had been
schooled in the inflections of the human voice, he would have turned
back that moment.
"Here now, Gabriel, give me the foolish shoe and let us be friends,"
Roberto coaxed, holding out his hand. "I promise you I will forgive you
for taking it out of my hand, although you shamed me before a friend.
Give it to me, and take my forgiveness."
Henderson looked behind him. They were only a little way from the tree
where the girl trembled among the leaves, fearful of losing the good
name that was more to her than life; not far from the long tables
spread under the trees before the mansion, from which the laughter and
clatter of those who fed around them came clearly.
"Why do you hesitate, little Gabriel?" Roberto asked impatiently. "The
shoe, and be forgiven."
[Illustration]
"Damn your generosity!" Henderson replied. The weight of his body was
behind the blow that he struck Roberto under the ear.
Roberto fell as limp as wet leather, for the iron of salt-horse
and hardtack, and months of disciplinary labor, was in that blow.
Roberto's fine ruffled shirt made the gag that stopped his mouth, his
silk necktie the bond for his hands; the sleeves of his shirt served
well to secure his feet. And there the sailor left him, stretched
behind the trunk of a great oak, his overfed heart fluttering like a
moth caught in wax.
"Quick--your foot!" Henderson whispered, mounting the seat encircling
the tree-trunk where Don Roberto's betrothed prayed softly for
deliverance among the leaves.
"You haven't killed him, Don Gabriel?" she asked.
She clambered down from her higher perch as she spoke, leaning to lay
her hand on his shoulder. He felt the tremor of her body, the dread
anxiety of her low-spoken word.
"He'll be ready for the wedding tomorrow, Miss Sprague, if you need him
so soon," Gabriel assured her.
"I pray that day will never come!" she said, with such feeling that
caution was forgotten. "But I would not have him dead, of all things
dead at your hands, Don Gabriel," she added softly, her hand still on
his shoulder, her breath on his cheek.
Henderson had found her unshod foot; he was replacing the slipper with
such haste that impeded his work, anxious for her to come down and
hurry back to her duenna's side. For his own road was calling to him;
the moon marked its way over the hill among the greasewood and the sage.
"Now go," he said, having fastened the buckle on its silken strap
across her vaulted instep. "Run for it, Miss Sprague!"
She came down lightly, her hand in his, her weight thrown on his
shoulder, and stood so a moment, as if she had climbed to give him some
sweet confidence unseen among the boughs.
"Avoid the man called Fernando--the one who found your shoe," he
whispered, his breath short with something that was not fatigue from
the fastening of her shoe.
"I know a way," she panted. "I shall be safe now."
It seemed as if shortness of breath were a contagion that had laid hold
of both of them under the gray solemn roble that moonlit night. Both of
them knew well enough that they had no moments to gamble away, but she
lingered. Her hand was still cold in the chill of her past fright.
"Have you heard from the north?" she asked eagerly, whispering close
to his ear.
"The north?"
"I came to ask you, I wanted to know if you were--if you had a friend
in the north who had sent you the news?"
"I haven't a friend in California," he replied, thinking in the same
breath that he ought to be half way up the hill by now.
"One, at least," she corrected him, touching his shoulder in assuring
comfort, speaking hurriedly, the necessity of the moment urging her
now. "Where is Roberto? Have you hurt him much?"
"Behind that tree, not hurt. He's likely to get loose any moment--I
must go. Good-by, Miss Sprague. My greatest wish is for your happiness."
"Go to my estate in the valley over there. It is near San Fernando
mission, the Sprague ranch, everybody knows it. I'll be there before
you, unless you are taking a horse."
"No."
"It is better that way, there would be a legal accusation if you took
a horse. Come straight to my home, then. I have something to tell
you--there is news from the north."
This last she emphasized as though she believed it had a meaning he
would understand. He waited, standing as she left him on the seat,
his head among the low branches, watching her until she disappeared
under the pepper trees near the house. Then he leaped down and ran to
the olive lane, and up the road by which he had arrived on a day that
seemed to him now long ago, holding like a vassal to Don Abrahan's
stirrup, to be betrayed by the treacherous hospitality of that place.
Henderson was hatless; his finery, his light shoes, were not calculated
to withstand the rigors of flight in the rough country where his small
chance of safety lay. His velvet and bright satin would mark him in the
eyes of every person that met him. He would leave a trail behind him
like a fire. But he was confident; he was not flying friendlessly into
the unknown.
He knew in a general way where San Fernando mission was, across the
first range of hills in the valley of the same name, twenty miles
or more away. There was little likelihood that they would start the
pursuit of him tonight, hot as Roberto would be for revenge; the vast
assurance of their mighty ability to reach out and drag a fugitive back
with their thousand hands would hold them in their beds till day. But
the word of his escape was sure to be sent abroad by Indian messengers
the moment it was discovered.
[Illustration]
Henderson proceeded on his way with a feeling of security in spite of
his knowledge of this. He was certain there was no treachery in Miss
Sprague's offer of a refuge, and profession of friendship.
Don Felipe had spoken frequently of Roberto's betrothed, but never by
name. She had been away, in school at Santa Barbara, Felipe had said.
She must have come home only a day or two ago. That accounted for
Roberto never having ridden to San Fernando, his valet at his back.
Unlucky chance, thought Henderson, for then he would have known the
road.
Where the olive lane ended, and the road swept away eastward to the
pass and on its way to Buena Ventura and the north, Henderson paused.
There was no break in the sound of festivity around the tables beneath
the trees; it was certain that Roberto had not broken his insecure
bonds and given the alarm. Here the fugitive must leave the highway
and take a shorter line across the hills. Little chance that any would
find his tracks in the goat path that he must follow up the first steep
slope. At dawn Liseta would come with her flock; the tracks of his
passing would be cut out of the path by two hundred scrambling hooves.
CHAPTER VII
A MESSENGER FROM SAN FERNANDO
Don Roberto rode into the courtyard at evening, dust on his shoulders.
He flung himself from the saddle with impatience, throwing out his
hands in baffled expression of emptiness when Don Abrahan came hastily
from the house to meet him.
"The earth has swallowed him," Don Roberto said.
He drew his shoulders up, lifted his eyebrows, pulled down the corners
of his large flexible mouth, emphasizing his report of complete failure
in his quest.
"You have made his grave, then? It is very good."
Don Abrahan spoke with well simulated gratification, as a man hearing
good news. But that light of something in his eyes that seemed laughter
and was not, told Roberto that he was being scorned.
"I have not made his grave," Roberto replied shortly, with surly
tongue. "No man has seen him, he leaves no tracks."
"The earth opens to swallow a man but once," Don Abrahan said gravely.
"That is when it makes the little grin called the grave. As long as
this sailor is not in his grave, he walks the ground to be brought back
to this plantation and serve his time."
"I'll cut the heart out of him with a rawhide when I find him!" Roberto
said.
"Cut him till his back runs blood, you may; but his heart you will
leave whole in his body to suffer for the great insult he has put
upon this house. Never mind," laying his hand on Roberto's shoulder
in comforting caress, "we shall find him. There is no way for him to
escape but through the mountains into the desert. He had no arms, no
money; his shoes are cut to pieces on the rocks by now; he runs lame,
he is hungry. Soon he must come out of his place to beg food. Then the
word will come, we shall have him in our hands."
Don Felipe came for the horse, led it away unnoticed by father and
son, clapped his genie signal for the young man who always seemed
just out of sight in the warehouse. Don Abrahan and his son, in close
conversation, entered the dwelling.
This was the evening of the fourth day since Henderson's escape. The
mystery of his complete vanishment troubled Don Abrahan, not so much
because his son had failed in the search which he headed, as that
it seemed to show that his hitherto dependable machinery had failed
and broken down. This would seem to indicate that the peon class
was growing in defiance of the privileged few who had held them in
subjugation so completely and so long. It was a state of affairs to
cause a man to wrinkle his brow and consider, with beard bent upon his
breast.
And so Don Abrahan sat in what would have been called his library in
an American house, but in this place termed office. Here the records
of his business transactions were kept, here such books as the family
owned, which were neither many nor important. Don Abrahan's father had
occupied the room for the same purpose, contriving it when he built the
house.
This was a room of two tall, narrow Venetian windows set in the deep
adobe wall. There were dark beams of cedar overhead, a dark door of
broad panels and great thickness shutting off the rest of the house.
There was a picture of a cavalier in a ruff and pointed beard, a sword
at his side, his hand on the hilt, hanging in a dark deep frame between
the windows. In the center of the room Don Abrahan's strong oak table
stood, two silver candlesticks flanking the great inkstand.
[Illustration]
There was more to trouble Don Abrahan than the thought of peon defiance
in concealing a fugitive, or the revolution in the peon mind and
conscience which would no longer permit one to seize and deliver an
unhappy human chattel for the reward of five dollars. The greater
thought that rose in the mind of Don Abrahan like a cloud out of season
upon the eye, was nothing less than that of American plotting and
contriving to lay hold of California and add it to their domain.
That such plotting was going on, Don Abrahan and others of his estate
had proof; that it was being furthered and supported by men of his own
nation who hoped to profit through it, and by Spaniards who had lost
their lands, was more than suspected.
Proof was wanting there, but proof Don Abrahan hoped to secure, to the
happy hanging of some of his neighbors, the exile and expatriation
of others. Then there would be land to divide as a reward among the
patriots. The thought brought a smile to Don Abrahan's face; it stood
in twinkling reflection in his eyes long after its ripple had passed
through his beard.
Roberto entered presently, refreshed by razor and clean garments. His
face was gloomy for all the brightness of his raiment; there was a
sulkiness in the corners of his drooping lips as of a resentful child.
He sat at the end of the table, dark, handsome; soft in his habit of
indolence, yet enduring from the very breed of him, more boy than
man in spite of his years. There was promise in his well-carried
head, capability in his small, compact hands. Experience, hardship,
renunciation by force, might harden this indulged boy into a formidable
man, such as the gray, sharp-featured one across the table.
"You are wrong, father, when you think he roams the hills without a
friend," Roberto said.
He scarcely had settled in the rough chair with rawhide seat, but with
the words he got to his feet again, walked rapidly across the room,
stood at a window where a last spear of sunlight came through filtered
of its white strength by the smoky haze of the hills.
"You believe some American in the pueblo is hiding him?" Don Abrahan
asked.
He was unmoved by his son's perturbation. He watched the young man
furtively, head bent, fingers interlaced meditatively at the tip of his
beard. It was as if he tried an experiment in psychology, and waited
the result.
"No, there is no American in the pueblo who would risk it. But there is
another, not in the pueblo. He is not without a friend."
Don Abrahan lifted his head, his eyes open wide. He put a hand to the
table, leaning forward as if to rise.
"What is it you have learned today?" he asked.
Roberto turned from the window to stand with hands on the back of his
chair, deliberating his next word, it seemed. He sat down, drew the
chair close to the table, leaning confidentially toward his father, eye
to the windows to see that nobody loitered near.
"There is something to be told to the shame of this house," he said,
with such intense feeling that caused his father to stare. "There is a
thing I have kept from you since the night of this ruffianly assault.
Now you must hear it, but it burns my heart with shame to speak the
words."
"How? What is this thing you preface with such terrible beginning?"
Don Abrahan was thoroughly aroused. He glanced behind him to see that
the door letting into the rest of the house was closed; and over his
shoulder to make certain that the door opening out of it into the
convenient courtyard that might, in time of stress, contain a man's
saddled horse, did not show a crack.
"It is the infidelity and disgrace of one that was most dear," Roberto
said, his head drooping with shame of the confession. "Helena--it was
Helena who met him under the tree that cursed night. It was Helena's
slipper that Don Fernando picked up. She lost it when she fled."
"But no, no. Did you see her, my son?"
"I held the shoe a moment before the dog snatched it from me. It was
one of the shoes I bought her in Mexico City, silk and fine kid. There
is no mistake; there are no shoes of that kind in this country."
"And Don Fernando? You were not fool enough to betray this suspicion to
him?"
"Don Fernando does not know, thank God! This affront to my honor is
known only to you and me, and the guilty pair that shamed me. And by
the breath of God I'll wash my hands in their blood before another sun
goes down!"
"But Helena, that is not like her. I would not condemn Helena without
greater proof than the circumstance of a shoe picked up under a tree.
You did not see her run away. Perhaps she lost it, passing there for
the air with Doña Carlota, and could not find it in the dark. I will
make inquiry of Carlota. Let us be calm; let us wait."
"It is well enough for you to say all this, but I, who know better,
want no further proof."
[Illustration]
"It is not like Helena," Don Abrahan persisted. "And grant that it was
her shoe that caused you to suffer at this rough fellow's hands--and
I am not convinced yet that it was, for ships from Mexico bring many
shoes--there would be no harm in the prank of meeting this sailor for a
word. Helena is more Yankee than Mexican. It is a strong blood. Captain
Sprague was as much a gentleman as ever came to California from any
land."
"No harm in meeting him!" Roberto repeated bitterly. It seemed that he
had not heard his father beyond these words.
"No harm. It is the custom of Americans to permit their young of the
opposite sexes together in all places, at all hours. Custom gives it a
different color in their eyes than ours. It is likely she only wanted
to practice a little English with one fresh from Boston, to get from
him the latest words. She has dreams of going there some day, she
doesn't want to go with a stiff tongue."
"It isn't her native speech, her native land. She is Mexican, as I am.
Captain Sprague was a Mexican citizen; there is no Yankee custom that
can absolve her."
"I think she is innocent of any wrong intention, however bold her deed,
if she is guilty of meeting him as you charge, my son. There is no
smirch on Helena, she is a good girl, and a rich one. I cannot permit
you to think of throwing aside this betrothal on account of a foolish
episode such as troubles you so deeply, Roberto. It is our secret. Call
it a child's prank and forgive it."
"And this Yankee sailor? Do you expect me to forgive him, as well?"
Don Abrahan sat in meditation a little while, his beard bent upon his
breast. When he looked up presently there was that reflection of inner
laughter in his eyes.
"The devil first tempted woman under a tree," he said. "If Adam had
killed the evil in Eden, it would have been for the happiness of
mankind."
Roberto sprang to his feet, his nostrils twitching, his face white.
"I know where to find him!" he said. "This country could not hide a man
four days without a strong friend to cover him. Give me permission to
go and demand him at her door."
"Without absolute knowledge that he is there, it would be an affront
that Helena never would forgive," Don Abrahan returned in politic
softness.
"Forgive! Helena forgive! I swear to you, Don Abrahan my father, that I
will not have her, polluted by his kiss."
"This is folly," Don Abrahan reproved him coldly. "What is a kiss more
or less, if he kissed her? The sailor never met her alone, never spoke
a word to her. But I give him to you. Do with him what your desire
leads you to do--when you find him."
"If we find that she is hiding him, will that be proof enough for you
of her guilt?"
"It is preposterous. She could not hide him, nobody could hide him!"
Don Abrahan declared, but contrary to his own deep conviction that
somebody, indeed, must be concealing the fugitive. "He has crawled into
a cave in the hills; hunger will drive him out tomorrow."
"It is a thing that touches a man's honor." Roberto judged Helena as
Helena judged him and his kind, as revealed in her significant speech
to Henderson, explaining why she had hidden herself in the tree. Men
were not trusted alone with women in the Spanish-Mexican society of
that time; they are not trusted in any greater degree in the same
society today.
"Proof would be necessary," Don Abrahan insisted, with such firmness
that Roberto knew could not be shaken. "You did not see her, the touch
of a shoe which seemed of the same material you brought from the
capital."
"Sixteen dollars, gold, they cost me!"
"Such evidence is weaker than the testimony of a blind man. It does not
convict Helena in my judgment, I will not consent to your throwing away
her lands, her herds, her gold won by that magician Sprague as if he
clutched it out of the air. It is too much for a trifle of suspicion to
wreck. When you cool, when you are reasonable, you will see it as I do."
"In my own heart she stands convicted. There is not another pair of
shoes like that this side of the capital."
"Who comes?" Don Abrahan asked, leaning to listen as the sound of
someone riding into the courtyard in haste passed the window like a
gust of wind.
Roberto turned to the window to see. The rider had passed; only the
dust of his swift arrival could be seen. He opened the window and
leaned out.
"Felipe is coming with the intelligence," he announced.
[Illustration]
"It is time for the fish to show himself in the net," Don Abrahan said,
going to the door which opened into the courtyard. "I knew we must have
news of him soon."
Roberto stood by the table, lips compressed, hands clenched, as if
he struggled against vengeful emotions. Don Abrahan turned from the
door, and closed it. He stood a moment reading the written message his
_mayordomo_ had put into his hand.
"It is a message from Doña Carlota, at the San Fernando ranch," he
said, looking his son straight in the eyes. Don Abrahan stood then a
moment, taking his breath in such long inspiration as a man draws it
when he fortifies himself for some tremendous ordeal.
"Your suspicions are confirmed. She is hiding him," he said.
CHAPTER VIII
THE TEETH OF A MAN
Doña Carlota, cousin of Don Abrahan, kept her candle burning late that
night. She drew the drapery of her chamber window aside to show that
the house was awake, herself seated discreetly out of sight of any
passing eye. With crochet needle and fine silk thread she worked upon
the mantilla that had employed her fingers many months, and would so
employ them until the ripening of grapes.
There was a weight of trouble upon the breast of Doña Carlota that
night, a haven broad enough to harbor many troubles, yet in which few
had come to anchor in her placid years. She was as round and fat as an
old hen pigeon, small in the face, her chin merged into her neck, her
black hair pulled rigorously back from her shallow forehead in what
seemed an attempt to give sternness to a countenance that had no more
severity in it than a cake. Even trouble could do no more than give it
a comical little look of appeal.
Between love and duty Doña Carlota had suffered these two days. At
the last she yielded to duty, as she would have deferred to religion,
and the thing was done. Now she waited as it drew on toward midnight,
listening for the sound of horses coming from the south. When she felt
a flood of drowsiness coming over her, threatening to smother her like
a clam on the beach, she fumbled beneath the half-finished mantilla for
her rosary. Yet she had quakings and doubts; she suffered tremors of
cold fears.
At ten minutes before midnight Doña Carlota believed she had expected
too much of Dan Abrahan; he would not come that night. At five minutes
past the hour, as she stood with hand on the drawn drapery to let it
fall and shut the candlelight from the road, a dog barked before an
Indian shepherd's hut. His alarm was taken up, as a cock's crow goes
onward over the land from straining throat to throat, from the edge of
the world in the west to the very shores of dawn. Men came riding into
the dooryard. Don Abrahan was at the door.
Doña Carlota hastened to open to the magistrate's command, even to the
command of his presence, before his hand was lifted to the panel.
"So you have come," she said. "May Jesus protect us all! Enter, Don
Abrahan."
"There is no cause for your perturbation, my good cousin," Don Abrahan
said, laughing at her magnification of a thing that he considered only
commonplace, troublesome, small. "A runaway peon is not a thing to
disturb your tranquility."