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The BLUE GOOSE
FRANK LEWIS NASON
AUTHOR OF TO THE END OF THE TRAIL
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
NEW YORK
Published, March, 1903, R
Second Impression
* * * * *
"_So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a
noise and behold a shaking, and the bones came together bone to bone._
"_And, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, but there was no
breath in them._
"_Son of man, prophesy unto the wind. Come from the four winds, O
breath, and breathe upon these that they may live._
"_And the breath came into them and they lived._"
To
MY FRIEND OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS,
CHARLES EMERSON BEECHER,
who, with infinite skill and patience, has breathed the breath of life
into the dry bones of Earth's untold ages of upward struggle, who has
made them speak of the eternity of their past, and has made them
prophesy hope for the eternity to come, this book is dedicated by the
author.
CONTENTS
I. THE BLUE GOOSE
II. THE OLD MAN
III. ELISE
IV. THE WATCHED POT BEGINS TO BOIL
V. BENNIE OPENS THE POT AND FIRMSTONE COMES IN
VI. THE FAMILY CIRCLE
VII. MR. MORRISON TACKLES A MAN WITH A MIND OF HIS OWN AND A MAN WITHOUT
ONE
VIII. MADAME SEEKS COUNSEL
IX. THE MEETING AT THE BLUE GOOSE
X. ELISE GOES FORTH TO CONQUER
XI. THE DEVIL'S ELBOW
XII. FIGS AND THISTLES
XIII. THE STORK AND THE CRANES
XIV. BLINDED EYES
XV. BENDING THE TWIG
XVI. AN INSISTENT QUESTION
XVII. THE BEARDED LION
XVIII. WINNOWED CHAFF
XIX. THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT
XX. THE RIVER GIVES UP ITS PREY
XXI. THE SWORD THAT TURNS
XXII. GOOD INTENTIONS
XXIII. AN UNEXPECTED RECRUIT
XXIV. THE GATHERING TO ITS OWN
XXV. A DIVIDED HOUSE
XXVI. THE DAY OF RECKONING
XXVII. PASSING CLOUDS
THE BLUE GOOSE
CHAPTER I
_The Blue Goose_
"_Mais oui!_ I tell you one ting. One big ting. Ze big man wiz ze glass
eyes, he is vat you call one slik stoff. Ze big man wiz ze glass eyes."
"The old man?"
"Zat's him! One slik stoff! _Ecoutez!_ Listen! One day, you mek ze gran'
trip. Look hout!" Pierre made a gesture as of a dog shaking a rat.
The utter darkness of the underground laboratory was parted in solid
masses, by bars of light that spurted from the cracks of a fiercely
glowing furnace. One shaft fell on a row of large, unstoppered bottles.
From these bottles fumes arose, mingled, and fell in stifling clouds of
fleecy white. From another bottle in Pierre's hands a dense red smoke
welled from a colourless liquid, crowded through the neck, wriggled
through the bar of light, and sank in the darkness beneath. The darkness
was uncanny, the fumes suffocating, the low hum of the furnace forcing
out the shafts of light from the cracks of the imprisoning walls
infernally suggestive.
Luna shivered. He was ignorant, therefore superstitious, and
superstition strongly suggested the unnatural. He knew that furnaces and
retorts and acids and alkalies were necessary to the refinement of gold.
He feared them, yet he had used them, but he had used them where the
full light of day robbed them of half their terrors. In open air acids
might smoke, but drifting winds would brush away the fumes. Furnaces
might glow, but their glow would be as naught in sunlight. There was no
darkness in which devils could hide to pounce on him unawares, no walls
to imprison him. The gold he retorted on his shovel was his, and he had
no fear of the law. In the underground laboratory of Pierre the element
of fear was ever present. The gold that the furnace retorted was stolen,
and Luna was the thief. There were other thieves, but that did not
matter to him. He stole gold from the mill. Others stole gold from the
mine. It all came to Pierre and to Pierre's underground furnace. He
stood in terror of the supernatural, of the law, and, most of all, of
Pierre. In the darkness barred with fierce jets of light, imprisoned by
walls that he could not see, cut off from the free air of open day,
stifled by pungent gases that stung him, throat and eye, he felt an
uncanny oppression, fear of the unknown, fear of the law, most of all
fear of Pierre.
Pierre watched him through his mantle of darkness. He thrust forward his
head, and a bar of light smote him across his open lips. It showed his
gleaming teeth white and shut, his black moustache, his swarthy lips
parted in a sardonic smile; that was all. A horrible grin on a
background of inky black.
Luna shrank.
"Leave off your devil's tricks."
"_Moi?_"
Pierre replaced the bottle of acid on the shelf and picked up a pair of
tongs. As he raised the cover of the glowing crucible a sudden
transformation took place. The upper part of the laboratory blazed out
fiercely, and in this light Pierre moved with gesticulating arms, the
lower part of his body wholly hidden. He lifted the crucible, shook it
for a moment with an oscillatory motion, then replaced it on the fire.
He turned again to Luna.
"Hall ze time I mek ze explain. Hall ze time you mek ze question.
_Comment?_"
Luna's courage was returning in the light.
"You're damned thick-headed, when it suits you, all right. Well, I'll
explain. Last clean-up I brought you two pounds of amalgam if it was an
ounce. All I got out of it was fifty dollars. You said that was my
share. Hansen brought you a chunk of quartz from the mine. He showed it
to me first. If I know gold from sulphur, there was sixty dollars in it.
Hansen got five out of it."
Pierre interrupted.
"You mek mention ze name."
"There's no one to hear in this damned hell of yours."
"_Non_," Pierre answered. "You mek mention in zis hell. Bimby you mek
mention," Pierre gave an expressive upward jerk with his thumb, then
shrugged his shoulders.
"I'll look out for that," Luna answered, impatiently. "I'm after
something else now. I'm getting sick of pinching the mill and bringing
the stuff here for nothing. So are the rest of the boys. We ain't got no
hold on you and you ain't playing fair. You've got to break even or this
thing's going to stop."
Pierre made no reply to Luna. He picked up the tongs, lifted the
crucible from the fire, and again replaced it. Then he brought out an
ingot mould and laid it on a ledge of the furnace. The crucible was
again lifted from the fire, and its contents were emptied in the mould.
Pierre and Luna both watched the glowing metal. As it slowly cooled,
iridescent sheens of light swept over its surface like the changing
colours of a dying dolphin. Pierre held up the mould to Luna.
"How much she bin?"
Luna looked covetously at the softly glowing metal. "Two hundred."
"_Bien._ She's bin ze amalgam, ze quart', ze hozer stoff. Da's hall."
Luna looked sceptical.
"That's too thin. How many times have you fired up?"
"Zis!" Pierre held up a single emphasizing finger.
"We'll let that go," Luna answered; "but you listen now. One of the
battery men is off to-night. I'm going to put Morrison on substitute.
He's going to break a stem or something. The mortar's full to the dies.
We're going to clean it out. I know how much it will pan. It's coming to
you. You divide fair or it's the last you'll get. I'll hide it out in
the usual place."
"Look hout! Da's hall!"
The other laughed impatiently.
"Getting scared, Frenchy? Where's your nerve?"
"Nerf! Nerf!" Pierre danced from foot to foot, waving his arms. "_Sacre
plastron!_ You mek ze fuse light. You sit on him, heh? Bimeby, pretty
soon, you got no nerf. You got noddings. You got one big gris-spot on ze
rock. Da's hall." Pierre subsided, with a gesture of intense disgust.
Luna snapped his watch impatiently.
"It's my shift, Frenchy. I've got to go in a few minutes."
"_Bien!_ Go!" Pierre spoke without spirit. "Mek of yourself one gran'
_folie_. _Mais_, when ze shot go, an' you sail in ze air, don' come down
on ze Blue Goose, on me, Pierre. I won't bin here, da's hall."
Luna turned.
"I tell you I've got to go now. I wish you'd tell me what's the matter
with the old man."
Pierre roused himself.
"Noddings. Ze hol' man has noddings ze mattaire. It is you! You! Ze hol'
man, he go roun' lak he kick by ze dev'. He mek his glass eyes to shine
here an' twinkle zere, an' you mek ze gran' chuckle, 'He see noddings.'
He see more in one look dan you pack in your tick head! I tol' you look
hout; da's hall!"
Luna jammed his watch into his pocket and rose.
"It's all right, Frenchy. I'll give you another chance. To-day's
Thursday. Saturday they'll clean up at the mill. It will be a big one. I
want my rake-off. The boys want theirs. It all comes to the Blue Goose,
one way or another. You think you're pretty smooth stuff. That's all
right; but let me tell you one thing: if there's any procession heading
for Canon City, you'll be in it, too."
Canon City was the State hostelry. Occasionally the law selected
unwilling guests. It was not over-large, nor was it overcrowded. Had it
sheltered all deserving objects, the free population of the State would
have been visibly diminished.
Pierre only shrugged his shoulders. He followed Luna up the stairs to
the outer door, and watched the big mill foreman as he walked down the
trail to the mill. Then, as was his custom when perturbed in mind,
Pierre crossed the dusty waggon trail and seated himself on a boulder,
leaning his back against a scrubby spruce. He let his eyes rest
contentedly on a big, square-faced building. Rough stone steps led up to
a broad veranda, from which rose, in barbaric splendour, great sheets of
shining plate-glass, that gave an unimpeded view of a long mahogany bar
backed by tiers of glasses and bottles, doubled by reflection from
polished mirrors that reached to the matched-pine ceiling.
Across the room from the bar, roulette and faro tables, bright with
varnish and gaudy with nickel trimmings, were waiting with invitations
to feverish excitement. The room was a modern presentation of Scylla and
Charybdis. Scylla, the bar, stimulated to the daring of Charybdis across
the way, and Charybdis, the roulette, sent its winners to celebrate
success, or its victims to deaden the pain of loss.
At the far end of the room a glass-covered arcade stood in advance of
doors to private club-rooms. At the arcade an obliging attendant passed
out gold and silver coins, for a consideration, in exchange for crumpled
time-checks and greasy drafts.
Pierre grinned and rubbed his hands. Above the plate glass on the
outside a gorgeous rainbow arched high on the painted front. Inscribed
within, in iridescent letters, was: "The Blue Goose. Pierre La Martine."
Beneath the spring of the rainbow, for the benefit of those who could
not read, was a huge blue goose floating aimlessly in a sheet of bluer
water.
This was all of the Blue Goose that was visible to the eyes of the
uninitiated; of the initiated there were not many.
Beneath the floor was a large cellar, wherein was a fierce-looking
furnace, which on occasion grew very red with its labours. There were
pungent jars and ghostly vessels and a litter of sacks, and much
sparkling dust on the earthen floor. All this Pierre knew, and a few
others, though even these had not seen it.
Beneath the shadow of the wings of the Blue Goose dwelt a very plain
woman, who looked chronically frightened, and a very beautiful girl who
did not. The scared woman was Madame La Martine; the unscared girl
passed for their daughter, but about the daughter no one asked questions
of Pierre. About the Blue Goose, its bar, and its gaming-tables Pierre
was eloquent, even with strangers. About his daughter and other things
his acquaintances had learned to keep silence; as for strangers, they
soon learned.
Obviously the mission of the Blue Goose was to entertain; with the
multitude this mission passed current at its face value, but there were
a few who challenged it. Now and then a grocer or a butcher made gloomy
comments as he watched a growing accumulation of books that would not
prove attractive to the most confirmed bibliophile. Men went to the Blue
Goose with much money, but came out with none, for the bar and roulette
required cash settlements. Their wives went in to grocers and butchers
with no money but persuasive tongues, and came forth laden with spoils.
Pandora could raise no taxes for schools, so there were none. Preachers
came and offered their wares without money and without price, but there
were no churches. For the wares of the preachers flushed no faces and
burned no throats, nor were there rattles even in contribution boxes,
and there was no whirr of painted wheels. Even the hundred rumbling
stamps of the Rainbow mill might as well have pounded empty air or
clashed their hard steel shoes on their hard steel dies for all the
profit that came to the far-away stockholders of the great Rainbow mine
and mill.
So it came to pass that many apparently unrelated facts were gathered
together by the diligent but unprosperous, and, being thus gathered,
pointed to a very inevitable conclusion. Nothing and no one was
prosperous, save Pierre and his gorgeous Blue Goose. For Pierre was a
power in the land. He feared neither God nor the devil. The devil was
the bogie-man of the priest. As for God, who ever saw him? But of some
men Pierre had much fear, and among the same was "the hol' man" at the
mill.