Houston pretended not to hear the remark. The woman in the buggy was
holding forth her hands to him and he assisted her to the ground.
"Well," she asked, in a sudden fawning manner, "aren't you glad to see
me, Barry? Aren't you going to kiss me?"
"Of course." He took her in his arms. "I--I was so surprised, Agnes.
I never thought of you--"
"Naturally you didn't." It was Thayer again. "That's why I sent for
her. Thought you'd get your memory back when--"
"I've had my memory for long enough--" Houston had turned upon him
coldly--"to know that from now on I'll run this place. You're through!"
"Barry!" The woman had grasped his arm. "Don't talk like that. You
don't know what you're saying!"
"Please, Agnes--"
"Let him rave, if that's the way he wants to repay faithfulness."
"Wait until I've talked to you, Barry. You haven't had time to think.
You've jumped at conclusions. Fred just thought that I could--"
"This hasn't anything to do with you, Agnes. There hasn't been
anything wrong with me. My brain's been all right; I've known every
minute what I've been doing. This man's crooked, and I know he's
crooked. I needed time, and I shammed forgetfulness. I've gotten the
information I need now--and I'm repeating that he's through! And every
one else in this camp goes with him!"
"I'm not in the habit of taking insults! I--"
Thayer moved forward belligerently, one hand reaching toward a cant
hook near by. But suddenly he ceased. Ba'tiste, quite naturally, had
strolled between them.
"M'sieu Houston have a broke' arm," had come very quietly. Thayer
grunted.
"Maybe that's the reason he thinks he can insult every one around here."
Ba'tiste looked down upon him, as a Newfoundland would look upon a
snapping terrier.
"M'sieu Houston insult nobody."
"But--"
The voice of the big man rose to a roar.
"Ba'teese say, M'sieu Houston insult nobody. Un'stan'? Ba'teese say
that! Ba'teese got no broke' arm!"
"Who is this man?" The woman had turned angrily toward Barry; "What
right has he to talk this way? The whole thing's silly, as far as I
can see, Barry. This man, whoever he is, has been stuffing you full of
stories. There--"
"This man, Agnes," and Barry Houston's voice carried a quality he never
before had used with Agnes Jierdon, "is the best friend I ever had.
You'll realize it before long. He not only has saved my life, but he's
going to help me save my business. I want you to know him and to like
him."
A quick smile flashed over the full lips.
"I didn't know, Barry. Pardon me."
Houston turned to the introduction, while Agnes Jierdon held forth a
rather limp hand and while Ba'tiste, knit cap suddenly pulled from
straggly gray hair, bent low in acknowledgment. Thayer, grumbling
under his breath, started away. Houston went quickly toward him.
"You understood me?"
"Perfectly. I'm fired. I was good enough for your father, but you
know more than he did. I was--"
"We won't go into that."
"There's nothing about it that I'm ashamed of."
Still the sneer was there, causing Barry's bandaged arm to ache for
freedom and strength. "I don't have to go around hiding my past."
Houston bit down a retort and forced himself to the question:
"How long will it take you to get out of here?"
"I'll be out to-night. I don't stay where I'm not wanted. Needn't
think I'll hang around begging you for a job. There are plenty of 'em,
for men like me."
"One that I know of, in particular. I asked you when you could get
out."
"An hour, if you're so impatient about it. But I want my check first."
"You'll get it, and everybody else connected with you. So you might as
well give the word."
For a moment, Thayer stared at him in malignant hate, his gnarled hands
twisting and knotting. Then, with a sudden impulse, he turned away
toward the mill. A moment later the whistle blew and the saws ceased
to snarl. Barry turned back to Agnes and Ba'tiste. The woman caught
impulsively at his arm.
"Where on earth am I going to live, Barry?" she questioned. "I don't
want to go back to town. And I can't stay in this deserted place, if
every one is leaving it."
"I'll keep the cook. She can fix you a room in one of the cottages and
stay there with you. However, it would be best to go back."
"But I won't." She shook her head with an attempt at levity. "I've
come all this distance, worried to death every moment over you, and now
I'm going to stay until I'm sure that everything's all right. Besides,
Barry," she moved close to him, "you'll need me. Won't you? Haven't I
always been near you when you've needed me? And aren't you taking on
the biggest sort of job now?"
Houston smiled at her. True, she had always been near in time of
trouble and it was only natural that now--
"Of course," came his answer. "Come, I'll have you made comfortable in
the cottage." Then, as he started away, "May I see you, Ba'tiste,
sometime to-night?"
"Ah, _oui_." The Canadian was moving toward his wagon and the waiting
dog. "In the cabin."
Three hours later, the last of the men paid off, Agnes installed in the
best of three little cottages in care of the motherly old cook, Barry
Houston approached the door of Ba'tiste's cabin, the wolf-dog, who had
picked him up a hundred yards away, trotting beside him. There was a
light within; in the shadows by the grave, a form moved,--old Lost
Wing. Medaine was there, then. Barry raised his hand to knock,--and
halted. His name had been mentioned angrily; then again,--followed by
the voice of the girl:
"I don't know what it is, Ba'tiste. Fred wouldn't tell me, except that
it was something too horrible for me to know. And I simply can't do
what you say. I can't be pleasant to him when I feel this way."
"But--"
"Oh, I know. I want to be fair, and I try to be. I speak to him when
I meet him; isn't that enough? We're not old friends; we're hardly
even acquaintances. And if there is something in his past to be
ashamed of, isn't it best that we simply remain that way? I--"
Then she ceased. Houston had knocked on the door. A second later, he
entered the cabin, to return Medaine Robinette's cool but polite
greeting in kind, and to look apprehensively toward Ba'tiste Renaud.
But the old man's smile was genuine.
"We have been talk' about you, _oui_, yes!" he said. "Eh, Medaine?"
It was one of his thrusts. The girl colored, then turned toward the
door.
"I'm afraid I've stayed longer than I intended," she apologized. "It's
late. Good night."
Then she was gone. Houston looked at Ba'tiste, but the old
French-Canadian merely waved a big hand.
"Woman," he said airily, "peuff! She is strange. Eet is nothing. Eet
will pass. Now," as though the subject had been dismissed, "what mus'
Ba'teese do?"
"At the mill? I wish, if you don't mind, that you'd guard it for me.
I'm going to Denver on the morning train to hire a new crew. I don't
want Thayer to do anything to the mill in my absence."
"Ah, _oui_. It shall be. You will sleep here?"
"If you don't mind? It's nearer Tabernacle."
"Bon--good! Golemar!" And the dog scratched at the door. "Come, we
shall go to the mill. We are the watchmen, yes?"
"But I didn't mean for you to start to-night. I just thought--"
"There is no time like the minute," answered the Canadian quietly.
"To-night, you shall be Ba'teese, _oui_, yes. Ba'teese shall be you."
Pulling his knit cap on his head, he went out into the darkness and to
the guardianship of the mill that belonged--to a man who looked like
his Pierre. As for Houston, the next morning found him on the
uncomfortable red cushions of the smoking car as the puffing train
pulled its weary, way through the snowsheds of Crestline Mountain, on
the way over the range. Evening brought him to Denver, and the three
days which followed carried with them the sweaty smell of the
employment offices and the gathering of a new crew. Then, tired,
anxious with an eagerness that he never before had known, he turned
back to the hills.
Before, in the days agone, they had been only mountains, reminders of
an eruptive time in the cooling of the earth,--so many bumpy places
upon a topographical railroad map. But now,--now they were different.
They seemed like home. They were the future. They were the housing
place of the wide spaces where the streams ran through green valleys,
where the sagebrush dotted the plateau plains, and where the world was
a thing with a rim about it; hills soft blue and brown and gray and
burning red in the sunlight, black, crumpled velvet beneath the moon
and stars; hills where the pines grew, where his life awaited him, a
new thing to be remolded nearer to his own desires, and where lived
Ba'tiste, Agnes--and Medaine.
Houston thought of her with a sudden cringing.
In that moment as he stood outside the door of Ba'tiste's cabin, he had
heard himself sealed and delivered to oblivion as far as she was
concerned. He was only an acquaintance--one with a grisly shadow in
his past--and it was best that he remain such. Grudgingly, Barry
admitted the fact to himself, as he sat once more in the red-plush
smoking car, surrounded by heavy-shouldered, sodden-faced men, his new
crew, en route to Empire Lake. It was best. There was Agnes, with her
debt of gratitude to be paid and with her affection for him, which in
its blindness could not discern the fact that it was repaid only as a
sense of duty. There was the fight to be made,--and the past. Houston
shuddered with the thought of it. Things were only as they should be;
grimly he told himself that he had erred in even thinking of happiness
such as comes to other men. His life had been drab and gray; it must
remain so.
Past the gleaming lakes and eternal banks of snow the train crawled to
the top of the world at Crestline, puffed and clattered through the
snowsheds, then clambered down the mountain side to Tabernacle. With
his dough-faced men about him, Houston sought transportation, at last
to obtain it, then started the journey to the mill.
Into the cañon and to the last rise. Then a figure showed before him,
a gigantic form, running and tumbling through the underbrush at one
side of the road, a dog bounding beside him. It was Ba'tiste, excited,
red-faced, his arms waving like windmills, his voice booming even from
a distance:
"M'sieu Houston! M'sieu Houston! Ba'teese have fail! Ba'teese no
good! He watch for you--he is glad you come! Ba'teese ashame'!
Ashame'!"
He had reached the wagon now, panting, still striving to talk and
failing for lack of breath, his big hands seeking to fill in the spaces
where words had departed. Houston leaned toward him, gripping him by a
massive shoulder.
"What's happened? What's--"
"Ba'teese ashame'!" came again between puffs of the big lungs.
"Ba'teese watch one, two, t'ree night. Nothin' happen. Ba'teese think
about his lost trap. He think mebbe there is one place where he have
not look'. He say to Golemar he will go for jus' one, two hour.
Nobody see, he think. So he go. And he come back. Blooey! Eet is
done! Ba'teese have fail!"
"But what, Ba'tiste? It wasn't your fault. Don't feel that way about
it? Has anything happened to Agnes?"
"No. The mill."
"They've--?"
"Look!"
They had reached the top of the rise. Below them lay something which
caused Barry Houston to leap to his feet unmindful of the jolting
wagon, to stand weaving with white-gripped hands, to stare with
suddenly deadened eyes--
Upon a blackened, smoldering mass of charred timbers and twisted
machinery. The remainder of all that once had been his mill!