THE PRICE OF BLOOD.
It was neither day nor night in Antler, but that time between the two
when the stars are fading and the moon has set and the sun has not yet
risen.
The men of the night-shift had gone back to the claims; the hurdy girls
had all followed Lilla's example and slipped away to their own rooms,
and though the big dancing hall was still open, the only people in it
were a few maudlin topers dozing over their liquor.
Out in the main street there was no light, no light either of sun or
moon; no light at all except one feeble ray which flickered from Lilla's
window, and fell upon the black water which hurried through the wooden
boxes laid across the highway.
By and by a man came out of the gloom, blundered heavily over the boxes,
and swore savagely below his breath as if the boxes had consciously
conspired for his downfall.
When he had picked himself up again from the mud, this night-bird stood
looking fixedly towards the light. Had he swayed unsteadily from side to
side, and perhaps fallen again, there would have been nothing worth
watching about him. Rye whisky, the fresh night air, and the ditches
laid across the roads, used often to persuade very honest gentlemen to
pass their nights beside the gutter. But this man stood firmly upon his
feet, looking steadily at the light ahead of him. Presently he appeared
to have made up his mind, for after looking up and down the road to see
whether anyone was watching him, he stole up to the window and crouched
beside it in such a position that he could peer in unseen.
Inside the room the light fell upon bare wooden walls, from which hung a
little mirror, and a man's coat and broad-brimmed hat. There was a rifle
in one corner, and half the room appeared to be partitioned off from the
rest by a bright red Hudson Bay blanket hung up as a curtain. In spite
of the rifle and the coat an expert would have decided at once that the
room was a woman's room. There was a trimness about it not masculine, a
cleanliness not Indian. Whatever a red lady's virtues may be,
cleanliness and order are not among them. But the figures upon which the
light fell explained the anomaly of a rifle and a mirror hung side by
side in a miner's shack, and explained, too, why a room in which hung a
miner's coat and hat was swept and garnished and in order.
In a bunk against the wall lay a fair-haired man, his eyes shut in
sleep, with one powerful arm thrown limp and nerveless upon the outside
of his bed. The man who watched him felt a nervous twitching at his
throat as his eyes rested upon the big brown hand, contrasting so
strongly with the white linen upon which it rested; for Lilla had given
her patient of her best, and Ned Corbett was sleeping between the only
pair of sheets in Cariboo.
The worst was evidently over for Corbett. The fever, or whatever his
disease had been, had left him, worn and pulled down it is true; but the
peacefulness of his sleep, the calm child-like restfulness of his face,
told both his watchers that unless a relapse took place his young life
would be as strong in him as ever before many days had passed.
The colonel, peering in at Lilla's face as she sat and watched her
patient, saw very little chance of a relapse whilst _she_ was Corbett's
nurse. If tender care and ceaseless watching would save him, Corbett
would be saved. The colonel fancied, indeed, that he saw even more than
this. His eyes ever since very early days had peered deep into the
hearts of men and women; not from sympathy with them, not even from idle
curiosity, but to see what profit could be made out of them. Now he
thought that he recognized in Lilla's eyes, and in the caressing touch
of her hand as she brushed back Corbett's yellow hair, something which
he had often seen before, something which he had generally turned to his
own advantage at whatever cost to the woman.
"The little fool!" he muttered. "She has got stuck on him because he has
blue eyes and yellow hair like a Deutscher. Great Scott, what simpletons
these women are!"
Perhaps the colonel's guess as to the state of Lilla's heart was a
shrewd one, perhaps not. At any rate if the girl was in love with her
handsome patient she was not herself conscious of it as yet, and as she
sat crooning the tender words of a German love song, she was unconscious
that they had any special meaning for her.
"_Du du liegst mir im Hertzen,_" she sang; but as she sang, she believed
that the only feeling which stirred her heart for the sick man at her
side was one of pity for a helpless bankrupt brother.
For some time Lilla sat dreaming and crooning scraps of German songs,
and then a thought seemed to strike her, and she drew from her bosom a
little leather case. Opening this she drew from it what looked like an
old bill, and indeed it was an old bill-head, frayed and torn as if it
had been carried for many, many months in some traveller's pocket. But
there was no account of goods delivered and still unpaid for upon that
dirty scrap of paper. As Lilla turned it to catch the light, the man at
the window had a glimpse of it, and started as if someone had struck
him.
"Old Pete's map, by thunder!" he exclaimed; and so loudly did he speak,
or so noisy was his movement as he tried to obtain a better view of that
precious document, that Lilla heard something, and replacing the paper
in her pocket rose and came to the window.
There was only a thin partition of rustic boarding and the bosom of a
woman's dress between the most reckless scoundrel in Cariboo and the key
to Cariboo's richest gold-mine. He could hear her breathing on the other
side of that thin partition, and he knew that his strong fingers could
tear it down and wrench away that secret before the woman and the sick
man her friend could even call assistance. But he dared not do the deed.
Life was still more than gold to him, and he knew that earth would be
hardly large enough to hide the man who should wrong Lilla from the
vengeance of the hard-fists she had danced with and sung to in their
merry moods, and nursed like a sister in their sickness.
"No," he muttered, when Lilla had resumed her seat, "I daren't do it,
and I daren't stay another hour. If that fool gets his wits back the cat
will soon be out of the bag, and the only question of interest to me
will be,--'Is it to be Begbie or Lynch?' If the boys knew, I believe it
would be Lynch!" and muttering and grinding his teeth, a prey to rage
and baffled greed, Colonel Cruickshank turned and retraced his steps to
his own quarters.
Once, and only once, he stopped before he reached them, and stood with
knitted brows like one who strives to master some difficult problem. At
last a light came into his face, and his coarse mouth opened in an evil
grin--"I will, by Jove I will! It will be as safe there as anywhere.
Cruickshank, my boy, you shall double the stakes and go for the pot. If
I had only seen more of that map--"
The rest of his sentence was lost as he entered the shack where his
goods were stored, and half an hour later, when the sun was still only
colouring the sky a faint saffron along the horizon, he strode up to the
store of Ben Hirsch, general dealer, money-changer, and purchaser of
gold-dust at Antler.
Old Ben was fairly early himself that morning. He had smoked so much the
night before (being a German Jew) that he really needed a breath of
fresh air to pull him together, before he engaged in another day of
chicanery, bargaining, and theft. But the sight of the dashing colonel
at such an hour in the morning considerably astonished him. There was
something wrong somewhere, of that he felt quite certain, and wherever
there was anything wrong there was profit for the wise old Jew. So his
beady eyes twinkled beside his purple beak, and he gave the man he
looked upon as his prey the heartiest greeting.
"Goot-mornin', Colonel, goot-mornin'. Ach, vot a rustler you are! No
vonder zat you make much gold. Haf you zold ze pacon yet?"
"Not a cent's worth, uncle. Will you buy?"
"Ach! you laugh at me. I haf no monish, you know I haf no monish. Ze
freight eats up all ze profit."
"Keep that for tenderfeet, Ben," replied Cruickshank roughly. "Freight
on needles won't bring them up to fifty cents apiece, even in Cariboo.
Will you buy or won't you? I've no time to talk."
"Vot is your hurry, Colonel? Ze pacon and ze peans von't shpoil."
The colonel turned to go.
"_Ach, himmel!_" cried the Jew, throwing up his hands deprecatingly.
"How these English Herren are fiery. Colonel, dear Herr Colonel, pe so
goot as to listen."
"Well, what is it? I'll give you five minutes in which to make a bid.
After that I'm off straight to Williams Creek."
"Pacon is cheap zere, Colonel; almost cheaper zan here. Put I vill puy.
Are ve not from of olt be-friended? Vot you zay, twenty-five cents ze
pound?"
"Twenty-five fiddlesticks! Do you think I don't know the market prices?"
But it is not worth while to record all the haggling between Hirsch and
Cruickshank. It was a match between the Jew, cool, crafty, and cringing,
and the Christian (save the mark!), hurried, and full of strange oaths
as become a soldier, "sudden and quick in quarrel."
From the very outset the colonel had one eye on Ben and the other on the
door, and his ears seemed pricked to catch the tramp of men who might be
coming in pursuit. Of course the Jew saw this, and every time the
colonel started at some sudden sound, or reddened and swore at his
obstinate haggling, Ben's ferret-like eyes gleamed with fresh cunning
and increased intelligence.
Like an expert angler he had mastered his fish, and knew it, and meant
now to kill him at his leisure, without risking another struggle. And
yet (to maintain the metaphor) this fisher of men all at once lowered
his point and seemed to let his captive go.
"Vell, colonel, all right. Suppose you give ze ponies in, I give you
your price."
"You're a hungry thief, Ben. The ponies are worth the money; but I am
not going to do any more packing, so take them and be hanged to you."
"Goot. It is a deal zen."
"Yes, if I may keep the pinto. I want a pony to pack my tools and
blankets on."
"Tools. Vot! you go prospecting, eh?"
"Yes. I think so."
"Ach so! By and by you strike it rich. Then you bring your dust to old
Ben--eh, colonel?"
"Maybe. But where are those dollars?"
"How vill you have them, colonel,--in notes or dust?" asked the Jew.
"In dust, of course; those flimsy things would wear out before I could
get them down the Frazer. Besides, I've heard that your notes aren't
always just like other people's, Ben;" and the colonel pushed over a
little pile of dirty "greenbacks."
"Ach, these are goot notes; but the gold is goot too, Colonel. Vill you
veigh it?"
"You bet I will," replied the colonel, making no parade of confidence in
his friend. There was good gold in old Ben's safe, but the tenderfoot
who did not know good gold from bad often got "dust" of the wrong kind.
This Cruickshank knew, so that he was careful to examine the quality of
the dust in the two small canvas bags, and careful, too, in the weighing
of them--trying the scales, and leaving no hole open for fraud to creep
through.
At last even he was satisfied.
"Yes, Ben, that will do--it's good for the money."
"Goot dust, isn't it? very goot dust and full measure. See!" and the old
Jew put it in the scales again. "But, _donner und blitzen_, vot vants ze
sheriff so early?"
The last part of the sentence was jerked out at the top of his voice by
the dealer in gold as he turned excitedly to stare out of the little
window on his left.
"The sheriff! Did you say the sheriff? Give me the gold. Where is he?"
Cruickshank had turned as white as the dead, and his hand shook as if he
had the palsy, but for all that he managed to snatch up the two small
canvas bags from the counter and hide them away in the bosom of his
flannel shirt.
"I zink I zee him go into ze dance-house. But vot is your hurry,
colonel? shtay and vet ze deal. Vot, you von't! Ah vell, ze rye is not
pad." And so saying Mr. Benjamin Hirsch filled a small glass for
himself, and with a wink drank to his departing guest.
Ben Hirsch was certainly right in calling Colonel Cruickshank a rustler,
a Yankee term for a man who does not let the grass grow under his feet.
Half an hour after Ben's cry of "Sheriff" the colonel stole out of
Antler, driving old Job in front of him, with blankets, gold-pan, and
all the rest of a prospector's slender outfit, securely fastened upon
the pony's back.
As soon as he was well out of sight of the camp, the fugitive diverged
from the main trail, and took instead a little-used path, leading direct
over a difficult country to Soda Creek, on the Frazer. Along this he
drove his pony at a speed which made that wall-eyed, cow-hocked
quadruped grunt and groan in piteous fashion. In all his days Job had
never before found a master who could and would get a full day's work
out of him, without giving him a single chance to wander or even knock
his packs off amongst the timber. At last, when the sun had begun to go
west, Cruickshank paused, sat down upon a log, and lit his pipe. As he
smoked and thought, the lines went out of his face, until he almost
looked once more the oily, plausible scoundrel whom we first met in
Victoria.
"Yes," he muttered, "it was a bold game, but I made my bluff stick. Why,
if old Ben knew that I didn't have even a pair to draw to, wouldn't he
'raise Cain?'" And so saying, he put his hand inside his shirt and drew
out the two little bags of gold-dust, weighing them nicely in his hands,
and regarding them as lovingly as a mother would her first-born. For a
minute or two his fingers played with the strings which fastened the
mouth of each sack, but finally thought better of it and put them back
into his pocket without untying them. To this man life was a game of
poker, and for the present he considered that he had risen a winner
though the odds had been against him, and with his winnings in his
pocket he smacked old Job on the quarters, held up his head, and felt
ready for a fresh deal.
And old Ben--what of him? Did he hurry away to secure the pack-ponies
and their loads, or to see what the sheriff wanted at the dance-house?
Not a bit of it. _He_ knew (none better) that the sheriff was away at
Williams Creek, and he knew, too,--he knew enough of human nature to be
sure that Dan Cruickshank would never return to Antler unless he was
brought back against his will. He had sold his packs and his ponies for
two little bags of gold ("of gold, ho, ho!" chuckled the Jew), and even
if he should find anything wrong with the gold he would not dare to come
back to claim his packs.
"I vonder vot Dan has peen up to," mused the son of Israel. "He play ze
carts a leetle too vell for his friends, I know, put it must pe
zomething worse zan zat. Ach vell, it was ver goot zat I knew a leetle
how to conjure;" and still chuckling and muttering to himself, he took
from a shelf just below the counter two small bags similar to those in
Cruickshank's shirt front, and put them tenderly and reverently away in
his safe. _They_ contained good gold-dust.
Those which Cruickshank was carrying away contained a good many things,
the price of innocent blood for instance, but Ben Hirsch would not have
given many dollars for all that they contained. Whilst the colonel was
looking for the sheriff, Ben had substituted bags of copper pyrites for
bags of gold.