THE TERMS OF SURRENDER
_By_ LOUIS TRACY
THE WINGS OF THE MORNING
THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
THE GREAT MOGUL
THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS
KARL GRIER
THE WHEEL O' FORTUNE
THE KING OF DIAMONDS
THE RED YEAR
THE MESSAGE
A SON OF THE IMMORTALS
THE STOWAWAY
CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR
THE SILENT BARRIER
MIRABEL'S ISLAND
ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
THE "MIND THE PAINT" GIRL
THE TERMS OF SURRENDER
The Terms of
Surrender
BY
LOUIS TRACY
Author of
"The Wings of the Morning," "One Wonderful Night," etc., etc.
[Illustration]
New York
Edward J. Clode
Publisher
Copyright 1913 by Edward J. Clode.
CONTENTS
I _At "MacGonigal's"_ 1
II _The Terms of Surrender_ 18
III _Showing How Power Acquired a Limp_ 34
IV _The Sudden Rise of Peter MacGonigal_ 51
V _Wherein Power Travels East_ 68
VI _The Meeting_ 85
VII _The Forty Steps_ 104
VIII _The Step That Counted_ 124
IX _The Chase_ 144
X _Nancy Decides_ 164
XI _Power's Home-Coming_ 185
XII _After Darkness, Light_ 205
XIII _The Beginning of the Pilgrimage_ 226
XIV _The Wander-Years_ 249
XV _The New Life_ 270
XVI _Power Driven into Wilderness_ 293
XVII _Showing How Power Met a Guide_ 313
XVIII _The Second Generation_ 331
XIX _The Settlement_ 352
XX _The Passing of the Storm_ 376
THE TERMS OF SURRENDER
CHAPTER I
AT "MACGONIGAL'S"
"Hullo, Mac!"
"Hullo, Derry!"
"What's got the boys today? Is there a round-up somewhere?"
"Looks that-a way," said Mac, grabbing a soiled cloth with an air of
decision, and giving the pine counter a vigorous rub. At best, he was a
man of few words, and the few were generally to the point; yet his
questioner did not seem to notice the noncommittal nature of the reply,
and, after an amused glance at the industrious Mac, quitted the store as
swiftly as he had entered it. But he flung an explanatory word over his
shoulder:
"Guess I'll see to that plug myself--he's fallen lame."
Then John Darien Power swung out again into the vivid sunshine of
Colorado ("vivid" is the correct adjective for sunshine thereabouts in
June about the hour of the siesta) and gently encouraged a dispirited
mustang to hobble on three legs into the iron-roofed lean-to which
served as a stable at "MacGonigal's." Meanwhile, the proprietor of the
store gazed after Power's retreating figure until neither man nor horse
was visible. Even then, in an absent-minded way, he continued to survey
as much of the dusty surface of the Silver State as was revealed
through the rectangle of the doorway, a vista slightly diminished by the
roof of a veranda. What he saw in the foreground was a whitish brown
plain, apparently a desert, but in reality a plateau, or "park," as the
local name has it, a tableland usually carpeted not only with grama and
buffalo grasses curing on the stem, but also with flowers in prodigal
abundance and of bewildering varieties. True, in the picture framed by
the open door neither grass-stems nor flowers were visible, unless to
the imaginative eye. There was far too much coming and going of men and
animals across the strip of common which served the purposes of a main
street in Bison to permit the presence of active vegetation save during
the miraculous fortnight after the spring rains, when, by local repute,
green whiskers will grow on a bronze dog. Scattered about the immediate
vicinity were the ramshackle houses of men employed in the neighboring
gold and silver reduction works. The makeshift for a roadway which
pierced this irregular settlement led straight to MacGonigal's, and
ended there. As every man, woman, and child in the place came to the
store at some time of the day or night, and invariably applied Euclid's
definition of the nearest way between two given points, the flora of
Colorado was quickly stamped out of recognition in that particular
locality, except during the irrepressible period when, as already
mentioned, the fierce rains of April pounded the sleeping earth and even
bronze dogs into a frenzied activity. Further, during that year, now
nearly quarter of a century old, there had been no rain in April or May,
and precious little in March. As the ranchers put it, in the figurative
language of their calling, "the hull blame state was burnt to a cinder."
The middle distance was lost altogether; for the park sloped, after the
manner of plateaus, to a deep valley through which trickled a railroad
and the remains of a river. Some twenty miles away a belt of woodland
showed where Denver was justifying its name by growing into a city, and
forty miles beyond Denver rose the blue ring of the Rocky Mountains.
These details, be it understood, are given with the meticulous accuracy
insisted on by map-makers. In a country where, every year, the
percentage of "perfectly clear" days rises well above the total of all
other sorts of days, and where a popular and never-failing joke played
on the newcomer is to persuade him into taking an afternoon stroll from
Denver to Mount Evans, a ramble of over sixty miles as the crow flies,
the mind refuses to be governed by theodolites and measuring rods.
Indeed, the deceptive clarity of the air leads to exaggeration at the
other end of the scale, because no true son or daughter of Colorado will
walk a hundred yards if there is a horse or car available for the
journey. Obviously, walking is a vain thing when the horizon and the
next block look equidistant.
It may, however, be taken for granted that none of these considerations
accounted for MacGonigal's fixed stare at the sunlit expanse. In fact,
it is probable that his bulging eyes took in no special feature of the
landscape; for they held an introspective look, and he stopped polishing
the counter as abruptly as he had begun that much-needed operation when
Power entered the store. He indulged in soliloquy, too, as the habit is
of some men in perplexity. Shifting the cigar he was smoking from the
left corner of his wide mouth to the right one by a dexterous twisting
of lips, with tongue and teeth assisting, he said aloud:
"Well, ef I ain't dog-goned!"
So, whatever it was, the matter was serious. It was a convention at
Bison that all conversation should be suspended among the frequenters of
MacGonigal's when the storekeeper remarked that he was dog-goned. Ears
already alert were tuned at once to intensity. When Mac was dog-goned,
events of vital importance to the community had either happened or were
about to happen. Why, those words, uttered by him, common as they were
in the mouths of others, had been known to stop One-thumb Jake from
opening a jack-pot on a pat straight! Of course, the pot was opened all
right after the social avanlanche heralded by the storekeeper's
epoch-making ejaculation had rolled past, or Jake's remaining thumb
might have been shot off during the subsequent row.
Apparently, MacGonigal was thinking hard, listening, too; for he seemed
to be following Power's movements, and nodded his head in recognition of
the rattle of a chain as the horse was tied to a feeding trough, the
clatter of a zinc bucket when Power drew water from a tank, and the
stamping of hoofs while Power was persuading the lame mustang to let him
bathe and bandage the injured tendons. Then the animal was given a
drink--he would be fed later--and the ring of spurred boots on the
sun-baked ground announced that Derry was returning to the store.
Power's nickname, in a land where a man's baptismal certificate is
generally ignored, was easily accounted for by his second name, Darien,
conferred by a proud mother in memory of a journey across the Isthmus
when, as a girl, she was taken from New York to San Francisco by the
oldtime sea route. The other day, when he stood for a minute or so in
the foyer of the Savoy Hotel in London, waiting while his automobile was
summoned from the courtyard, he seemed to have lost little of the erect,
sinewy figure and lithe carriage which were his most striking physical
characteristics twenty-five years ago; but the smooth, dark-brown hair
had become gray, and was slightly frizzled about the temples, and the
clean-cut oval of his face bore records of other tempests than those
noted by the Weather Bureau. In walking, too, he moved with a decided
limp. At fifty, John Darien Power looked the last man breathing whom a
storekeeper in a disheveled mining village would hail as "Derry"; yet it
may be safely assumed that his somewhat hard and care-lined lips would
have softened into a pleasant smile had someone greeted him in the
familiar Colorado way. And, when that happened, the friend of bygone
years would be sure that no mistake had been made as to his identity;
for, in those early days, Power always won approval when he smiled. His
habitual expression was one of concentrated purpose, and his features
were cast in a mold that suggested repose and strength. Indeed, their
classic regularity of outline almost bespoke a harsh nature were it not
for the lurking humor in his large brown eyes, which were shaded by
lashes so long, and black, and curved that most women who met him
envied him their possession. Children and dogs adopted him as a friend
promptly and without reservation; but strangers of adult age were apt to
regard him as a rather morose and aloof-mannered person, distinctly
frigid and self-possessed, until some chance turn in the talk brought
laughter to eyes and lips. Then a carefully veiled kindliness of heart
seemed to bubble to the surface and irradiate his face. All the severity
of firm mouth and determined chin disappeared as though by magic; and
one understood the force of the simile used by a western schoolma'am,
who contributed verse to the _Rocky Mountain News_, when she said that
Derry's smile reminded her of a sudden burst of sunshine which had
converted into a sparkling mirror the somber gloom of a lake sunk in the
depths of some secluded valley. Even in Colorado, people of the poetic
temperament write in that strain.
Now, perhaps, you have some notion of the sort of young man it was who
came back to the dog-goned MacGonigal on that June day in the
half-forgotten '80's. Add to the foregoing description certain intimate
labels--that he was a mining engineer, that he had been educated in the
best schools of the Far West, that he was slender, and well knit, and
slightly above the middle height, and that he moved with the gait of a
horseman and an athlete--and the portrait is fairly complete.
The storekeeper was Power's physical antithesis. He was short and fat,
and never either walked or rode; but his North of Ireland ancestors had
bequeathed him a shrewd brain and a Scottish slowness of speech that
gave him time to review his thoughts before they were uttered. No sooner
did he hear his visitor's approaching footsteps than he began again to
polish the pine boards which barricaded him from the small world of
Bison.
Such misplaced industry won a smile from the younger man.
"Gee whizz, Mac, it makes me hot to see you work!" he cried. "Anyhow, if
you've been whirling that duster ever since I blew in you must be tired,
so you can quit now, and fix me a bimetallic."
With a curious alacrity, the stout MacGonigal threw the duster aside,
and reached for a bottle of whisky, an egg, a siphon of soda, and some
powdered sugar. Colorado is full of local color, even to the naming of
its drinks. In a bimetallic the whole egg is used, and variants of the
concoction are a gold fizz and a silver fizz, wherein the yoke and the
white figure respectively.
"Whar you been, Derry?" inquired the storekeeper, whose massive energy
was now concentrated on the proper whisking of the egg.
"Haven't you heard? Marten sent me to erect the pump on a placer mine he
bought near Sacramento. It's a mighty good proposition, too, and I've
done pretty well to get through in four months."
"Guess I was told about the mine; but I plumb forgot. Marten was here a
bit sence, an' he said nothin'." Power laughed cheerfully. "He'll be
surprised to see me, and that's a fact. He counted on the job using up
the best part of the summer, right into the fall; but I made those
Chicago mechanics open up the throttle, and here I am, having left
everything in full swing."
"Didn't you write?"
"Yes, to Denver. I don't mind telling you, Mac, that I would have been
better pleased if the boss was there now. I came slick through, meaning
to make Denver tomorrow. Where is he--at the mill?"
"He was thar this mornin'."
Power was frankly puzzled by MacGonigal's excess of reticence. He knew
the man so well that he wondered what sinister revelation lay behind
this twice-repeated refusal to give a direct reply to his questions. By
this time the appetizing drink was ready, and he swallowed it with the
gusto of one who had found the sun hot and the trail dusty, though he
had ridden only three miles from the railroad station in the valley,
where he was supplied with a lame horse by the blunder of a negro
attendant at the hotel.
It was his way to solve a difficulty by taking the shortest possible
cut; but, being quite in the dark as to the cause of his friend's
perceptible shirking of some unknown trouble, he decided to adopt what
logicians term a process of exhaustion.
"All well at Dolores?" he asked, looking straight into the storekeeper's
prominent eyes.
"Bully!" came the unblinking answer.
Ah! The worry, whatsoever it might be, evidently did not concern John
Darien Power in any overwhelming degree.
"Then what have you got on your chest, Mac?" he said, while voice and
manner softened from an unmistakably stiffening.
MacGonigal seemed to regard this personal inquiry anent his well-being
as affording a safe means of escape from a dilemma. "I'm scairt about
you, Derry," he said at once, and there was no doubting the sincerity of
the words.
"About me?"
"Yep. Guess you'd better hike back to Sacramento."
"But why?"
"Marten 'ud like it."
"Man, I've written to tell him I was on the way to Denver!"
"Then git a move on, an' go thar."
Power smiled, though not with his wonted geniality, for he was minded to
be sarcastic. "Sorry if I should offend the boss by turning up in
Bison," he drawled; "but if I can't hold this job down I'll monkey
around till I find another. If you should happen to see Marten this
afternoon, tell him I'm at the ranch, and will show up in Main Street
tomorrow P.M."
He was actually turning on his heel when MacGonigal cried:
"Say, Derry, air you heeled?"
Power swung round again, astonishment writ large on his face. "Why, no,"
he said. "I'm not likely to be carrying a gold brick to Dolores. Who's
going to hold me up?"
"Bar jokin', I wish you'd vamoose. Dang me, come back tomorrer, ef you
must!"
There! MacGonigal had said it! In a land where swearing is a science
this Scoto-Hibernico-American had earned an enviable repute for the
mildness of his expletives, and his "dang me!" was as noteworthy in
Bison as its European equivalent in the mouth of a British archbishop.
Power was immensely surprised by his bulky friend's emphatic
earnestness, and cudgeled his brains to suggest a reasonable
explanation. Suddenly it occurred to him a second time that Bison was
singularly empty of inhabitants that day. MacGonigal's query with regard
to a weapon was also significant, and he remembered that when he left
the district there was pending a grave dispute between ranchers and
squatters as to the inclosing of certain grazing lands on the way to the
East and its markets.
"Are the boys wire-cutting today?" he asked, in the accents of real
concern; for any such expedition would probably bring about a struggle
which might not end till one or both of the opposing parties ran short
of ammunition.
"Nit," growled the other. "Why argy? You jest take my say-so, Derry, an'
skate."
"Is the boss mixed up in this?"
"Yep."
"Well, he can take care of himself as well as anyone I know. So long,
Mac. See you later."
"Ah, come off, Derry. You've got to have it; but don't say I didn't try
to help. The crowd are up at Dolores. Marten's gittin' married, an'
that's all there is to it. Now I guess you'll feel mad with me for not
tellin' you sooner."
Power's face blanched under its healthy tan of sun and air; but his
voice was markedly clear and controlled when he spoke, which, however,
he did not do until some seconds after MacGonigal had made what was,
for him, quite an oration.
"Why should Marten go to Dolores to get married?" he said at last.
The storekeeper humped his heavy shoulders, and conjured the cigar
across his mouth again. He did not flinch under the sudden fire which
blazed in Power's eyes; nevertheless, he remained silent.
"Mac," went on the younger man, still uttering each word deliberately,
"do you mean that Marten is marrying Nancy Willard?"
"Yep."
"And you've kept me here all this time! God in Heaven, Man, find me a
horse!"
"It's too late, Derry. They was wed three hours sence."
"Too late for what? Get me a horse!"
"There's not a nag left in Bison. An' it'll do you no sort of good ter
shoot Marten."
"Mac, you're no fool. He sent me to Sacramento to have me out of the
way, and you've seen through it right along."
"Maybe. But old man Willard was dead broke. This dry spell put him slick
under the harrow. Nancy married Marten ter save her father."
"That's a lie! They made her believe it, perhaps; but Willard could have
won through as others have done. That scheming devil Marten got me
side-tracked on purpose. He planned it, just as David put Uriah in the
forefront of the battle. But, by God, he's not a king, any more than I'm
a Hittite! Nancy Willard is not for him, nor ever will be. Give me--but
I know you won't, and it doesn't matter, anyway, because I'd rather
tear him with my hands."
An overpowering sense of wrong and outrage had Power in its grip now,
and his naturally sallow skin had assumed an ivory whiteness that was
dreadful to see. So rigid was his self-control that he gave no other
sign of the passion that was convulsing him. Turning toward the door, he
thrust his right hand to the side of the leather belt he wore; but
withdrew it instantly, for he was a law-abiding citizen, and had obeyed
in letter and spirit the recently enacted ordinance against the carrying
of weapons. He would have gone without another word had not MacGonigal
slipped from behind the counter with the deft and catlike ease of
movement which some corpulent folk of both sexes seem to possess.
Running lightly and stealthily on his toes, he caught Power's arm before
the latter was clear of the veranda which shaded the front of the store.
"Whar 'r you goin', Derry?" he asked, with a note of keen solicitude in
his gruff voice that came oddly in a man accustomed to the social
amenities of a mining camp.
"Leave me alone, Mac. I must be alone!" Then Power bent a flaming glance
on him. "You've told me the truth?" he added in a hoarse whisper.
"Sure thing. You must ha passed the minister between here an' the
depot."
"He had been there--to marry them?"
"Yep."
"And everyone is up at the ranch, drinking the health of Marten and his
bride?"
"Guess that's so."
Power tried to shake off the detaining hand. "It's a pity that I should
be an uninvited guest, but it can't be helped," he said savagely. "You
see, I was carrying out the millionaire's orders--earning him more
millions--and I ought to have taken longer over the job. And, Nancy too!
What lie did they tell her about me? I hadn't asked her to be my wife,
because it wouldn't have been fair; yet--but she knew! She knew! Let me
go, Mac!"
MacGonigal clutched him more tightly. "Ah, say, Derry," he cried
thickly, "hev' you forgot you've left me yer mother's address in San
Francisco? In case of accidents, you said. Well, am I ter write an' tell
her you killed a man on his weddin' day, and was hanged for it?"
"For the Lord's sake, don't hold me, Mac!"
The storekeeper, with a wisdom born of much experience, took his hand
off Power's arm at once, but contrived to edge forward until he was
almost facing his distraught friend.
"Now, look-a here!" he said slowly. "This air a mighty bad business; but
you cahn't mend it, an' ef you go cavortin' round in a red-eyed temper
you'll sure make it wuss. You've lost the gal--never mind how--an'
gittin' a strangle hold on Marten won't bring her back. Yer mother's a
heap more to you ner that gal--now."
One wonders what hidden treasury of insight into the deeps of human
nature MacGonigal was drawing on by thus bringing before the mind's eye
of an unhappy son the mother he loved. But there was no gainsaying the
soundness and efficiency of his judgment. Only half comprehending his
friendly counselor's purpose, Power quivered like a high-spirited horse
under the prick of a spur. He put his hands to his face, as if the
gesture would close out forever the horrific vision which the memory of
that gray-haired woman in San Francisco was beginning to dispel. For the
first time in his young life he had felt the lust of slaying, and the
instinct of the jungle thrilled through every nerve, till his nails
clenched and his teeth bit in a spasm of sheer delirium.
MacGonigal, despite his present load of flesh, must have passed through
the fiery furnace himself in other days; for he recognized the varying
phases of the obsession against which Power was fighting.
Hence, he knew when to remain silent, and, again, he knew when to
exorcise the demon, once and for all, by the spoken word. It was so
still there on that sun-scorched plateau that the mellow whistle of an
engine came full-throated from the distant railroad. The lame horse,
bothered by the tight bandage which Power had contrived out of a girth,
pawed uneasily in his stall. From the reduction works, half a mile away,
came the grinding clatter of a mill chewing ore in its steel jaws. These
familiar sounds served only to emphasize the brooding solitude of the
place. Some imp of mischief seemed to whisper that every man who could
be spared from his work, and every woman and child able to walk, was
away making merry at the wedding of Hugh Marten and Nancy Willard.
The storekeeper must have heard that malicious prompting, and he
combated it most valiantly.
"Guess you'd better come inside, Derry," he said, with quiet sympathy.
"You're feelin' mighty bad, an' I allow you hain't touched a squar' meal
sence the Lord knows when."
He said the right thing by intuition. The mere fantasy of the implied
belief that a quantity of cold meat and pickles, washed down by a pint
of Milwaukee lager, would serve as an emollient for raw emotion,
restored Power to his right mind. He placed a hand on MacGonigal's
shoulder, and the brown eyes which met his friend's no longer glowered
with frenzy.
"I'm all right now," he said, in a dull, even voice; for this youngster
of twenty-five owned an extra share of that faculty of self-restraint
which is the birthright of every man and woman born and bred on the
back-bone of North America. "I took it pretty hard at first, Mac; but
I'm not one to cry over spilt milk. You know that, eh? No, I can't eat
or drink yet awhile. I took a lunch below here at the depot. Tell me
this, will you? They--they'll be leaving by train?"
"Yep. Special saloon kyar on the four-ten east. I reckon you saw it on a
sidin', but never suspicioned why it was thar."
"East? New York and Europe, I suppose?"
"Guess that's about the line."
"Then I'll show up here about half-past four. Till then I'll fool round
by myself. Don't worry, Mac. I mean that, and no more."
He walked a few yards; but was arrested by a cry:
"Not that-a way, Derry! Any other old trail but that!"
Then Power laughed; but his laughter was the wail of a soul in pain, for
he had gone in the direction of the Dolores ranch. He waved a hand, and
the gesture was one of much grace and distinction, because Power
insensibly carried himself as a born leader of men.
"Just quit worrying, I tell you," he said calmly. "I understand. The
boys will escort them to that millionaire saloon. They'll be a lively
crowd, of course; but they won't see me, never fear."
Then he strode off, his spurs jingling in rhythm with each long,
athletic pace. He headed straight for a narrow cleft in the hill at the
back of the store, a cleft locally known as the Gulch, and beyond it, on
another plateau sloping to the southeast, lay the Willard homestead.
MacGonigal watched the tall figure until it vanished in the upward
curving of the path. Then he rolled the cigar between his heavy lips
again until it was securely lodged in the opposite corner of his mouth;
but the maneuver was wasted,--the cigar was out,--and such a thing had
not happened in twenty years! To mark an unprecedented incident, he
threw away an unconsumed half.
"He's crazy ter have a last peep at Nancy," he communed. "An' they'd
have made a bully fine pair, too, ef it hadn't been fer that skunk
Marten. Poor Derry! Mighty good job I stopped home, or he'd ha gone
plumb to hell."
Of course, the storekeeper was talking to himself; so he may not have
said it, really. But he thought it, and, theologically, that is as bad.
Moreover, he might have electrified Bison by his language that night
were he gifted with second sight; for he had seen the last of the proud,
self-contained yet light-hearted and generous-souled cavalier whom he
had known and liked as "Derry" Power. They were fated to meet again many
times, under conditions as varying as was ever recorded in a romance of
real life; but MacGonigal had to find a place in his heart for a new
man, because "Derry" Power was dead--had died there in the open doorway
of the store--and a stranger named John Darien Power reigned in his
stead.