There was no specific reason why Robert Fairchild should follow Maurice
Rodaine and the young woman who had been described to him as the
daughter of Judge Richmond, whoever he might be. And Fairchild sought
for none--within two weeks he had been transformed from a plodding,
methodical person into a creature of impulses, and more and more, as
time went on, he was allowing himself to be governed by the snap
judgment of his brain rather than by the carefully exacting mind of a
systematic machine, such as he had been for the greater part of his
adult life. All that he cared to know was that resentment was in his
heart,--resentment that the family of Rodaine should be connected in
some way with the piquant, mysterious little person he had helped out
of a predicament on the Denver road the day before. And, to his
chagrin, the very fact that there _was_ a connection added a more
sinister note to the escapade of the exploded tire and the pursuing
sheriff; as he walked along, his gaze far ahead, Fairchild found
himself wondering whether there could be more than mere coincidence in
it all, whether she was a part of the Rodaine schemes and the Rodaine
trickery, whether--
But he ceased his wondering to turn sharply into a near-by drug store,
there absently to give an order at the soda fountain and stand watching
the pair who had stopped just in front of him on the corner. She was
the same girl; there could be no doubt of that, and he raged inwardly
as she chatted and chaffed with the man who looked down upon her with a
smiling air of proprietorship which instilled instant rebellion in
Fairchild's heart. Nor did he know the reason for that, either.
After a moment they parted, and Fairchild gulped at his fountain drink.
She had hesitated, then with a quick decision turned straight into the
drug store.
"Buy a ticket, Mr. McCauley?" she asked of the man behind the counter.
"I 've sold twenty already, this morning. Only five more, and my work
's over."
"Going to be pretty much of a crowd, is n't there?" The druggist was
fishing in his pocket for money. Fairchild, dallying with his drink
now, glanced sharply toward the door and went back to his refreshment.
She was standing directly in the entrance, fingering the five remaining
tickets.
"Oh, everybody in town. Please take the five, won't you? Then I 'll
be through."
"I 'll be darned if I will, 'Nita!" McCauley backed against a shelf
case in mock self-defense. "Every time you 've got anything you want
to get rid of, you come in here and shove it off on me. I 'll be gosh
gim-swiggled if I will. There 's only four in my family and four 's
all I 'm going to take. Fork 'em over--I 've got a prescription to
fill." He tossed four silver dollars on the showcase and took the
tickets. The girl demurred.
"But how about the fifth one? I 've got to sell that too--"
"Well, sell it to him!" And Fairchild, looking into the soda-fountain
mirror, saw himself indicated as the druggist started toward the
prescription case. "I ain't going to let myself get stuck for another
solitary, single one!"
There was a moment of awkward silence as Fairchild gazed intently into
his soda glass, then with a feeling of queer excitement, set it on the
marble counter and turned. Anita Richmond had accepted the druggist's
challenge. She was approaching--in a stranger-like manner--a ticket of
some sort held before her.
"Pardon me," she began, "but would you care to buy a ticket?"
"To--to what?" It was all Fairchild could think of to say.
"To the Old Timers' Dance. It's a sort of municipal thing, gotten up
by the bureau of mines--to celebrate the return of silver mining."
"But--but I 'm afraid I 'm not much on dancing."
"You don't have to be. Nobody 'll dance much--except the old-fashioned
affairs. You see, everybody 's supposed to represent people of the
days when things were booming around here. There 'll be a fiddle
orchestra, and a dance caller and everything like that, and a bar--but
of course there 'll only be imitation liquor. But," she added with
quick emphasis, "there 'll be a lot of things really real--real keno
and roulette and everything like that, and everybody in the costume of
thirty or forty years ago. Don't you want to buy a ticket? It's the
last one I 've got!" she added prettily. But Robert Fairchild had been
listening with his eyes, rather than his ears. Jerkily he came to the
realization that the girl had ceased speaking.
"When's it to be?"
"A week from to-morrow night. Are you going to be here that long?"
She realized the slip of her tongue and colored slightly. Fairchild,
recovered now, reached into a pocket and carefully fingered the bills
there. Then, with a quick motion, as he drew them forth, he covered a
ten-dollar bill with a one-dollar note and thrust them forward.
"Yes, I 'll take the ticket."
She handed it to him, thanked him, and reached for the money. As it
passed into her hand, a corner of the ten-dollar bill revealed itself,
and she hastily thrust it toward him as though to return money paid by
mistake. Just as quickly, she realized his purpose and withdrew her
hand.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, almost in a whisper, "I understand." She flushed
and stood a second hesitant, flustered, her big eyes almost childish as
they looked up into his. "You--you must think I 'm a cad!" Then she
whirled and left the store, and a slight smile came to the lips of
Robert Fairchild as he watched her hurrying across the street. He had
won a tiny victory, at least.
Not until she had rounded a corner and disappeared did Fairchild leave
his point of vantage. Then, with a new enthusiasm, a greater desire
than ever to win out in the fight which had brought him to Ohadi, he
hurried to the courthouse and the various technicalities which must be
coped with before he could really call the Blue Poppy mine his own.
It was easier than he thought. A few signatures, and he was free to
wander through town to where idlers had pointed out Kentucky gulch and
to begin the steep ascent up the narrow road on a tour of prospecting
that would precede the more legal and more safe system of a surveyor.
The ascent was almost sheer in places, for in Kentucky gulch the hills
huddled close to the little town and rose in precipitous inclines
almost before the city limits had been reached. Beside the road a
small stream chattered, milk-white from the silica deposits of the
mines, like the waters of Clear Creek, which it was hastening to join.
Along the gullies were the scars of prospect holes, staring like dark,
blind eyes out upon the gorge;--reminders of the lost hopes of a day
gone by. Here and there lay some discarded piece of mining machinery,
rust-eaten and battered now, washed down inch by inch from the higher
hill where it had been abandoned when the demonetization of silver
struck, like a rapier, into the hearts of grubbing men, years before.
It was a cañon of decay, yet of life, for as he trudged along, the roar
of great motors came to Fairchild's ears; and a moment later he stepped
aside to allow the passage of ore-laden automobile trucks, loaded until
the springs had flattened and until the engines howled with their
compression as they sought to hold back their burdens on the steep
grade. And it was as he stood there, watching the big vehicles travel
down the mountain side, that Fairchild caught a glimpse of a human
figure which suddenly darted behind a clump of scrub pine and skirted
far to one side, taking advantage of every covering. A new beat came
into Fairchild's heart. He took to the road again, plodding upward
apparently without a thought of his pursuer, stopping to stare at the
bleak prospect holes, or to admire the pink-white beauties of the snowy
range in the far distance, seemingly a man entirely bereft of
suspicion. A quarter of a mile he went, a half. Once, as the road
turned beside a great rock, he sought its shelter and looked back. The
figure still was following, running carefully now along the bank of the
stream in an effort to gain as much ground as possible before the
return of the road to open territory should bring the necessity of
caution again.
A mile more, then, again in the shelter of rocks, he swerved and sought
a hiding place, watching anxiously from his concealment for evidences
of discovery. There were none. The shadower came on, displaying more
and more caution as he approached the rocks, glancing hurriedly about
him as he moved swiftly from cover to cover. Closer--closer--then
Fairchild repressed a gasp. The man was old, almost white-haired, with
hard, knotted hands which seemed to stand out from his wrists; thin and
wiry with the resiliency that outdoor, hardened muscles often give to
age, and with a face that held Fairchild almost hypnotized. It was
like a hawk's; hook-beaked, colorless, toneless in all expressions save
that of a malicious tenacity; the eyes were slanted until they
resembled those of some fantastic Chinese image, while just above the
curving nose a blue-white scar ran straight up the forehead,--Squint
Rodaine!
So he was on the trail already! Fairchild watched him pass, sneak
around the corner of the rocks, and stand a moment in apparent
bewilderment as he surveyed the ground before him. A mumbling curse
and he went on, his cautious gait discarded, walking briskly along the
rutty, boulder-strewn road toward a gaping hole in the hill, hardly a
furlong away. There he surveyed the ground carefully, bent and stared
hard at the earth, apparently for a trace of footprints, and finding
none, turned slowly and looked intently all about him. Carefully he
approached the mouth of the tunnel and stared within. Then he
straightened, and with another glance about him, hurried off up a gulch
leading away from the road, into the hills. Fairchild lay and watched
him until he was out of sight, and he knew instinctively that a
surveyor would only cover beaten territory now. Squint Rodaine, he
felt sure, had pointed out to him the Blue Poppy mine.
But he did not follow the direction given by his pursuer. Squint
Rodaine was in the hills. Squint Rodaine might return, and the
consciousness of caution bade that Fairchild not be there when he came
back. Hurriedly he descended the rocks once more to turn toward town
and toward Mother Howard's boarding house. He wanted to tell her what
he had seen and to obtain her help and counsel.
Quickly he made the return trip, crossing the little bridge over the
turbulent Clear Creek and heading toward the boarding house. Half a
block away he halted, as a woman on the veranda of the big, squarely
built "hotel" pointed him out, and the great figure of a man shot
through the gate, shouting, and hurried toward him.
A tremendous creature he was, with red face and black hair which seemed
to scramble in all directions at once, and with a mustache which
appeared to scamper in even more directions than his hair. Fairchild
was a large man; suddenly he felt himself puny and inconsequential as
the mastodonic thing before him swooped forward, spread wide the big
arms and then caught him tight in them, causing the breath to puff over
his lips like the exhaust of a bellows.
A release, then Fairchild felt himself lifted and set down again. He
pulled hard at his breath.
"What's the matter with you?" he exclaimed testily. "You 've made a
mistake!"
"I 'm blimed if I 'ave!" bellowed a tornado-like voice. "Blime! You
look just like 'im!"
"But you 're mistaken, old man!"
Fairchild was vaguely aware that the spray-like mustache was working
like a dust-broom, that snappy blue eyes were beaming upon him, that
the big red nose was growing redder, while a tremendous paw had seized
his own hand and was doing its best to crush it.
"Blimed if I 'ave!" came again. "You're your Dad's own boy! You look
just like 'im! Don't you know me?"
He stepped back then and stood grinning, his long, heavily muscled arms
hanging low at his sides, his mustache trying vainly to stick out in
more directions than ever. Fairchild rubbed a hand across his eyes.
"You 've got me!" came at last. "I--"
"You don't know me? 'Onest now, don't you? I 'm Arry! Don't you know
now? 'Arry from Cornwall!"