THE PASSING OF PRENDERGAST
The little town had been unconsciously grateful for its new sensation.
The return of Hugh Stires and his apparent curious transformation was
the prime subject of conversation. For a half-year the place had known
but one other event as startling: that was the finding, some months
before, of a dead body--that of a comparative stranger in the
place--thrust beneath a thicket on Smoky Mountain, on the very claim
which now held Prendergast and his partner.
The "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House had discussed the pros
and cons exhaustively. There were many who sneered at the loss of memory
and took their cue from Devlin who, smarting from his humiliation and
nursing venom, revamped suspicions wherever he showed his battered face.
In his opinion Hugh Stires was "playing a slick game."
"Your view is colored by your prejudices, Devlin," said Felder. "He's
been a blackleg in the past--granted. But give the devil his due. As
for the other ugly tale, there's no more evidence against him than there
is against you or me!"
"They didn't find the body on _my_ ground," had been the other's surly
retort, "and _I_ didn't clear out the day before, either!"
The phenomenon, however, whether credited or pooh-poohed, was a drawing
card. More than a few found occasion to climb the mountain by the
hillside trail that skirted the lonely cabin. These, as likely as not,
saw Prendergast lounging in the doorway smoking, while the younger man
worked, leading a trench along the brow of the hill to bring the water
from its intake--which Harry's quick eye had seen was practicable--and
digging through the shale and gravel to the bed-rock, to the sparse
yellow grains that yielded themselves so grudgingly. Some of the
pedestrians nodded, a few passed the time of day, and to each Harry
returned his exact coin of salutation.
The spectacle of Hugh Stires, who had been used to pass his days in the
saloons and his nights in even less becoming resorts, turned practical
miner, added a touch of _opera bouffe_ to the situation that, to a
degree, modulated the rigor of dispraise. It was the consensus of
opinion that the new Hugh Stires seemed vastly different from the old;
that if he were "playing a game," it was a curious one.
The casual espionage Prendergast observed with a scowl, as he watched
Harry's labors--when he was at the cabin, for after the first few days
he spent most of his time in haunts of his own in the town, returning
only at meal-time, gruff and surly. Harry, however, recognized nothing
unusual in the curious glances. He worked on, intent upon his own
problem of dark contrasts.
On the one side was a black record, exemplified in Prendergast, clouded
infamy, a shuddering abhorrence of his past self as he saw it through
the pitiless lens of public opinion; on the other was a grim constancy
of purpose, a passionate wish to reconstruct the warped structure of
life of which he found himself the tenant, days of healthful,
peace-inspiring toil, a woman's face that threaded his every thought. As
he wielded his pick in the trench or laboriously washed out the few
glistening grains that now were to mean his daily sustenance, he turned
often to gaze up the slope where, set in its foliage, the glass roof of
the sanatorium sparkled softly through the Indian haze. Strange that the
sight should mysteriously suggest the face that haunted him!
Emmet Prendergast saw the abstracted regard as he came up the trail
from the town. He was in an ugly humor. The bag of gold-dust which he
had shown to Harry he had not returned to the hiding-place in the wall,
and with this in his pocket the faro-table had that day tempted him. The
pouch was empty now.
Harry's back was toward him, and the gold-pan in which he had been
washing the gravel lay at his feet. With a noiseless, mirthless laugh
Prendergast stole into the cabin and reached down from the shelf the
bottle into which each day Harry had poured his scanty findings. He
weighed it in his hand--almost two ounces, a little less than twenty
dollars. He hastily took the empty bag from his pocket.
But just then a shadow darkened the doorway and Harry entered. He saw
the action, and, striding forward, took the bottle from the other's
hand.
Prendergast turned on him, a sinister snarl under his affectation of
surprise. "Can't you attend to your own rat-killing?" he growled. "I
guess I've got a right to what I need."
"Not to that," said Harry quietly. "We shall touch the bottom of the
flour sack to-morrow. You expect to get your meals here, I presume."
"I still look forward to that pleasure," answered Prendergast with an
evil sneer. "Three meals a day and a rotten roof over my head. When I
think of the little I have done to deserve it, the hospitality overcomes
me! All I have done is to keep you from starving to death and out of
quod at the same time. I only taught you a safe way to beat the game--an
easier one than you seem to know now--and to live on Easy Street!"
"I am looking for no easy way," responded Harry, "whatever you mean by
that. I expect to earn my living as I'm earning it now--it's an honest
method, at all events."
"You've grown all-fired particular since you lost your memory," retorted
Prendergast, his eyes narrowing. "You'll be turning dominie one of these
days! Perhaps you expect to get the town to take up with you, and to
make love to the beauty in the green riding-habit that brought you here
on her horse the night you were out of your head!"
Harry started. "What do you mean?" he asked thickly.
Prendergast's oily manner was gone now. His savage temper came
uppermost.
"I forgot you didn't know about that," he scoffed. "I made a neat story
of it in the town. They've been gabbling about it ever since."
Harry caught his breath. As through a mist he saw again that green
habit on the hotel balcony--that face that had haunted his waking
consciousness. It had not been Prendergast alone, then, who had brought
him here. And her act of charity had been made, no doubt, a thing for
the tittering of the town, cheapened by chatter, coarsened by joke!
"I wonder if she'd done it if she'd known all I know," continued the
other malevolently. "You'd better go up to the sanatorium, Hugh, and
give her a nice sweet kiss for it!"
A lust of rage rose in Harry's throat, but he choked it down. His hand
fell like iron on Prendergast's shoulder, and turned him forcibly toward
the open door. His other hand pointed, and his suppressed voice said:
"This cabin has grown too small for us both. The town will suit you
better."
Prendergast shrank before the wrath-whitened face, the dangerous sparkle
in the eyes. "You've got through with me," he glowered, "and you think
you can go it alone." The old suspicion leaped in the malicious
countenance. "Well, it won't pay you to try it yet. I know too much! Do
you understand? _I know too much!_"
Harry went out of the cabin. At the door he turned. "If there is
anything you own here," he said, "take it with you. You needn't be here
when I come back."
His fingers shaking with the black rage in his heart, Prendergast
gathered his few belongings, rolled them in the white horse-skin which
he drew from beneath his bunk, and wrapped the whole in a blanket. He
fastened the bundle in a pack-strap, slung it over his shoulder, and
left the cabin. Harry was seated on one of the gravel-heaps, some
distance away, looking out over the valley, his back toward him. As he
took the steep path leading toward the little town Prendergast shot the
figure an envenomed look.
"What's your scheme, I wonder?" he muttered darkly. "Whatever it is,
I'll find out, never fear! And if there's anything in it, you'll come
down from that high horse!" He settled his burden and went rapidly down
the trail, turning over in his mind his future schemes.
As it chanced, there was one who saw his vindictive face. Jessica,
crouched on the Knob, had seen him come and now depart, pack on back,
and guessed that the pair had parted company. Her whole being flamed
with sympathy. She could see his malignant scowl plainly from where she
leaned, screened by the bushes. It terrified her. What had passed
between them in the cabin? She left the Knob wondering.
All that evening she was ill at ease. At midnight, sleepless, she was
looking out from her bedroom window across the phantom-peopled shadows,
where on the face of the pale sky the stars trembled like slow tears.
Anxiety and dread were in her heart; a pale phantom of fear seemed
lurking in the shadows; the night was full of dread.