THE RENEGADE
While the man whom the town knew as Hugh Stires listened to the tale of
the street preacher, another, unlike yet curiously like him in feature,
had slowly climbed the hilly slope from the north by the sanatorium
road. He walked with a jaunty swagger bred of too frequent applications
to a flask in his pocket.
Since the evening of the momentous scene in the chapel with Harry
Sanderson, Hugh had had more and more recourse to that black comforter.
It had grown to be his constant companion. When, late on the night of
the game, some miles away, he had gloatingly counted the money in his
pockets, he had found nearly a thousand dollars in double-eagles, and a
single red counter--the last he had had to stake against Harry's gold.
He put the crimson disk into his pocket, "to remember the bishop by," he
thought with a chuckle, but the fact that for each of the counters Harry
had won he had sworn to render a day of clean and decent living, he
straightway forgot. For the other's position he had wasted no pity.
Harry would find it difficult to explain the matter to the bishop! Well,
if it "broke" him, served him right! What business had he to set himself
so far above every one else?
For some time thereafter Hugh had seriously contemplated going abroad,
for a wholesome fear had dogged him in his flight from Smoky Mountain.
For weeks he had travelled by night, scanning the daily newspapers with
a desperate anxiety, his ears keen for hue and cry. But with money in
his pocket, courage returned, and in the end fear lulled. There had been
no witness to that deed on the hillside. There might be suspicion, but
no more! At length the old-time attraction of the race-course had
absorbed him. He had followed the horses in "the circuit," winning and
losing, consorting with the tipsters, growing heavier with generous
living, and welcoming excitement and change. But the ghost of Doctor
Moreau haunted him, and would not be exorcized.
Money, however, could not last always, and a persistent run of ill luck
depleted his store. When poverty again was at his elbow a vagrant rumor
had told him, with the usual exaggerations, of the rich "find" on the
Little Paymaster Claim on Smoky Mountain. Too late he cursed the
reasonless panic that had sent him into flight. Had the ground been
"jumped" by some one who now profited? Nevertheless, it was still his
own to claim; miners' law gave him a year, and he had left enough
possessions in the cabin, he thought cunningly, to disprove abandonment.
He dreaded a return, but want and cupidity at length overcame his fears.
He had arrived at Smoky Mountain on this night to claim his own.
As he walked unsteadily along, Hugh drank more than once from the flask
to deaden the superstitious dread of the place which was stealing over
him. On the crest of the ridge he skirted the sanatorium grounds and at
length gained the road that twisted down toward the lights of the town.
In the dubious moonlight he mistook the narrow trail to the Knob for the
lower path to the cabin. As he turned into it, the report of a rifle
came faintly from the gulch below. It seemed to his excited senses like
the ghostly echo of a shot he had himself fired there on a night like
this long before--a hollow echo from another world.
He quickened his steps and stumbled all at once into the little clearing
that held the new-made grave and Jessica's statue. The sight terrified
his intoxicated imagination. His hair rose. The name on the headstone
was STIRES, and there was himself--no, a ghost of himself!--sitting
near! He turned and broke into a run down the steep slope. In his
fear--for he imagined the white figure was pursuing him--he tripped and
fell, regained his feet, rushed across the level space, threw his weight
against the cabin door, and burst into the room.
A dog sprang up with a growl, and in the light of the fire that burned
on the hearth, a man sitting at the rough-hewn table lifted a haggard
face from his arms and each recognized the other.
The ghost was gone now before firelight and human presence, and Hugh,
with a loud laugh of tipsy incredulity, stood staring at the man before
him.
"Harry Sanderson!" he cried. "By the great horn spoon!" His shifty eyes
surveyed the other's figure--the corduroys, the high laced boots, the
soft blue flannel shirt. "Not exactly in purple and fine linen," he
said--the impudent swagger of intoxication had slipped over him again,
and his boisterous laugh broke with a hiccough. "I thought the gospel
game was about played out that night in the chapel. And now you are
willing to take a hint from the prodigal. How did you find my nest? And
perhaps you can tell me who has been making himself so infernally at
home here lately?"
"_I_ have," said Harry evenly.
Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned
to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was
it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He
lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the
devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and
with his usual luck--'Satan's luck' we called it at college--steps in
just in time to strike it rich!"
He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered
against Harry's coat--the little gold cross, which the other had tied to
his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling
across the doorway.
"You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently,
"but you don't need the jewelry now!"
Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking
swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden
apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the
problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for
him--he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward,
this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the
predicament was intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in
his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal
_expose_. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen
in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned
cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he
could see his way!
"Well," said Hugh with a sneer, "what have you got to say?"
Harry rose slowly and pushed the door shut. "When we last met," he said,
"what you most wanted was to leave the country."
"I changed my mind," retorted Hugh. "I've got a right to do that, I
suppose. I've come back now to get what is mine, and I'll have it, too!"
He rapped the table with his knuckles.
Hugh had no recollection now of past generosities. His selfish
materialism saw only money that might be his. "I know all about the
strike," he went on, "and there's no green in my eye!"
"How much will you take for the property?"
Hugh laughed again jeeringly. "That's your game, is it? But I'm not such
a numskull! Whatever you could offer, it's worth more to me. You've
found a good thing here, and you'd like to skin me as a butcher skins a
sheep." In the warmer air of the cabin the liquor he had drunk was
firing his brain, and an old suspicion leaped to his tongue.
"I know you, Satan Sanderson," he sneered. "You were always the same
precious hypocrite in the old days, pretending to be so almighty
virtuous, while you looked out for number one. I saw through you then,
too, when you were posing as my friend and trying your best all along to
queer me with the old man! I knew it well enough. I knew what the reason
was, too! You wanted Jessica! You--"
Self-control left Harry suddenly, as a ship's sail is whipped from its
gaskets in a white squall. Before the words could be uttered, his
fingers were at Hugh's throat.
At that instant there was the sound of running feet outside, a hurried
knock at the door and an agitated voice that chilled Harry's blood to
ice.
His hands relaxed their hold; he dragged Hugh to the door of the inner
room, thrust him inside, shut and bolted it upon him.
Then he went and opened the outer door.