The next morning Stephen awoke with a start, conscious that some one was
standing beside his cot, as he lay fully dressed outside the blankets.
Mr. Cameron was looking down upon him. When he struggled to his feet,
Loring’s mind was all confused. He ran his hand through his matted hair.
“Where am I?” he murmured.
Mr. Cameron’s face was set decisively. It was easy to see from which
parent Jean had inherited the modeling of the lower portion of her face.
“Come outside, Loring!” There was a chill incisiveness in the words which
shocked Stephen into recollection. He followed Mr. Cameron out of the
tent.
The bright, early morning sunlight made his hot eyeballs water, and he
blinked uncomfortably. His knees shook from weakness so that he leaned
against the fence beside his tent. Such absolute misery possessed him
that he could not think. His brain was numb. His mouth felt as if all
the moisture had been baked out of it.
Mr. Cameron looked him over carefully and contemptuously, then fumbled in
his waistcoat pocket, and produced a cigar. Eyeing Loring all the while,
he slowly bit off the end, and lighted the cigar. Before he spoke, he
took several deliberate puffs. It was a good cigar; but the rich smell of
the fumes made Loring turn a shade whiter.
“Well, Loring, I suppose you know what this means for you?” began Mr.
Cameron slowly. “A rather nice piece of work of yours, on the whole. Two
men killed by your efficiency! I do not suppose that there is any use in
asking you if you were drunk?” There was very little of the question in
Mr. Cameron’s voice.
Stephen gripped the fence hard, then shook his head.
“I do not like to dismiss you, Loring, for I am in your debt for saving
my daughter’s life.” Judging from his expression as he said this, the
thought of the debt did not greatly please Mr. Cameron.
Stephen looked out over the mountains. His eyes were glistening with
moisture—and this time it was not caused by the glare. It cut him to the
quick that the man who was so righteously dismissing him should be the
father of the girl whom he loved. In a bitter moment there flashed before
his mind the vision of all his broken resolutions, of his now useless
plans for success. The whole fabric, which in the past months he had
woven for himself, he suddenly saw torn to shreds.
Mr. Cameron’s next words were lost to Stephen. It was some seconds before
he could again focus his attention. When he caught up the thread, Mr.
Cameron was saying: “I had hoped better things from you, Loring. I should
have known better, that when a man is a drifter, such as you are, there
is no hope. Still I had hoped! Well, I was wrong. Here is your pay check,
for what is due to you. That is all.”
Mr. Cameron turned and walked towards the office. Stephen stood looking
dumbly after him, with the check fluttering loosely in his fingers.
McKay, going by on his way to work, saw him, and came up to him. He held
out his hand in sympathy.
“Damn it, Steve, I’m sorry for you! You ain’t worth a damn; but I like
you.”
Stephen looked at him in silence. His only conscious thought, as he
gripped McKay’s hand, was the mental reiteration: “I am worth a damn, I
am worth a damn.”
McKay went on in friendly solicitude: “Of course, it ain’t none of my
business, Steve, but if I was you I’d beat it pretty quick. Just at
present the friends of those men ain’t losing any love on you. I think if
I was in your boots the Dominion trail would look pretty good to me. It’s
about up to you to _vamos_.”
“I will go,” said Loring. “It isn’t that I fear what these Mexicans may
do, because I don’t care. But I can’t stand it here. Good-bye, Mac! You
have been a good friend to me. I know I deserved to be fired. Deserved a
lot worse; but Mac,” he added desperately, “I will make good somewhere!”
McKay almost imperceptibly shook his head, then smiled and again extended
his hand.
“Well, anyhow, buck up, Steve! I’ve got to get down to work now.
Good-bye, and good luck!”
“Wait just a minute!” Loring called after him.
McKay turned, and Stephen held out his newly received pay check.
“Will you be kind enough to give this to Hankins up at the saloon, when
you get time? I owe it to him, and to his partner.”
“You certainly did do things up in great shape last night, Steve,” said
McKay, as he took the check, after Stephen had endorsed it with a shaking
hand. “Got cheated, I suppose?”
“Rather,” answered Loring.
“It is strange,” thought McKay to himself, as he walked away, “with
fellows like these saloon keepers. You could give them everything that
you have, and no matter what happened they would keep it safely for you.
But play cards and they’ll stick it into you for keeps.”
Re-entering his tent, Stephen began to put his few belongings into a
saddle-bag. His packing was not a long operation. He looked rather
wistfully about the little tent, which had grown to seem to him almost
a home. Then, slinging the bag over his shoulder, he started for the
corral.
It was still very early, and few people were about. One or two of the
Mexican teamsters were at the corral, sleepily kicking their horses into
the traces. These looked at Stephen blackly, for in a mining camp news
travels very fast.
Stephen’s hands shook so that he had great difficulty in forcing the
bit into the restive jaws of his pony. At last, however, “_Muy Bueno_”
was saddled, and led out into the road. As Loring was putting up the
corral bars again, a bare-footed little Mexican girl came pattering past.
Stephen had often befriended her in small ways, so now she greeted him
with shy warmth.
“_Buenos dies, amigo!_” she chattered.
The little child’s greeting started the tears to his eyes. Fumbling in
his pocket, from among his few coins, he brought out a quarter. With a
dismal attempt at a smile, he tossed it to her.
“Eh, Señorita Rosa, here is two bits for you, _dos reales_, buy candy
with big pink stripes.”
The child ran up to him and gratefully seized his hand with both of her
grimy little paws. He cut short her repeated thanks with a quick “_No hay
de que_,” and swung into the saddle.
“_Á Dios_,” he called to her. Then slowly he rode to the watering-trough.
“_Muy Bueno_” buried his nose deep in the cool water, and drank with
great gulps. Stephen could feel the barrel of the pony swell beneath the
cinch. When he could hold no more, “_Muy Bueno_” raised his head from the
trough questioningly, the drops of water about the gray muzzle glistening
in the sun. Stephen pressed the reins against the horse’s neck, and
turned him towards the Dominion trail, which showed as a ribbon of white
upon the hills to the eastward.
Close behind him he heard a familiar voice singing an old song: “La, la,
boom, boom. La, la, boom, boom.” The last word was sung with unusual
emphasis, serving as a salutation and hail.
Wah, beaming with his usual joyousness, was trotting towards him.
“Hey, me bludder, me bludder. You gettee canned! Oh, me bludder, you
allee samee fool gettee drunk. You beat it to Dominion? Me bludder welly
wise! La, la, boom, boom!” Wah concluded his outburst with a peal of
laughter.
Stephen looked down solemnly at him.
“Damned funny, isn’t it, Wah?”
“Oh, me bludder, me bludder!”—Wah could get no further, before another
paroxysm of laughter overcame him. Recovering somewhat, he produced from
his blouse a greasy looking package.
“Me bludder get nothing to eat before he come to Dominion. Wah bring him
pie, oh, lubbly, lubbly pie.”
Stephen was deeply touched by the Chinaman’s kindness. He shook his hand
warmly.
“I had forgotten all about food. Good-bye, Wah, and thank you a lot.”
“Oh, me bludder, wait one minnie moming. I have note. Missee Cameron, she
send me bludder a note!”
Wah, with some labor, produced from his pocket a little envelope, and
handed it to Loring.
“Oh, lubbly, lubbly note! Oh, lubbly—”
“Shut up, Wah!” flared Stephen. White as death, he took the note from
Wah, and slipped it inside his shirt. He could not trust himself to read
it.
“Please thank her, Wah, and—” He could say no more. Slowly he turned his
horse, and rode towards the hills.
Wah walked away, murmuring beneath his breath: “La, la, boom, boom, me
poor bludder. He must habee hellee headache. La, la, boom, boom.”
Stephen soon reached the place on the trail where was situated the old
deserted “Q” ranch. A rusty iron tank by the shanty bore the crudely
painted sign: “Water, Cattle 10 cts. per head. Horses 25 cts.” Beside the
tank, however, in what had evidently formerly been an empty bed, gushed a
clear stream of water. Stephen smiled when he saw how nature had thwarted
the primitive monopoly.
Dismounting, he lifted the saddle from his horse’s back. Then he deftly
hobbled him, and left him to eat what grass there was by the rocky
stream bed, within a radius which he could cover with his fore legs tied
together. Stephen then seated himself on the ground, propped the saddle
behind his back, and proceeded to light a pipe, and to think. All the
events of the past few hours had come upon him with such rapidity that he
had had no time for reflection.
Seated there in the open, beneath the vivid blue sky, with no sound but
that of the softly, coolly running water near, all the scene of the
accident loomed clearly before him, far more clearly than it had done
in the morning when he had still been in the camp, and surrounded by the
routine of life there. The very warmth of the sunlight, which should have
made a man’s heart bound with the joy of living, merely added to the
blackness of his mood.
He was very nervous, and smoked with quick, hard puffs. Once his pony
started at something. The sound brought Loring to his feet, all of a
quiver. He sat down again, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with
an excited gesture. Gripping his hands together hard, he thought the
situation over and over. The more he thought of it, the worse it seemed.
This was not a case which could be called the result of negligence, or
drifting. It came very close to crime, and he knew it. Stephen Loring
was a man who, when he sat in judgment upon himself, was unflinching. He
weakened only when it came to carrying out the sentence which the court
imposed. He thought of Miss Cameron, as she had been on the ride which
they had taken together; then of what she must think of him now. This
brought a flush of shame to his cheeks.
Suddenly he recalled the note which Wah had brought to him, and he took
it reverently from his blouse. It was the first time that he had ever
seen her handwriting. His name was written upon the envelope in clear,
decided letters, which coincided well with the character of the writer.
Stephen looked at the writing, with an infinite tenderness softening the
lines on his face. He started to tear open the envelope, then suddenly he
stopped.
“I won’t,” he exclaimed, half aloud. “I will not read it until I am
worthy to do so, or until I have a great need of it.” Reluctantly he slid
the note back into his blouse. Then, coloring, he pushed it over to his
left side. His heart seemed to beat more strongly, more manfully, for the
companionship.
He had eaten no breakfast, and began to be conscious of a great hunger.
He ate, down to the last crust, the pie which Wah had given to him. It
was as good as its maker had claimed it to be.
There is nothing in the world equal to food for restoring self-respect,
and Stephen, having eaten, began to see the world more normally.
Tightening his belt, he took a long drink from the stream, then saddled
“_Muy Bueno_” and started again on his way.
All the afternoon he rode continually up hill, till towards five o’clock
he struck the Dominion divide, and timber. The air here, in contrast to
the valley below, was cold, and Loring, only thinly dressed, shivered.
Several times cattle “outfits” passed him on the trail. Men were driving
in from the range scraggly bunches of steers, to be fattened before
selling. Once he did not pull his horse out of the trail in time, and
sent a bunch of frightened cattle stampeding into the underbrush. He was
so engrossed in his thoughts that he hardly noticed the cursing which he
received from the ranchmen.
At dusk, beside the trail, he saw a bright fire in front of a tent. Two
men, occupied in frying bacon, and boiling coffee, were seated before it.
The smell that arose from the cooking appealed strongly to Stephen, and
he reined in his horse.
“Howdy, stranger! Making for Dominion?” one of the men called out.
“Well, you won’t get there for some time yet. It is twelve miles from
here. Better let us stake you to a meal. Come from Quentin, do you? Me
and my pardner was going there to-morrow.”
Stephen, with alacrity, accepted the proffered hospitality.
“Much obliged, friend,” he said. “I’m pretty well broke, and I was not
expecting to get anything to eat to-night.”
“Don’t worry about that. You shan’t go by our outfit hungry. We ain’t
made that way. There was a cuss I knowed once,” continued one of Loring’s
hosts, “up in Cochise County. I was broke, flat busted, when I was there,
and I asked him to stake me to a meal, and say, the mean skunk wouldn’t
come through at all. Said I could ‘watch him eat.’ Now what do you think
of that?” As he recalled the crime against hospitality, the man kicked
vigorously at one of the logs on the fire.
Loring listened, with due sympathy, to the tale, the while he eyed with
hopeful glances the coffee-pot, at the edge of which a yellow foam soon
appeared, serving as signal that the meal was ready.
“Sorry we can’t give you flapjacks,” remarked one of the men, as he
lifted the bacon off the fire. “Pardner here makes swell ones, but we’re
pretty low on our grub outfit now. Hope we can get work at Quentin. Any
jobs floating round loose there?”
Stephen slowly filled his tin cup with coffee, and paused, after the
western fashion, to blow into it a spoonful of condensed milk, before he
answered.
“I am not sure,” he said, “but I think that there is a vacancy on one of
the hoists. I think they fired a man there recently.”
“That’s good for us,” exclaimed one of the men. “Wish they’d fire some
more!” Stephen did not continue the discussion.
After a quiet smoke beside the embers of the fire, Stephen rose, and
thanking his hosts warmly, prepared to leave. As he was mounting he
happened to feel a flask that was in his pocket. He remembered vaguely
having filled it the night before. Reaching down from the saddle he held
out the flask.
“Have a drink, gentlemen?” he asked.
One of the men took the flask in his hands, almost reverently.
“I don’t know that I won’t,” he said. He took a long pull, then handed
the flask to his partner.
“Regards!” drawled the latter.
The words brought to Loring a bitter train of memories.
“Keep the damned stuff if you want it. I am through with it,” he said.
Then, with a quick good night, he rode off.
The men, in mild wonder, looked after him for a moment. Then they
relighted their pipes, and settled themselves by the fire.
“Mighty nice chap, that,” remarked one, “but he must feel powerful bad
about something to give away good whisky like that.”
It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening when Stephen rode into
Dominion. The main street was brightly lighted, and as it was Saturday
night, the sidewalks were crowded with people walking restlessly up and
down. The shop windows glowed attractively. Through several open doors
he could see men gathered about pool tables. The bright lights by the
cinematograph theater showed clearly the faces of the passing crowd.
Dominion had passed from the camp into the town stage, as was evinced
by the liberal scattering of brick houses among those of wooden
construction. Many horsemen were passing in the street. Fresh from the
hills, Loring felt almost dazed by this renewed contact with established
humanity.
His first care was to seek a stable for “_Muy Bueno_.” Seeing in one of
the side streets a livery sign, he entered the place and tied his pony
among the long line of horses in the shed. Then, after saying to the
proprietor: “Hay and not oats,” he walked out into the street.
“I hope the confounded expensive little beast won’t order champagne for
himself,” he thought. “He is almost clever enough to do so.”
As he walked slowly along, he mentally calculated his resources. Three
dollars in cash. Nothing in credit. A few cents Mexican in prospect. He
would have to sell the pony and saddle to complete the payment of his
poker debt.
A group of men, thoroughly drunk, passed by, singing noisily. Idly,
Stephen followed after them, until they came to the little creek that
runs through the center of the town. Across the creek, high above the
dark, silent water, lay a narrow swinging bridge. One of the group of men
called out: “Let’s go across the bridge of sighs to Mowrie’s.” The others
noisily assented and soon Loring could hear the bridge ahead of him
creaking beneath their weight. He stood for a moment, hesitating, staring
at the lights across the bridge, then he deliberately followed.
The opposite shore of the creek was lined with “cribs” and shanties
stretched in a long, sodden row along the bank. From many of them came
the brazen notes of gramophones in a jarring discord of popular tunes.
Women’s voices were mixed with the music, in shrill unpleasant laughter.
A board walk ran before the close built houses, and up and down this
tramped throngs of men, talking noisily, singing, swearing. The faces of
some group or other were now and then visible, as some one scratched a
match to light a cigarette.
Women of almost every nationality on the globe stood in the doorways,
French, Japanese, Negroes, Swedes, all dressed in flaunting kimonas. They
called to the men in the crowd, exchanged jests, or leaned idly against
the door-posts, staring fixedly into the faces of the men. From many of
the places a bright light streamed out across the water. The shutters of
several were drawn.
In strange contrast to the scene, in one of the houses some one was
singing in a clear tenor voice, which sounded as sweet and pure as if it
had been in a choir. For a moment the murmur of voices and tramp of feet
ceased, as people paused to listen.
Stephen walked slowly down the street. A woman in one of the darker
doorways called out to him. He stopped, bit his lip hard.
“Why not? What is the use, now?” he thought.
He ran up the steps and opened the door. Inside, half a dozen painted
women were drinking with the men there. The proprietress beckoned to him
to enter.
Then like a veil, before his eyes dropped a cloud of memory. He saw the
shed at the hoist, two bodies laid limply on the ground; figures moving
in dim lantern light.
He staggered out into the street, drew a deep breath and strode back
across the bridge.
“I am through with this sort of thing for good,” he muttered. “I owe the
world too big a debt of reparation now. But I will pay it.”
For the first time in his life, Loring’s smile was a smile of power, that
power which rises sometimes from a supreme sorrow, sometimes from supreme
holiness, sometimes, as now, springing from the black soil of crime; but
bespeaking the discipline which has learned to control passion, to bring
desire to heel, and to make a man master of himself despite all the
devils that this world or the next can send against him.
He had learned his lesson at last, learned it at the cost of two lost
lives, and the cost to himself of an overshadowing remorse which he could
never escape, let the future hold what it would. But he had learned it.