The high-springed stagecoach lurched drunkenly over the trail that wound
through a valley Betty thought gnomes might have hewn out when the world
was young. Barren, riven rock, gaunt, stunted trees, painted cliffs
hazed by distance, all added to a prospect that fell far short in the
Eastern girl's opinion of being picturesque.
Rather, it was just what her brother had termed this Western
country--raw. Betty did not like any rude thing. She shrank instinctively
from anything crude and unfinished.
The three--herself, her brother, and Joe Hurley--occupied the seat on the
roof of the plunging coach just behind the driver. "Lizard Dan" was an
uncouth individual both in speech and appearance. He was bewhiskered,
overalled, wore broken boots and an enormous slouched hat, and his hands
were so grimy that Betty shuddered at them, although they so skillfully
handled the reins over the backs of six frisky driving-mules.
Lizard Dan, Hurley told the Easterners, had gained his nickname when he
was a pocket-hunter in a now far-distant day. He had been lost in the
desert at one time and swore when he came out that he had existed by
eating _Crotaphytus Wislizeni_ roasted over a fire of dry cacti--the
succulence of which saurian is much doubted by the Western white man,
although it is a small brother of the South American iguana, there
considered a delicacy.
However, Dan acquired a nickname and such a fear of the desert thereby
that he became the one known specimen of the completely cured desert
rat. He never went prospecting again, but instead drove the stage
between Crescent City and Canyon Pass.
"The boys expecting us at the Pass to-day, Dan?" Joe Hurley had asked
early in the journey.
"Youbetcha!"
"Got your gun loaded?"
Dan kicked the heavy double-barreled shotgun at his feet and replied
again:
"Youbetcha!"
"Do--do wild animals infest the road?" Betty had asked stammeringly.
"Not much," said Hurley. "But Dan carries a heap of registered mail in
which wild men, rather than wild animals, might be interested."
"Youbetcha!" agreed Dan.
Hurley glanced sideways at Betty's face, caught its expression, and
exploded into laughter.
"You've come to 'Youbetcha Land,' Miss Betty," he said, when he could
speak again.
"He is a character," chuckled Hunt on her other side.
The suggestion of highwaymen stuck in the girl's mind. She looked from
Lizard Dan's weapon to the ivory butt of the heavy revolver pouched at
Joe Hurley's waist. These weapons could not be worn exactly for show--an
exhibition of the vanity of rather uncouth minds. It fretted her though
without frightening her, this phase of Western life. It was not the
possibility of gun-fights and brawls and the offices of Judge Lynch that
made Betty Hunt shrink from contact with this country and its people.
The stagecoach mounted out of the valley--which might, Hunt said, have
been fittingly described by Ezekiel--and followed a winding trail through
the minor range of hills that divided Crescent City and its purlieus
from the Canyon Pass country. The coach pitched and rocked as though it
was a sea-going hack.
In time they crossed the small divide and came down the watershed into
the valley of the East Fork.
Borne to their ears on the breeze at last, through the sound of the
rumbling coach-wheels and the rattling trace-chains, was another noise.
A throbbing rhythm of sound with the dull swish of intermittent streams
of water.
"The hydraulic pumps at the Eureka Washings," explained Hurley. "We'll
be in sight of them--and of Canyon Pass--before very long."
The stagecoach lurched around a corner, and the raw, red bench of the
riverbank came into view. Steam pumps were noisily at work and men were
busy at the sluices into which the gold-bearing earth and gravel were
washed down from the high bank.
Three great, brass-nozzled hydraulic "guns" were at work--each machine
straddled by a man in oil-skins and hip boots, who manipulated the heavy
stream of water that ate into the bank and crumbled it in sections.
At the moment of their sighting the hydraulic washings across the river,
there was raised a wild, concerted shout from a point ahead. Out of a
hidden cove galloped a cavalcade of a dozen or more mounted men, who
swept up the road to meet the coach.
For an instant Betty thought of the shotgun at Dan's feet and of
highwaymen. These coming riders waved guns and yelled like wild Indians.
But she saw a broad grin on Joe Hurley's face.
"Here come some of the Great Hope boys," he explained. "Their idea of
'welcome to our city' may be a little noisy, but they mean you well,
Hunt."
They came "a-shootin'," and Lizard Dan threw the long lash of his whip
over the backs of his six mules to force them through the cavalcade on
the gallop.
Firing their guns and yelling, the riders on their wiry ponies
surrounding the coach as its escort, pounded down to the ford. Their
hullabaloo announced far in advance the approach of the coach to Canyon
Pass.
In all its ugliness the mining camp was revealed. The gaze of the
Easterners was focused on its unpainted shacks and rutted streets. They
saw men, women, children, and a multitude of dogs running from all
points toward the main thoroughfare of the town.
It was like a picture--not like anything real. Betty's dazed mind could
not accept this nightmare of a place as actually being the town to which
fate--and her brother's obstinacy--had brought them. Given an opportunity
right then, the girl would have failed her brother! She was in a mood to
desert him and return East as fast as she could travel.
Joe Hurley grinned at her. She had begun almost to hate those twinkling
brown eyes of his with the golden sparks in them. He seemed to know just
what her feelings were and to enjoy her horror of the crudity which
assailed her on every hand. To her mind, Hurley was worse than his
associates, for he had enjoyed the advantages of some culture.
The mules dashed into the shallows. Spray flew as high as the roof of
the coach. The mules settled into a heavier pace as they dragged the
vehicle up the farther bank and into the foot of Main Street.
The crowd--a couple of hundred people of all ages--had gathered before the
Wild Rose Hotel. This stood opposite the bank and farther along the
street than the Three Star Grocery and Boss Tolley's Grub Stake. The
mules picked up their heels again under the cracking of Lizard Dan's
whiplash, and cantered up to the chief hostelry of Canyon Pass. The
yelling crew of horsemen--a bizarre committee of welcome indeed--rode
ahead, punctuating their vociferous clamor by an occasional pistol-shot.
Betty caught sight of her brother's face. It was as broadly smiling as
was that of Joe Hurley! Actually Ford was enjoying this awful
experience.
The moment Dan drew the mules to a halt, Hurley was half way to the
ground and turned on the step to help Betty down. She glanced timidly at
Hunt again. He was preparing to descend on the other side of the coach,
leaving her entirely to Hurley's care.
Then occurred that incident which would ever be engraved upon Betty's
memory, and which marked indeed the coming of the Reverend Willett Ford
Hunt to Canyon Pass on the archives of the town's history in letters
that never would be effaced.
As Hunt started to descend from the roof of the coach there sounded a
single pistol-shot and the hat he wore--a low-crowned affair, the single
mark of the cleric in his dress--sailed into the air with a ragged hole
through brim and crown.
As the hat flew upward a fusillade of five more shots followed the
first, and the hat was torn to rags as it sailed over the roof of the
coach. The crowd roared--some in anger, but most in derision. The man
standing by the door of the Grub Stake reloaded his gun before putting
it away, grinning broadly.
Hunt was startled; but his own smile did not fade. What was it Joe had
impressed so emphatically upon his mind?
"It's the first impression that counts with Canyon Pass folks. Give 'em
the chance, and they'll laugh you out of town. And remember, they are
bound to judge you, Hunt, by their own standards."
The young minister felt that the occasion was momentous. His usefulness
here in Canyon Pass might depend upon his action or comment in this
emergency.
His nerves were perfectly steady. How was his _nerve_? He knew the man
who had shot the hat from his head was such a good shot that he had been
in no danger at all.
But Hunt felt that something more was expected of him than the mere
ignoring of a rude and offensive act. He started across the road toward
the gunman. Those who stood in the way opened a lane for him with some
alacrity. The smiles upon the faces of those who moved stiffened.
Something extraordinary, something they had not at all expected, was
about to happen.
Hicks, slouching against the front of the Grub Stake, came to sudden
attention. His fingers crooked, creeping toward the butt of his gun
again. Every atom of the ruffian's courage--such as it was--lay in that
weapon. Without it--and its leaden death--he was a sheep for bravery!
Smiling still Hunt reached him. The parson's steady gaze held that of
Hicks as the human eye is said to hypnotize the gaze of all wild beasts.
Hicks, however, was not wild. Not now. Not so you could notice it!
"Brother," Hunt said cheerfully, "you've spoiled my hat. It's the only
hat I've got with me until my trunks come in by freight. You've had your
fun, and it's only fair you should pay for it."
The expression of Hicks' face sunk into a sneer. He thought the
white-livered parson was trying to get money from him for the hat. He
must indeed be a "softie."
Then Hunt's hands moved suddenly, swiftly. In a flash he had snatched
the broad-brimmed hat from Hicks' head and placed it on his own,
"Turn about is fair play, don't you think?" said the parson, and without
waiting for a reply he turned on his heel and went back across the
street!
The silence that had fallen on the crowd had been of that tense,
strained quality that portended tragedy. Had Hunt showed offense at the
trick played upon him and struck Hicks, the latter would have used his
gun without mercy. And scarcely could a jury have been impaneled in
Canyon Pass that would have convicted the ruffian.
But of a sudden, a roar of laughter rose from the crowd. They rocked
with it, beating their knees, holding their sides, laughing with
wide-open mouths and streaming eyes. Nor was the comical appearance of
Hicks' dilapidated hat crowning the parson's otherwise impeccable outfit
all that spurred Canyon Pass to such wild cachinnation.
The strident laughter was aimed at the chagrined gunman. Hicks knew it.
The broad back of the parson offered a sure target; but he knew better
than to draw his gun a second time. Instead he turned away, hatless, and
sought sanctuary in the Grub Stake.
Hunt had taken the first trick in this game he had "set into." And
Canyon Pass to a man admired a shrewd gambler.