GUMBOLT
With the savings of his two years of school-teaching Keith found that he
had enough, by practising rigid economy, to give himself another year at
college, and he practised rigid economy.
He worked under the spur of ambition to show Alice Yorke and those who
surrounded her that he was not a mere country clod.
With his face set steadily in the direction where stood the luminous
form of the young girl he had met and come to worship amid the
blossoming woods, he studied to such good purpose that at the end of the
session he had packed two years' work into one.
Keith had no very definite ideas, when he started out at the end of his
college year, as to what he should do. He only knew that he had strong
pinions, and that the world was before him. He wished to bury himself
from observation until he should secure the success with which he would
burst forth on an astonished world, overwhelm Mrs. Yorke, and capture
Alice. His first intention had been to go to the far West; but on
consideration he abandoned the idea.
Rumors were already abroad that in the great Appalachian mountain-range
opportunity might be as golden as in that greater range on the other
side of the continent.
Keith had a sentiment that he would rather succeed in the South than
elsewhere.
"Only get rifles out and railroads in, and capital will come pouring
after them," Rhodes had said. "Old Wickersham knows his business."
That was a good while ago, and at last the awakening had begun. Now that
carpet-bagging was at an end, and affairs were once more settled in that
section, the wealth of the country was again being talked of in
the press.
The chief centre of the new life was a day's drive farther in the
mountains than Eden, the little hamlet which Keith had visited once with
Dr. Balsam when he attended an old stage-driver, Gilsey by name, and cut
a bullet out of what he called his "off-leg." This was the veiled
Golconda. To the original name of Humboldt the picturesque and humorous
mountaineer had given the name of "Gumbolt."
This was where old Adam Rawson, stirred by the young engineer's
prophecy, had taken time by the forelock and had bought up the mineral
rights, and "gotten ahead" of Wickersham & Company.
Times and views change even in the Ridge region, and now, after years of
delay, Wickersham & Company's railroad was about to be built. It had
already reached Eden.
Keith, after a few days with his father, stopped at Ridgely to see his
old friends. The Doctor looked him over with some disapproval.
"As gaunt as a greyhound," he muttered. "My patient not married yet, I
suppose? Well, she will be. You'd better tear her out of your memory
before she gets too firmly lodged there."
Keith boldly said he would take the chances.
When old Rawson saw him he, too, remarked on his thinness; but more
encouragingly.
"Well, 'a lean dog for a long chase,'" he said.
"How are cattle?" inquired Keith.
The old fellow turned his eyes on him with a keen look.
"Cattle's tolerable. I been buyin' a considerable number up toward
Gumbolt, where you're goin'. I may get you to look after 'em some day,"
he chuckled.
Gordon wrote to Dave Dennison that he was going to Gumbolt and would
look out for him. A little later he learned that the boy had already
gone there.
The means of reaching Gumbolt from Eden, the terminus of the railroad
which Wickersham & Company were building, was still the stage, a
survivor of the old-time mountain coach, which had outlasted all the
manifold chances and changes of fortune.
Happily for Keith, he had been obliged, though it was raining, to take
the outside seat by the driver, old Tim Gilsey, to whom he recalled
himself, and by his coolness at "Hellstreak Hill," where the road
climbed over the shoulder of the mountain along a sheer cliff, and
suddenly dropped to the river below, a point where old Gilsey was wont
to display his skill as a driver and try the nerves of passengers, he
made the old man his friend for life.
When the stage began to ascend the next hill, the old driver actually
unbent so far as to give an account of a "hold-up" that had occurred at
that point not long before, "all along of the durned railroad them
Yankees was bringin' into the country," to which he laid most of the
evils of the time. "For when you run a stage you know who you got with
you," declared Mr. Gilsey; "but when you run a railroad you dunno
who you got."
"Well, tell me about the time you were held up."
"Didn't nobody hold me up," sniffed Mr. Gilsey. "If I had been goin' to
stop I wouldn't 'a' started. It was a dom fool they put up here when I
was down with rheumatiz. Since then they let me pick my substitute.
"Well," he said, as a few lights twinkled below them, "there she is.
Some pretty tough characters there, too. But you ain't goin' to have no
trouble with 'em. All you got to do is to put the curb on 'em onct."
As Keith looked about him in Gumbolt, the morning after his arrival, he
found that his new home was only a rude mining-camp, raw and rugged; a
few rows of frame houses, beginning to be supplanted by hasty brick
structures, stretched up the hills on the sides of unpaved roads, dusty
in dry weather and bottomless in wet. Yet it was, for its size, already
one of the most cosmopolitan places in the country. Of course, the
population was mainly American, and they were beginning to pour
in--sharp-eyed men from the towns in black coats, and long-legged,
quiet-looking and quiet-voiced mountaineers in rusty clothes, who hulked
along in single file, silent and almost fugitive in the glare of
daylight. Quiet they were and well-nigh stealthy, with something of the
movement of other denizens of the forest, unless they were crossed and
aroused, and then, like those other denizens, they were fierce almost
beyond belief. A small cavil might make a great quarrel, and pistols
would flash as quick as light.
The first visit that Keith received was from J. Quincy Plume, the editor
of the _Gumbolt Whistle_. He had the honor of knowing his distinguished
father, he said, and had once had the pleasure of being at his old home.
He had seen Keith's name on the book, and had simply called to offer him
any services he or his paper could render him. "There are so few
gentlemen in this ---- hole," he explained, "that I feel that we should
all stand together." Keith, knowing J. Quincy's history,
inwardly smiled.
Mr. Plume had aged since he was the speaker of the carpet-bag
legislature; his black hair had begun to be sprinkled with gray, and had
receded yet farther back on his high forehead, his hazel eyes were a
little bleared; and his full lips were less resolute than of old. He had
evidently seen bad times since he was the facile agent of the Wickersham
interests. He wore a black suit and a gay necktie which had once been
gayer, a shabby silk hat, and patent-leather shoes somewhat broken.
His addiction to cards and drink had contributed to Mr. Plume's
overthrow, and after a disappearance from public view for some time he
had turned up just as Gumbolt began to be talked of, with a small sheet
somewhat larger than a pocket-handkerchief, which, in prophetic tribute
to Gumbolt's future manufactures, he christened the _Gumbolt Whistle_.
Mr. Plume offered to introduce Keith to "the prettiest woman in
Gumbolt," and, incidentally, to "the best cocktail" also. "Terpsichore
is a nymph who practises the Terpsichorean art; indeed, I may say,
presides over a number of the arts, for she has the best faro-bank in
town, and the only bar where a gentleman can get a drink that will not
poison a refined stomach. She is, I may say, the leader of
Gumbolt society."
Keith shook his head; he had come to work, he declared.
"Oh, you need not decline; you will have to know Terpy. I am virtue
itself; in fact, I am Joseph--nowadays. You know, I belong to the
cloth?" Keith's expression indicated that he had heard this fact. "But
even I have yielded to her charms--intellectual, I mean, of course."
Mr. Plume withdrew after having suggested to Keith to make him a small
temporary loan, or, if more convenient, to lend him the use of his name
on a little piece of bank-paper "to tide over an accidental and
unexpected emergency," assuring Keith that he would certainly take it up
within sixty days.
Unfortunately for Keith, Plume's cordiality had made so much impression
on him that he was compliant enough to lend him the use of his name, and
as neither at the expiration of sixty days, nor at any other time, did
Mr. Plume ever find it convenient to take up his note, Keith found
himself later under the necessity of paying it himself. This
circumstance, it is due to Mr. Plume to say, he always deplored, and
doubtless with sincerity.
* * * * *
Women were at a premium in Gumbolt, and Mr. Plume was not the only
person who hymned the praises of "Terpsichoar," as she was mainly
called. Keith could not help wondering what sort of a creature she was
who kept a dance-house and a faro-bank, and yet was spoken of with
unstinted admiration and something very like respect by the crowd that
gathered in the "big room of the Windsor." She must be handsome, and
possibly was a good dancer, but she was no doubt a wild, coarse
creature, with painted cheeks and dyed hair. The mental picture he
formed was not one to interfere with the picture he carried in
his heart.
Next day, as he was making a purchase in a shop, a neat and trim-looking
young woman, with a fresh complexion and a mouth full of white teeth,
walked in, and in a pleasant voice said, "Good mornin', all." Keith did
not associate her at all with Terpsichore, but he was surprised that old
Tim Gilsey should not have known of her presence in town. He was still
more surprised when, after having taken a long and perfectly unabashed
look at him, with no more diffidence in it than if he had been a lump of
ore she was inspecting, she said:
"You're the fellow that come to town night before last? Uncle Tim was
tellin' me about you."
"Yes; I got here night before last. Who is Uncle Tim?"
"Uncle Tim Gilsey."
She walked up and extended her hand to him with the most perfect
friendliness, adding, with a laugh as natural as a child's:
"We'll have to be friends; Uncle Tim says you're a white man, and that's
more than some he brings over the road these days are."
"Yes, I hope so. You are Mr. Gilsey's nieces I am glad to meet you"
The young woman burst out laughing.
"Lor', _no_. I ain't anybody's niece; but he's my uncle--I've adopted
_him_. I'm Terpy--Terpsichore, run Terpsichore's Hall," she said by way
of explanation, as if she thought he might not understand her allusion.
Keith's breath was almost taken away. Why, she was not at all like the
picture he had formed of her. She was a neat, quiet-looking young woman,
with a fine figure, slim and straight and supple, a melodious voice, and
laughing gray eyes.
"You must come and see me. We're to have a blow-out to-night. Come
around. I'll introduce you to the boys. I've got the finest ball-room in
town--just finished--and three fiddles. We christen it to-night. Goin'
to be the biggest thing ever was in Gumbolt."
Keith awoke from his daze.
"Thank you, but I am afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse me," he said.
"Why?" she inquired simply.
"Because I can't come. I am not much of a dancer."
She looked at him first with surprise and then with amusement.
"Are you a Methodist preacher?"
"No."
"Salvation?"
"No."
"I thought, maybe, you were like Tib Drummond, the Methodist, what's
always a-preachin' ag'in' me." She turned to the storekeeper. "What do
you think he says? He says he won't come and see me, and he ain't a
preacher nor Salvation Army neither. But he will, won't he?"
"You bet," said the man, peeping up with a grin from behind a barrel.
"If he don't, he'll be about the only one in town who don't."
"No," said Keith, pleasantly, but firmly. "I can't go."
"Oh, yes, you will," she laughed. "I'll expect you. By-by"; and she
walked out of the store with a jaunty air, humming a song about the
"iligint, bauld McIntyres."
The "blow-out" came off, and was honored with a column in the next issue
of the Whistle--a column of reeking eulogy. But Keith did not attend,
though he heard the wheezing of fiddles and the shouting and stamping of
Terpsichore's guests deep into the night.
Keith was too much engrossed for the next few days in looking about him
for work and getting himself as comfortably settled as possible to think
of anything else.
If, however, he forgot the "only decent-looking woman in Gumbolt," she
did not forget him. The invitation of a sovereign is equivalent to a
command the world over; and Terpsichore was as much the queen regnant of
Gumbolt as Her Majesty, Victoria, was Queen of England, or of any other
country in her wide realm. She was more; she was absolute. She could
have had any one of a half-dozen men cut the throat of any other man in
Gumbolt at her bidding.
The mistress of the "Dancing Academy" had not forgotten her boast. The
institution over which she presided was popular enough almost to justify
her wager. There were few men of Keith's age in Gumbolt who did not
attend its sessions and pay their tribute over the green tables that
stretched along the big, low room.
In fact, Miss Terpsichore was not of that class that forget either
friends or foes; whatever she was she was frankly and outspokenly. Mr.
Plume informed Keith that she was "down on him."
"She's got it in for you," he said. "Says she's goin' to drive you out
of Gumbolt."
"Well, she will not," said Keith, with a flash in his eye.
"She is a good friend and a good foe," said the editor. "Better go and
offer a pinch of incense to Diana. She is worth cultivating. You ought
to see her dance."
Keith, however, had made his decision. A girl with eyes like dewy
violets was his Diana, and to her his incense was offered.
A day or two later Keith was passing down the main street, when he saw
the young woman crossing over at the corner ahead of him, stepping from
one stone to another quite daintily. She was holding up her skirt, and
showed a very neat pair of feet in perfectly fitting boots. At the
crossing she stopped. As Keith passed her, he glanced at her, and caught
her eye fastened on him. She did not look away at all, and Keith
inclined his head in recognition of their former meeting.
"Good morning," she said.
"Good morning." Keith lifted his hat and was passing on.
"Why haven't you been to see me?" she demanded.
Keith pretended not to hear.
"I thought I invited you to come and see me?"
Still, Keith did not answer, but he paused. His head was averted, and he
was waiting until she ceased speaking to go on.
Suddenly, to his surprise, she bounded in front of him and squared her
straight figure right before him.
"Did you hear what I said to you?" she demanded tempestuously.
"Yes."
"Then why don't you answer me?" Her gaze was fastened on his face. Her
cheeks were flushed, her voice was imperative, and her eyes flashed.
"Because I didn't wish to do so," said Keith, calmly.
Suddenly she flamed out and poured at him a torrent of vigorous oaths.
He was so taken by surprise that he forgot to do anything but wonder,
and his calmness evidently daunted her.
"Don't you know that when a lady invites you to come to see her, you
have to do it?"
"I have heard that," said Keith, beginning to look amused.
"You have? Do you mean to say Tam not a lady?"
"Well, from your conversation, I might suppose you were a man," said
Keith, half laughing.
"I will show you that I am man enough for you. Don't you know I am the
boss of this town, and that when I tell you to do a thing you have
to obey me?"
"No; I do not know that," said Keith. "You may be the boss of this town,
but I don't have to obey you."
"Well, I will show you about it, and ---- quick, too. See if I don't! I
will run you out of this town, my young man."
"Oh, I don't think you will," said Keith, easily.
"Yes, I will, and quick enough, too. You look out for me."
"Good morning," said Keith, raising his hat.
The loudness of her tone and the vehemence of her manner had arrested
several passers-by, who now stood looking on with interest.
"What's the matter, Terpy?" asked one of them. "What are you so peppery
about? Bank busted?"
The young woman explained the matter with more fairness than Keith would
have supposed.
"Oh, he is just a fool. Let him alone," said the man; whilst another
added: "He'll come around, darlin'; don't you bother; and if he don't,
I will."
"---- him! He's got to go. I won't let him now. You know when I say a
thing it's got to be, and I mean to make him know it, too," asserted the
young Amazon. "I'll have him driven out of town, and if there ain't any
one here that's man enough to do it, I'll do it myself." This
declaration she framed with an imprecation sufficiently strong if an
oath could make it so.
That evening Tim Gilsey came in to see Keith. He looked rather grave.
"I am sorry you did not drop in, if it was for no more than to git
supper," he said. "Terpy is a bad one to have against you. She's the
kindest gal in the world; but she's got a temper, and when a gal's got a
temper, she's worse'n a fractious leader."
"I don't want her against me; but I'll be hanged if I will be driven
into going anywhere that I don't want to go," asserted Keith.
"No, I don't say as you should," said the old driver, his eye resting on
Keith with a look that showed that he liked him none the less for his
pluck. "But you've got to look out. This ain't back in the settlements,
and there's a plenty around here as would cut your throat for a wink of
Terpy's eye. They will give you a shake for it, and if you come out of
that safe it will be all right. I'll see one or two of the boys and see
that they don't let 'em double up on you. A horse can't do nothin' long
if he has got a double load on him, no matter what he is."
Tim strolled out, and, though Keith did not know it for some time, he
put in a word for him in one or two places which stood him in good stead
afterwards.
The following day a stranger came up to Keith. He was a thin man between
youth and middle age, with a long face and a deep voice, and light hair
that stuck up on his head. His eyes were deep-set and clear; his mouth
was grave and his chin strong. He wore a rusty black coat and short,
dark trousers.
"Are you Mr. Keith?" His voice was deep and melancholy.
Keith bowed. He could not decide what the stranger was. The short
trousers inclined him to the church.
"I am proud to know you, sir. I am Mr. Drummond, the Methodist
preacher." He gripped Keith's hand.
Keith expressed the pleasure he had in meeting him.
"Yes, sir; I am proud to know you," repeated Mr. Drummond. "I hear you
have come out on the right side, and have given a righteous reproof to
that wretched dancing Jezebel who is trying to destroy the souls of the
young men of this town."
Keith said that he was not aware that he had done anything of the kind.
As to destroying the young men, he doubted if they could be injured by
her--certainly not by dancing. In any event, he did not merit
his praise.
Mr. Drummond shook his head. "Yes, sir. You are the first young man who
has had the courage to withstand the wiles of that person. She is the
most abandoned creature in this town; she beguiles the men so that I can
make no impression on them. Even when I am holding my meetings, I can
hear the strains of her fiddles and the shouts of the ribald followers
that throng her den-of-Satan. I have tried to get her to leave, but she
will not go."
Keith's reply was that he thought she had as much right there as any
one, and he doubted if there were any way to meet the difficulty.
"I am sorry to hear you say that," said the preacher. "I shall break up
her sink of iniquity if I have to hold a revival meeting at her very
door and call down brimstone and fire upon her den of wickedness"
"If you felt so on the subject of dancing, why did you come here?"
demanded Keith. "It seems to me that dancing is one of the least sins
of Gumbolt."
The preacher looked at him almost pensively. "I thought it my duty. I
have encountered ridicule and obloquy; but I do not mind them. I count
them but dross. Wherever I have found the print of my Lord's shoe in the
earth, there I have coveted to set my feet also."
Keith bowed. The speech of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth carried its cachet with
it. The stiff, awkward figure had changed. The preacher's sincerity had
lent him dignity, and his simple use of a simple tinker's words had
suddenly uplifted him to a higher plane.
"Do not you think you might go about it in a less uncompromising spirit?
You might succeed better and do more good," said Keith.
"No, sir; I will make no compromise with the devil--not even to succeed.
Good-by. I am sorry to find you among the obdurate." As he shook hands,
his jaw was set fast and his eye was burning. He strode off with the
step of a soldier advancing in battle.
Keith had not long to wait to test old Gilsey's advice. He was sitting
in the public room of the Windsor, a few evenings later, among the
motley crew that thronged that popular resort, who were discoursing of
many things, from J. Quincy Plume's last editorial on "The New Fanny
Elssler," to the future of Gumbolt, when Mr. Plume himself entered. His
appearance was the signal for some humor, for Mr. Plume had long passed
the time when any one but himself took him seriously.
"Here comes somebody that can tell us the news," called some one. "Come
in, J. Quincy, and tell us what you know."
"That would take too long," said Mr. Plume, as he edged himself toward
the stove. "You will find all the news in the _Whistle_ to-morrow."
Just then another new arrival, who had pushed his way in toward the
stove, said: "I will tell you a piece of news: Bill Bluffy is back."
"Come back, has he?" observed one of the company. "Well, that is more
interesting to J. Quincy than if the railroad had come. They are hated
rivals. Since J. Quincy has taken to writing editorials on Terpy, Bill
says there ain't no show for him. He threatened to kill Terp, I heard."
"Oh, I guess he has got more sense than that, drunk or sober. He had
better stick to men; shootin' of women ain't popular in most parts, an'
it ain't likely to get fashionable in Gumbolt, I reckon."
"He is huntin' for somebody," said the newcomer.
"I guess if he is going to get after all of Terpy's ardent admirers, he
will have his hands pretty full," observed Mr. Plume--a sentiment which
appeared to meet with general approval.
Just then the door opened a little roughly, and a man entered slowly
whom Keith knew intuitively to be Mr. Bill Bluffy himself. He was a
young, brown-bearded man, about Keith's size, but more stockily built,
his flannel shirt was laced up in front, and had a full, broad collar
turned over a red necktie with long ends. His slouch-hat was set on the
back of his head. The gleaming butts of two pistols that peeped out of
his waistband gave a touch of piquancy to his appearance. His black eyes
were restless and sparkling with excitement. He wavered slightly in his
gait, and his speech was just thick enough to confirm what his
appearance suggested, and what he was careful to declare somewhat
superfluously, that he was "on a ---- of a spree."
"I am a-huntin' for a ---- furriner 'at I promised to run out of town
before to-morrow mornin'. Is he in here!" He tried to stand still, but
finding this difficult, advanced.
A pause fell in the conversation around the stove. Two or three of the
men, after a civil enough greeting, hitched themselves into a more
comfortable posture in their chairs, and it was singular, though Keith
did not recall it until afterwards, that each of them showed by the
movement a pistol on his right hip.
After a general greeting, which in form was nearer akin to an eternal
malediction than to anything else, Mr. Bluffy walked to the bar. Resting
himself against it, he turned, and sweeping his eye over the assemblage,
ordered every man in the room to walk up and take a drink with him,
under penalties veiled in too terrific language to be wholly
intelligible. The violence of his invitation was apparently not quite
necessary, as every man in the room pulled back his chair promptly and
moved toward the bar, leaving Keith alone by the stove. Mr. Bluffy had
ordered drinks, when his casual glance fell on Keith standing quietly
inside the circle of chairs on the other side of the stove. He pushed
his way unsteadily through the men clustered at the bar.
"Why in the ---- don't you come up and do what I tell you? Are you
deaf?"
"No," said Keith, quietly; "but I'll get you to excuse me."
"Excuse ----! You aren't too good to drink with me, are you? If you
think you are, I'll show you pretty ----d quick you ain't."
Keith flushed.
"Drink with him," said two or three men in an undertone. "Or take a
cigar," said one, in a friendly aside.
"Thank you, I won't drink," said Keith, yet more gravely, his face
paling a little, "and I don't care for a cigar."
"Come on, Mr. Keith," called some one.
The name caught the young bully, and he faced Keith more directly.
"Keith?--Keith!" he repeated, fastening his eyes on him with a cold
glitter in them. "So you're Mr. Keith, are you?"
"That is my name," said Keith, feeling his blood tingling.
"Well, you're the man I'm a-lookin' for. No, you won't drink with me,
'cause I won't let you, you ---- ---- ----! You are the ---- ---- that
comes here insultin' a lady?"
"No; I am not," said Keith, keeping his eyes on him.
"You're a liar!" said Mr. Bluffy, adding his usual expletives. "And
you're the man I've come back here a-huntin' for. I promised to drive
you out of town to-night if I had to go to hell a-doin' it."
His white-handled pistol was out of his waistband with a movement so
quick that he had it cocked and Keith was looking down the barrel before
he took in what had been done. Quickness was Mr. Bluffy's strongest
card, and he had played it often.
Keith's face paled slightly. He looked steadily over the pistol, not
three feet from him, at the drunken creature beyond it. His nerves grew
tense, and every muscle in his frame tightened. He saw the beginning of
the grooves in the barrel of the pistol and the gray cones of the
bullets at the side in the cylinder; he saw the cruel, black, drunken
eyes of the young desperado. It was all in a flash. He had not a chance
for his life. Yes, he had.
"Let up, Bill," said a voice, coaxingly, as one might to soothe a wild
beast. "Don't--"
"Drop that pistol!" said another voice, which Keith recognized as Dave
Dennison's.
The desperado half glanced at the latter as he shot a volley of oaths at
him. That glance saved Keith. He ducked out of the line of aim and
sprang upon his assailant at the same time, seizing the pistol as he
went, and turning it up just as Bluffy pulled the trigger. The ball
went into the remote corner of the ceiling, and the desperado was
carried off his feet by Keith's rush.
The only sounds heard in the room were the shuffling of the feet of the
two wrestlers and the oaths of the enraged Bluffy. Keith had not uttered
a word. He fought like a bulldog, without noise. His effort was, while
he still gripped the pistol, to bring his two hands together behind his
opponent's back. A sudden relaxation of the latter's grip as he made
another desperate effort to release his pistol favored Keith, and,
bringing his hands together, he lifted his antagonist from his feet, and
by a dexterous twist whirled him over his shoulder and dashed him with
all his might, full length flat on his back, upon the floor. It was an
old trick learned in his boyish days and practised on the Dennisons, and
Gordon had by it ended many a contest, but never one more completely
than this. A buzz of applause came from the bystanders, and more than
one, with sudden friendliness, called to him to get Bluffy's pistol,
which had fallen on the floor. But Keith had no need to do so, for just
then a stoutly built young fellow snatched it up. It was Dave Dennison,
who had come in just as the row began. He had been following up Bluffy.
The desperado, however, was too much shaken to have used it immediately,
and when, still stunned and breathless, he rose to his feet, the crowd
was too much against him to have allowed him to renew the attack, even
had he then desired it.
As for Keith, he found himself suddenly the object of universal
attention, and he might, had he been able to distribute himself, have
slept in half the shacks in the camp.
The only remark Dave made on the event was characteristic:
"Don't let him git the drop on you again."
The next morning Keith found himself, in some sort, famous. "Tacklin'
Bill Bluffy without a gun and cleanin' him up," as one of his new
friends expressed it, was no mean feat, and Keith was not insensible to
the applause it brought him. He would have enjoyed it more, perhaps, had
not every man, without exception, who spoke of it given him the same
advice Dave had given--to look out for Bluffy. To have to kill a man or
be killed oneself is not the pleasantest introduction to one's new home;
yet this appeared to Keith the dilemma in which he was placed, and as,
if either had to die, he devoutly hoped it would not be himself, he
stuck a pistol in his pocket and walked out the next morning with very
much the same feeling he supposed he should have if he had been going to
battle. He was ashamed to find himself much relieved when some one he
met volunteered the information that Bluffy had left town by light that
morning. "Couldn't stand the racket. Terpy wouldn't even speak to him.
But he'll come back. Jest as well tote your gun a little while, till
somebody else kills him for you." A few mornings later, as Keith was
going down the street, he met again the "only decent-lookin' gal in
Gumbolt." It was too late for him to turn off, for when he first caught
sight of her he saw that she had seen him, and her head went up, and she
turned her eyes away. He hoped to pass without appearing to know her;
but just before they met, she cut her eye at him, and though his gaze
was straight ahead, she said, "Good morning," and he touched his hat as
he passed. That afternoon he met her again. He was passing on as before,
without looking at her, but she stopped him. "Good afternoon." She spoke
rather timidly, and the color that mounted to her face made her very
handsome. He returned the salutation coldly, and with an uneasy feeling
that he was about to be made the object of another outpouring of her
wrath. Her intention, however, was quite different. "I don't want you to
think I set that man on you; it was somebody else done it." The color
came and went in her cheeks.
Keith bowed politely, but preserved silence.
"I was mad enough to do it, but I didn't, and them that says I done it
lies." She flushed, but looked him straight in the face.
"Oh, that's all right," said Keith, civilly, starting to move on.
"I wish they would let me and my affairs alone," she began.' "They're
always a-talkin' about me, and I never done 'em no harm. First thing
they know, I'll give 'em something to talk about."
The suppressed fire was beginning to blaze again, and Keith looked
somewhat anxiously down the street, wishing he were anywhere except in
that particular company. To relieve the tension, he said:
"I did not mean to be rude to you the other day. Good morning."
At the kind tone her face changed.
"I knew it. I was riled that mornin' about another thing--somethin' what
happened the day before, about Bill," she explained. "Bill's bad enough
when he's in liquor, and I'd have sent him off for good long ago if they
had let him alone. But they're always a-peckin' and a-diggin' at him.
They set him on drinkin' and fightin', and not one of 'em is man enough
to stand up to him."
She gave a little whimper, and then, as if not trusting herself further,
walked hastily away. Mr. Gilsey said to Gordon soon afterwards:
"Well, you've got one friend in Gumbolt as is a team by herself; you've
captured Terp. She says you're the only man in Gumbolt as treats her
like a lady."
Keith was both pleased and relieved.
A week or two after Keith had taken up his abode in Gumbolt, Mr. Gilsey
was taken down with his old enemy, the rheumatism, and Keith went to
visit him. He found him in great anxiety lest his removal from the box
should hasten the arrival of the railway. He unexpectedly gave Keith
evidence of the highest confidence he could have in any man. He asked
if he would take the stage until he got well. Gordon readily assented.
So the next morning at daylight Keith found himself sitting in the boot,
enveloped in old Tim's greatcoat, enthroned in that high seat toward
which he had looked in his childhood-dreams.
It was hard work and more or less perilous work, but his experience as a
boy on the plantation and at Squire Rawson's, when he had driven the
four-horse wagon, stood him in good stead.
Old Tim's illness was more protracted than any one had contemplated,
and, before the first winter was out, Gordon had a reputation as a
stage-driver second only to old Gilsey himself.
Stage-driving, however, was not his only occupation, and before the next
Spring had passed, Keith had become what Mr. Plume called "one of
Gumbolt's rising young sons." His readiness to lend a hand to any one
who needed a helper began to tell. Whether it was Mr. Gilsey trying to
climb with his stiff joints to the boot of his stage, or Squire Rawson's
cousin, Captain Turley, the sandy-whiskered, sandy-clothed surveyor,
running his lines through the laurel bushes among the gray débris of the
crumbled mountain-side; Mr. Quincy Plume trying to evolve new copy from
a splitting head, or the shouting wagon-drivers thrashing their teams up
the muddy street, he could and would help any one.
He was so popular that he was nominated to be the town constable, a
tribute to his victory over Mr. Bluffy.
Terpy and he, too, had become friends, and though Keith stuck to his
resolution not to visit her "establishment," few days went by that she
did not pass him on the street or happen along where he was, and always
with a half-abashed nod and a rising color.