IT is a fact no less deprecable than true that events in orderly
sequence do not always lend themselves to the purposes of a chronicler
who would be glad to prick in his climaxes with a pen borrowed of
the dramatist. With some little labor, and the help of not a few
coincidences which may fairly be called fortuitous, the march of
events in the life of Henry Jeffard has led up to a point at which the
fictional unities pause, confidently anticipative of a climax which
shall reëcho the heroic struggle of the Spartan few at Thermopylæ, or
the daring-do of the Pontine Horatius. But the facts are inexorable
and altogether disappointing. With prologue and stage-setting for a
Sophoclean tragedy, the piece halts; hangs in the wind at the critical
conjuncture like a misstaying ship; becomes, in point of fact, a mere
modern comedy-drama with a touch of travesty in it; and the unities,
fictional and dramatic, shriek and expire.
This humiliating failure of the dramatic possibilities turns upon an
inconsequent pivot-pin in the human mechanism, namely, the lack of
courage in the last resort in men of low degree. To kidnap a drunken
man or to pistol an unarmed one is one thing; to force a sky-pitched
Gibraltar defended by a resolute fellow-being with a modern high-power
repeating rifle and an itching trigger-finger is quite another. This
was the conservative point of view of the aliased ones; and after the
final futile attempt to gain the trail and the cover of the timber, the
twain held a council of war, vilified their luck, and sounded a retreat.
Thus it came about that Denby and his man, riding tantivy to the
rescue, met the raiders two miles down the trail Aspenward; and
having this eye-assurance that the foray had failed, the promoter was
minded to go back to town to await Jeffard's return. But, having the
eye-assurance, he was not unwilling to add another. Bartrow's telegram
had named the figure of the assay; the incredible number of dollars and
cents to the ton to be sweated out of the bonanza drift. Now assays
are assays, but investment is shy of them, demanding mill-runs, and
conservative estimates based on averages; and pondering these things
the rescuer reverted to his normal character of capitalist in ordinary
to moneyless bonanzists, and determined to go on and see for himself.
Accordingly, Jeffard's unexpected reinforcements pressed forward while
the enemy was in full tide of retreat; and a short half-hour later the
squadron of retrieval came near to paying the penalty of an unheralded
approach, since it was upon the promoter and his henchman that Jeffard
poured his final volley.
So much for the tragi-comedy of the sky-pitched Gibraltar, which made a
travesty of Jeffard's heart-breaking efforts to fortify himself in the
old tunnel. And as for the apparent determination to die open-eyed and
militant behind the barricade, the unromantic truth again steps in to
give the _coup de grace_ to the disappointed unities. There is a limit
to human endurance, and the hardiest soldier may find it on a field
as yet no more than half won. Fastings and fierce hurryings, wounds,
physical and spiritual, and ruthless determination may ride roughshod
over Nature's turnpike; but Nature will demand her toll. For this cause
Jeffard saw no more than the first flight of moon-arrows glancing from
the face of the western cliff. Long before the Selenean archers were
fairly warmed to their work he had fallen asleep, with his cheek on
the carved grip of the borrowed rifle; a lost man to all intents and
purposes, if the fictional unities had not been put to flight by the
commonplace fact.
Behold him, then, awakening what time the volleying sun has changed
places with the moon-archers. The barricaded tunnel has a dim twilight
of its own, but out and abroad the day is come, and the keen air is
tinnient with the fine treble of the mountain morning. The slanting
sun-fire spatters the gray cliff opposite, and a spiral of blue
smoke is curling peacefully above the chimney of the cabin. And in
the shallows of the stream a man, who is neither desperado black or
red, is bathing the legs of a horse. Under such conditions one may
imagine a recreant sentry rubbing his eyes to make sure, and presently
climbing the barricade to slide down the dump into parley range,
question-charged.
Denby unbent, smiling. "Didn't I say that you were an inconsiderate
madman? You had to sleep or die."
"But when did you get here?"
"About the time the proxies would have arrived, if you hadn't succeeded
in discouraging them. It was late; much later than it would have been
if you hadn't given us such an emphatic stand-off at the summit. Come
across and have some breakfast with us."
Jeffard found the foot-log and made shift to walk it.
"Did I fire at you? I thought it was another charge coming. They had
been trying to rush me."
"So I inferred. We camped down out of range and gave you plenty of
time. You may be no marksman, but"--He finished the sentence in dumb
show by taking off his hat and pointing to a bullet score in the crown
of it. "A few inches lower and you would have spoiled your first chance
of capitalizing the Midas. How do you feel this morning?"
"A bit unresponsive, but better than I have a right to expect. What
became of the two raiders?"
"We met them riding a steeplechase toward town. You discouraged them,
as I said. From Donald's count of the bullet-splashes on that bald
summit you must have gotten in your work pretty lively."
Jeffard lowered the hammer of the rifle and emptied the magazine. "It's
a good weapon," he said. "I believe I could learn to shoot with it,
after a while. Will you sell it?"
"Not to any one. But I'll make you a present of it. Let's go in and
see what Donald has found in his saddle-bags. It's a fine breakfast
morning."
So they went into the cabin and sat at meat on either side of a rough
table of Garvin's contriving, and were served by a solemn-faced Scot,
whose skill as a camp cook was commensurate with his ability to hold
his tongue. Notwithstanding the presumable urgencies the breakfast talk
was not of business. Jeffard would have had it so, but Denby forbade.
"Not yet," he objected. "Not until you have caught up with yourself.
After breakfast Donald will sling you a blanket hammock under the
trees, and you shall sleep the clock around. Then you'll feel fit, and
we can talk futures if you please."
If there were a prompting of suspicion in the glance with which Jeffard
met this proposal it remained in abeyance. With every embrasure gunned
and manned the fortress of this life must always be pregnable on the
human side; in the last resort one must trust something to the chance
of loyalty in the garrison. Wherefore Jeffard accepted the promoter's
pipe and the blanket hammock, and fell asleep while Donald was pulling
down the barricade at the tunnel's mouth preparatory to liberating the
neighing horse stabled in the heading.
It was evening, just such another as that one three months agone, in
the heart of which two men had sat at the cabin door looking a little
into each other's past, when Jeffard opened his eyes. The three
horses, saddled, but with loose cinches, were cropping the sun-cured
grass on the level which served as a dooryard for the cabin; and an
appetizing smell of frying bacon was abroad in the air. Jeffard sat up
yawning, and the promoter rose from the doorstep and rapped the ashes
from his pipe.
"Feel better?" he queried.
"I feel like a new man. I hadn't realized that I was so nearly spent."
"That is why I prescribed the blanket. Another day would have finished
you."
Jeffard slid out of the hammock and went to plunge his face and hands
in the stream; after which they ate again as men who postpone the
lesser to the greater; with Donald the taciturn serving them, and
hunger waiving speech and ceremony.
It was yet no more than twilight when the meal was finished; and Denby
found a candle and matches in the henchman's saddlebags.
"If you are ready, we'll go up to the tunnel and have another look at
the lead before we go," he said. "I have been examining it to-day, and
I'll make you a proposition on the ground, if you like."
Jeffard pieced out the inference with the recollection of the saddled
horses.
"Do we go back to-night?"
"Yes; if you are good for it. It has been a pretty warm day for the
season, and we are like to have more of them. There is a good bit of
snow on the trail, and if it softens we shall be shut in. That's one
reason, and another is this: if we make a deal and mean to get any
machinery in here before snow flies and the range is blocked, we've got
to be about it."
Jeffard nodded acquiescence, and they fared forth to cross the foot-log
and toil up the shelving slope of the gray dump. It was a stiff climb
for a whole man, and at the summit Jeffard sat down with his hands to
his head and his teeth agrind.
"By Jove! but that sets it in motion again in good shape!" he groaned.
"Sit down here and let's talk it out in the open. I don't care to
burrow."
Denby pocketed his candle, and they sat together on the brink of
the dump, with their backs to the opening; and thus it chanced that
neither of them saw a shadowy figure skulking among the firs beside
the tunnel's mouth. When they began to talk the figure edged nearer,
flitting ghostlike from tree to tree, and finally crouching under the
penthouse of the tunnel timbering.
The crimson and mauve had faded out of the western sky when the two at
the dump-head rose, and Jeffard said: "Your alternative is fair enough.
It's accepted, without conditions other than this--that you will
advance me a few hundred dollars for my own purposes some time within
thirty days."
"You needn't make that a condition; I should be glad to tide you over
in any event. But I am sorry you won't let me buy in. As I have said,
there is enough here for both of us."
The aftermath of the getting up was a sharp agony, and Jeffard had his
hands to his head again. When he answered it was to say:--
"I sha'n't sell. There are reasons, and you may take this for the lack
of a better. A while back, when a single meal in the day was sometimes
beyond me, I used to say that if the tide should ever turn I'd let the
money go on piling up and up until there was no possibility of hunger
in an eternity of futures. You say the tide has turned."
"It has, for a fact; and I don't know that I blame you. If it were mine
I should probably try to keep it whole."
Jeffard went on as one who follows out his own train of thought
regardless of answers relevant or impertinent. "I said that, and I
don't know that I have changed my mind. But before we strike hands on
the bargain it may be as well to go back to the question which you were
good enough to leave in abeyance yesterday."
"The question of ethics?"
"Yes."
"I am going to take something for granted, if you don't choose to be
frank with me."
"It will be safer to take nothing for granted."
"But the claim is yours?"
"Legally, yes; there will be no litigation."
"But honestly, as man to man." Denby put his hands on the wounded man's
shoulders, and turned him about so that the fading light in the west
fell upon his face. "My dear fellow, I've known you but a day, but
your face isn't the face of a scoundrel. I can't believe that the man
who made the magnificent fight that you did would make it to overreach
his partner."
Jeffard turned aside, with a backward step that freed him from the
friendly hands. Twice he tried to speak, and at the third attempt the
words came but haltingly.
"It will be better in the end--better for all concerned--if you--if you
do believe it. Believe it, and cause it to be believed, if you choose.
I have counted the cost, and am ready to take the consequences."
Denby thrust his hands into his pockets and began to tramp, three paces
and a turn, across and across the narrow embankment. A little light was
beginning to sift in between the man and his mystery, but it was not of
the sun.
"Mr. Jeffard, I'd like to ask a question. You needn't answer it if you
don't want to. Do you know who drove this tunnel?"
"I do."
"Was it the man who raced you from Leadville to Aspen, and who shot you
when you tried to bluff him by making him believe that you had already
located the claim in your own name?"
"It was."
"Then, to put it plainly, you are the aggressor, after all. You have
really jumped your partner's claim."
The promoter stopped and faced his man, and the skulker at the
tunnel's mouth crept nearer, as a listener who may not miss a word.
"That is what men will say, I suppose; and I shall not contradict them.
He has forfeited his right." Jeffard said it with eyes downcast, but
there was no incertitude in the words.
"Forfeited his right? How? By shooting at you in a very natural fit of
frenzied rage? I can't believe that you realize the enormity of this
thing, Mr. Jeffard. You are new to the West. It is true that the law
can't touch you, but public opinion, the sentiment of a mining region,
will brand you as the basest of thieves."
"That is the public's privilege. I shall not attempt to defend
myself--to you, or to any one. The consequences are mine to suffer or
to ignore."
"You can't ignore them. Your best friends will turn upon you, and
mining-camp justice will not only acquit the man who tried to kill
you--it will fight for him and condemn you."
"But yesterday you said it would have given me the benefit of the doubt
and lynched him. I can fight my own battle."
"Yes, I did say so; and, lacking your own evidence against yourself, it
will condemn him yet. Had you thought of that?"
"Mr. Denby, I have answered your questions because you had a right to
ask them. To the public I shall neither deny nor affirm."
"Then you'll have the choice of posing as a scoundrel on the one hand,
or of consenting to the death or imprisonment of a measurably innocent
man on the other. I don't envy you."
"It is my own affair, as you were good enough to say yesterday. Do you
wish to withdraw your proposal?"
Denby took time to think about it, pacing out his decision what time
the moon was beginning to silver the western snow-caps.
"No; as I have made it and you have accepted it, the proposal is merely
a matter of service to be rendered and paid for; I furnish the capital
to work the mine for a year for a certain portion of the output. But
if you had taken me up on the original proposition, I should beg to be
excused. Under the circumstances, I shouldn't care to be a joint owner
with you."
"You couldn't be," said Jeffard briefly; "you, nor any one else."
"Well, we are agreed as to that. Shall we go now? Donald is waiting,
and the moon will be up by the time we strike the trail."
"One moment; I have left something in the tunnel."
Jeffard turned back toward the timbered archway, and the promoter went
with him. In the act a shadowy figure darted into the mouth of gloom
and was seen by Denby.
"What was that?"
"I didn't see anything."
Denby stumbled over the remains of the barricade. "That must have been
what I saw," he said. "But at the moment I could have sworn it was a
man dodging into the tunnel."
A few feet from the entrance Jeffard felt along the wall for the
crevice, found it, and presently thrust the note-book into Denby's
hands.
"You may remember that I told you I should leave my will here against
a contingency which seemed altogether probable. In view of what has
since passed between us, I sha'n't hold you to your promise to act as
my executor; but if anything happens to me I shall be glad if you will
send that book under seal to Dick Bartrow. You will do that much for
me, won't you?"
"Yes."
"That is all; now I am at your service."
A few minutes later the cabin and the bit of dry sward in front of it
were deserted, and the whispering firs had swallowed up the last faint
echoes of minishing hoof-beats. Not until the silence was unbroken did
the shadowy figure venture out of its hiding in the tunnel to stumble
blindly down the dump, across the foot-log, and so to the cabin door.
Here it went down on hands and knees to quarter the ground like a
hungry animal in search of food. Unhappily, the simile is no simile. It
was James Garvin, who, for the better part of two days, had not tasted
food. And when finally the patient search was rewarded by the retrieval
of a few scraps of bacon and pan-bread, the broken meats of Donald's
supper-table, the starving fugitive fell upon them with a beastlike
growl of triumph. But in the midst of the scanty feast he dropped the
bread and meat to cover his face with his hands, rocking back and forth
in his misery and sobbing like a child.
"Oh, my Gawd!--ef I hadn't hearn it out'n his own mouth ... and me
a-lovin' him thess like he'd been blood-kin to me! Oh, my Gawd!"