IT is the gray dawn that lifts the curtain, and in the little glade
where the two men slept there are three figures, dim and ghostly in
the morning's twilight. Two of them are afoot, heavy-eyed and weary,
tramping a slow-paced beat on the margin of the tumbling stream. The
third is a still shape lying blanket-covered beside the wagon.
"Tell me about it, Denby," says one of the watchers, and his voice
breaks in the saying of it. "I think I can bear it now. How did it
happen?"
The master of men shakes his head. "I can't tell you anything more than
the bald fact, Jeffard. I rode down the trail ahead of Higgins, and
should have forded the creek here, only I didn't want to disturb you
two. I went on to the bridge, and in the act of crossing he ran down
the bank on this side, calling to me to go back. It was too late. I had
barely time to get free of the stirrups when we were into it,--the two
of us and the horse. It isn't more than three or four feet deep, as you
know, but I knew it meant death if we went into the mill tail below. I
lost my grip and was gone when he grappled me. I don't know yet how he
came to save my life and lose his own."
"It was to be," says Jeffard, brokenly. "When I reached you he was
holding you up with one hand and clinging to the bridge stringer with
the other. His weight and yours with the rush of the water had pushed
the timber down, and his head was under."
Two other turns they make, and then Jeffard says, with awe in his
voice, "He knew about it beforehand, Denby," and he tells Lansdale's
dream.
Denby hears him through without interrupting, but at the end of it he
says, gently: "It wasn't a dream. Higgins was overdue with the team
from Aspen, and I went out to see what had become of him. I passed here
on my way up the trail about nine o'clock, and you were both asleep
then. I had crossed by the lower ford and found it pretty bad, so I
turned back from here and rode down to see if the bridge was all right.
He saw me and heard me."
Jeffard's gesture is of unconvincement.
"That accounts for part of it," he says; "but I shall always believe he
foresaw his death and the manner of it."
After that they pace up and down in silence again, treading out the
sorrowful watch until daylight is fully come, bringing with it a team
from the mine and men to do what remains to be done. The two stand
apart until the men have done their office, falling in to walk softly
behind the wagon on the short journey down the valley to the mine
settlement. On the way, Jeffard accounts for himself briefly.
"He was one of the two best friends I had in the world," he says. "I
had him out on a camping holiday for his health, and he was gaining
day by day. We were counting upon dropping in on you this morning, and
now"--
"I know," says the master. "He gave his life for mine, and it gets
pretty near to me, too." And thereafter they keep step with heads bowed
and eyes downcast, as those in whom sorrow has murdered speech; and the
bellowing stream at the trail-side thunders a requiem for its victim.
The setting sun is crimsoning the eastern snow caps while they are
burying him on the plateau above the mine settlement. An hour later,
the master of men and the master of the mine are met together in the
log cabin opposite the great gray dump; in the cabin builded by Garvin,
but which now serves as the office of the superintendent of the Midas.
Sorrow still sits between, and Denby would give place to it.
"Put it off till to-morrow, Jeffard," he says. "Neither of us is fit to
talk business to-night."
"No, it mustn't be put off. I gave him my promise, and I mean to make
it good while time serves. Have you any one here who is competent to
witness a legal document?"
"Yes; Halsey is a notary public."
"Good. Sit down at that desk and draw up a writing transferring my
interest in the Midas to Stephen Elliott and Richard Bartrow, trustees."
"What's that? Trustees for whom?"
"For James Garvin."
The master of men leans back in his chair, his eyes narrowing and the
little frown of perplexity radiating fan-like above them.
"Jeffard, do you mean to say that you are going to step aside in favor
of the man who tried to kill you?"
"You may put it that way, if you choose. It would have been done long
ago if I had been able to find the man."
"And you stepped into the breach a year ago and secured his property
for him because he had put himself out of the running and couldn't?
You've touched me on the raw, Jeffard. It's my business to size people
up, and you have fairly outflanked me. A blind man might have seen the
drift of it, but I didn't; I thought you had robbed him. Why didn't you
give it a name?"
"I had no thought of concealment until you warned me. Garvin was a
criminal in the eye of the law, and the least I could do for him was to
turn the tide of public opinion in his favor."
"Well, you did it; but just the same, you might have passed the word to
me. It wouldn't have gone any farther, and I should have felt a good
bit easier in my mind."
"Perhaps; but you will pardon me if I say that I wasn't considering you
in the matter. I knew better than to defeat my own end. If I had told
you the truth at the time, you would not have believed it; you would
have struck hands with your own theory that Garvin had attempted to
rob me, and you would have talked and acted accordingly."
"What makes you say I wouldn't have believed the truth?"
"It would have been merely a declaration of intention at the time, and
you would have said that it didn't square with human nature as you know
it. Bartrow knew, and he went over to the majority. But that is neither
here nor there. Will you draw up the writing?"
Denby goes to the desk and writes out the transfer, following Jeffard's
dictation. When it is signed and acknowledged, Jeffard slips his final
anchor.
"I presume you will want to make a new operating contract with the
trustees, or with Garvin, and in that case you will want to cancel the
old one. I haven't my copy of it with me, but I'll mail it to you when
I get back to Denver."
Denby is making a pretense of rummaging in the pigeonholes of the
desk to cover a small struggle which has nothing to do with the
superintendent's files. When the struggle is fought to a finish, he
turns suddenly and holds out his hand.
"Jeffard, that night when we wrangled it out up yonder on the old dump
I said some things that I shouldn't have said if you had seen fit to be
a little franker with me. Will you forget them?"
Jeffard takes the proffered hand and wrings it gratefully. "Thank you
for that, Denby," he says; "it's timely. I feel as if I'd like to drop
out and turn up on some other planet. This thing has cost me pretty
dear, one way with another."
"It'll come out all right in the end," asserts the master; and then:
"But you mustn't forget that the cost of it is partly of your own
incurring. It's a rare failing, but there is such a thing as being too
close-mouthed. You've made out your case, after a fashion, and I'm not
going to appeal it; but your postulate was wrong. Human nature is not
as incredulous of good intentions as the cynics would make it out to
be. You might have told a few of us without imperilling Garvin."
"I meant to do it; as I say, I did tell Bartrow that morning when I
raced Garvin across the range and into Aspen. But he and every one
else drew the other conclusion, and I was too stubborn to plead my own
cause. The stubbornness became a mania with me after a time, and I had
a fit of it no longer ago than last night. I let Lansdale die believing
that he had argued me into promising to make restitution. We were
coming down here to-day to set the thing in train, and, of course, he
would have learned the whole truth; but for one night--"
"For one night you would let him have the comfort of believing that he
had brought it about," says Denby, quickly. "That wasn't what you were
going to say, but it's the truth, and you know it. I know the feel of
it; you've reached the point where you can get some sort of comfort out
of holding your finger in the fire. Suppose you begin right here and
now to take a little saner view of things. What are your plans?"
"I haven't any."
"Are you open to an offer?"
"From you?--yes."
"Good. I'm unlucky enough to have some mining property in Mexico, and
I've got to go down there and set it in order, or send some one to do
it for me. Will you go?"
Jeffard's reply is promptly acquiescent.
"Gladly; if you think I am competent."
"I don't think,--I know. Can you start at short notice?"
"The sooner the better. I said I should like to drop out and turn up on
some other planet: that will be the next thing to it."
From that the talk goes overland to the affairs of a century-old silver
mine in the Chihuahuan mountains, and at the end of it Jeffard knows
what is to be done and how he is to go about the doing of it. Denby
yawns and looks at his watch.
"It's bedtime," he says. "Shall we consider it settled and go over to
the bunk-shack?"
"I have a letter to write," says Jeffard. "Don't wait for me."
"All right. You'll find what you need in the desk,--top drawer on the
right. Come over when you get ready," and the promoter leaves his late
owner in possession of the superintendent's office.
Judging from the number of false starts and torn sheets, the writing of
the letter proves to be no easy matter; but it is begun, continued,
and ended at length, and Jeffard sits back to read it over.
"MY DEAR BARTROW:
"When this reaches you, you will have had my telegram of
to-day telling you all there is to tell about Lansdale's
death. You must forgive me if I don't repeat myself here. It
is too new a wound--and too deep--to bear probing, even with
a pen.
"What I have to say in this letter will probably surprise
you. Last night, in our last talk together, Lansdale told
me that you know Garvin's whereabouts. Acting upon that
information, I have to-night executed a transfer of the
Midas to yourself and Stephen Elliott, trustees for Garvin.
By agreement with Denby, I cancel my working contract with
him, and you, or Garvin, can make another for the unexpired
portion of the year on the same terms,--which is Denby's
due. You will find the accrued earnings of the mine from
the day of my first settlement with Denby deposited in the
Denver bank in an account which I opened some months ago
in the names of yourself and Elliott, trustees. Out of the
earnings I have withheld my wages as a workman in the mine
last winter, and a moderate charge for caretaking since.
"That is all I have to say, I think, unless I add that
you are partly responsible for the delay in Garvin's
reinstatement. If you had trusted me sufficiently to tell me
what you told Lansdale, it would have saved time and money,
inasmuch as I have spared neither in the effort to trace
Garvin. I told you the truth that morning in Leadville, but
it seems that your loyalty wasn't quite equal to the strain
put upon it by public rumor. I don't blame you greatly. I
know I had done what a man may to forfeit the respect of his
friends. But I made the mistake of taking it for granted
that you and Lansdale, and possibly one other, would still
give me credit for common honesty, and when I found that you
didn't it made me bitter, and I'll be frank enough to say
that I haven't gotten over it yet."
The letter pauses with the little outflash of resentment, and he takes
the pen to sign it. But in the act he adds another paragraph.
"That is putting it rather harshly, and just now I'm not
in the mood to quarrel with any one; and least of all with
you. I am going away to be gone indefinitely, and I don't
want to give you a buffet by way of leave-taking. But the
fact remains. If you can admit it and still believe that the
old-time friendship is yet alive in me, I wish you would.
And if you dare take word from me to Miss Elliott, I'd be
glad if you would say to her that my sorrow for what has
happened is second only to hers."
The letter is signed, sealed, and addressed, and he drops it into the
mail-box. The lamp is flaring in the night wind sifting in through
the loosened chinking, and he extinguishes it and goes out to tramp
himself weary in the little cleared space which had once been Garvin's
dooryard. It is a year and a day since he wore out the midwatch of that
other summer night on the eve of the forthfaring from the valley of dry
bones, and he recalls it and the impassioned outburst which went to the
ending of it. Again he turns his face toward the far-away city of the
plain, but this time his eyes are dim when the reiterant thought slips
into speech. "God help me!" he says. "How can I ever go to her and tell
her that I have failed!"